Page:War's dark frame (IA warsdarkframe00camp).pdf/242

206 coming home, even if there was only a cellar left. But —"

And Williams laughed and pointed.

"He didn't come on the chemin-de-fer."

Across a broad, semi-circular plaza arose the wrecked station. Following Williams' lead, we sidled around the curve, and slipped in through a doorway. Grass grew through shattered floor boards, Rain had come in and mill-dewed the splintered benches and ticket booths. In a doorless closet a girl's summer cloak hung. There was a card attached to one of the buttons. Williams fingered it, but in the course of two years the writing had become undccipherable.

Must have been warm that August day she came through here," he mused. Maybe on the last train, fleeing from the Huns. Couldn't have known they were so close or she wouldn't have left her coat. Hope she didn't get strafed if she came back for it."

Like the cathedral at Rheims, the hall was filled with sombre and unthinkable memories.

We picked up some tickets scattered near by on the floor.

"Arras to Douai, par Vitry-en-Artois," they read.

"A short trip," I began, " straight across the trenches. When you English take it —"