Once again big black-lettered contents-bills shrieked from the railings and were worn after the fashion of heralds' tabards by the vendors of newspapers, and the editions were snapped up as fast as they came out. Here are some of the headlines:
"THRILLING ESCAPE OF KIDNAPPED BOY SCOUT FROM THE HANDS OF THE HUN. YOUNG HERO OF NORTH SEA ADVENTURE LANDS BEHIND BRITISH LINES AT LANGEBEKE IN TAUBE WITH A BOCHE PRISONER. FULL STORY OF HOW SCOUT WHO SAVED THE CLANRONALD PAPERS BOMBED THE GERMAN MACHINE-GUNS. DECORATION OF SCOUT SAXHAM WITH 'GOLDEN WOLF' BADGE BY ROYAL PRESIDENT AT ASSOCIATION HEADQUARTERS. PROBABLE TESTIMONIAL FROM BRITISH PUBLIC. AFTERNOON TEA WITH THE WAR MINISTER AT WHITEHALL. EXPECTED INVESTITURE WITH EDWARDIAN ORDER OF MERIT. WHAT YOU GET BY BEING PREPARED!"
And again:
"SPLENDID PLUCK OF BRITISH AVIATOR. FIGHTS ZEPPELIN ON WAY TO BOMB BRITISH HEADQUARTERS. AIRSHIP CRIPPLED. SHERBRAND R.F.C. KILLED. FALLS IN FLAMES OVER GERMAN LINES. HEROIC END OF SOLE REMAINING HEIR TO PENINSULAR WAR EARLDOM, AND INVENTOR OF THE HAWK-HOVERER THAT SOLVES PROBLEM OF STABILITY. WILL WAR OFFICE ADOPT GREAT INVENTION, EMPLOYED BY ALLIES' FLYING SERVICES?"
Three days later:
"SHERBRAND R.F.C. RECEIVES POSTHUMOUS HONOURS FROM FRANCE AND BELGIUM. CROIX D'HONNEUR AND ORDER OF LEOPOLD. WHY NOT BRITISH D.S.O.?"
CHAPTER LXX
A LOVER'S JOURNEY
The crossing—in this Arctic April weather when all of Britain and Belgium and North-West France lay under snowdrifts—had been calm and smooth enough for the worst sea-stomachs on the steamer. The tall young woman in the Navy blue felt hat with the well-known V.A.D. ribbon, and the long blue serge coat with the Red Cross shield-badge on the left breast, seemed used to travelling alone in War-time. She had secured a dry chair, set in the shelter of the after-deck-saloon, and a lifebelt as stipulated by the authorities, and tucked herself in her travelling-rug with her suit-case under her feet before the lights went out. Thus she had remained throughout the passage, with her dark eyes looking seawards, as deaf to occasional bursts of uproarious song from a draft of returning Blighties packed on the lower-deck, as to the siren's raucous shrieks.
Courteous fellow-passengers, chiefly British and Belgian officers returning from leave, would have been ready enough to have chatted with the young woman who was going to the Front. Such attentions as they offered her she accepted frankly. One got her tea and sandwiches, another offered chocolate, another a foot-warmer. Yet another insisted on lending her an unnecessary extra rug. They pointed out the hovering Fleet hydroplanes, and the diligently-scouting searchlights of the destroyers guarding the sea-way, and the Hull-bound Dutch liner whose neutrality was proclaimed in illuminated side-letters, blazing like a sea-Alhambra upon the east horizon, and the Hospital ship that passed close, coming from Boulogne laden with wounded, the huge Red Cross upon her flank picked out with blazing green lights.