Ahead, cattle cars, ore cars, and flat cars composed the long train, the former filled with battery horses and cannoniers, the latter loaded with guns, caissons, battery waggons, forges, and camp equipment, all in brand-new grey paint.
Except when the train stopped at some heavily guarded station, nobody came to their compartment. But at all stations officers opened the doors and silently examined Guild's credentials—energetic, quick-moving, but civil men, who, when the credentials proved acceptable, invariably saluted his uniform with a correctness impeccable.
Nevertheless, before the train moved out again, always there was a group of officers gazing in polite perplexity at the green jacket and forage cap and the cherry-coloured riding breeches of a regiment which, they were perfectly aware, was already in the saddle against them.
At one station Guild was able to buy bread and cheese and fruit. But Karen still slept profoundly, and he did not care to awaken her.
From the car windows none of the tragic traces of war were visible except only the usual clusters of spiked helmets along the line; the inevitable Uhlans riding amid the landscape; slowly moving waggon-trains pursuing roads parallel to the railway; brief glimpses of troops encamped in fields. But nothing of the ravage and desolation which blackened the land farther south was apparent.
In the latitude of Liège, however, Guild could see from the car windows the occasional remains of ruined bridges damming small streams; and here and there roofless and smoke-stained walls, or the blackened debris of some burnt farm or factory or mill.
But the northern Ardennes did not appear to have suffered very much from invasion as far as he could make out; and whether the region was heavily occupied by an invading army he could not determine from the glimpses he obtained out of the car windows.
The line, however, was vigilantly guarded; that he could see plainly enough; but the sky-line of the low rolling country on either side might be the limits of German occupation for all he could determine.
Two nights' constant wakefulness had made him very sleepy. He drowsed and nodded in his corner by the shaking window, rousing himself at intervals to cast a watchful glance at Karen.
She still slept like a worn-out child.