第18章

She was very carefully searched at the railway station that night and found that her American Red Cross button, which had come with her dollar subscription to the association, made the matron inspector rather kindly inclined.Nevertheless, she took off Sara Lee's shoes, and ran over the lining of her coat, and quite ruined the maid's packing of the suitcase.

"You are going to Boulogne?" asked the matron inspector.Sara Lee did not like to lie.

"Wherever the boat takes me," she said with smile.The matron smiled too.

"I shouldn't be nervous, miss," she said."It's a chance, of course, but they have not done much damage yet."It was after midnight then, and a cold fog made the station a gloomy thing of blurred yellow lights and raw chill.A few people moved about, mostly officers in uniform.Half a dozen men in civilian clothes eyed her as she passed through the gates; Scotland Yard, but she did not know.And once she thought she saw Henri, but he walked away into the shadows and disappeared.The train, looking as absurdly small and light as all English trains do, was waiting out in the shed.There were no porters, and Sara Lee carried her own bag.

She felt quite sure she had been mistaken about Henri, for of course he would have come and carried it for her.

The train was cold and quiet.When it finally moved out it was under way before she knew that it was going.And then suddenly Sara Lee's heart began to pound hard.

It was a very cold and shivering Sara Lee who curled up, alone in her compartment, and stared hard at Harvey's ring to keep her courage up.But a curious thing had happened.Harvey gave her no moral support.He brought her only disapproval.She found herself remembering none of the loving things he had said to her, but only the bitter ones.

Perhaps it was the best thing for her, after all.For a sort of dogged determination to go through with it all, at any cost, braced her to her final effort.

So far it had all been busy enough, but not comfortable.She was cold, and she had eaten almost nothing all day.As the hours went on and the train slid through the darkness she realized that she was rather faint.The steam pipes, only warm at the start, were entirely cold by one o'clock, and by two Sara Lee was sitting on her feet, with a heavy coat wrapped about her knees.

The train moved quietly, as do all English trains, with no jars and little sound.There were few lights outside, for the towns of Eastern England were darkened, like London, against air attacks.So when she looked at the window she saw only her own reflection, white and wide-eyed, above Aunt Harriet's fur neckpiece.

In the next compartment an officer was snoring, but she did not close her eyes.Perhaps, for that last hour, some of the glow that had brought her so far failed her.She was not able to think beyond Folkestone, save occasionally, and that with a feeling that it should not be made so difficult to do a kind and helpful thing.

At a quarter before three the train eased down.In the same proportion Sara Lee's pulse went up.A long period of crawling along, a stop or two, but no resultant opening of the doors; and at last, in a cold rain and a howling wind from the channel, the little seaport city.

More officers than she had suspected, a few women, got out.The latter Sara Lee's experience on the steamer enabled her to place; buyers mostly, and Americans, on their way to Paris, blockade or no blockade, because the American woman must be well and smartly gowned and hatted.A man with a mourning band on his sleeve carried a wailing child.

The officers lighted cigarettes.The civilians formed a line on the jetty under the roof of the shed, and waited, passports in hand, before a door that gleamed with yellow light.Faces looked pale and anxious.The blockade was on, and Germany had said that no ships would cross that night.

As if defiantly the Boulogne boat, near at hand, was ablaze, on the shore side at least, with lights.Stewards came and went.Beyond it lay the harbor, dark and mysterious save where, from somewhere across, aflashlight made a brave effort to pierce the fog.

One of the buyers ahead of Sara' Lee seemed exhilarated by the danger ahead.

"They'll never get us," she said."Look at that fog!""It's lifting, dearie," answered a weary voice behind her."The wind is carrying it away."When Sara Lee's turn came she was ready.A group of men in civilian clothes, seated about a long table, looked her over carefully.Her passports moved deliberately from hand to hand.A long business, and the baby wailing harder than ever.But the office was at least warm.Some of her failing courage came back as she moved, following her papers, round the table.They were given back to her at last, and she went out.She had passed the first ordeal.

Suitcase in hand she wandered down the stone jetty.The Boulogne boat she passed, and kept on.At the very end, dark and sinister, lay another boat.It had no lights.The tide was in, and its deck lay almost flush with the pier.Sara Lee walked on toward it until a voice spoke to her out of the darkness and near at hand.

"Your boat is back there, madam."

"I know.Thank you.I am just walking about."The petty officer - he was a petty officer, though Sara Lee had never heard the term - was inclined to be suspicious.Under excuse of lighting his pipe he struck a match, and Sara Lee's young figure stood out in full relief.His suspicions died away with the flare.

"Bad night, miss," he offered.

"Very," said Sara Lee, and turned back again.