No natives showed themselves.

I do not recollect that in all that mile-long tramp I saw a single Belgian civilian--only soldiers, shoving forward curiously as we passed and pressing the files closer in together.
Through one street we went and into another which if anything was even narrower and blacker than the first, and presently we could tell by the feel of things under our feet that we had quit the paved road and were traversing soft earth.

We entered railway sidings, stumbling over the tracks, and at the far end of the yard emerged into a sudden glare of brightness and drew up alongside a string of cars.
After the darkness the flaring brilliancy made us blink and then it made us wonder there should be any lights at all, seeing that the French troops, in retiring from Beaumont four days before, had done their hurried best to cripple the transportation facilities and had certainly put the local gas plant out of commission.

Yet here was illumination in plenty and to spare.

At once the phenomenon stood explained.