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SOUTH A GAIN CHAPTER XVI SOUTH AGAIN I BEGAN to pack my things and think about the South of France. The Pole saw me off at the station. I arriied myself with a bottle of red wine. The train was full and the only seat I could find (I travelled, of course, third class), was in a carriage filled with French sailors- In the corner was a very small ginger-haired French soldier. I sat down in a corner. The sailors opened their bottles and offered me some wine. We then all drank together. They were all Bretons and we talked about Brittany. Next to me was a very good-looking, golden-haired sailor, who got very drunk, and, after making an unsuccessful attempt to kiss me, fell asleep with his head on my lap. I felt slightly embarrassed but thought it better to remain still, hoping that even- tually he would become conscious and that I could change my position. The other sailors and the little soldier were already asleep and I lay my head against the window and slept too. About five in the morning I woke up and from the opposite corner of the carriage the soldier spoke to me in the most perfect" Oxford English.5' I thought, " Good God! He probably knows all kinds of people that I do and here am I with a sailor asleep with his head on my lap." I asked him why he spoke English and he told me that he had been brought up in England and that his Father was a Frenchman, and he, being a French subject, had to do his Service Militaire. He had been in Egypt before in some kind of political job