I do not say that the expedition I propose to describe was accompanied by any very great risk. The streets, of course, were dark and the taxis and motor-buses were quite up to the usual average in number and well above it in speed. Still, when your mind is full of stories of shrapnel and Black Marias, you feel able to affront motor vehicles, even in darkened streets, with a feeling of comparative security. It is not so much danger as mystery that makes this story remarkable.
There were two of us, and we found ourselves taking tea in the N.W. district, that is to say in one of those parts (there are millions of them) which lie about the Abbey Road. One of us had knitted belts for soldiers; another knew a hero who had received the D.S.O., and all of us had been brought into close connection with Belgian refugees whose cheerful courage under terrible suffering formed the burden of our talk. Not to know a Belgian in these days is a mark of social outlawry, and you cannot know them without admiring them. The fire was warm, the room was comfortable, and the minutes ticked themselves away in the usual place on the mantelpiece.
"How long," said one of us, "will it take us to walk from here to Paddington?"
"To walk?" said our hostess in a tone of mild surprise.
"Yes," I said, "to walk. We are the ones for adventure. We are country folk, and we don't get a chance of a walk in St. John's Wood every day."
"I don't want to hurry you," said our hostess, "but if you really want to walk you must start at once."
We did. We went out, turned to the right, and plunged head-first towards the brooding darkness of Maida Vale.
"Are you sure," said my companion; "that you know the way?"
"No," I said, "I am not sure. Is one sure of anything in this life? But Paddington is a big place. We can't miss it. Think of its immense glass roof and take courage. We are bound to get there sooner or later."
"Yes," she said, "but we want to get there for the 5.50."
"True," I said: "We must limit our wanderings. I will ask this gentleman. He is standing at a corner. He has leisure and must know the way to Paddington."
I approached the gentleman and addressed him. "Sir," I said, "can you tell me the best way to get to Paddington?"
He looked at me suspiciously. "The station?" he said.
"Yes," I said, "Paddington station."
"Are you going to walk?"
I said we were.
"Ah," he said, "that makes a difference. If you wanted a bus now I might help you: but I'm lame, you see—only got one real leg. Run over by a van a matter of ten years ago, and I don't do much hard walking myself. Still you can't go far wrong if you take the first on the left."
We tore ourselves away, took the first on the left and walked on, ever on, through a wilderness of silent and unfamiliar houses. At last we came upon a baker's cart. "Ask him," said my fellow-traveller, pointing to the baker's man. I asked him.
"Are we right," I said, "for Paddington?"
"Oh yes," he said, "you're right enough. You'll get there in time, but you'll have to walk round the world first. My advice is to go in the opposite direction and take the second on the right, close to the dairy; you can't miss it."
Again we fled into the blackness. Paddington had shrunk to the size of a needle and we were in a huge bottle of hay, an oriental bottle full of weird surprises in the shape of sultans, genie, princesses, mosques, one-eyed porters, but never a hint of a railway station. How, indeed, could there be a railway station in Bagdad five hundred years ago?
"Ask again," said the other one. I addressed a gentleman who was hurrying over a bridge, "Can you," I said, "direct me to Paddington station?"
He murmured something unintelligible and pointed to his ears.
I repeated my question loudly and again he murmured. At last I made out his words: "Stone deaf, stone deaf."
"Great heavens," I said, "all the infirmities of the world are come out against us. The man with one leg—the stone-deaf man. What next, what next?"
The second wayfarer seized my arm. "Look," she said, pointing to the sky. There, before our eyes, merging into the foggy infinity of the heavens, was the glass roof of our dreams. We ran like hares. We collided with everybody. Both of us had our feet trodden on by soldiers. We shouted at porters and they shouted back at us, and at last we flung ourselves into a train.
"You don't often come by this train," said a friendly fellow-passenger.
"No," I said, "I generally come by the 6.50."
"This is the 6.50," he said.
(Sympathetically addressed to the Hamburg Colonial Institute, which "has undertaken the task of showing that Germany has conducted her operations in the spirit of the most enlightened humanity.")
That extends from the East to the West,
Have arisen full many occasions
For a man to put forth of his best;
When the battle was raging its roughest,
Men have spared themselves never a jot,
But, gentlemen, yours is the toughest
Affair of the lot.
Has not proved too easy a course,
For they seem to be hindered by French's
No longer contemptible force,
But their work with the gun and the sabre,
Their frenzied attempts to break through,
Are child's play compared with the labour
Allotted to you.
Will meet with a general scorn,
For I doubt if all history mentions
A hope so extremely forlorn;
But, should you succeed in acquitting
The Huns and their bellicose boss,
All the world will unite in admitting
You merit your Cross.
War Stringency.
From the catalogue of a G. W. R. salvage sale:—
"696. 2 bags tares and 1 grass seed."
We have bought the grass seed and are planting it in our garden. If anybody hears of another for sale we shall be glad to know.
"Zouaves carry Wood at Point of Bayonet."
Daily Paper.
We always keep a cork tip on ours in case of accidents.
