With difficulty I can make out, along our trampled platform, a dark flock, the buzz of voices, the smell of tobacco.

Here and there a match flame or the red point of a cigarette makes some face phosphorescent.

And we wait, unoccupied, and weary of waiting, until we sit down, close-pressed against each other, in the dark and the desert.
Some hours later Adjutant Marcassin comes forward, a lantern in his hand, and in a strident voice calls the roll.

Then he goes away, and we begin again to wait.
At ten o'clock, after several false alarms, the right train is announced.

It comes up, distending as it comes, black and red.