Assistance arrived from all sides. For some time the door of our compartment could not be opened. The darkness had come on when it finally yielded, and a lantern shone feebly on our poor, broken-up carriage. I looked round for our one bag, but on finding it I let it go immediately, for my hand was red with blood. Whose blood was it? Three men did not move, and one of them was the major. His face looked to me livid. I closed my eyes, in order not to know, and I let the man who had come to our aid pull me out of the compartment. One of the young officers got out after me. He took Soubise, who was almost in a fainting condition, from his friend. The imbecile baron then got out; his shoulder was out of joint. A doctor came forward among the rescuers. The baron held his arm out to him and told him to pull it, which he did at once. The French doctor took off the officer’s cloak, told two of the railway men to hold him, and then, pushing against him himself, pulled at the poor arm. The baron was very pale and gave a low whistle. When the arm was back in its place the doctor shook the baron’s other hand. “Cristi!” he said, “I must have hurt you very much. You have a precious lot of courage.” The German saluted and I helped him on again with his cloak.
The doctor was then fetched away, and I saw that he was taken back to our compartment. I shuddered in spite of myself. We were now able to find out what had been the cause of our accident. A locomotive attached to two vans of coal had been shunting, in order to get on to the siding and let us pass, when one of the vans got off the rails and the locomotive tired its lungs with whistling the alarm, while men ran to meet us scattering petards. Everything had been in vain, and we had run against the overturned van.
What were we to do? The soft roads were all broken up by the cannon. We were about four miles from Tergnier, and a fine, penetrating rain was making our clothes stick to our bodies.
There were four carriages, but the wounded had to be conveyed. Other carriages would come, but there were the dead to be carried away. An improvised litter was just being borne along by two workmen. The major was lying on it, so livid that I clenched my hands until my nails entered the flesh. One of the officers wanted to question the doctor who was following.
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, “please, please do not. I do not want to know. The poor fellow!”
I stopped my ears as though some one was about to shout out something horrible to me, and I never knew his fate.
We were obliged to resign ourselves to setting out on foot. We went about two kilometers as bravely as possible, and then I stopped quite exhausted. The mud which clung to our shoes made them very heavy. The effort we had to make at every step to get each foot out of the dirt tired us out. I sat down on a milestone and declared that I would not go any farther.
My companion wept, and the two young German officers, who had acted as bodyguards, made a seat for me by crossing their hands, and we went nearly another mile like that. My companion could not walk any farther. I offered her my place, but she refused it. “Well, then, let us wait here!” I said, and quite at the end of our strength, we rested against a little broken tree.
It was now night, and such a cold night! Huddled close to Soubise, trying to keep warm, I began to fall asleep, seeing before my eyes the wounded men of Châtillon, who had died seated against the little shrubs. I did not want to move again, and the torpor seemed to me thoroughly delicious.
A cart passed by, however, on its way to Tergnier. One of the young men hailed it and, when the terms were made, I felt myself picked up from the ground, lifted into the vehicle and carried along by the jerky, rolling movement of two loose wheels which climbed the hills, sank into the mire, and jumped over the heaps of stones, while the driver whipped up his beasts and urged them on with his voice. He had a “don’t care, let what will happen” way of driving, which was quite the note of the times. I was aware of all this in my semi-sleep, for I was not really asleep, but I did not want to answer any questions. I gave myself up to this prostration of my whole being with a certain enjoyment.