“And the others are hard at it over there still,” put in another. “This is just a pioneer party.”
“It’s all so comprehensible now,” said Thrale after a silence, “but we had no idea, we never thought there could be any one living in America. We thought that somehow we must have heard. One forgets....”
“We tried to get on to you,” said one of the party, “by cable and wireless. We kept on tapping away for months, but we got no reply. We thought you must be all dead too.”
“Well, we guessed you were having a real bad time anyway,” amended another. “You see we knew the way that plague had taken Europe but we kept hoping and trying to get on to you all the same.”
“We’ve got a message for Elsie, after all,” Eileen said to Jasper the next day. “There’s hope for us yet.”
“Yes, there’s hope,” said Jasper.
They had been up at the town railway station assisting a party of Americans to investigate the condition of the rolling stock and the permanent way. Neither could be pronounced satisfactory. A few women had come in from the neighbouring country that morning attracted by the sight of an inexplicable pillar of smoke, and their report of local conditions had been equally uninspiring. They had spoken of famine and failure, but their faces had been lit by a new brightness at the sight of this miraculous little army of men. There had been hope in the faces and bearing of these toil-worn women, faith in the promise of support and succour.
Now Jasper and Eileen stood looking down towards the harbour. The tide was creeping in to efface the repulsive ugliness of the mud flats, and the sluggish water rippled faintly against the foul sloping sides of small boats that had lain anchored there for more than twelve months. Behind them, across the line, was a row of unsightly houses, hung with weather-slating.
“Oh, there’s hope,” repeated Jasper.