The train stopped without any plausible reason, it started again to stop again, and it then stood still for an hour on this icy cold night. On arriving at Creil, the stoker, the engine-driver, the soldiers, and every one else got out. I watched all these men, whistling, bawling to each other, spitting, and bursting into laughter as they pointed to us. Were they not the conquerors and we the conquered?
At Creil we stayed more than two hours. We could hear the distant sound of foreign music and the hurrahs of Germans who were making merry. All this hubbub came from a white house about five hundred yards away. We could distinguish the outlines of human beings locked in each other’s arms, waltzing and turning round and round in a giddy revel.
It began to get on my nerves, for it seemed likely to continue until daylight.
I got out with Villaret, intending at any rate to stretch my limbs. We went towards the white house, and then, as I did not want to tell him my plan, I asked him to wait there for me.
Very fortunately, though, for me, I had not time to cross the threshold of this vile lodging-house, for an officer, smoking a cigarette, was just coming out of a small door. He spoke to me in German.
“I am French,” I replied, and he then came up to me, speaking my language, for they could all talk French.
He asked me what I was doing there. My nerves were overstrung. I told him feverishly of our lamentable Odyssey since our departure from Gonesse, and finally of our waiting two hours in an icy cold carriage while the stokers, engine-drivers, and conductors were all dancing in this house.
“But I had no idea that there were passengers in those carriages, and it was I who gave permission to these men to dance and drink. The guard of the train told me that he was taking cattle and goods, and that he did not need to arrive before eight in the morning, and I believed him——”
“Well, Monsieur,” I said, “the only cattle in the train are the eight French passengers, and I should be very much obliged if you would give orders that the journey should be continued.”
“Make your mind easy about that, Madame,” he replied. “Will you come in and rest? I am here just now on a round of inspection, and am staying for a few days in this inn. You shall have a cup of tea, and that will refresh you.”