She could hear noisy conversations on board, the hundreds of soldiers and nurses eager for warm, loving reunions with family and friends. This was ridiculous. All the terrible things Adele had survived, and she was afraid to board a ship? No more battered bodies, she told herself. No more amputated limbs or broken skulls. No more stink of blood. No more screams of men day and night. Instead, she would get some real, quality sleep. She’d see Marie and her baby. She’d eat Maman’s cooking again.
At last, Adele took a bracing breath and stepped onto the gangplank, then onto the big grey ship.
The sail went without a hitch despite all her fears. She didn’t sleep much; the movement of the ship kept the three of them up most nights, but they arrived in Halifax without any difficulties. The rain was still coming down when they landed, as if the storm had chased them over the sea, and by the time they were through customs, the rain had hardened to sleet. The three friends walked as far as they could together, then stopped under an overhang, trying to stay dry.
“Well, this is it,” Lillian said, reaching for Adele.
Lillian and Hazel would stay here. They were meeting up with their families then driving home to New Brunswick. Adele would be going on alone on the train. She closed her eyes, hanging on to her friend’s embrace as hard as she could, already missing her. It hardly seemed real, saying goodbye after four years. She knew these girls almost as well as she knew herself.
“It’s going to be so strange not seeing you every day,” she said, sniffing against Lillian’s coat.
Lillian backed away, making room for Hazel. “It’s not forever,” Lillian assured them all, but her eyes were red from crying. “We’ll stay in touch, won’t we?”
“I’ll write to you all the time,” Hazel promised, giving Adele a teary peck on the cheek.
The three of them stood looking at each other, hesitant to break apart.
“You’d better go,” Lillian said. “Your train’s leaving soon.”
Adele bit her lower lip. “I’ll miss you both so much.”
One more hug for all three, then Adele picked up her trunks, ducked her head under the brim of her hat, and sprinted toward the train, dodging the throngs of uniforms.
“Can I help you, ma’am?”
She glanced up from under her hat. A black man in a red porter’s uniform stood before her, soaked from the top of his cap to the toes of his shiny boots. His eyes were tired, but a patient smile stretched across his face.
“Oh, that would be lovely,” she said, gratefully handing off her cases. He took them with a nod then carried them toward the train, as if they weighed nothing at all. Once on board, she found a seat, and the porter stowed her things.
“Can I help you with anything else, ma’am?” he asked after he’d taken her wet overcoat and hat.
“No, no,” Adele replied. She dug into her little purse, pulled out a dime. “I’m just so glad to be here, dry and warm. Thank you for your help.”
He gave her a nod of thanks, then headed back out into the storm.
Adele turned to her seatmate, a young woman with a charming bob haircut. “Hello, I’m Adele.”
The girl put down the book she was reading. “Bridget. Nice to meet you.” Her sharp gaze rose over Adele’s head, assessing the people still coming onto the train. “I hope you paid George well.”
“I’m sorry? George?”
“The porter. They’re called George.”
Adele peered back down the aisle. Porters were moving smoothlybetween the door and the seats, but the man who had helped her was gone.
“What do you mean? All of them are called George?”
Bridget nodded and opened her book again. “They’re not paid. They live off tips, so every time I see one, I’m as generous as I can be.”
Adele thought about the $4.10 she’d been paid every day she’d served in the war. She hadn’t really had much of an opportunity to spend any until today when she’d bought her train ticket to Toronto. She looked down the aisle, then stopped a porter as he was passing by.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. “There was a porter who helped me get on the train, but I don’t know his name, and I wanted to thank him properly.”
He gave her a lost kind of look, and she realized that she was taking him away from his work. Disconcerted, she dug in her purse and handed him the first four coins that touched her fingertips.
“Here. Please accept this.”
“It wasn’t me that helped you, ma’am.”
