The Romantic

by May Sinclair

VII

"Nothing," Charlotte said, "is going to be worse than this."

It seemed to her that they had waited hours in the huge grey hall of the Hotel-Hospital, she and Sutton and Gwinnie, while John talked to the President of the Red Cross in his bureau. Everybody looked at them: the door-keeper, the lift orderly; the ward men and nurses hurrying past; wide stares and sharp glances falling on her and Gwinnie, slanting downward to their breeches and puttees, then darting upwards to their English faces.

Sutton moved, putting his broad body between them and the batteries of amused and interested eyes.

They stood close together at the foot of the staircase. Above them the gigantic Flora leaned forward, holding out her flowers to preoccupied people who wouldn't look at her; she smiled foolishly; too stupid to know that the Flandria was no longer an hotel but a military hospital.

John came out of the President's bureau. He looked disgusted and depressed.

"They can put us up," he said; "but I've got to break it to you that we're not the only Field Ambulance in Ghent."

Charlotte said, "Oh, well, we'd no business to suppose we were."

"We've got to share our quarters with the other one…. It calls itself the McClane Corps."

"Shall we have to sleep with it?" Sutton said.

"We shall have to have it in our messroom. I believe it's up there now."

"Well, that won't hurt us."

"What'll hurt us is this. It'll be sent out before we are. McClane was here hours ago. He's been to Head Quarters."

Sutton's gloom deepened. "How do you know?"

"President says so."

They went, following the matron, up the grey, tessellated stairs; at each landing the long, grey corridors were tunnels for the passage of strange smells, ether and iodine and carbolic and the faint odour of drains, seeking their outlet at the well of the staircase.

On the third floor, at the turn of the corridor, a small vestibule between two glass doors led to a room flooded with a blond light from the south. Beyond the glass doors, their figures softened by the deep, doubled shimmer of the panes, they saw the little man in shabby tweeds, the two women, and the seven other men. This, Madame explained, was Dr. Donald McClane's Field Ambulance Corps. You could see it had thought it was the only one. As they entered they met the swoop of two beautiful, indignant eyes, a slow turning and abrupt stiffening of shoulders; the movement of the group was palpable, a tremor of hostility and resentment.

It lasted with no abatement while Madame, standing there in her gaunt Flemish graciousness, murmured names. "Mrs. Rankin—" Mrs. Rankin nodded insolently and turned away. "Miss Bartrum—" Miss Bartrum, the rather charming one, bowed, drawing the shadow of grave eyebrows over sweet eyes. "Dr. Donald McClane—" As he bowed the Commandant's stare arched up at them, then dropped, suddenly innocent, suddenly indifferent.

They looked around. Madame and her graciousness had gone. Nobody made a place for them at the two long tables set together in the middle of the room. The McClane Corps had spread itself over all the chairs and benches, in obstinate possession. They passed out through the open French windows on to the balcony.

It looked south over the railway towards the country where they thought the fighting must be. They could see the lines where the troop trains ran, going northwest and southeast, and the railway station and post office all in one long red-brick building that had a flat roof with a crenellated parapet. Grass grew on the roof. And beyond the black railway lines miles upon miles of flat open country, green fields, rows of poplars standing up in them very straight; little woods; here and there a low rise bristling and dark with trees. The fighting must be over there. Under the balcony the white street ran southeastward, and scouting cars and ammunition wagons and long lines of troops were all going that way.

While they talked they remained aware of the others. They could see McClane rubbing his hands; they heard his brief laugh that had no amusement in it, and his voice saying, "Anyhow, we've got in first."

When they came back into the room they found the tables drawn apart with a wide space between. The Belgian orderlies were removing plates and cups from one to the other, establishing under the Commandant's directions a separate mess. By tea-time two chauffeurs had added themselves to the McClane Corps.

Twelve to four. And they would have to live together nobody knew how long: as long as the war lasted.

* * * * *

That evening, in the bedroom that John shared with Sutton, they sat on two beds, discussing their prospects. Gwinnie was voluble.

"They've driven us out of our messroom with their beastliness. We shall have to sit in our bedrooms all the time."

"We'd better let the office know we're here," said Sutton, "in case we're sent for."

"Anyhow," said Charlotte, "I'm not going to bed."

John smiled. A struggling, dejected smile.

"My dear child, I've told you they're not going to send us out first."

"I don't know—" said Gwinnie.

"I do know. We shall be lucky if we get a look in when McClane's cars break down."

"That's it. Have you seen their cars? I overhauled them this morning, in the yard. They're nothing but old lorries, converted. And one of 'em's got solid tyres."

"Well?"

"Well—You wait."

They waited. Even the McClane Corps had to wait.

* * * * *

"I don't care," said Charlotte, "how beastly they are to me, provided they leave John alone."

"What can they do?" he said. "They don't matter."

"There's such a lot of them," said Gwinnie. "It's when they're all together they're so poisonous."

"It's when they're separate," Charlotte said. "I think Mrs. Rankin does things. And there's McClane swearing he'll get us out of Belgium. But he won't!"

She didn't care. She had got used to it as she had got used to the messroom and its furnishings, the basket chairs and backless benches, the two long tables covered with white marbled American leather, the photographs of the King and Queen of the Belgians above the chimney piece. The atmosphere of hostility was thick and penetrating, something that you breathed in with the smells of ether and iodine and disinfectant, that hung about the grey, leeking corridors and floated in the blond light of the room. She could feel a secret threat in it, as if at any minute it might work up to some pitch still more malignant, some supreme disaster. There were moments when she wondered whether McClane had prejudiced the authorities against them. At first she had regarded the little man as negligible; it was the women who had fascinated her, as if they had or might come to have for her some profound importance and significance. She didn't like McClane. He straddled too much. But you couldn't go on ignoring him. His dreamy, innocent full face with its arching eyes was a mask, the mask of dangerous, inimical intentions; his profile was rough cut, brutal, energetic, you guessed the upper lip thin and hard under the hanging moustache; the lower one stuck out like a sucker. That was his real face. It showed an adhesive, exhausting will that squeezed and sucked till it had got what it wanted out of people. He could work things. So could Mrs. Rankin. She had dined with the Colonel.

Charlotte didn't care. She liked that beastliness, that hostility of theirs. It was something you could put your back against; it braced her to defiance. It brought her closer to John, to John and Gwinnie, and shut them in together more securely. Sutton she was not quite so sure about. Through all their depression he seemed to stand apart somehow by himself in a profounder discontent. "There are only four of us," he said; "we can't call ourselves a corps." You could see the way his mind was working.

Then suddenly the atmosphere lifted at one point. Mrs. Rankin changed her attitude to John. You could see her beautiful hawk's eyes pursuing him about the room. When she found him in the corridors or on the stairs she stopped him and chattered; under her breath because of the hushed wards.

He told Charlotte about it.

"That Mrs. Rankin seems inclined to be a bit too friendly."

"I haven't noticed it."

"Not with you. With Sutton and—and me."

"Well—"

"Well, I can't answer for Sutton, but I don't like it. That isn't what we're out here for."

They were going into the messroom together towards dinner time. Mrs.
Rankin and Alice Bartrum were there alone, seated at their tables, ready.
Mrs. Rankin called out in her stressed, vibrating voice across the room:

"Mr. Conway, you people ought to come in with us."

"Why?"

"Because there are only four of you and we're twelve. Sixteen's the proper number for a unit. Alice, didn't I say, the minute I saw Mr. Conway with that car of his, didn't I say we ought to have him?"

"You did."

"Thanks. I'd rather take my orders from the Colonel."

"And I'd rather take mine from you than from McClane. Fancy coming out at the head of a Field Ambulance looking like that. Tell you what, Mr. Conway, if you'll join up with us I'll get the Colonel to make you our commandant."

Alice Bartrum opened her shadowed eyes. "Trixie—you can't."

"Can't I? I can make the old boy do anything I like."

John stiffened. "You can't make me do anything you like, Mrs. Rankin.
You'd much better stick to McClane."

"What do any of us know about McClane?"

"What do you know about me?"

You could see how he hated her.

"I know you mean business."

"Doesn't he?"

"Don't ask me what he means."

She shrugged her shoulders violently. "Come over here and sit by me. I want to talk to you. Seriously."

She had shifted her seat and made a place for him beside her on the bench. Her flushed, handsome face covered him with its smile. You could see she was used to being obeyed when she smiled like that; when she sent that light out of her eyes men did what she wanted. All her life the men she knew had obeyed her, all except McClane. She didn't know John.

He raised his head and looked at her with cool, concentrated dislike.

"I'd rather stay where I am if you don't mind. I want to talk to
Miss Redhead."

"Oh—" Mrs. Rankin's flush went out like a blown flame. Her lips made one pale, tight thread above the set square of her chin. All her light was in her eyes. They stared before her at the glass door where McClane was entering.

He came swaggering and slipped into his place between her and Alice Bartrum with his air of not seeing Mrs. Rankin, of not seeing Charlotte and John, of not seeing anything he didn't want to see. Presently he bobbed round in his seat so as to see Sutton, and began talking to him excitedly.

At the end of it Charlotte and Sutton found themselves alone, smiling into each other's faces.

"Do you like him?" she said.

"I'm not sure. All the same that isn't a bad idea of Mrs. Rankin's."

It was Sutton who tried to work it the next morning, sounding McClane.

Charlotte was in the space between the glass doors, arranging their stores in their own cupboard. McClane's stores had overflowed into it on the lower shelves. She could hear the two men talking in the room, Sutton's low, persuasive voice; she couldn't hear what he was saying.

Suddenly McClane brought his fist down on the table.

"I'll take you. And I'll take your women. And I'll take your ambulances.
I could do with two more ambulances. But I won't take Conway."

"You can't tell him that."

"Can't I!"

"What can you say?"

"I can say—"

She pushed open the glass door and went in. McClane was whispering furtively. She saw Sutton stop him with a look. They turned to her and Sutton spoke.

"Come in, Miss Redhead. This concerns you. Dr. McClane wants you and Miss
Denning and me to join his corps."

"And how about Mr. Conway?"

"Well—" McClane was trying to look innocent. "Mr. Conway's just the difficulty. There can't be two commandants in one corps and he says he won't take orders from me."

(Mrs. Rankin must have talked about it, then.)

"Is that what you told Dr. Sutton?"

"Yes."

His cold, innocent blue eyes supported him. He was lying; she knew he was lying; that was not what he had said when he had whispered.

"You don't suppose," she said, "I should leave Mr. Conway? And if I stick to him Gwinnie'll stick."

"And Dr. Sutton?"

"He can please himself."

"If Miss Redhead stays I shall stay."

"John will let you off like a shot, if you don't want to."

She turned to go and McClane called after her, "My offer remains open to you three."

Through the glass door she heard Sutton saying, "If you're right,
McClane, I can't very well leave her with him, can I?"

Sutton was stupid. He didn't understand. Lying on her bed that night
Charlotte made it out.

"Gwinnie—you know why McClane won't have John?"

"I suppose because Mrs. Rankin's keen on him."

"McClane isn't keen on Mrs. Rankin…. Can't you see he's trying to hoof John out of Belgium, because he wants all the glory to himself? We wouldn't do that to one of them, even if we were mean enough not to want them in it."

"He wanted Sutton."

"Oh, Sutton—He wasn't afraid of him…. When you think of the war—and think of people being like that. Jealous. Hating each other—"

* * * * *

You mightn't like Mrs. Rankin, Mrs. Rankin and McClane; but you couldn't say they weren't splendid.

Five days had passed. On the third day the McClane Corps had been sent out. (Mrs. Rankin had not dined with the Colonel for nothing.)

It went again and again. By the fifth day they knew that it had distinguished itself at Alost and Termonde and Quatrecht. The names sounded in their brains like a song with an exciting, maddening refrain. October stretched before them, golden and blank, a volume of tense, vibrating time.

Nothing for it but to wait and wait. The summons might come any minute. Charlotte and Gwinnie had begun by sitting on their drivers' seats in the ambulances standing in the yard, ready to start the very instant it came. Their orders were to hold themselves in readiness. They held themselves in readiness and saw McClane's cars swing out from the rubbered sweep in front of the Hospital three and four times a day. They stood on their balcony and watched them rush along the road that led to the battlefields southeast of the city. The sight of the flat Flemish land and the sadness of lovely days oppressed them. She felt that it must be partly that. The incredible loveliness of the days. They sat brooding over the map of Belgium, marking down the names of the places, Alost, Termonde and Quatrecht, that McClane had gone to, that he would talk about on his return, when an awful interest would impel them to listen. He and Mrs. Rankin would come in about tea-time, swaggering and excited, telling everybody that they had been in the line of fire; and Alice Bartrum would move about the room, quiet and sweet, cutting bread and butter and pretending to be unconcerned in the narration. And in the evening, after dinner, the discussion went on and on in John's bedroom. He raged against his infernal luck. If they thought he was going to take it lying down—

"McClane can keep me out of my messroom, but he can't keep me out of my job. There's room in 'the line of fire' for both of us."

"How are you going to get into it?" said Sutton.

"Same way as McClane. If he can go to Head Quarters, so can I."

"I wouldn't," Sutton said. "It might give a bad impression. Our turn'll come before long."

Gwinnie laughed. "It won't—unless Charlotte dines with the Colonel."

"It certainly mayn't," said Charlotte. "They may commandeer our cars and give them to McClane."

"They can't," said Gwinnie. "We're volunteers."

"They can do anything they choose. Military necessity."

Gwinnie was thoughtful.

"John," she said, "can I have one of the cars to-morrow afternoon?"

"What for?"

"Never mind. Can I?"

"You can have both the damned things if you like; they're no good to me."

The next afternoon they looked on while Gwinnie, who wore a look of great wisdom and mystery, slipped her car out of the yard into a side street and headed for the town. She came back at tea-time, bright-eyed and faintly flushed.

"You'll find we shall be sent out to-morrow."

"Oh, shall we!" John said.

"Yes. I've worked it for you."

"You?"

"Me. They've seen my car."

"Who have?"

"The whole lot of them. General Staff. First of all I paraded it all round the blessed town. Then I turned into the Place d'Armes. I kept it standing two solid hours outside the Hotel de la Poste where the blooming brass hats all hang out. In five minutes it collected a small crowd. First it was only refugees and war correspondents. Then the Colonel came out and stuck his head in at the back. He got quite excited when he saw we could take five stretcher cases.

"I showed him our tyres and the electric light, and I ran the stretchers in and out for him. He'd never seen them with wheels before…. He said it was 'magnifique'… The old bird wanted to take me into the hotel and stand me tea."

"Didn't you let him?"

"No. I said I had to stay with my car. And I took jolly good care to let him know it hadn't been out yet."

"Whatever made you think of it?"

"I don't know. It just sort of came to me."

Next afternoon John had orders to go to Berlaere to fetch wounded.