But the laugh did not last long on their lips. Directly afterwards they swung into a road already occupied by a train of refugees. After the sight of a good strong man struck down in his strength, this, perhaps, was the saddest sight of the whole war. How miserable they were, these helpless, hopeless people, trailing sadly along the road, the majority with all they had saved from the wreckage of their homes tied in a sheet, and carried on their backs. Some were leading a cow, others riding a horse, a few were in oxen-driven wagons. They looked as if they had lost faith in everything, even in God. They had the air of people calmly trying to realise the magnitude of the calamity which had befallen them, and failing. Here and there the Subaltern thought he saw a gleam of reproach in their faces. It hurt him not a little. Only a few days ago the British had been advancing, as they thought, to certain victory. All had been sunshine, or at any rate hope. How the villagers had shouted and cheered them! How the women had wept with sheer joy, and shy young girls had thrust flowers into their buttonholes! What heroes they had felt swinging forward to meet the enemy, to defend the homes of their friends and Allies, and avenge their wrongs! The role had been melodramatic, superb! But here they were, skirting the very gates of Paris, apparently fleeing before the enemy, and this without having made any very determined effort at resistance. Poor protectors they must have looked! Those simple peasants would not understand the efficacy, the necessity even, of running away "to live and fight another day," with a greater chance of success. The Subaltern often used to wonder what the poor wretches thought of troops, which, though in possession of arms and ammunition, still retreated--always retreated. They could not understand. The march came to an end about one o'clock. A halt of half-an-hour for dinner was ordered in the shade of some huge trees in a park. The mess-cart and Cookers arrived, and a meal was soon in progress. The Regimental Officer of what is now referred to as the "Old Army" was perhaps the best-mannered man one could possibly meet. His training in the Mess made him so. He was the sort of man who would not have done anything which so much as even suggested rudeness or greed. He was as scrupulous of his Mess Rules as a Roman Catholic Priest is of his conduct at High Mass. To the newly-joined Subaltern, Guest Night conveyed the holy impression of a religious rite. But here was a comic demonstration of the fact that the strictest training is only, after all, a veneer. Two Senior Officers were actually squabbling about a quarter-pound tin of marmalade! The Subaltern could not help smiling. The incident merely showed how raw and jagged the Great Retreat had left the nerves of those who survived it.