At the end of another twenty-four hour stretch they might have traveled fifty or sixty or even seventy miles.

The place they left behind them was in worse case than before.

Grease spattered the earth; the floor of the buffet room was ankle deep, literally, in discarded bandages and blood-stiffened cotton; and the nurses and the doctors and the helpers dropped down in the midst of it all to snatch a few precious minutes of rest before the next creaking caravan of misery arrived.

There was no need to tell them of its coming; they knew.

All through that afternoon and night, and through the next day and night, and through the half of the third day that we stayed on in Maubeuge, the trains came back.