TAKING A CHANCE
I started for the Continent on a bright day early
in January. I was searched by a woman from Scotland
Yard before being allowed on the platform. The
pockets of my fur coat were examined; my one piece
of baggage, a suitcase, was inspected; my letters
of introduction were opened and read.
“Now, Mrs. Rinehart,” she said, straightening,
“just why are you going?”
I told her exactly half of why I was going. I
had a shrewd idea that the question in itself meant
nothing. But it gave her a good chance to look
at me. She was a very clever woman.
And so, having been discovered to be carrying neither
weapons nor seditious documents, and having an open
and honest eye, I was allowed to go through the straight
and narrow way that led to possible destruction.
Once or twice, later on, I blamed that woman for letting
me through. I blamed myself for telling only half
of my reasons for going. Had I told her all she
would have detained me safely in England, where automobiles
sometimes go less than eighty miles an hour, and where
a sharp bang means a door slamming in the wind and
not a shell exploding, where hostile aeroplanes overhead
with bombs and unpleasant little steel darts, were
not always between one’s eyes and heaven.
She let me through, and I went out on the platform.
The leaving of the one-o’clock train from Victoria
Station, London, is an event and a tragedy. Wounded
who have recovered are going back; soldiers who have
been having their week at home are returning to that
mysterious region across the Channel, the front.
Not the least of the British achievements had been
to transport, during the deadlock of the first winter
of the war, almost the entire army, in relays, back
to England for a week’s rest. It had been
done without the loss of a man, across a channel swarming
with hostile submarines. They came in thousands,
covered with mud weary, eager, their eyes searching
the waiting crowd for some beloved face. And
those who waited and watched as the cars emptied sometimes
wept with joy and sometimes turned and went away alone.
Their week over, rested, tidy, eyes still eager but
now turned toward France, the station platform beside
the one-o’clock train was filled with soldiers
going back. There were few to see them off; there
were not many tears. Nothing is more typical
of the courage and patriotism of the British women
than that platform beside the one-o’clock train
at Victoria. The crowd was shut out by ropes and
Scotland Yard men stood guard. And out on the
platform, saying little because words are so feeble,
pacing back and forth slowly, went these silent couples.
They did not even touch hands. One felt that all
the unselfish stoicism and restraint would crumble
under the familiar touch.
The platform filled. Sir Purtab Singh, an Indian
prince, with his suite, was going back to the English
lines. I had been a neighbour of his at Claridge’s
Hotel in London. I caught his eye. It was
filled with cold suspicion. It said quite plainly
that I could put nothing over on him. But whether
he suspected me of being a newspaper writer or a spy
I do not know.
