 It was only at Châlons-sur-Marne that a party of six French orderlies and a French nurse was briefly detached to a hospital to help its overwhelmed medical staff.The roads were choked with refugees, petrol was hard to find and they went off the edge of their road maps.While queuing to refuel at the barracks in Gannat, between Moulins and Clermont-Ferrand, they heard that Marshal Philippe Pétain had asked the Germans for an armistice.