"I thought you weren't afraid of anything," he said.
"I'm not afraid when we're out there. I'm only afraid of seeing them.
You know I am."
She turned, but he had put himself between her and the door. She wrenched at the latch, sobbing.
"How could you be so cruel? What did you do it for? What did you do it for?"
"I wanted you to see what they've done with him. There's his clean bed.
They haven't even taken his boots off."
"You brute. You utter brute!"
A steely sound like a dropped hammer came from behind the glass partition; then the sliding of a latch. John opened the door a little way and she slipped out past him.
"Next time," he said, "perhaps you'll do as you're told."
She wanted to get away by herself. Not into her own room, where Gwinnie, who had been unloading ambulance trains half the night, now rested. The McClane Corps was crowding into the messroom for tea. She passed through without looking at any of them and out to the balcony, closing the French window behind her. She could hide there beyond the window where the wall was blank.
She leaned back, flattening herself against the wall….