A word of command rang out and was passed around by officers and non coms.

“Life belts must be put on before the ship sails!”

That simple order brought home the grim facts of war at that moment as scarcely anything else could have done.  Here was a grim warning of the peril that lurked outside.  Everywhere men were scurrying to obey—­I among the rest.  The order applied as much to us civilians as it did to any of the soldiers.  And my belt did not fit, and was hard, extremely hard, for me to don.  I could no manage it at all by myself, but Adam and Hogge had had an easier time with theirs, and they came to my help.  Among us we got mine on, and Hogge stood off, and looked at me, and smiled.

“An extraordinary effect, Harry!” he said, with a smile.  “I declare—­ it gives you the most charming embonpoint!”

I had my doubts about his use of the word charming.  I know that I should not have cared to have anyone judge of my looks from a picture taken as I looked then, had one been taken.

But it was not a time for such thoughts.  For a civilian, especially, and one not used to journeys in such times as these, there is a thrill and a solemnity about the donning of a life preserver.  I felt that I was indeed, it might be, taking a risk in making this journey, and it was an awesome thought that I, too, might have seen my native land for the last time, and said a real good-by to those whom I had left behind me.

Now we cast off, and began to move, and a thrill ran through me such as I had never known before in all my life.  I went to the rail as we turned our nose toward the open sea.  A destroyer was ahead, another was beside us, others rode steadily along on either side.  It was the most reassuring of sights to see them.  They looked so business like, so capable.  I could not imagine a Hun submarine as able to evade their watchfulness.  And moreover, there were the watchful man birds above us, the circling airplanes, that could make out, so much better than could any lookout on a ship, the first trace of the presence of a tin fish.  No—­I was not afraid!  I trusted in the British navy, which had guarded the sea lane so well that not a man had lost his life as the result of a Hun attack, although many millions had gone back and forth to France since the beginning of the war.

I did not stay with my own party.  I preferred to move about among the Soldiers.  I was deeply interested in them, as I have always been.  And I wanted to make friends among them, and see how they felt.

“Lor’ lumme—­its old ’Arry Lauder!” said one cockney.  “God bless you, ’Arry—­many’s the time I’ve sung with you in the ’alls.  It’s good to see you with us!”

And so I was greeted everywhere.  Man after man crowded around me to shake hands.  It brought a lump into my throat to be greeted so, and it made me more than ever glad that the military authorities had been able to see their way to grant my request.  It confirmed my belief that I was going where I might be really useful to the men who were ready and willing to make the greatest of all sacrifices in the cause so close to all our hearts.