But the joke did not carry.
The chauffeur had turned the car and put out the lamps. The war material was stored in a big locker under the back seat, and consisted of a couple of cans of petrol, half a sack of shavings, and a bundle of tow. The chauffeur passed them out to Kentucky, who had taken off his heavy coat and thrown it into the car.
“Now then, all ready, comrades?”
“Joan knows the way!”
Eve’s mute acceptance of the adventure was not destined to survive the night-march through the fir woods. She was walking beside Joan Gaunt, who led the attacking party, Lizzie Straker shadowing Lawrence Kentucky, Jones, the chauffeur, carrying the petrol cans and bringing up the rear. The grey sandy track wound like a ribbon among the black boles of the firs, whose branches kept up a sibilant whispering as the night wind played through them.
It struck Eve that they were going in the wrong direction.
“We are walking away from Fernhill!”
Joan Gaunt snapped a retort out of the darkness.
“We are not going to Fernhill.”
Eve was puzzled. She might have asked in the words of unregenerate man, “Then where the devil are you going?”