She helped me as a medieval lady might have helped her lord to buckle on his sword; and presently we were out on deck.
As we had twice already drilled in the unsightly things, we had lost the sense of the grotesque appearance presented by ourselves and our fellow-travelers. Besides, we were too eager to descry the periscope to have any more thought of ourselves than a wild duck of how it looks when skimming away from a sniper. Indeed, it was chiefly of a hunted wild duck that our zigzagging boat reminded me.
It was a sullen day, with that scudding of low, gray clouds which looks as if the heavens were hastening to some Armageddon of their own. The sea had hardly got over the swell left by one gale when it was being lashed into fury by another. The Assiniboia pitched and rolled and tore through the waters like a monster goaded by innumerable stings. I should have found it next to impossible to struggle along the deck had my protectress not stood by and steadied me.
There was a kind of foolish pretense at the chivalrous in my tone as I said, “I’ll just see you to your boat before going over to mine.”
“We’re in the same boat,” she answered, briefly. “Do come along.”
I thought of my forty-eight hours of unfruitful search for her.
“But I didn’t see you at Number Seven when we drilled yesterday.”
“I’m there now,” she said, with the same brevity. Feeling, apparently, that some explanation was needed, she went on: “I’ve—I mean they—they’ve changed me. Miss Prynne has let me have—or rather she’s taken— That is,” she finished, in confusion, “we’re all nurses together—and we’ve—we’ve exchanged.”
In spite of some inward observations, I spared her any other comment than to say, “How jolly!” as if the exchange had been the most matter-of-course thing in the world.