* * * * *
Three things, three little things that happened that morning, that showed the way his mind was working. Things that she couldn't get over, that she would never forget.
John standing on the hospital steps, watching Trixie Rankin and Alice Bartrum as they started with the ambulances; the fierce fling of his body, turning away.
His voice saying, "I loathe those women. There's Alice Bartrum—I saw her making eyes at Sutton over a spouting artery. As for Mrs. Rankin they ought to intern her. She oughtn't to be allowed within ten miles of any army. That's one thing I like about McClane. He can't stand that sort of thing any more than I can."
"How about Gwinnie and me?"
"Gwinnie hangs her beastly legs about all over the place. So do you."
John standing at the foot of the stairs, looking at the Antwerp men. Their heads and faces were covered with a white mask of cotton wool like a diver's helmet, three small holes in each white mask for mouth and eyes. They were the men whose faces had been burned by fire at Antwerp.
"Come away," she said. But he still stood, fascinated, hypnotised by the white masks.
"If I were to stick there, doing nothing, looking at the wounded, I should go off my head."
"My God! So should I. Those everlasting wounds. They make you dream about them. Disgusting dreams. I never really see the wound, but I'm just going to see it. I know it's going to be more horrible than any wound I've ever seen. And then I wake…. That's why I don't look at them more than I can help."