Page:The Marne (Wharton 1918).djvu/91

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THE MARNE
83

place of a terror-stricken village; of calling out "Nous les tenons!" to whimpering women and bewildered old people; of giving a lift to a family of foot-sore refugees; of prying open a tin of condensed milk for the baby, or taking down the address of a sister in Paris, with the promise to bring her news of the fugitives; the heat and the burden and the individual effort of each minute carried one along through the endless and yet breathless hours—backward and forward, backward and forward, between Paris and the fluctuating front, till in Troy's weary brain the ambulance took on the semblance of a tireless grey shuttle humming in the hand of Fate. . . .

It was on one of these trips that, for the first time, he saw a train-load of American soldiers on the way to the battle front. He had, of course, seen plenty of them in Paris during the