From time to time an employe opens the door and shouts the departure of a train. The soldiers rouse themselves, accustomed to being thus disturbed in the midst of their slumber. One or two get up, stare about them, collect their belongings and start for the platform, noiselessly stepping over their sleeping companions. At the same time newcomers, creeping in behind them, sink down into the places which they have just forsaken, while they are still warm. On a number of baggage trucks ten or a dozen Moroccan soldiers have seated themselves, crosslegged, and draped in their noble burnous, they gently puff smoke into the air, without a movement, without a gesture, without a sound, apparently utterly oblivious to the noisy employes, or the thundering of the passing trains. On the platform people walk up and down, up and down; certain among them taking a marked interest in the old-fashioned, wheezing locomotives which seem fairly to stagger beneath the long train of antiquated coaches hitched behind them. Here, of course, are to be found the traditional groups in evidence at every station; a handful of people in deep mourning on their way to a funeral; a little knot of Sisters of Charity, huddled together in an obscure corner reciting their rosary; families of refugees whom the tempest has driven from their homes--whole tribes dragging with them their old people and their children who moan and weep incessantly. Their servants loaded down with relics saved from the disaster in heavy, clumsy, ill-tied bundles, are infinitely pitiable to behold. They are all travelling straight ahead of them with no determined end in view. They seem to have been on the way so long, and yet they are in no haste to arrive. Hunger gnawing them, they produce their provisions, and having seated themselves on their luggage, commence a repast, eating most slowly, the better to kill time while waiting for a train that refuses to put in an appearance. The _buffet_ is so full of noise, smoke and various other odours, that having opened the door one hesitates before entering. There is a long counter where everything is sold; bread, wine, cider, beer and lemonade; sandwiches, pates, fruit and sweetmeats. One makes his choice and pays in consequence. At the side tables the civilians are lost mid the mass of blue uniforms. [Illustration: MONSIEUR AMEDE] This is a station in Normandy, and for the boys of this region nothing can substitute a good big bowl of hot vegetable soup, seasoned with the famous _graisse normande_ and poured over thin slices of bread, the whole topped off with a glass of cider or "pure juice" as they call it. It is a joy to see them seated about the board, their elbows on the table, their heads bent forward over the steaming bowl, whose savoury perfume as it rises to their nostrils seems to carry with it a veritable ecstasy, if one were to judge by the beatific expression on every countenance. "That goes right to the spot, doesn't it?"