The last real fighting was taking place at a village called Bapaume all
day Friday. It was very heavy fighting here on the left centre of the
great army commanded by Gen. Pau, and leading to a victory which has
just been announced officially in France.
A few minutes before midnight Friday, when they came back along the road
to Amiens, crawling back slowly in a long, dismal trail, the ambulance
wagons laden with the dead and dying, hay carts piled high with saddles
and accoutrements, upon which lay, immobile like men already dead, the
spent and exhausted soldiers, they passed through the crowds of silent
people of Amiens, who only whispered as they stared at the procession.
In the darkness a cuirassier, with head bent upon his chest, stumbled
forward, leading his horse, too weak and tired to bear him.
Many other men were leading poor beasts this way, and infantry soldiers,
some with bandaged heads, clung to the backs of carts and wagons, and
seemed asleep as they shuffled by.
The light from roadside lamps gleamed upon blanched faces and glazed
eyes, flashed into caverns of canvas-covered carts, where twisted men
lay huddled on straw. Not a groan came from the carts, but every one
knew it was a retreat.
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