At Lerwick we learned the name of the port for which we had to make. ’Twas Aberdeen, and as the captain shouted this to us from the boat in which he was returning from the man-of-war, all the officers rushed to look at their shipping almanacks to see what the tides were. We made out that we could just get in in time. And the vessel that night did the best she ever did.
Still we missed the tide and had to wait all day outside Aberdeen, and that was very tantalising. I had made up my mind to stay the night at a hotel, and then suddenly the Daylight Saving Bill made me an unlooked-for present of an hour, and it was possible to catch the 8.30 night train for London.
An extremely cautious Customs Officer looked at my things, but said naught, and he insisted on my unpacking the samovar which I was bringing home. When he saw it, he remarked:
“It’ll be something for taking pictures?”
He said this because I had put in the chimney a number of pictures and maps to keep them from crumpling.
The doctor when he came thought we might be detained in quarantine for a week. The captain had a sore throat. He must go to a hospital and have a culture of it taken.
“A lot of bally rot, I call it,” the captain kept repeating, and tears were almost trickling from his eyes.
The doctor, however, let me go, and I sent a small boy to fetch a taxi. The taxi appeared at about 8.25 P. M., and I just got to the station in time. There was half a minute.
“Take it easy, you’ve plenty of time,” said a porter to me, characteristically.
All my possessions were labelled, and the doors of the guard’s pan opened in the moving train and accepted the extra bags. I sped along through a throng of women waving good-bye to soldiers, and got into a carriage as by miracle.