_Monday_.—It will be my turn next. The position is scarcely an
enviable one. We seem so unprotected in this little lonely Belgian
village between Liège, Namur, and the German frontier. Our few houses
extend along the high road too; we have no cover. The Gendarmerie is
next my bedroom window, its truculent-looking flag still floating out
in the summer breeze. It acts as a red rag to a bull to every Uhlan who
comes into the village. And the army, a great army, many army corps are
passing by to-morrow.
Often and often when things have looked black for us, I have longed to
suggest to the peasants that they should stow their danger-signal flag
tidily away in a drawer. But there are some things one does not say. I
am not sure, but I think, if I happened to have a Union Jack it would
be up alongside....
It is midnight. We are in the usual inky darkness, since paraffin and
candles have given out. A troop of soldiers ride up and hammer on the
door. No answer. The street is lined with sleeping men; but these too
make no sign. The soldiers are getting what sleep they can before their
onslaught on Namur.
Without making a tour of inspection I am pretty sure Madame Job and
family are in the fields, or the sheltering hooded _camion_. The
Germans bang on the door again and cry in rather tipsy voices, “Bier,
bier.”