"Rather!" his friend echoed. "But she hasn't arms enough for all the babies who want mothering here."

There were indeed plenty of them. Tired young mothers stood about everywhere, with children ranging from a few months to three or four years, all weary by this time, and most of them cross. Hara.s.sed young husbands, unused to travelling with children--unused, indeed, to anything but War--went hither and thither trying to hasten the business of getting on board--coming back, after each useless journey, to try and soothe a screaming baby or restrain a tiny boy anxious to look over the edge of the pier. It was only a few minutes before Cecilia had found a mother exhausted enough to yield up her baby without much protest; and Jim and Wally Meadows and Bob "adopted" some of the older children, and took them off to see the band; which diversions helped to pa.s.s the time.

But it was after five o'clock before a stir went round the pier, and a rush of officers towards a little wooden room at the foot of the gangway told that the long-waited-for official had arrived.

"Well, we won't hurry," said Mr. Linton. "Let the married men get on first."

There were not many who did not hurry. A few of the older officers kept back; the majority, who were chiefly subalterns, made a dense crowd about the little room, their long-pent impatience bursting out at last. Pa.s.sports examined, a procession began up the gangway; each man compelled to halt at a barrier on top, where two officers sat allotting cabins. It was difficult to see why both these preliminaries could not have been managed before, instead of being left until the moment of boarding; the final block strained every one's patience to breaking-point.

The Lintons and the Rainhams were almost the last to board the ship, having, not without thankfulness, relinquished their adopted babies. The officers allotting berths nodded comprehendingly on hearing the names of the two girls.

"Oh yes--you're together." He gave them their number.

"Together--how curious!" said Cecilia.

"Not a bit; you're the only unmarried ladies on board. And they're packed like sardines--not a vacant berth on the ship. Over two thousand men and two hundred officers, to say nothing of wives and children." He leaned back, thankful that his rush of work was over. "Well, when I make a long voyage I hope it won't be on a trooper!"

"Well, that's a bad remark to begin one's journey on," said Jim Linton, following the girls up the gangway. "Doesn't it scare you, Miss Rainham?"

"No," she said, with a little laugh. "Nothing would scare me except not going."

"Why, that's all right," he said. His hand fell on his sister's shoulder. "And what about you, Nor?"

The face she turned him was so happy that words were hardly needed.

"Why--I'm going back to Billabong!" she said.

CHAPTER IX

THE WELCOME OF AUSTRALIA

A path of moonlight lay across the sea. Into it drifted a great ship, her engines almost stopped, so that only a dull, slow throb came up from below, instead of the swift thud-thud of the screw that had pounded for many weeks. It was late; so late that most of the ship's lights were extinguished. But all through her was a feeling of pulsating life, of unrest, of a kind of tense excitement, of long-pent expectation.

There were low voices everywhere; feet paced the decks; along the port railings on each deck soldiers were cl.u.s.tered thickly, looking out across the grey, tossing sea to a winking light that flashed and twinkled out of the darkness like a voice that cried "Greeting!" For it was the Point Lonsdale light, at the sea gate of Victoria; and the men of the Nauru were nearly home.

There was little sleep for anyone on board on that last night. Most of the Nauru's great company were to disembark in Melbourne; the last two days had seen a general smartening up, a mighty polishing of leather and bra.s.s, a "rounding-up" of scattered possessions. The barber's shop had been besieged by s.h.a.ggy crowds; and since the barber, being but human, could not cope with more than a small proportion of his would-be customers, amateur clipping parties had been in full swing forward, frequently with terrifying results. n.o.body minded. "Git it orf, that's all that matters!" was the motto of the long-haired.

No one knew quite when the Nauru would berth; it was wrapped in mystery, like all movements of troopships. So every one was ready the night before--kit bags packed, gear stowed away, nothing left save absolute necessaries. Then, with the coming of dusk, unrest settled down upon the ship, and the men marched restlessly, up and down, or, gripping pipe stems between their teeth, stared from the railings northwards. And then, like a star at first, the Point Lonsdale light twinkled out of the darkness, and a low murmur ran round the decks--a murmur without words, since it came from men whose only fashion of meeting any emotion is with a joke; and even for a "digger" there is no joke ready on the lips, but only a catch at the heart, at the first glimpse of home.

Norah Linton had tucked herself away behind a boat on the hurricane deck, and there Cecilia Rainham found her just after dusk. The two girls had become sworn friends during the long voyage out, in the close companionship of sharing a cabin--which is a kind of acid test that generally brings out the best--and worst--of travellers. There was something protective in Norah's nature that responded instantly to the lonely position of the girl who was going across the world to a strange country. Both were motherless, but in Norah's case the blank was softened by a father who had striven throughout his children's lives to be father and mother alike to them, while Cecilia had only the bitter memory of the man who had shirked his duty until he had become less than a stranger to her. If any pang smote her heart at the sight of Norah's worshipping love for the tall grey "dad" for whom she was the very centre of existence, Cecilia did not show it. The Lintons had taken them into their little circle at once--more, perhaps, by reason of Cecilia's extraordinary introduction to them than through General Harran's letter--and Bob and his sister were already grateful for their friendship. They were a quiet quartet, devoted to each other in their undemonstrative fashion; Norah was on a kind of boyish footing with Jim, the huge silent brother who was a major, with three medal ribbons to his credit, and with Wally Meadows, his inseparable chum, who had been almost brought up with the brother and sister.

"They were always such bricks to me, even when I was a little sc.r.a.p of a thing," she had told Cecilia. "They never said I was 'only a girl,' and kept me out of things. So I grew up more than three parts a boy. It was so much easier for dad to manage three boys, you see!"

"You don't look much like a boy," Cecilia had said, looking at the tall, slender figure and the ma.s.s of curly brown hair. They were getting ready for bed, and Norah was wielding a hair-brush vigorously.

"No, but I really believe I feel like one--at least, I do whenever I am with Jim and Wally," Norah had answered. "And when we get back to Billabong it will be just as it always was--we'll be three boys together. You know, it's the most ridiculous thing to think of Jim and Wally as grown-ups. Dad and I can't get accustomed to it at all. And as for Jim being a major!--a major sounds so dignified and respectable, and Jim isn't a bit like that!"

"And what about Captain Meadows?"

"Oh--Wally will simply never grow up." Norah laughed softly. "He's like Peter Pan. Once he nearly managed it--in that bad time when Jim was a prisoner, and we thought he was killed. But Jim got back just in time to save him from anything so awful. One of the lovely parts of getting Jim again was to see the twinkle come back into Wally's eyes. You see, Wally is practically all twinkle!"

"And when you get back to Australia, what will you all do?"

Norah had looked puzzled.

"Why, I don't know that we've ever thought of it," she said. "We'll just all go to Billabong--we don't seem to think further than that. Anyway, you and Bob are coming too--so we can plan it all out then."

Looking at her, on this last night of the voyage, Cecilia wondered whether the unknown "Billabong" would indeed be enough, after the long years of war. They had been children when they left; now the boys were seasoned soldiers, with scars and honours, and such memories as only they themselves could know; and Norah and her father had for years conducted what they termed a "Home for Tired People," where broken and weary men from the front had come to be healed and tended, and sent back refitted in mind and body. This girl, who leaned over the rail and looked at the Point Lonsdale light, had seen suffering and sorrow; the mourning of those who had given up dear ones, the sick despair of young and strong men crippled in the very dawn of life; and had helped them all. Beside her, in experience, Cecilia felt a child. And yet the old bush home, with its simple life and the pleasures that had been everything to her in childhood, seemed everything to her now.

Cecilia went softly to her side, and Norah turned with a start.

"Hallo, Tommy!" she said, slipping her arm through the new-comer's--Cecilia had become "Tommy" to them all in a very short time, and her hated, if elegant, name left as a legacy to England. "I didn't hear you come. Oh, Tommy, it's lovely to see home again!"

"You can't see much," said Tommy, laughing.

"No, but it's there. I can feel it; and that old winking eye on Point Lonsdale is saying fifty nice things a minute. And I can smell the gum leaves--don't you tell me I can't, Tommy, just because your nose isn't tuned up to gum leaves yet!"

"Does it take long to tune a nose?" asked Tommy, laughing.

"Not a nice nose like yours." Norah gave a happy little sigh. "Do you see that glow in the sky? That's the lights of Melbourne. I went to school near Melbourne, but I never loved it much; but somehow, it seems different now. It's all just shouting welcomes. And back of beyond that light is Billabong."

"I want to see Billabong," said the other girl. "I never had a home that meant anything like that--I want to see yours."

"And I suppose you'll just think it's an ordinary, untidy old place--not a bit like the trim English places, where the woods look as though they were swept and dusted before breakfast every morning. I suppose it is all ordinary. But it has meant just everything I wanted, all my life, and I can't imagine its meaning anything less now."

"And what about Homewood--the Home for Tired People?"

"Oh, Homewood certainly is lovely," Norah said. "I like it better than any place in the world that isn't Billabong--and it was just wonderful to be able to carry it on for the Tired People: dad and I will always be thankful we had the chance. But it never was home: and now it's going to run itself happily without us, as a place for partly-disabled men, with Colonel Hunt and Captain Hardress to manage it. It was just a single chapter in our lives, and now it is closed. But we're--all of us--parts of Billabong."

Some one came quietly along the deck and to the vacant place on her other side.

"Who's talking Billabong again, old kiddie?" Jim Linton's deep voice was always gentle. Norah gave his shoulder a funny little rub with her head.

"Ah, you're just as bad as I am, so you needn't laugh at me, Jimmy."

"I wasn't laughing at you," Jim defended himself. "I expected to find you ever so much worse. I thought you'd sing anthems on the very word Billabong all through the voyage, especially in your bath. Of course I don't know what Tommy has suffered!"

"Tommy doesn't need your sympathy," said that lady. "However, she wants to look her best for Melbourne, so she's going to bed. Don't hurry, Norah; I know you want to exchange greetings with that light for hours yet!"

She slipped away, and Norah drew closer to Jim. Presently came Wally, on her other side, and a few moments later a deep voice behind them said, "Not in bed yet, Norah?"--and Wally made room for Mr. Linton.

"I couldn't go to bed, dad."

"Apparently most of the ship is of your mind--I didn't feel like bed myself," admitted the squatter, letting his hand rest for a moment on his daughter's shoulder. He gave a great sigh of happiness. "Eh, children, it's great to be near home again!"

"My word, isn't it!" said Jim. "Only it's hard to take in. I keep fancying that I'll certainly wake up in a minute and find myself in a trench, just getting ready to go over the top. What do you suppose they're doing at Billabong now, Nor?"