e
had chosen him. 64

"Brother goin' out, miss?"

Noel nodded.

"Ah! It's a crool war. I shan't be sorry when it's over. Goin' out and
comin' in, we see some sad sights 'ere. Wonderful spirit they've got,
too. I never look at the clock now but what I think: 'There you go,
slow-coach! I'd like to set you on to the day the boys come back!' When
I puts a bag in: 'Another for 'ell' I thinks. And so it is, miss, from
all I can 'ear. I've got a son out there meself. It's 'ere they'll come
along. You stand quiet and keep a lookout, and you'll get a few minutes
with him when he's done with 'is men. I wouldn't move, if I were you;
he'll come to you, all right--can't miss you, there.' And, looking at
her face, he thought: 'Astonishin' what a lot o' brothers go. Wot oh!
Poor little missy! A little lady, too. Wonderful collected she is.
It's 'ard!'" And trying to find something consoling to say, he mumbled
out: "You couldn't be in a better place for seen'im off. Good night,
miss; anything else I can do for you?"

"No, thank you; you're very kind."

He looked back once or twice at her blue-clad figure standing very still.
He had left her against a little oasis of piled-up empty milk-cans, far
down the platform where a few civilians in similar case were scattered.
The trainway was empty as yet. In the grey immensity of the station and
the turmoil of its noise, she felt neither lonely nor conscious of others
waiting; too absorbed in the one thought of seeing him and touching him
again. The empty train began backing in, stopped, and telescoped with a
series of little clattering bangs, backed on again, and subsided to rest.
Noel turned her eyes towards the station arch ways. Already she felt
tremulous, as though the regiment were sending before it the vibration of
its march.

She had not as yet seen a troop-train start, and vague images of brave
array, of a flag fluttering, and the stir of drums, beset her. Suddenly
she saw a brown swirling mass down there at the very edge, out of which a
thin brown trickle emerged towards her; no sound of music, no waved flag.
She had a longing to rush down to the barrier, but remembering the words
of the porter, stayed where she was, with her hands tightly squeezed
together. The trickle became a stream, a flood, the head of which began
to reach her. With a turbulence of voices, sunburnt men, burdened up to
the nose, passed, with rifles jutting at all angles; she strained