Memoirs of the Foreign Legion by Maurice Magnus

I WAS filled with doubts and apprehensions during the night. What if an officer, who knew me, should happen to pass my compartment? I drew the blinds on the corridor side where I had taken a seat. When you pass a compartment the person furthest from you, that is the one on the window side, catches your eye first. You do not go out of your way to look in and see who is sitting in the corners on the corridor side--you do not make the effort--as long as you see there is no seat for you.

At every stop during the night my heart was in my mouth. Would I succeed? Very early in the morning we steamed into the Gare Pérrache of Lyons. What if some of my officers should be leaving by that train to go South, or had come to meet an arriving friend? I put something on my seat to show that it was occupied and vanished into the _cabinet de toilette_ to wash up. I took good care to spend all the time of that long stop at Lyons washing, and did not come out until I felt the train moving. I knew that in my compartment all seats were taken to beyond Marseilles, so I was safe not to see a new arrival in it.