I DECIDE TO STAY
For the moment the bombardment has ceased entirely. These little pauses
are almost quaint in their preciseness.
One can count on them quite confidently not to be broken by stray
shells.
And in the pause I am rushing along the Avenue de Commerce, trying to
get round to the hotel where all my belongings are, when I run into
three Englishmen with their arms full of bags, and overcoats, and
umbrellas, and for a moment or two we stand there at the corner opposite
the Gare Central all talking together breathlessly.
It was only last night at seven o'clock that we all dined together at
the Terminus; but since then a million years have rolled over us; we
have been snatched into one of History's most terrific pages; and we all
have a burning breathless Saga of our own hanging on our lips, crying to
be told aloud before the world.
We all fling out disjointed remarks, and I hear of the awful night in
that quarter of the city.
"How are you going to get away?"
"And you, how are you going to get away?"
The tall, slight young man with the little dark moustache is Mr.
Jeffries of the _Daily Mail_, who has been staying at the Hotel de
l'Europe. With him is the popular Mr. Perry Robinson of the _Times_. The
third is Mr. P. Phillips of the _Daily News_.
"I have just come from the État Majeur," Mr. Jeffries tells me
hurriedly. "There is not a ghost of a hope now! Everyone has gone. We
must get away at once."
"I am not going," I say. For suddenly the knowledge has come to me that
I cannot leave the greatest of my dramas before the curtain rolls up in
the last scene. In vain they argue, tell me I am mad. I am not going.
So they say good-bye and leave me.