“Oh, a long way! We’ll be through the Heads at half-past five, and will have dropped the pilot. The steward will come in at dusk, miss, to shut your port-hole.”
Norah looked up in swift alarm.
“My port-hole? But need I have it shut? I always have my windows open at night.”
The stewardess shook her head.
“You could always have it open, in ordinary circumstances, so long as the weather wasn’t rough; but not now. It’s the war, you see, miss. We’re under the strictest regulations not to show any lights at all; so as soon as it is dusk every window on the ship has to be fastened and shuttered. We don’t have any deck lights either—not even the port and starboard lanterns and the mast-head. Coming out, there was a German warship looking for us, and we got past her in the dark and gave her the slip; she wasn’t more than ten miles away. She’d have had us, to a certainty, if we had been lit up.”
“Good gracious!” said Norah, weakly.
“You see, miss, when the Perseus has all her lights showing she’s like an illumination display—any one could see her glow miles away. Our only chance may lie in slipping by in the dark. And just now the Germans are keeping a very close look-out on the Australian tracks, because they hope to cut off the troopships. It makes the voyage very dull, but it can’t be helped.”
Cheerful voices came along the alley-way as the stewardess, with a friendly smile, disappeared.
“Well, are you fixed up?” Jim asked. “Can Wal come in? Here, we’ll put these trunks out of your way.”
“I’m just finished,” Norah said. “How do you think it looks?”