XIII
And the next day, as if nothing had happened, he was excited and eager to set out. He could sleep off his funk in the night, like drink, and get up in the morning as if it had never been. He was more immune from memory than any drunkard. He woke to his romance as a child wakes to the renewed wonder of the world. It was so real to him that, however hardly you judged him, you couldn't think of him as a humbug or a hypocrite…. No. He was not that. He was not that. His mind truly lived in a glorious state for which none of his disgraceful deeds were ever done. It created a sort of innocence for him. She could forgive him (even after yesterday), she could almost believe in him again when she saw him coming down the hall to the ambulance with his head raised and his eyes shining, gallant and keen.
They were to go to Berlaere. Trixie Rankin had gone on before them with
Gurney, McClane's best chauffeur. McClane and Sutton were at Melle.
They had not been to Berlaere since that day, the first time they had gone out together. That time at least had been perfect; it remained secure; nothing could ever spoil it; she could remember the delight of it, their strange communion of ecstasy, without doubt, without misgiving. You could never forget. It might have been better if you could, instead of knowing that it would exist in you forever, to torment you by its unlikeness to the days, the awful, incredible days that had come afterwards. There was no way of thinking that John had been more real that day than he had been yesterday. She was simply left with the inscrutable mystery of him on her hands. But she could see clearly that he was more real to himself. Yesterday and the day before had ceased to exist for him. He was back in his old self.
There was only one sign of memory that he gave. He was no longer her lover; he no longer recognised her even as his comrade. He was her commandant. It was his place to command, and hers to be commanded. He looked at her, when he looked at her at all, with a stern coldness. She was a woman who had committed some grave fault, whom he no longer trusted. So masterly was his playing of this part, so great, in a way, was still his power over her, that there were moments when she almost believed in the illusion he created. She had committed some grave fault. She was not worthy of his trust. Somewhere, at some time forgotten, in some obscure and secret way, she had betrayed him.
She had so mixed her hidden self with his in love that even now, with all her knowledge of him, she couldn't help feeling the thing as he felt it and seeing as he saw. Her mind kept on passing in and out of the illusion with little shocks of astonishment.
And yet all the time she was acutely aware of the difference. When she went out with him she felt that she was going with something dangerous and uncertain. She knew what fear was now. She was afraid all the time of what he would do next, of what he would not do. Her wounded were not safe with him. Nothing was safe.
She wished that she could have gone out with Billy; with Billy there wouldn't be any excitement, but neither would there be this abominable fear. On the other hand you couldn't let anybody else take the risk of John; and you couldn't, you simply couldn't let him go alone. Conceive him going alone—the things that might happen; she could at least see that some things didn't.
It was odd, but John had never shown the smallest desire to go without her. If he hadn't liked it he could easily have taken Sutton or Gwinnie or one of the McClane men. It was as if, in spite of his hostility, he still felt, as he had said, that where she was everything would be right.
And it looked as if this time nothing could go wrong. When they came into the village the firing had stopped; it was concentrating further east towards Zele. Trixie's ambulance was packed, and Trixie was excited and triumphant.
Her gestures waved them back as useless, much too late; without them she had got in all the wounded. But in the end they took over two of them, slight cases that Trixie resigned without a pang. She had had to turn them out to make room for poor Gurney, the chauffeur, who had hurt himself, ruptured something, slipping on a muddy bank with his stretcher.
Mr. Conway, she said, could drive her back to Ghent and Charlotte could follow with the two men. She had settled it all, in her bright, domineering way, in a second, and now swung herself up on the back step of her car.
They had got round the turn of the village and Charlotte was starting to follow them when she heard them draw up. In another minute John appeared, walking back slowly down the street with a young Belgian lieutenant. They were talking earnestly together. So soon as Charlotte saw the lieutenant she had a sense of something happening, something fatal, that would change Trixie's safe, easy programme. John as he came on looked perturbed and thoughtful. They stopped. The lieutenant was saying something final. John nodded assent and saluted. The lieutenant sketched a salute and hurried away in the opposite direction.
John waited till he was well out of sight before he came to her. (She noticed that.) He had the look at first of being up to something, as if the devil of yesterday was with him still.
It passed. His voice had no devil in it. "I say, I've got a job for you,
Charlotte. Something you'll like."
There was no devil in his voice, but he stared away from her as he spoke.
"I don't want you to go to Ghent. I want you to go on to Zele."
"Zele? Do I know the way?"
"It's quite easy. You turn round and go the way we went that first day—you remember? It's the shortest cut from here."
"Pretty bad going though. Hadn't we better go on and strike the main road?"
"Yes, if you want to go miles round and get held up by the transport."
"All right—if we can get through."
"You'll get through all right." His voice had the tone of finality.
"I'm to go by myself then?"
"Well—if I've got to drive Mrs. Rankin—"
She thought: It's going to be dangerous.
"By the way, I haven't told her I'm sending you. You don't want her butting in and going with you."
"No. I certainly don't want Trixie…. And look here, I don't particularly want those men. Much better leave them here where they're safe and send in again for them."
"I don't know that I can send in again. We're supposed to have finished this job. The cars may be wanted for anything. They'll be all right."
"I don't like taking them."
"You're making difficulties," he said. He was irritable and hurried; he had kept on turning and looking up the street as though he thought the lieutenant might appear again at any minute.
"When will you learn that you've simply got to obey orders?"
"All right."
She hadn't a chance with him. Whatever she said and did he could always bring it round to that, her orders. She thought she knew what his orders had been.
He cranked up the engine. She could see him stooping and rising to it, a rhythmic, elastic movement; he was cranking energetically, with a sort of furious, flushed enjoyment of his power.
She backed and turned and he ran forward with her as she started. He shouted "Don't think about the main road. Get through…. And hurry up. You haven't got too much time."
She knew. It was going to be dangerous and he funked it. He hadn't got to drive Trixie into Ghent. When the worst came to the worst Trixie could drive herself. She thought: He didn't tell her because he daren't. He knew she wouldn't let him send me by myself. She'd make him go. She'd stand over him and bully him till he had to.
Still, she could do it. She could get through. Going by herself was better than going with a man who funked it. Only she would have liked it better without the two wounded men. She thought of them, jostled, falling against each other, falling forward and recovering, shaken by the jolting of the car, and perhaps brought back into danger. She suspected that not having too much time might be the essence of the risk.
Everything was quiet as they ran along the open road from the village to the hamlet that sat low and humble on the edge of the fields. A few houses and the long wall of the barn still stood; but by this time the house she had brought the guns from had the whole of its roof knocked in, and the stripped gable at the end of the row no longer pricked up its point against the sky; the front of the hollow shell had fallen forward and flung itself across the road.
For a moment she thought the way was blocked. She thought: If I can't get round I must get over. She backed, charged, and the car, rocking a little, struggled through. And there, where the road swerved slightly, the high wall of a barn, undermined, bulged forward, toppling. It answered the vibration of the car with a visible tremor. So soon as she passed it fell with a great crash and rumbling and sprawled in a smoky heap that blocked her way behind her.
After that they went through quiet country for a time, but further east, near the town, the shelling began. The road here was opened up into great holes with ragged, hollow edges; she had to skirt them carefully, and sometimes there would not be enough clear ground to move in, and one wheel of the car would go unsupported, hanging over space.
Yet she had got through.
As she came into Zele she met the last straggling line of the refugees. They cried out to her not to go on. She thought: I must get those men before the retreat begins.
* * * * *
Returning with her heavy load of wounded, on the pitch-black road, half way to Ghent she was halted. She had come up with the tail end of the retreat.
* * * * *
Trixie Rankin stood on the hospital steps looking out. The car turned in and swung up the rubber incline, but instead of stopping before the porch it ran on towards the downward slope. Charlotte jammed on the brakes with a hard jerk and backed to the level.
She couldn't think how she had let the car do that. She couldn't think why she was slipping from the edge of it into Trixie's arms. And stumbling in that ignominious way on the steps with Trixie holding her up on one side…. It didn't last. After she had drunk the hot black coffee that Alice Bartrum gave her she was all right.
The men had gone out of the messroom, leaving them alone.
"I'm all right, Trixie, only a bit tired."
"Tired? I should think you were tired. That Conway man's a perfect devil. Fancy scooting back himself on a safe trip and sending you out to Zele. Zele!"
"McClane doesn't care much where he sends you."
"Oh, Mac—As if he could stop us. But he'd draw the line at Zele, with the Germans coming into it."
"Rot. They weren't coming in for hours and hours."
"Well, anyhow he thought they were."
"He didn't think anything about it. I wanted to go and I went. He—he couldn't stop me."
"It's no good lying to me, Charlotte. I know too much. I know he had orders to go to Zele himself and the damned coward funked it. I've a good mind to report him to Head Quarters."
"No. You won't do that. You wouldn't be such a putrid beast."
"If I don't, Charlotte, it's because I like you. You're the pluckiest little blighter in the world. But I'll tell you what I shall do. Next time your Mr. Conway's ordered on a job he doesn't fancy I'll go with him and hold his nose down to it by the scruff of his neck. If he was my man I'd bloody well tell him what I thought of him."
"It doesn't matter what you think of him. You were pretty well gone on him yourself once."
"When? When?"
"When you wanted to turn Mac out and make him commandant."
"Oh, then—I was a jolly fool to be taken in by him. So were you."
She stopped on her way to the door. "I admit he looks everything he isn't. But that only shows what a beastly humbug the man is."
"No. He isn't a humbug. He really likes going out even if he can't stand it when he gets there."
"I've no use for that sort of courage."
"It isn't courage. But it isn't humbug."
"I've no use for your fine distinctions either."
She heard Alice Bartrum's voice calling to Trixie as she went out, "It's jolly decent of her not to go back on him."
The voice went on. "You needn't mind what Trixie says about cold feet. She's said it about everybody. About Sutton and Mac, and all our men, and me."
She thought: What's the good of lying when they all know? Still, there were things they wouldn't know if she kept on lying, things they would never guess.
"Trixie doesn't know anything about him," she said. "No more do you. You don't know what he was."
"Whatever he is, whatever he's done, Charlotte, you mustn't let it hurt you. It hasn't anything to do with you. We all know what you are."
"Me? I'm not bothering about myself. I tell you it's not what you think about him, it's what I think."
"Yes," said Alice Bartrum. Then Gwinnie Denning and John Conway came in and she left them.
John carried himself very straight, and again Charlotte saw about him that odd look of accomplishment and satisfaction.
"So you got through?" he said.
"Yes. I got through." They kept their eyes from each other as they spoke.
Gwinnie struck in, "Are you all right?"
"Yes, rather…. The little Belgian Army doctor was there. He was adorable, sticking on, working away with his wounded, in a sort of heavenly peace, with the Germans just outside."
"How many did you get?"
"Eleven—Thirteen."
"Oh good…. I've the rottenest luck. I'd have given my head to have gone with you."
"I'm glad you didn't. It wasn't what you'd call a lady's tea-party."
"Who wants a lady's tea-party? I ought to have gone in with the Mac
Corps. Then I'd have had a chance."
"Not this time. Mac draws the line somewhere…. Look here, Gwinnie, I wish you'd clear out a minute and let me talk to John."
Gwinnie went, grumbling.
For a moment silence came down between them. John was drinking coffee with an air of being alone in the room, pretending that he hadn't heard and didn't see her.
"John—I didn't mind driving that car. I knew I could do it and I did it. I won't say I didn't mind the shelling, because I did. Still, shelling's all in the day's work. And I didn't mind your sending me, because I'd rather have gone myself than let you go. I don't want you to be killed. Somehow that's still the one thing I couldn't bear. But if you'd sent Gwinnie I'd have killed you."
"I didn't send Gwinnie. I gave you your chance. I knew you wanted to cut
Mrs. Rankin out."
"I? I never thought of such a rotten thing."
"Well, you talked about danger as if you liked it."
"So did you."
"Oh—go to hell."
"I've just come from there."
"Oh—so you were frightened, were you?"
"Yes, I was horribly frightened. I had thirteen wounded men with me. What do you suppose it feels like, driving a heavy ambulance car by yourself? You can't sit in front and steer and look after thirteen wounded men at the same time. I had to keep hopping in and out. That isn't nice when there's shells about. I shall never forgive you for not coming to give a hand with those men. There's funk you can forgive and—"
She thought: "It's John—John—I'm saying these disgusting things to. I'm as bad as Trixie, telling him what I bloody well think of him, going back on him."
"And there's funk—"
"You'd better take care, Charlotte. Do you know I could get you fired out of Belgium to-morrow?"
"Not after to-night, I think." (It was horrible.)
He got up and opened the door. "Anyhow, you'll clear out of this room now, damn you."
"I wish you'd heard that Army doctor damning you."
"Why didn't he go back with you himself, then?"
"He couldn't leave his wounded."
He slammed the door hard behind her.
That was just like him. Wounded men everywhere, trying to sleep, and he slammed doors. He didn't care.
She would have to go on lying. She had made up her mind to that. So long as it would keep the others from knowing, so long as John's awfulness went beyond their knowledge, so long as it would do any good to John, she would lie.
Her time had come. She remembered saying that. She could hear herself talking to John at Barrow Hill Farm: "Everybody's got their breaking point…. I daresay when my time comes I shall funk and lie."
Well, didn't she? Funk—the everlasting funk of wondering what John would do next; and lying, lying at every turn to save him. He was her breaking point.
She had lied, the first time they went out, about the firing. She wondered whether she had done it because then, even then, she had been afraid of his fear. Hadn't she always somehow, in secret, been afraid? She could see the car coming round the corner by the Church in the narrow street at Stow, she could feel it grazing her thigh, and John letting her go, jumping safe to the curb. She had pretended that it hadn't happened.
But that first day—No. He had been brave then. She had only lied because she was afraid he would worry about her…. Brave then. Could war tire you and wear you down, and change you from yourself? In two weeks? Change him so that she had to hate him!
Half the night she lay awake wondering: Do I hate him because he doesn't care about me? Or because he doesn't care about the wounded? She could see all their faces: the face of the wounded man at Melle (he had crawled out on his hands and knees to look for her); the face of the dead boy who hadn't died when John left him; the Flamand they brought from Lokeren, lying in the road; the face of the dead man in the shed—And John's face.
How could you care for a thing like that? How could you want a thing like that to care for you?
And she? She didn't matter. Nothing mattered in all the world but Them.