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After giving Wattrelot orders to prevent any one from invading our horse-box I slipped out and went towards the station office to look for the military commissary. I had great difficulty in making my way through the crowd of men who seemed to be rushing to take the train by assault in the darkness.
The train was creeping along slowly in the soft night air. Seated on a truss of hay in the horse-box with my own two horses and that of my orderly, Wattrelot, I looked out through the gap left by the unclosed sliding door. How slowly we were going! How often we stopped! I got impatient as I thought of the hours we were losing whilst the other fellows were fighting and reaping all the glory.
After various excursions hither and thither which took up the whole morning I at last managed to get my horse-box coupled to the train. Wattrelot and I, together with the Territorial section that served as guard, were the only passengers. The whole train was composed of vans stuffed with food supplies and mysterious cases, packed into some separate vans carefully sealed.
"In that case I will trouble you to come round here this evening. There will be a fast train going through with ammunition for Lee at ten o'clock, and I shall have a bag of despatches for him, which I will trouble you to deliver. You will find me here up to the last moment. I will give orders that a horse-box be put on to the train." After expressing his thanks Vincent took his leave.
He wrung Dan's hand, and then started at a canter and kept on at that pace until he reached Richmond. A train with stores was starting for the south in a few minutes; General Lee's order enabled Vincent to have a horse-box attached at once, and he was soon speeding on his way.
Ours was a long and heavy train, and more than once on the up grade to No. 6 or Summit station out from Halfa the engine came to a standstill, "to recover its breath," as the negroes said. In the horse-box we got along together for the most part very comfortably, accommodating ourselves to the situation.
Four of my colleagues, Major Sitwell, of the Egyptian army, and myself got places in a horse-box. In the next truck to us, likewise a horse-box, were five English officers, returning to duty with Gatacre's, or rather Wauchope's, brigade at Darmali.
For the first time since leaving England a week before, they were able to think. In the rush to Paris, in the horse-box to Marseilles, in Marseilles itself, they had been too busy. Besides, they were outsiders. . . .
The prisoners, flush of funds, have been permitted to gratify every whim and fancy. They have expended large sums of money upon the purchase of furniture and knick-knacks, the result being favourably comparable with a smart and fashionable flat, that is if a flat can be squeezed into a horse-box ten feet square!
In every carriage it was the same, until suddenly there came salvation. A horse-box, with two horses in it and some grooms singing the Marseillaise, loomed out of the darkness, and into it the fed-up wanderer hurled his bag. Yet again did he embrace every one, including the horses; and then, overcome with his labours, he sank into a corner and laughed.
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