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ii8 WITH THE GERMAN ARMIES IN THE WEST
strings of wagons with their hooped canvas awnings, the white
and yellow showing up vividly against the verdant background.
Presently they come out on to the bridge, swing up under the
archway and pursue their creaking progress westward. On
one of the vehicles I catch sight of the lettering " V. A. C.
Etappe Fuhrp. Col. 4 Wagen 48 " (5th Army Corps, 4th Trans-
port column, W’agon No. 48) —but this was by no means the
last wagon of the column. It took them a long while to get
across, the more so as the notice Ganz långsam fahren (Proceed
very slowly) was posted in large letters at each end of the
bridge. At length the bridge was clear, but we had to look
sharp so as to get well on to it before the next column, the
creaking of which was already audible from among the trees,
had time to arrive. Once we were out on the bridge we could
safely obey the notice to drive very slowly, for whilst we were
on it no one else had the right to use it.
Soon after we pass a column which has decided to bivouac
in a meadow, and presently we see a railway train loaded with
Guards troops. At a curve in the line a body of railway
engineers are at work. We pause a moment whilst my friend
the N.C.O. distributes two boxes of cigars and fifty tins of
preserves, the last that he had left of his " love gifts " from
Cologne. As we moved away, blue rings were already rising
in the air from the happy smokers. Nearly all the houses
in the little town of Montmédy have been turned into hospitals,
but on a naked piece of wall, all that is left of a wrecked house,
some waggish soldier has chalked up the words " first-class
waiting-room." Another house had had the misfortune to stand
in the way of the new railway built by the Germans, who had
adopted the simple expedient of passing right through it.
A train-load of Bavarian troops has just passed by and is
followed by another full of Saxon Landwehr and engineers
belonging to different regiments. It is not enough for the
roads to convey gigantic columns to the front—the railways,
too, are continually pouring fresh floods of human beings into
the fighting zone.
In the market-place of Montmédy we pause a while to fill
our petrol tanks. Here wc find long strings of cars, most
of them Red Cross ambulance wagons, loaded to the roof with
medical stores and dressing requisites. Some Catholic sisters
are seen to cross the square, attired in dark brown with girdles
round their waists, black and white head-dress and wearing
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