A soft cloud of steam rose from the engine of the train that had just disgorged me.
All along the platform were weary passengers and flashing lamps. A silk stocking slid to the platform from my suitcase. The stooping Customs man bumped his finger on a darning-needle and muttered under his breath. A little farther along the platform I could see a woman burdened with a baby struggling to shut an over full portmanteau.
“Why are you going to Ireland?” grumbled the man with the lamp. “Last place to live in. Right. Next, please. One minute, Paddy. What’s in that parcel?”
A youth who was trying to slip through the crowd stood sullenly.
I was jostled up a gangway by the moving people, still clutching my keys.
The boat was crowded. It seemed impossible that any one else could get on, and there were hundreds to come.
My belated husband had deserted me in the confusion. I picked him up presently on the boat.
“Have you seen about a berth?” he asked.
I shook my head and penetrated to the women’s cabin. It was the most uncomfortable place I had ever seen. I struggled past heaps of rugs and luggage, and stumbled over legs as far as the stewardess, an overworked woman, who answered me impolitely. There was no berth left, and I struggled up to the deck again through the descending people with my heart in my boots. There was nothing but a cold, hard seat and the whistling wind.
Scraps of conversation reached us in between the noises. People who had fared as badly as we had stood about in sulky groups. Dour Northerners clustered together and eyed a party of priests. On the hatches some Tommies lifted up their voices in song, and round the deck paced military officers with suffering faces.