Who they were, and what corps they belonged to, and how they acquired that Metropolitan bus I shall never know, and do not want to know. I would far rather think of them as the heroes of some fantastic enterprise, careering in gladness and in mystery from one besieged city to another.
Saw Madame F., who looks worried. She suggested that I should come back to the Hospital. She says it must be inconvenient for the Commandant not to have his secretary always at hand. At the same time, we are told that the Hospital is filling up so fast that our rooms will be wanted. And anyhow, Dr. —— has got mine.
I have found an absurd little hotel, the Hôtel Cecil in the Place, opposite the Hospital, where I can have a room. Then I can be on duty all day.
Went down to the "Poste." Gave up my room, packed and took leave of the nice fat propriétaire and his wife.
Driving through the town, I meet French troops pouring through the streets. There was very little cheering.
Settled into the Hôtel Cecil; if it could be called settling when my things have to stay packed, in case the Germans come before the evening.
The Hôtel Cecil is a thin slice of a house with three rooms on each little floor, and a staircase like a ladder. There is something very sinister about this smallness and narrowness and steepness. You say to yourself: Supposing the Germans really do come into Ghent; there will be some Uhlans among them; and the Uhlans will certainly come into the Hôtel Cecil, and they will get very drunk in the restaurant below; and you might as well be in a trap as in this den at the top of the slice up all these abominable little steep stairs. And you are very glad that your room has a balcony.
But though your room has a balcony it hasn't got a table, or any space where a table could stand. There is hardly anything in it but a big double bed and a tall hat-stand. I have never seen a room more inappropriate to a secretary and reporter.
The proprietor and his wife are very amiable. He is a Red Cross man; and they have taken two refugee women into their house. They have promised faithfully that by noon there shall be a table.
Noon has come; and there is no table.