It was a clear, crisp morning with a sparkle of frost on jetty and breakwater. The English Channel stretched flashing like a living sheet of glass to the filmy line marking the coast of France, as serene and beautiful in its calm as it is savage and cruel in its anger. It was high tide; but only a gentle murmur came from the little waves that idly beat upon the shore in front of the bungalow.
A girl lay in a deck chair on the verandah, well wrapped up against the eager air. But the fresh breeze would not be denied and, foiled by the nurse’s vigilance of its intents against the patient, it revenged itself by blowing havoc among the soft brown curls which peeped out from under the girl’s hat.
She turned to the man at her side.
“Look!” she said, and pointed seawards with her finger.
A convoy of vessels was standing out to sea framed in the smoke-blurs of the escorting destroyers. Ugly, weatherbeaten craft were the steamers with trails of smoke blown out in the breeze behind them. They rode the sea’s highway with confidence, putting their trust in the unseen power that swept the road clear for them.
“Transports, aren’t they?” asked the man.
But he scarcely looked at the transports. He was watching the gleam of the sun on the girl’s brown hair and contrasting the deep gray of her eyes with the ever-changing hues of the sea.
“Yes,” replied the girl. “It’s the third day they’ve gone across! By this time next week there’ll be ten fresh divisions in France. How secure they look steaming along! And to think they owe it all to you!”
The man laughed and flushed up.
“From the strictly professional standpoint the less said about me the better,” he said.