after a disaster there should be ambulances and helpers moving about....

She craned her head. There was something there. But everything was so
still!

'Monsieur!' she cried. Her ears, she noted, felt queer, and she began to
suspect that all was not well with them.

It was terribly lonely in this chaotic strangeness, and perhaps this
man--if it was a man, for it was difficult to see--might for all his
stillness be merely insensible. He might have been stunned....

The leaping glare beyond sent a ray into his corner and for a moment
every little detail was distinct. It was Marshal Dubois. He was lying
against a huge slab of the war map. To it there stuck and from it there
dangled little wooden objects, the symbols of infantry and cavalry and
guns, as they were disposed upon the frontier. He did not seem to
be aware of this at his back, he had an effect of inattention, not
indifferent attention, but as if he were thinking....

She could not see the eyes beneath his shaggy brows, but it was evident
he frowned. He frowned slightly, he had an air of not wanting to be
disturbed. His face still bore that expression of assured confidence,
that conviction that if things were left to him France might obey in
security....

She did not cry out to him again, but she crept a little nearer. A
strange surmise made her eyes dilate. With a painful wrench she pulled
herself up so that she could see completely over the intervening lumps
of smashed-up masonry. Her hand touched something wet, and after one