Rainer recognised the speaker. "That you Deane?" he replied. "Three escaped Huns have attacked us. They've gone now. I was bringing despatches for the Wing-Commander, but they didn't get them. Miss Woodcote's in the car. She's smashed—the car, I mean—and she's had a blow on the head from a club."
"Lord! Those are our men. They walked out to one of our machines at dusk just after it landed, but they ran when they were challenged. We're after them now."
"Well, they can't get far. One's groggy and one's lame. What about Miss Woodcote? She'll have to be sent home. She's got a nasty crack on the head."
"We'll send her to Admiralty House in this lorry. Give me the despatches and you go back with her. I'm going to spread my men out and hunt the fields. They must have been after your car."
Rainer walked back as the air-mechanics began to move the farm cart out of the road. "Ruth," he said, "we're going back on this lorry. I've handed the despatches over, and I'm going to take you home."
"Only ten miles, Jim, and you expected forty, didn't you?"
"I did, but I hoped to have kissed you all the last twenty of them, you little angel."
"Well, Jim, it looks a very dark lorry, doesn't it? But as for kissing me in the other car——Well, you may have decided on the last twenty miles, but I had arranged for the last hundred yards up the drive. Why? You silly old thing. I can't do two things properly at once, and I made up my mind when we started I was not going to be kissed when I was driving. Carry me across carefully, Jim, dear. I'm feeling rather fragile now...."