We ate with our knees for tables, and as I undid the little parcels that Marie had made, it seemed to me that I was touching her hands.

When the evening had fallen, a passing officer noticed us, made inquiries, and we were mustered.

We plunged into the night of the building.

Our feet stumbled and climbed helter-skelter, between pitched walls up the steps of a damp staircase, which smelt of stale tobacco and gas-tar, like all barracks.

They led us into a dark corridor, pierced by little pale blue windows, where draughts came and went violently, a corridor spotted at each end by naked gas-jets, their flames buffeted and snarling.
A lighted doorway was stoppered by a throng--the store-room.