The journey lasted just four hours.
We had scrambled into one of the "commandeered" carriages which within a few days would take us on to the scene of action.
We were gay with a gaiety in some cases spontaneous but for the most part, assented to, though neither forced nor painful. Magnificent inconsequence! And the delight of meeting again like schoolboys at the beginning of the October term.
At certain moments we touched lightly upon some subject of serious discussion. England?... Oh yes! England!... Some facetious remark soon put an end to it. Holveck turned to Guillaumin:
"You'll have to do away with your eye-glass."
"Why?"
"Because of the splinters ... if you get a bullet in your eye!"
This sally raised a general laugh. Through the open windows our gaze roved over the countryside. It was a little depressing no doubt. This war! How many would set eyes on this landscape again next year!... But let's hope for the best whatever happens. After all, it simply meant that manœuvres would last rather longer than usual!... This state of affairs would not last for ever; two or three months, six at the most! and it would be all over!... and Philoppon, the fair-haired dandy who had been brought to the station in a car by his people, already had visions of next winter, which he expected to spend as usual on the Riviera.
"I tell you what, you chaps, I shall see an extraordinary improvement in it after the war, what!"