It was the beginning of a gorgeous blue and gold September morning, but
everything was misty and silvery and shiny with dew and mist.
"Cheer up, little thing!" Mrs. Gilpin said as I got in.
"Everyone is turning out to give them a send-off," Grace said. "I
suppose the Major has been gone hours?"
"Yes," I answered, "his orderly called for him at four. Mother never
goes to see him off. She hates it."
Mrs. Gilpin made sympathetic noises.
"Walter Markham is the most fed-up thing on earth. He hates new
recruits. He wishes he was going," said Grace.
"Perhaps the war will soon be over; the papers say the _morale_ of the
German troops is deteriorating," said Mrs. Gilpin hopefully;
conversation languished until we arrived.
All the coldness and greyness of the morning seemed concentrated in that
little station. It was heart-breaking; and the mess band blaring out
"Soldiers of the King" seemed to accentuate the dreariness.
The battery had answered the roll-call; when we arrived they stood in
little groups, some of them sitting on their kit-bags, the tin
bullet-proof helmets that had been served out the previous day hanging
from their haversacks.
"There's Captain Markham," said Grace. "There's Mr. Wood and Connel;
there's Colonel and Mrs. Walters, and there's your father. I don't see
Captain Cromer, Pam."
"I--I expect he'll be here," I answered foolishly.
We passed through the gate on to the platform; the little group of women
outside the barrier watched us enviously.
I was shivering and my teeth were chattering--the silence was so
uncanny. It was as if all those women outside and the men on the
platform were waiting for a miracle to happen and deliver them from the
necessity to face the immediate future.
Father was much in evidence. He came up and spoke to us, and then
bustled off again.