Again and again Hemmingway ran his eye over fresh batches of women as they were brought into the marquees. In between whiles he returned to the crowded lawn or penetrated as far as the courtyard where the women were being shepherded into the vans. Hundreds of the prisoners had been removed during the time he had been searching, yet only the eastern end of the lawn showed signs that the evacuation was making any progress. Glancing at his watch, he realised that he had been in the grounds for three hours already and it would take hours yet before the whole great garden could be cleared of the thousands of prisoners.
His main hope now was that Lavina might be sleeping in a far part of the garden so that daylight would have come before she was collected into one of the batches. He knew that in the semi-darkness by the marquees he must be missing scores of women as they were led away, however frantically he looked to right and left; whereas, once dawn came, he would be able to scan each batch as it was shepherded into the courtyard. Tired and dispirited by this constant searching, which necessitated his turning his head first one way and then another without intermission, he began to fear that his task was completely hopeless.
At a quarter past four he visited the courtyard again. Another line of closed vans had been drawn up. The women were being helped into them by the soldiers and as each van was filled its door was locked behind them so that they could not jump out when the vans had left the Palace yard.
Suddenly, as the last van in the line of six was being loaded, he caught sight of a slim, golden-haired girl being helped up into it. Although he only glimpsed her for a moment, he felt certain it was Lavina and, all his depression gone in a second, he rushed forward. As he reached the van the last woman scrambled into it; a Guardman slammed-to the door, an Officer locked it and handed the key to a Sergeant.
'Stop!' panted Hemmingway. 'Lady Curry's in that van. I've been searching for her all night.'
The Officer gave him a surprised glance. 'Who're you? What are you doing here?' he asked quickly.
'I've just told you. I've been searching for Lady Curry and I've only just spotted her. Please unlock that door again.'
'Sorry.' The Officer shook his head and signed to the Sergeant who saluted and turned away. 'It's too late now. My orders are to get these women out of here with the least possible delay.'
'But please,' Hemmingway pleaded, as the right-hand van in the line began to move. 'It won't take you a minute to get the key back and unlock that door. She's ill from shock and I've got to get her down to the country.'
'Sorry,' the Officer repeated. 'I couldn't release her, in any case, without an order.'
'Then at least let me speak to her.'
The second and third vans were now moving towards the outer courtyard. The fourth was just about to follow.
'No time now,' the Officer said firmly. 'You can see for yourself the convoy's moving off.'
'Then, for God's sake, let me go with her.'
As Hemmingway spoke the fifth van ran forward and the sixth followed. The Officer shrugged helplessly but, now he had sighted it, Hemmingway was determined not to lose his quarry. Darting past the Officer, he raced the moving van and leapt up on the box beside the driver.
'What the hell?' exclaimed the soldier as Hemmingway subsided, panting, beside him.
'It's all right,' he gasped. 'A friend of mine's inside your van. There was no time to get her out so the Officer said I could come along with you.'
'Oh, in that case . . the driver shrugged. 'Got a cigarette on you?'
Hemmingway produced his case and, as his van followed the convoy out of the front courtyard of the Palace into the Mall, the man took one.
From Trafalgar Square they turned into Northumberland Avenue and headed for the Embankment. As they ran smoothly through the almost deserted streets Hemmingway was considering his next move. Everybody seemed to have a definite order that none of the prisoners were to be released without a written sanction. If he waited until the van got to its destination the probability was that another Officer there would refuse Lavina her freedom. Was it possible to bribe the driver to halt the van on the way down and get her out before they arrived at the place they were bound for?'
'D'y°u want to earn a Aver?' he asked the man quietly.
'Does a monkey like his nuts?' replied the driver, with a grin.
'Then, it's easy money for you,' Hemmingway went on. 'My girl-friend is inside and yours is the last van in the convoy. Pull up when they turn the corner under the Bridge into Queen Victoria Street as though you'd had engine trouble. Unlock the van so that I can get my girl out, and the fiver's yours with my eternal blessing.'
'No go, Guv'nor,' said the soldier regretfully. 'I don't suppose they'd miss her. What's one piece of skirt in all these truck-loads? And I'd be happy to oblige you, but I haven't got the key.'
'Who has, then?'
'The Sergeant, who's riding on the leading van.'
'Well,' said Hemmingway, thinking of the steel case opener under his coat, which was digging into his ribs now that he was sitting down, 'I shouldn't imagine the lock's very strong. We could break it open.'
'Maybe we could, but we're not going to. Think I'm going to be crimed for busting His Majesty's property and helping prisoners to escape? Not likely!'
'I'll make it a tenner,' Hemmingway offered.
The driver shook his head. 'Sorry, mate, but it can't be done; not if you made it fifty. In ordinary times I might have chanced it for ten or twenty quid—staged a little plot about you knocking me out or something—but in these days it just isn't worth it. They court-martial people for as little as blinkin' an eyelid; though, mind you, with all the trouble they're having and no sleep or anything, I don't blame 'em. But I'm not taking any chances of being popped in a cell because I want to be free to run for it when the old comet arrives.'
Where he proposed to run to he did not specify, but seeing that further attempts to bribe him were quite useless, Hemmingway had to contain his impatience as well as he could for the rest of the journey.
They ran on past the Mansion House, down Comhill, Leadenhall Street and Aldgate, to the East End. In the Commercial Road Hemmingway noticed that many of the shops had been looted; but all was quiet now except for patrolling squads of police and an occasional armoured car rolling by on its solid rubber wheels.
At last they veered south and, a few minutes later, passed through the gates of the West India Dock. Crossing railway lines and bridges, they wound their way between Customs sheds and dark out-buildings until they eventually pulled up on a wharfside to which a big ship was moored. There were a dozen other vans there besides those of the convoy with which Hemmingway had come, and the women from the earlier arrivals were already moving slowly up the gangways under big arc-lights into the ship.
Hemmingway got down, said good-bye to the driver, and waited patiently at the back of the van until the Sergeant came along and unlocked it. The van was pitch-dark inside and a blowsy woman fell out when the doors were opened. As she was helped to her feet she let out a stream of blasphemous curses.
'Steady there,' said the Sergeant. 'Letting fly at us won't do any good.'
An officer who had come up added: 'For your own sakes, as well as ours, please don't make a fuss. We're going to put you in this ship, where you'll be well fed and taken care of. As soon as you're all on board it will take you out into the estuary of the Thames.'
'Little trip to Southend, eh?' said a fat old woman jovially.
'That's it, mother,' laughed the officer. 'We're giving you a holiday for nothing and we want you to make the best of it. You'll be much safer out there in the ship, too, than you would be in London.'