At last the corporal gave up
the quest for hay, and we were faced with the problem of spending the
night on a narrow road bounded on one side by cliffs beneath which ran
the Ebar, and on the other by an almost perpendicular bank. The night
was black, the mud a foot deep, and a stream ran across the road. The
carriages drew up in single file and we discussed the sleeping problem,
while Cutting cooked bovril on an ill-behaved Primus stove. Our drivers
had to sleep on the carts. The women also had carts to sleep in; and the
Scottish women offered Jo a place in their already well-filled carriage.
The men were fitted somehow into the rest of the carts, while Jo, Jan,
and Blease found a ledge below the road, and though it was very
squelchy, they spread a mackintosh sheet and rolled up on it in their
rugs.
No sooner were they really settled and sleeping than a voice said,
"You'll have to get up: an officer says the carriages must move on--the
King is coming." It was West. We sat up. Between us and the dim lights
of the carts the black shadows of the crowds passed without end.
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