T. A. GLOVER
CINEMATOGRAPHER WITH THE EXPEDITION
“The following night I went south to London, hardly knowing how to wait for Monday to come. On Perth station I was very proud and happy when I saw on the placards:
“‘SCOTTISH EXPLORER CROSSES THE SAHARA’
The porters and inspectors were full of excitement, for most of them knew my husband, and more than one eagerly helped me with my luggage and packed me off happy to meet the man they had sent on his journey sixteen months before.
“June 11th arrived at last, a glorious hot June day. I travelled from Charing Cross to Dover, and, while going down in the train, I read a paragraph in The Times which made me wonder if I was a day too soon. It stated that my husband had arrived in Paris and was due in London the following Tuesday evening. This was Monday, and I kept wondering, all the way down, if I was to be disappointed when the Channel steamer came in.
“Arriving at Dover, in company with Mrs. Glover, the cinema operator’s wife, we discovered it was impossible to get on the quay without a permit, which, in my excitement, I had omitted to obtain in London. I was told I must see the Marine Superintendent and get a pass from him. Entering a small office, I stood and waited anxiously. Presently a big, burly, seafaring man entered from an inner room. Scrutinising me with stern eyes he gruffly demanded my business. In a very nervous and anxious manner I explained I had come to meet my husband. That information seemed to produce not the slightest effect, and I had a dreadful feeling that my request would be refused point-blank. Realising this, I made another attempt, and told how my husband had been away sixteen months, and that I did so wish to meet the incoming boat. I was answered by silence, while I could feel those eyes trying to read me through. At last, turning sharply, he said ‘Humph! We have lots of people like you here’; and then, to a man at his elbow, ‘Write out a pass.’
“At 5 p.m. the boat came slowly in alongside the quay.
“What a moment! I shall never forget it! There seemed hundreds of faces on board, but only one that counted for me. Leaning over the rail, with eyes keenly searching among the waiting crowd, stood my husband, burnt almost black with the scorching sun of the Sahara. It was a wonderful moment, and meeting, full of suppressed emotion, each feeling that at last the great trek was done, and now we could look to home and comforts that had for so long been impossible.