midnight
I took the road to the west and walked through the night . At times many people passed along that road to the river , including scattered bands of soldiers . I knew them by their spiked helmets silhouetted against the sky . It must have been midnight when I struck the main Coblenz Road . A string of waggons and carts rumbled along towards Coblenz with many soldiers walking between . Close by a railway line ran parallel with the road and continuous trains slowly crawled , hissing and shrieking like wounded things . I plodded along the tree-screened roadside , the cloudy darkness of the night helping my security .