The question of securing lodgings loomed large and
imminent before us. Officers filled the few small inns and hotels;
soldiers, as we could see, were quartered thickly in all the houses in
sight; and already the inhabitants were locking their doors and dousing
their lights in accordance with an order from a source that was not to
be disobeyed. Nine out of ten houses about the square were now but
black oblongs rising against the gray sky. We had nowhere to go; and yet
if we did not go somewhere, and that pretty soon, the patrols would
undoubtedly take unpleasant cognizance of our presence. Besides, the
searching chill of a Belgian night was making us stiff.
Scouting up a narrow winding alley, one of the party who spoke German
found a courtyard behind a schoolhouse called imposingly L'Ecole Moyenne
de Beaumont, where he obtained permission from a German sergeant to
stable our mare for the night in the aristocratic companionship of a
troop of officers' horses. Through another streak of luck we preempted
a room in the schoolhouse and held it against all comers by right of
squatter sovereignty.
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