The Legion of the Lost, стр. 42
Then she tripped and fell heavily.
She did not cry. Palfrey, nearest her, saw her look up with a strained expression; he bent down and helped her up.
She looked into his face, still silent, but there was a message in her eyes as clear as any spoken one. More than that; beneath her frail body was a small envelope. Palfrey tightened his lips, picked up the envelope and hid it in his hand as he helped Lissa to her feet. Drusilla joined him and began to dust down the child’s frock. There were two or three scratches on her knees, but she did not seem perturbed by them as she thanked Drusilla gravely and walked more sedately towards the crowd.
None of the others had seen the letter.
Palfrey slipped it into his pocket, knowing that it would not be wise to open and read it there. The possibility that it was another message from the Marquis loomed large in his mind’s eye. He played with the idea of going to the cloakroom to read it covertly but he heard the puffing of an engine and saw the extra carriages being shunted along.
There was a concerted rush of people from the centre of the platform to the far end.
Chapter Twenty-One
Berlin
Drusilla was sandwiched between Stefan and Brian, and Conroy squeezed up against the corner next to Palfrey, but they had the satisfaction of sharing that end of the compartment between them. For a while the passengers were too busy regaining their breath to look about them. Before the compartment had really settled down the train jolted into motion.
It was a little after seven o’clock; the train started punctually.
‘Something over four hundred miles to go,’ mused Palfrey. ‘And we’ll be lucky if we don’t have to change.’
He fancied that he could feel the letter pressing against his side, although that was absurd. A dozen times he imagined that he saw the big eyes of Dross’s niece and ached to get at his pocket, although doubting whether it would be wise, since all eyes would be turned on anyone making a nuisance of himself.
After a little more than two hours they drew into a large town. Palfrey was not sure of its identity, but as he looked out of the windows he was aghast. It had evidently once been a large port. Now it looked as if a giant hand had swept all important buildings to ground level; there was nothing standing except a few solitary walls and, incongruously enough, two large cranes.
They passed that scene of desolation and entered the station. There was evidence enough of bomb damage there, but the houses and shops nearby did not seem greatly affected, although there were large gaps torn in them. He caught a glimpse of the name-board and realised with a sense of shock that it was Lubeck.
They stopped there only for a short while, and were a long time going across the plain of north-west Germany, gradually drawing nearer to Berlin. The train made an average speed of about thirty miles an hour, Palfrey judged. The compartment grew hot and stuffy and smelly; it was a long time since he had experienced the fetid smell of unwashed bodies. Clothes, hands and faces were dirty – dirtier by far than they had been in Oslo or Copenhagen. Soldiers and civilians alike had grey faces and red-rimmed eyes; they looked like denizens of a lost world.
Palfrey’s party had a few sandwiches, which they took out furtively, one by one, the other passengers doing the same.
The silence was remarkable – hardly a dozen words were exchanged the whole time – and because of that the journey seemed never-ending. The unvaried scenery, with only a few hills and stretches of wooded land, added to their boredom.
Palfrey began to look at his watch every five minutes, seeing the hands crawl along. Until midday the time went fairly fast; after that it seemed to stand still. He grew parched and hungry in spite of the few sandwiches, but could not get at some packets of chocolates in his pockets.
Three o’clock. Four o’clock. Five.
He tried to doze off, did in fact fall into a troubled sleep, only to be woken up by a grinding jolt as the train stopped. He heard shouts from the guards and saw two or three of them walking along the track, but although he craned his neck he could not find out what had happened. There was a delay of an hour or more before the train started off again at a slow speed.
Fifty yards further along he knew what had caused the hold-up.
On the other track stood an engine with a great hole in its side. Some goods wagons were attached to it but further beyond it a dozen others were on their side, tins and packets and machinery were strewn about the side of the track. A few dozen oldish men were laboriously removing the mess, stacking the salvage in great piles. One of the soldiers in the compartment broke the long silence with three pregnant words: ‘Those damned Tommies!’
A great load seemed to lift from Palfrey’s heart. It no longer mattered that they were cramped and uncomfortable and that the journey seemed never-ending. The R.A.F. had come as far as this on one of its daylight intruder patrols; in consequence another engine was useless, more equipment destroyed. He leaned back more comfortably than for some time, fancying that he saw a satisfied smile in Drusilla’s eyes.
After that the journey continued without noticeable delay for a while, although there were times when the train crawled along at little more than ten miles an hour. The sun sank lower and lower into the