第20章 Prisoners and captives(1)

It was one day when Mother had gone to Maidbridge.She had gone alone, but the children were to go to the station to meet her.And, loving the station as they did, it was only natural that they should be there a good hour before there was any chance of Mother's train arriving, even if the train were punctual, which was most unlikely.

No doubt they would have been just as early, even if it had been a fine day, and all the delights of woods and fields and rocks and rivers had been open to them.But it happened to be a very wet day and, for July, very cold.There was a wild wind that drove flocks of dark purple clouds across the sky "like herds of dream-elephants," as Phyllis said.And the rain stung sharply, so that the way to the station was finished at a run.Then the rain fell faster and harder, and beat slantwise against the windows of the booking office and of the chill place that had General Waiting Room on its door.

"It's like being in a besieged castle," Phyllis said; "look at the arrows of the foe striking against the battlements!""It's much more like a great garden-squirt," said Peter.

They decided to wait on the up side, for the down platform looked very wet indeed, and the rain was driving right into the little bleak shelter where down-passengers have to wait for their trains.

The hour would be full of incident and of interest, for there would be two up trains and one down to look at before the one that should bring Mother back.

"Perhaps it'll have stopped raining by then," said Bobbie; "anyhow, I'm glad I brought Mother's waterproof and umbrella."They went into the desert spot labelled General Waiting Room, and the time passed pleasantly enough in a game of advertisements.You know the game, of course? It is something like dumb Crambo.The players take it in turns to go out, and then come back and look as like some advertisement as they can, and the others have to guess what advertisement it is meant to be.Bobbie came in and sat down under Mother's umbrella and made a sharp face, and everyone knew she was the fox who sits under the umbrella in the advertisement.

Phyllis tried to make a Magic Carpet of Mother's waterproof, but it would not stand out stiff and raft-like as a Magic Carpet should, and nobody could guess it.Everyone thought Peter was carrying things a little too far when he blacked his face all over with coal-dust and struck a spidery attitude and said he was the blot that advertises somebody's Blue Black Writing Fluid.

It was Phyllis's turn again, and she was trying to look like the Sphinx that advertises What's-his-name's Personally Conducted Tours up the Nile when the sharp ting of the signal announced the up train.The children rushed out to see it pass.On its engine were the particular driver and fireman who were now numbered among the children's dearest friends.Courtesies passed between them.Jim asked after the toy engine, and Bobbie pressed on his acceptance a moist, greasy package of toffee that she had made herself.

Charmed by this attention, the engine-driver consented to consider her request that some day he would take Peter for a ride on the engine.

"Stand back, Mates," cried the engine-driver, suddenly, "and horf she goes."And sure enough, off the train went.The children watched the tail-lights of the train till it disappeared round the curve of the line, and then turned to go back to the dusty freedom of the General Waiting Room and the joys of the advertisement game.

They expected to see just one or two people, the end of the procession of passengers who had given up their tickets and gone away.Instead, the platform round the door of the station had a dark blot round it, and the dark blot was a crowd of people.

"Oh!" cried Peter, with a thrill of joyous excitement, "something's happened! Come on!"They ran down the platform.When they got to the crowd, they could, of course, see nothing but the damp backs and elbows of the people on the crowd's outside.Everybody was talking at once.It was evident that something had happened.

"It's my belief he's nothing worse than a natural," said a farmerish-looking person.Peter saw his red, clean-shaven face as he spoke.

"If you ask me, I should say it was a Police Court case," said a young man with a black bag.

"Not it; the Infirmary more like--"

Then the voice of the Station Master was heard, firm and official:--"Now, then--move along there.I'll attend to this, if YOU please."But the crowd did not move.And then came a voice that thrilled the children through and through.For it spoke in a foreign language.

And, what is more, it was a language that they had never heard.

They had heard French spoken and German.Aunt Emma knew German, and used to sing a song about bedeuten and zeiten and bin and sin.Nor was it Latin.Peter had been in Latin for four terms.

It was some comfort, anyhow, to find that none of the crowd understood the foreign language any better than the children did.

"What's that he's saying?" asked the farmer, heavily.

"Sounds like French to me," said the Station Master, who had once been to Boulogne for the day.

"It isn't French!" cried Peter.

"What is it, then?" asked more than one voice.The crowd fell back a little to see who had spoken, and Peter pressed forward, so that when the crowd closed up again he was in the front rank.

"I don't know what it is," said Peter, "but it isn't French.I know that." Then he saw what it was that the crowd had for its centre.

It was a man--the man, Peter did not doubt, who had spoken in that strange tongue.A man with long hair and wild eyes, with shabby clothes of a cut Peter had not seen before--a man whose hands and lips trembled, and who spoke again as his eyes fell on Peter.

"No, it's not French," said Peter.

"Try him with French if you know so much about it," said the farmer-man.