... That rattle on the stones was the firing. It had come at last. She saw Gwinnie looking back round the corner of the hood to see what it was like. She called to her, "Don't stick your head out, you silly cuckoo.

You'll be hit." She said to herself, If I think about it I shall feel quite jumpy. It was one thing to go tearing along between two booming batteries, in excitement, with an end in view, and quite another thing to sit tight and still on a motionless car, to be fired on. A bit trying to the nerves, she thought, if it went on long. She was glad that her car stood next to the line of fire, sheltering Gwinnie's, and she wondered how John was getting on up there.

The hands of the ambulance clock pointed to half-past three. They had been waiting forty minutes, then. She got down to see if any of the stretcher bearers were in sight.

They were coming back. Straggling, lurching forms. White bandages. The wounded who could walk came first. Then the stretchers.

Alice Bartrum stopped as she pa.s.sed Charlotte. The red had gone from her sunburn, but her face was undisturbed.

"You've got to wait here," she said, "for Mr. Conway and Sutty. And Trixie and Mac. They mayn't be back for ages. They've gone miles up the field."

She waited.

The front cars had been loaded, had driven off and returned three times.

It was six o'clock before John appeared with Mrs. Rankin.

She heard Mrs. Rankin calling sharply to her to get down and give a hand with the stretcher.

John and Mrs. Rankin were disputing.

_"Can't_ you shove it in at the bottom?" he was saying.

_"No._ The first cases _must_ go on top."

Her mouth snapped like a clamp. Her eyes were blazing. She was struggling with the head of the stretcher while John heaved at the foot. He staggered as he moved, and his face was sallow-white and drawn and glistening. When Charlotte took the shafts from him they were slippery with his sweat.

"Is he hurt?" she whispered.

"Very badly hurt," said Mrs. Rankin.

"John, I mean."

Mrs. Rankin snorted. "You'd better ask him."

John was slouching round to the front of the car, anxious to get out of the sight and sound of her. He went with an uneven dropping movement of one hip. Charlotte followed him.

"Get into your seat, Sharlie. We've got to wait for Billy and McClane."

He dragged himself awkwardly into the place beside her.

"John," she said, "are you hurt?"

"No. But I think I've strained something. That's why I couldn't lift that d.a.m.ned stretcher."

The windows stood wide open to the sweet, sharp air. She heard Mrs.

Rankin and Sutton talking on the balcony. In that dreadful messroom you heard everything.

"What do you suppose it was then?" Mrs. Rankin said.

And Sutton, "Oh, I don't know. Something upset him."

"If he's going to be upset _like that_ every time he'd better go home."

They were talking--she knew they were talking about John.

"Hallo, Charlotte, we haven't left you much tea."

"It doesn't matter."

Her hunger left her suddenly. She stared with disgust at the remains of the tea the McClane Corps had eaten.

Sutton went on. "He hasn't been sleeping properly. I've made him go to bed."

"If you can keep him in bed for the duration of the war--"

"Are you talking about John?"

"We are."

"I don't know what you're driving at; but I suppose he was sick on that beastly battlefield. It's all very well for you two; you're a trained nurse and Billy's a surgeon.... You aren't taken that way when you see blood."

"Blood?" said Mrs. Rankin.

"Yes. Blood. He was perfectly all right yesterday."

Mrs. Rankin laughed. "Yesterday he couldn't see there was any danger. You could tell that by the idiotic things he said."

"I saw it. And if I could he could."

"Funny kid. You'd better get on with your tea. You'll be sent out again before you know where you are."

Charlotte settled down. Sutton was standing beside her now, cutting bread and b.u.t.ter.

"Hold on," he said. "That tea's all stewed and cold. I'll make you some of mine."

She drank the hot, fragrant China tea he brought her.

Presently she stood up. "I think I'll take John some of this."

"Best thing you can give him," Sutton said. He got up and opened the doors for her, the gla.s.s doors and the door of the bedroom.

She sat down beside John's bed and watched him while he drank Sutton's tea. He said he was all right now. No. He hadn't ruptured anything; he only thought he had; but Sutton had overhauled him and said he was all right.

And all the time his face was still vexed and drawn. Something must have happened out there; something that hurt him to think of.