brought with them over the desert; two heavy loaves stood as usual on
the wooden table. The French Army ration was the same in every town.

"Mesdames," said the orderly assigned to them, "there are two
sous-officers without who wish to speak with you."

"Let them come in."

Two blue figures appeared in the doorway and saluted. The first brought
a card of invitation from the Commandant Dormans. The second was the
brigadier from the garage with a list of the cars assigned to
the drivers.

"Perhaps these ladies would come down and try their cars after lunch?"
he suggested, and lunch being over they walked with him through the
winding streets. At the gates of a great yard he paused and a sentry
swung them open. Behind the gates lay a sandy plain as large as a parade
ground, which, except for gulleys or gangways crossing it at intervals,
was packed from end to end with row after row of cars; cars in the worst
possible condition, torn, twisted, wheelless, cars with less dramatic
and yet fatal injuries; some squatting backwards upon their haunches,
some inclined forwards upon their knees--one, lately fished up from a
river, had slabs and crusts of ice still upon its seats--one, the last
dragged in at the tail of a breakdown lorry, hung, fore-wheels in the
air, helpless upon a crane. Here, in the yard, was nothing but broken
iron and mouldering carriage work--the cemetery of the Transport of the
Grand Quartier.

Lining all one side of the yard ran a shed, closed and warmed and
lighted, where living cars slept in long rows mudguard to mudguard, and