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.