“Why ‘awkward’?” demanded Dalroy.
“Because, when we fellows met in a wood near Monze, we agreed that we’d stick together, and fight to a finish; but if any man strayed by accident, or got hit so badly that he couldn’t march, he took his chances, and the rest went on.”
“Quite right. How does that affect the present situation?”
“Well, sir,” said Bates, after a pause, “there’s you an’ the lady. Our chaps are interested, if I may say it. You ought to have heard their langwidge, even in whispers, when that—well, I can’t call him anything much worse than what he was, a German officer—when he was telling you off, sir.”
“What did the German officer say, sergeant?” put in Irene innocently.
“Corporal, your ladyship. Corporal Bates, of the 2nd Buffs.”
“I’m sorry to have to interrupt,” said Dalroy. “You must give Lady Irene a full account some other time. If you are planning to cross the Schelde to-night there is a long march before you. We part company at the lane you spoke of. I leave her ladyship in the care of you and your men with the greatest confidence. I make for Oosterzeele. If Jan Maertz is a prisoner, I must do what lies in my power to rescue him. If I fail, I’ll follow on and report at Gand in the morning.”
For a little while none spoke. The other men marched in silence, a safeguard which they had made a rigid rule while piercing their way by night through an unknown country held by an enemy who would not have given quarter to any English soldier.
Bates was really a very sharp fellow. He had sense enough to know that he had said enough already. Dalroy’s use of Irene’s title conveyed a hint of complications rather beyond the ken of one whose acquaintance with the facts was limited to an overheard conversation between strangers. Moreover, soldier that he was, the corporal realised that one of his own officers was not only deliberately risking his life in order to save that of a Belgian peasant, but felt in honour bound to do no less.
So Irene was left to tread the narrow path unaided. To her lasting credit, she neither flinched nor faltered.