"Where are you staying in Dunkirk?" he asked.
"In a room over a milliner's shop. The town's full. I couldn't get in anywhere else."
"Then will you dine with us to-night at half-past seven, at the Hotel des Arcades?"
"I should love to."
And we ran into Dunkirk.
And the lights flashed around me, and that extraordinary whirl of officers and men, moving up and down the cobbled streets, struck at us afresh, and we saw the sombre khaki of Englishmen, and the blue and red of the Belgian, and the varied uniforms and scarlet trousers of the Piou-Piou, and the absolutely indescribable life and thrill and crowding of Dunkirk in these days, when the armies of three nations moved surging up and down the narrow streets.
At seven-thirty I went up the wide staircase of the Hotel des Arcades in the Grand Place of Dunkirk. Quite a beautiful and splendid hotel though innumerable Taubes had sailed over it threatening to deface it with their ugly little bombs, but luckily without success so far,—very luckily indeed considering that every day at lunch or dinner some poor worn-out Belgian Officer came in there to get a meal.
Precisely half-past seven, and there hastening towards me was our host.
He had not "dressed," as we say in England. He had merely exchanged the short grey Norfolk knickerbockers for long trousers, and the morning coat for a short dark blue serge.
His eyes were sparkling.