The launch held them all comfortably, though they were a large party: the travellers themselves, various relatives who had come to see them off, and a sprinkling of school friends who were openly envying Norah and the boys. They included a couple of lads in khaki, fresh from the camp of the Expeditionary Force at Broadmeadows.
“Well, you’re lucky to be getting straight to the middle of things,” said one of these. “Here we are, tied up week after week, waiting to get away, and nobody quite knows why we don’t start—they talk about German cruisers, of course, and there are stories of warships not being ready to convoy us, and a dozen other yarns. Every now and then comes a rumour that we’re just off, and we say good-bye wildly—and then we don’t go. I’ve made all my fond farewells four times, and I believe my people are beginning to feel a little less enthusiastic about it than they did. It must be jolly hard to keep on regarding one as a departing hero!”
“And when we do start, it’s going to be slow enough,” put in his companion. “There will be such a crowd of us—and we’ve got to make the pace by the slowest ship.” He jerked his hand towards a troopship round the stern of which the motor-launch was chug-chugging slowly. “That’s one of them. She was a German tramp steamer that strolled in here after war broke out and was collared; she didn’t know a thing about the war, and her captain said most unseemly things to the pilot who had gone out to bring them through the Heads and held his tongue about war until he had the ship covered by our guns at Queenscliff.” The soldier grinned with huge enjoyment. “I wish I’d seen him! But she’s not much of a tub, anyhow; I expect the Orient boat that has been turned into the Staff troopship has just about twice her pace, but she will have to accommodate herself to the slowest.”
“Yes, it will be a deliberate sort of voyage,” said the other. “No ports; no news; just dawdling along for weeks, packed like herrings. Hope they’ll keep us busy with drill; it will be something to pass the time away.”
“And you don’t know when you are to sail? Edward Meadows asked.
“For all we know it may be a case of strike camp to-night. There are too many German warships in the way—it wouldn’t be healthy to let the news leak out. Wouldn’t the Emden like a chance of meeting a crowd like ours!—a lot of transports like helpless old sheep, with a few men-o’-war to protect the whole mob. The Emden would not mind going down herself if she sank some of us.”
“Well, at least you’ll have the men-o’-war” Norah put in. “We won’t have anything at all to protect us.”
“You don’t seem very troubled about it, either,” grinned the soldier lad.
“Why, it would be an experience. I don’t suppose they would hurt us, even if they sank the ship. And our luggage is insured,” said Norah, practically.
“The danger of a hostile cruiser does not seem to weigh heavily on the minds of the insurance companies,” remarked her father. “It cost me a good deal more to insure against pilfering than against war risks!”