bmarines. 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.

Somehow, considering that the train was carrying a suspicious and
turbaned Indian prince, any number of impatient officers and soldiers,
and an American woman who was carefully avoiding the war office and
trying to look like a buyer crossing the Channel for hats, the whistle
for starting sounded rather inadequate. It was not martial. It was
thin, effeminate, absurd. And so we were off, moving slowly past that
line on the platform, where no one smiled; where grief and tragedy, in
that one revealing moment, were written deep. I shall never forget the
faces of the women as the train crept by.

And now the train was well under way. The car was very quiet. The
memory of those faces on the platform was too fresh. There was a brown
and weary officer across from me. He sat very still, looking straight
ahead. Long after the train had left London, and was moving smoothly
through the English fields, so green even in winter, he still sat in
the same attitude.

I drew a long breath, and ordered luncheon. I was off to the war. I
might be turned back at Folkstone. There was more than a chance that I
might not get beyond Calais, which was under military law. But at