IX
She was glad they had been sent out with the McClane Corps to Melle. She wanted McClane to see the stuff that John was made of. She knew what had been going on in the commandant's mind. He had been trying to persuade himself that John was no good, because, from the minute he had seen him with his ambulance on the wharf at Ostend, from the minute he had known his destination, he had been jealous of him and afraid. Why, he must have raced them all the way from Ostend, to get in first. Afraid and jealous, afraid of John's youth with its secret of triumph and of courage; jealous of John's face and body that men and women turned back to look at as they passed; even the soldiers going up to the battlefields, going up to wounds and death, turned to look at this creature of superb and brilliant life. Even on the boat he must have had a dreadful wonder whether John was bound for Ghent; he must have known from the beginning that wherever Conway placed himself he would stand out and make other men look small and insignificant. If he wasn't jealous and afraid of Sutton she supposed it was because John had had that rather diminishing effect on poor Billy.
If Billy Sutton distinguished himself that would open McClane's eyes a little wider, too.
She wondered why Billy kept on saying that McClane was a great psychologist. If it was true that would be very awful for McClane; he would see everything going on inside people, then, all the things he didn't want to see; he wouldn't miss anything, and he would know all the time what John was like. The little man was wilfully shutting his eyes because he was so mean that he couldn't bear to see John as he really was. Now he would have to see.
The thought of McClane's illumination consoled her for her own inferior place in the adventure. This time the chauffeurs would have to stay at the end of the village with their cars. The three were drawn up at the street side, close under the house walls, McClane's first. Then Sutton's, with Gwinnie. Then hers; behind it the short straight road where the firing would come down.
John stood in the roadway waiting for the others. He had his hand beside her hand, grasping the arm of the driver's seat.
"I wish you could take me with you," she said.
"Can't. The orders are, all chauffeurs to stand by the cars."
… His eyebrows knotted and twitched in sudden anxiety.
"You know, Sharlie, you'll be fired on."
"I know. I don't mind, John, I don't really. I shall be all right."
"Yes. You'll be all right." But by the way he kept on glancing up and down the road she could see he was uneasy. "If you could have stood in front of those cars. You're in the most dangerous place here."
"Somebody's got to be in it."
He looked at her and smiled. "Jeanne," he said, "in her armour."
"Rot."
And they were silent.
"I say, John—my car does cover Gwinnie's a bit, doesn't it?"
"Yes," he said abruptly.
"That's all right. You must go now. They're coming for the stretchers."
His face quivered. He thrust out his hand quickly, and as she took it she thought: He thinks he isn't coming back. She was aware of Mrs. Rankin and two of the McClane men with stretchers, passing; she could see Mrs. Rankin looking at them as she came on, smiling over her shoulder, drawing the men's attention to their leave-taking.
She thought: They don't shake hands when they're going out. They don't think whether they're coming back or not…. They don't think at all. But then, none of them were lovers as she and John were lovers.
"John, you'd better go and carry Mrs. Rankin's stretcher for her."
He went.
She watched them as they walked together up the short straight road to the battlefield at the top. Sutton followed with Alice Bartrum; then the McClane men; they nodded to her and smiled. Then McClane, late, running, trying to overtake John and Mrs. Rankin, to get to the head of his unit. Perhaps he was afraid that John, in his khaki, would be mistaken for the commandant.
How childish he was with his fear and jealousy. Childish. She thought of his petulant refusal to let John come in with them. As if he could really keep him out. When it came to action they were one corps; they couldn't very well be divided, since McClane had more men than stretchers and John had more stretchers than men. They would all be infinitely happier, working together like that, instead of standing stupidly apart, glaring and hating.
Yet she knew what McClane and Mrs. Rankin had been playing for. McClane, if he could, would have taken their fine Roden cars from them; he would have taken Sutton. She knew that Mrs. Rankin would have taken John from her, Charlotte Redhead, if she could.
And when she thought of the beautiful, arrogant woman, marching up to the battlefield with John, she wondered whether, after all, she didn't hate her…. No. No. It was horrible to hate a woman who at any minute might be killed. They said McClane didn't look after his women. He didn't care how they exposed themselves to the firing; he took them into unnecessary danger. He didn't care. He was utterly cold, utterly indifferent to everybody and everything except his work of getting in the wounded…. Well, perhaps, if he had been decent to John, she wouldn't have believed a word of it, and anyhow they hadn't come out there to be protected.
She had a vision of John and McClane carrying Mrs. Rankin between them on a stretcher. That was what would happen if you hated. Hate could kill.
Then John and she were safe. They were lovers. Lovers. Neither of them had ever said a word, but they owned the wonderful, immaterial fact in secret to each other; the thought of it moved in secret behind all their other thoughts. From the moment, just passed, when they held each other's hands she knew that John loved her, not in a dream, not in coldness, but with a queer unearthly ardour. He had her in his incredible, immaterial way, a way that none of them would understand.
From the Barrow Hill Farm time? Or from yesterday? She didn't know. Perhaps it had gone on all the time; but it would be only since yesterday that he really knew it.
A line of soldiers marched by, going up to the battlefield. They looked at her and smiled, a flashing of bright eyes and teeth all down the line. When they had passed the street was deserted.
… 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 passed 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 damned 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 butter.
"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 glass 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.
"John," she said, "I wish I'd gone with you instead of Mrs. Rankin."
"I wish to God you had. Everything's all right when you're with me, and everything's all wrong when you're not."
"How do you mean, wrong?"
He shook his head, frowning slightly, as a sign for her to stop. Sutton had come into the room.
"You needn't go," he said, "I've only come for my coat and my case. I've got to help with the operations."
He slipped into the white linen coat. There were thin smears of blood on the sleeves and breast. He groped about the room, peering short-sightedly for his case of instruments.
"John, was Mrs. Rankin any good?" she asked presently.
John lay back and closed his eyes as if to shut out the sight of
Mrs. Rankin.
"Don't talk to me," he said, "about that horrible woman."
Sutton had turned abruptly from his search.
"Good?" he said. "She was magnificent. So was Miss Bartrum. So was
McClane."
John opened his eyes. "So was Charlotte."
"I quite agree with you." Sutton had found his case. His face was hidden by the raised lid as he peered, examining his instruments. He spoke abstractly. "Magnificent."
When he left the room Charlotte followed him.
"Billy—"
"Well—"
He stopped in his noiseless course down the corridor.
"What was it?" she said. "What happened?"
He didn't pretend not to understand her.
"Oh, nothing. Conway and Mrs. Rankin didn't hit it off very well together."
They spoke in low, rapid tones, conscious, always, of the wards behind the shut doors. Her feet went fast and noiseless beside his as he hurried to the operating theatre. They came out on to the wide landing and waited there by the brass lattice of the lift.
"How do you mean, hit it off?"
"Oh well, she thought he didn't come up quick enough with a stretcher, and she pitched into him."
"But he was dead beat. Done. Couldn't she see that?"
"No. I don't suppose she could. She was a bit excited."
"She was horrible." Now that Mrs. Rankin was back safe she hated her. She knew she hated her.
"A bit cruel, perhaps. All the same," he said, "she was magnif—"
The lift had come hissing and wailing up behind him. The orderly stood in it, staring at Sutton's back, obsequious, yet impatient. She thought of the wounded men in the theatre downstairs.
"You mustn't keep them waiting," she said.
He stepped back into the lift. It lowered him rapidly. His chin was on a level with the floor when his mouth tried again and succeeded: "Magnificent."
And she knew that she had followed him out to near him say that John had been magnificent, too.
Gwinnie was looking in at the messroom door and saying "Do you know where Charlotte is?" Mrs. Rankin's voice called out, "I think you'll find her in Mr. Conway's bedroom." One of the chauffeurs laughed. Charlotte knew what they were thinking.
Gwinnie failed to retort. She was excited, shaken out of her stolidity.
"Oh, there you are! I've got something ripping to tell you. Not in here."
They slouched, with their arms slung affectionately round each other's waists, into their own room. Behind the shut door Gwinnie began.
"The Colonel's most frightfully pleased about Berlaere."
"Does he think they'll hold it?"
"It isn't that. He's pleased about you."
"Me?"
"You and John. What you did there. And your bringing back the guns."
"Who told you that?"
"Mac. The old boy was going on to him like anything about you last night. It means you'll be sent out every time. Every time there's anything big on."
"Oh-h! Let's go and tell John…. I suppose," she added, "that's what was the matter with Mrs. Rankin."
She wondered whether it had been the matter with Billy Sutton too; if he too were jealous and afraid.
That night Mrs. Rankin told her what the Colonel really had said: "'C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas—la Croix Rouge.' If you're all sent home to-morrow it'll serve you jolly well right," she said.
But somehow she couldn't make it sound as if he had been angry.