The boom of cannon is growing fainter and fainter as the Germans appear to be pushed further and further back; the canary is singing, and the grey parrot is cracking nuts; and I think of the man who rescued them, and hope that all goes well with him, who, with death staring him in the face, had time and thought to save the lives of a couple of birds. His name he told me was Sergeant Thomas Marshall of Winston Churchill's Marines.
He said: "If you see my wife ever, you can tell her you've met me, ma'am."
CHAPTER XXIX
TUESDAY
It is Tuesday now. At seven o'clock in the morning old sad-eyed Maria knocks at my door.
"Good news, Madame! Malines has been retaken!"
That is cheering. And old Maria and myself, like everyone else, are eager to believe the best.
The grey day, however, is indescribably sombre.
From a high, grassy terrace at the top of the hotel I look out across the city towards the points where the Germans are attacking us. Great black clouds that yet are full of garish light float across the city, and through the clouds one, two, three, four aeroplanes can be seen, black as birds, and moving continually hither and thither, while far below the old town lies, with its towers and gilded Gothic beauty, and its dark red roofs, and its wide river running to meet the sea.