Part 8 (1/2)

”Now that you are here,” he said, ”it is all right. But--exactly what can I do for you?”

So I told him. He listened attentively. A very fine and gallant soldier he was, sitting in that great room in the imposing uniform of his rank; a busy man, taking a little time out of his crowded day to see an American woman who had come a long way alone to see this tragedy that had overtaken his country. Orderlies and officers came and went; the _Mairie_ was a hive of seething activities. But he listened patiently.

”Where do you want to go?” he asked when I had finished.

”I should like to stay here, if I may. And from here, of course, I should like to get to the front.”

”Where?”

”Can I get to Ypres?”

”It is not very safe.”

I proclaimed instantly and loudly that I was as brave as a lion; that I did not know fear. He smiled. But when the interview was over it was arranged that I should have a _permis de sejour_ to stay in Dunkirk, and that on the following day the general himself and one of his officers having an errand in that direction would take me to Ypres.

That night the town of Dunkirk was bombarded by some eighteen German aeroplanes.

CHAPTER VIII

THE NIGHT RAID ON DUNKIRK

I found that a room had been engaged for me at the Hotel des Arcades.

It was a very large room looking out over the public square and the statue of Jean Bart. It was really a princely room. No wonder they showed it to me proudly, and charged it to me royally. It was an upholstered room. Even the doors were upholstered. And because it was upholstered and expensive and regal, it enjoyed the isolation of greatness. The other people in the hotel slept above or underneath.

There were times when I longed for neighbours, when I yearned for some one to occupy the other royal apartment next door. But except for a Russian prince who stayed two days, and who snored in Russian and kept two _valets de chambre_ up all night in the hall outside my door polis.h.i.+ng his boots and cleaning his uniform, I was always alone in that part of the hotel.

At my London hotel I had been lodged on the top floor, and twice in the night the hall porter had telephoned me to say that German Zeppelins were on their way to London. So I took care to find that in the Hotel des Arcades there were two stories and two layers of Belgian and French officers overhead.

I felt very comfortable--until the air raid. The two stories seemed absurd, inadequate. I would not have felt safe in the subcellar of the Woolworth Building.

There were no women in the hotel at that time, with the exception of a hysterical lady manager, who sat in a boxlike office on the lower floor, and two chambermaids. A boy made my bed and brought me hot water. For several weeks at intervals he knocked at the door twice a day and said: ”Et wat.” I always thought it was Flemish for ”May I come in?” At last I discovered that he considered this the English for ”hot water.” The waiters in the cafe were too old to be sent to war, but I think the cook had gone. There was no cook. Some one put the food on the fire, but he was not a cook.

Dunkirk had been bombarded several times, I learned.

”They come in the morning,” said my informant. ”Every one is ordered off the streets. But they do little damage. One or two machines come and drop a bomb or two. That is all. Very few are killed.”

I protested. I felt rather bitter about it. I expected trouble along the lines, I explained. I knew I would be quite calm when I was actually at the front, and when I had my nervous system prepared for trouble. But in Dunkirk I expected to rest and relax. I needed sleep after La Panne. I thought something should be done about it.

My informant shrugged his shoulders. He was English, and entirely fair.

”Dunkirk is a fortified town,” he explained. ”It is quite legitimate.

But you may sleep to-night. The raids are always daylight ones.”

So I commenced dinner calmly. I do not remember anything about that dinner. The memory of it has gone. I do recall looking about the dining room, and feeling a little odd and lonely, being the only woman. Then a gun boomed somewhere outside, and an alarm bell commenced to ring rapidly almost overhead. Instantly the officers in the room were on their feet, and every light went out.

The _matre d'hotel_, Emil, groped his way to my table and struck a match.

”Aeroplanes!” he said.