Then I went up on deck, and there I was shown, that I might savor all
the small attendant mysteries of the white ship, the officers' cabins
and the staterooms for the nurses. These were, like the saloons, well
designed, of good proportions. They were, too, inlaid with stained
wood, richly patterned.
And I did not like to leave that ship, but a messenger had come aboard
with the word that the train in which I was to go to London would start
within five minutes. So I went with the captain and with the doctor who
was in charge, and we walked along the platform beside the doctor's
train, walked the full length of it, passing coach after coach, each
with closed doors and a big scarlet cross painted between the blind
windows. It seemed curiously unlike a train, this hospital.
At the door of the first compartment we stopped, and I bade the captain
good-bye and thanked him. He said something about hoping that I would
not be too late in making London, and there was the conviction in his
voice that it was, after all, somewhat of a journey that lay before me.
But to the captain the white ambulance trains and their safe passage to
and fro were but just a part of the business of the day. While to me,
in this momentous step by which I was to enter the forward compartment,
I was achieving a new world. So many, many times I had watched the
wounded train passing by, slowly, smoothly, with the clear, broad
panels flashing in the sunlight. And I had wondered what mysterious,
what grave and splendid facts of war, were concealed within that
inscrutable interior.
And I was to journey to London in one of those great white trains!
I stepped inside; and because the front of the carriage was two broad
windows and because it was the first coach, I saw, framed in sills of
dark wood, the black, square bulk of the engine, extraordinarily solid
and imposing. Outside, on the platform, the doctor was standing with
his hand on the frame of the opened door.
The engineer leaned out of his cab. The doctor turned, looked at him,
nodded and said, "All right."
The engineer moved back in his seat. The doctor stepped into the
compartment and closed the door. Thus, in the most casual and engaging
fashion, the ceremony was completed. We were off.
I saw the concrete flooring of the pier moving past on either side and
the columnar supports of the pier roof gliding by our windows. Through
the open arched space between them I could see the sunlit water and the
gray line of a wharf. Beyond, the tall masts of a ship rose very black
against a brilliant and intensely blue sky.
There was in the compartment a curious impression of stillness, which
I believe was due in great part to the very size of it. Certainly, it
was quite the largest carriage I had ever seen. By the windows, placed
on either side, were two big couches done in dark blue, with blue
cushions; at the foot of one of them stood a square, closed desk, with
a continental telephone above. There were also a table and swiveled
armchairs, upholstered in gentian-colored cloth, with gold borders.
A vase, filled with bright flowers, stood on the table; an opened
book, turned face downward, had been left on the couch. And this was a
compartment in a train.