[Sidenote: The town is full of refugees.]
As there was no breakfast at our mess, I went to the canteen for a cup
of coffee, and found the place crowded. The French Commander said that
our town was due to be shelled before long as we were getting in range
of the German guns. We decided not to go until we had to, but to cease
keeping the canteen open at night; to sell only hot coffee, chocolate,
bread, cheese, eggs and apples by day--thus omitting our hot meal--and
to divide our forces, one part to run the canteen, another to organize a
temporary canteen on the grounds of the evacuation hospital, and still
another to maintain the rolling canteen at the railway station. The
streets were almost blocked with refugees. I saw one unconscious woman
in a wheelbarrow being trundled by a boy. Regiments went through, going
up to the front, the men's faces stern and set. The sound of the battle
grew louder and louder.
[Sidenote: An airplane sweeps the street with a machine gun.]
That night we bundled our bedding into the Ford camion, and slept in one
of the deep champagne caves. I had volunteered to go on duty at the
canteen at six the next morning, and arriving there on time, found two
or three hundred tired and hungry men waiting for the doors to open.
The night before a great thermos marmite had been filled with boiling
coffee, and we were able to begin feeding the men without delay. All day
we did a tremendous business. About half past nine a German plane came
over, tried to bomb us, and swept the street with a machine gun.
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