VIGIL
"The raid is still in progress."
Morning Paper.
To other members of the party that raid had been less (obviously) eventful.
Little Mr. Brown, after he had seen Mrs. Cartwright's niece, the nurse, back to her rooms, trotted back to the Regent Palace Hotel all in a dither of undeniable funk.
Not funk for himself! Gallipoli and the Somme had found him "sticking it" with a music-hall joke between his teeth. But here he had something to be frightened about. The danger-zone was no place for women. At once he rang up his fiancée, Mrs. Robinson, in Baker Street. There was no reply!... On duty still? And Lord knew where....
[The little dispatch rider was at that moment, as we know, scorching along the road out of London and past the Kilburn Empire.]
Mr. Brown, M.C., took his cold feet and his pipe to another man's room, and sat there talking feverishly to drown the guns; from here he rang up at intervals, getting through to her at last.
"Worrying?... What about?" her cheeky little voice called back to him. "Been? Why I've been carting some young lunatic who's lost his 'bus or something, back to his 'drome.... I say! He tried to give me two pounds. Got off again, didn't I?... Yes, and I'm just going to turn in.... Silly ass.... Worrying about me? Well, drop it. I'm not marrying any worries, they're too old-fash. Go to bed!"