He fumbled in his pockets and brought out his torch. Its tiny beams made rounds of light in the carriage and upon his face and upon the gold braid and gold rings of his uniform. He found case and matches. He lighted a cigarette for Olwen, who puffed at it with secret distaste (for the moderate smoker is not found among her sex; a woman being either a cigarette fiend or a passive objector).
The two red glow-worms winked and wavered in the dark carriage, their reflections shining in the glass of photographs over the rack. Outside the searchlights pointed, and now and again the sky showed the alien star of a shrapnel-burst.
Then, without warning, crash after crash seemed to rock the train on the rails. Some guns, very near, that had not yet spoken, were barking savagely, and between the barks a shrill "whee-you! whee-you!" hissed past the telegraph wires....
The start that Olwen gave made her drop her cigarette on to the floor of the carriage. She dug her little French heel into the spark. Young Ellerton threw his cigarette down beside it and rose quickly. Snapping up the arm of the seat by Olwen, he sat down close to her.
"You needn't be frightened," he said, encouragingly.
"I'm not frightened," she assured him. "Only it makes me jump."
"Brutes, frightening you!" exclaimed young Ellerton. "I say, I do wish I'd thought of bringing some chocolates or something for you."
"I'm not hungry either, thank you," laughed Olwen into the barking of those guns, but young Ellerton's voice repeated, "I wish I'd got any sweets for you. I've only this——"
She felt him move against her arm as he leant nearer to her to get something else out of his pocket: it was a phial of saccharine tablets, carried about since the sugar restrictions.
"Have some of these," he said. "Put out your hand ... here, where are you?" He shook half a dozen tablets out into her palm.