'One does not take tickets any more,' a bystander said. 'It is not necessary.'
The old man stared at him. 'One pays, then, on the train, perhaps?'
The man shrugged his shoulders. 'Perhaps.'
There was nobody to check tickets as they passed on to the platform. He led the children through the crowd, Sheila still chewing her half-eaten roll of bread, clutched firmly in a hand already hot. Quai 4 was practically deserted, rather to his surprise. There did not seem to be great competition to get to Paris; all the traffic seemed to be the other way.
He saw an engine-driver, and approached him: 'It is here that the train for Paris will arrive?'
'But certainly.'
The statement was not reassuring. The empty spaces of the platform oppressed the old man; they were unnatural, ominous. He walked along to a seat and put down all the parcels and attaché cases on it, then settled down to wait until a train should come.
The children began running up and down the platform, playing games of their own making. Presently, mindful of the chill that had delayed him, he called Ronnie and Sheila to hun and took off their coats, thinking to put them on when they were in the train. As an afterthought he turned to Rose.
'You also,' he said. 'You will be better playing without your coat, and the hat.'
He took them off and put them on the seat beside him. Then he lit his pipe, and settled down to wait in patience for the train.
It came at about half-past eight, when they had been there for an hour and a half. There were a few people on the platform by that time, not very many. It steamed into the station, towering above them; there were two soldiers on the footplate of the engine with the train crew.
To his delight, it was not a crowded train. He made as quickly as he could for a first-class compartment, and found one occupied only by two morose officers of the Armée de l'Air. The children swarmed on to the seats and climbed all over the carriage, examining everything, chattering to each other in mixed French and English. The two officers looked blacker; before five minutes had elapsed they had got up, swearing below their breath, and had removed to another-carriage.
Howard looked at them helplessly as they went. He would have liked to apologise, but he didn't know how to put it.
Presently, he got the children to sit down. Mindful of chills, he said: 'You'd better put your coats on now. Rose, you put yours on, too.'
He proceeded to put Sheila into hers. Rose looked around the carriage blankly. 'Monsieur - where is my coat? And my hat, also?'
He looked up. 'Eh? You had them when we got into the train?'
But she had not had them. She had rushed with the other children to the carriage, heedless, while Howard hurried along behind her, burdened with luggage. Her coat and hat had been left on the station bench.
Her face wrinkled up, and she began to cry. The old man stared at her irritably for a moment; he had thought that she would be a help to him. Then the patience borne of seventy years of disappointments came to his aid; he sat down and drew her to him, wiping her eyes. 'Don't bother about it,' he said gently. 'We'll get another hat and another coat in Paris. You shall choose them yourself.'
She sobbed: 'But they were so expensive.'
He wiped her eyes again. 'Never mind,' he said. 'It couldn't be helped. I'll tell your aunt when I send the telegram that it wasn't your fault.'
Presently she stopped crying. Howard undid one of his many parcels of food and they all had a bit of an orange to eat, and all troubles were forgotten.
The train went slowly, stopping at every station and occasionally in between. From Dijon to Tonnerre is seventy miles; they pulled out of that station at about half-past eleven, three hours after leaving Dijon. The children had stood the journey pretty well so far; for the last hour they had been running up and down the corridor shouting, while the old man dozed uneasily in a corner of the compartment.
He roused after Tonnerre, and fetched them all back into the carriage for déjeuner of sandwiches and milk and oranges. They ate slowly, with frequent distractions to look out of the window. Sandwiches had a tendency to become mislaid during these pauses, and to vanish down between the cushions of the seats. Presently they were full. He gave them each a cup of milk, and laid Sheila down to rest on the seat, covered over with the blanket he had bought in Dijon. He made Rose and Ronnie sit down quietly and look at Babar; then he was able to rest himself.
From Tonnerre to Joigny is thirty miles. The train was going slower than ever, stopping for long periods for no apparent reason. Once, during one of these pauses, a large flight of aeroplanes passed by the window, flying very high; the old man was shocked to hear the noise of gunfire, and to see a few white puffs of smoke burst in the cloudless sky far, far below them. It seemed incredible, but they must be German. He strained his eyes for fighters so far as he could do without calling the attention of the children from their books, but there were no fighters to be seen. The machines wheeled slowly round and headed back towards the east, unhindered by the ineffective fire.
The old man sank back into his seat, full of doubts and fears.
He was dozing a little when the train pulled into Joigny soon after one o'clock. It stood there in the station in the hot sunlight, interminably. Presently a man came down the corridor.
'Descendez, monsieur,' he said. 'This train goes no farther.'
Howard stared up at him dumbfounded. 'But - this is the Paris train?'
'It is necessary to change here. One must descend.'
'When will the next train leave for Paris?'
'I do not know, monsieur. That is a military affair.' He got the children into their coats, gathered his things together, and presently was on the platform, burdened with his luggage, with the three children trailing after him. He went straight to the station-master's office. There was an officer there, a capitaine des transports. The old man asked a few straight questions, and got straight answers.
'There will be no more trains for Paris, monsieur. None at all. I cannot tell you why, but no more trains will run north from Joigny.'
There was a finality in his tone that brooked no argument. The old man said: 'I am travelling to St Malo, for England, with these children. How would you advise me to get there?'
The young officer stared at him. 'St Malo? That is not the easiest journey, now, monsieur.' He thought for a moment. 'There would be trains from Chartres... And in one hour, at half-past two, there is an autobus for Montargis... You must go by Montargis, monsieur. By the autobus to Montargis, then to Pithiviers, from Pithiviers to Angerville, and from Angerville to Chartres. From Chartres you will be able to go by train to St Malo.'
He turned to an angry Frenchwoman behind Howard, and the old man was elbowed out of the way. He retired on to the platform, striving to remember the names of the places that he had just heard. Then he thought of his little Baedeker and got it out, and traced the recommended course across country to Chartres. It skirted round Paris, sixty miles farther west. So long as there were buses one could get to Chartres that way, but Heaven alone knew how long it would take.
He knew the ropes where French country autobuses were concerned. He went and found the bus out in the station yard, and sat in it with the children. If he had been ten minutes later he would not have found a seat.