"President says so."
They went, following the matron, up the grey, tessellated stairs; at each
landing the long, grey corridors were tunnels for the passage of strange
smells, ether and iodine and carbolic and the faint odour of drains,
seeking their outlet at the well of the staircase.
On the third floor, at the turn of the corridor, a small vestibule
between two glass doors led to a room flooded with a blond light from the
south. Beyond the glass doors, their figures softened by the deep,
doubled shimmer of the panes, they saw the little man in shabby tweeds,
the two women, and the seven other men. This, Madame explained, was Dr.
Donald McClane's Field Ambulance Corps. You could see it had thought it
was the only one. As they entered they met the swoop of two beautiful,
indignant eyes, a slow turning and abrupt stiffening of shoulders; the
movement of the group was palpable, a tremor of hostility and resentment.
It lasted with no abatement while Madame, standing there in her gaunt
Flemish graciousness, murmured names. "Mrs. Rankin--" Mrs. Rankin nodded
insolently and turned away. "Miss Bartrum--" Miss Bartrum, the rather
charming one, bowed, drawing the shadow of grave eyebrows over sweet
eyes. "Dr. Donald McClane--" As he bowed the Commandant's stare arched up
at them, then dropped, suddenly innocent, suddenly indifferent.
They looked around. Madame and her graciousness had gone. Nobody made a
place for them at the two long tables set together in the middle of the
room. The McClane Corps had spread itself over all the chairs and
benches, in obstinate possession. They passed out through the open French
windows on to the balcony.
It looked south over the railway towards the country where they thought
the fighting must be. They could see the lines where the troop trains
ran, going northwest and southeast, and the railway station and post
office all in one long red-brick building that had a flat roof with a
crenellated parapet. Grass grew on the roof. And beyond the black railway
lines miles upon miles of flat open country, green fields, rows of
poplars standing up in them very straight; little woods; here and there a
low rise bristling and dark with trees. The fighting must be over there.
Under the balcony the white street ran southeastward, and scouting cars
and ammunition wagons and long lines of troops were all going that way.
While they talked they remained aware of the others. They could see
McClane rubbing his hands; they heard his brief laugh that had no
amusement in it, and his voice saying, "Anyhow, we've got in first."
When they came back into the room they found the tables drawn apart with
a wide space between. The Belgian orderlies were removing plates and cups
from one to the other, establishing under the Commandant's directions a
separate mess. By tea-time two chauffeurs had added themselves to the
McClane Corps.
Twelve to four. And they would have to live together nobody knew how
long: as long as the war lasted.
* * * * *
That evening, in the bedroom that John shared with Sutton, they sat on
two beds, discussing their prospects. Gwinnie was voluble.
"They've driven us out of our messroom with their beastliness. We shall
have to sit in our bedrooms all the time."
"We'd better let the office know we're here," said Sutton, "in case we're
sent for."
"Anyhow," said Charlotte, "_I'm_ not going to bed."
John smiled. A struggling, dejected smile.
"My dear child, I've told you they're not going to send us out first."
"I don't know--" said Gwinnie.
"I _do_ know. We shall be lucky if we get a look in when McClane's cars
break down."
"That's it. Have you seen their cars? I overhauled them this morning, in
the yard. They're nothing but old lorries, converted. And one of 'em's
got solid tyres."
"Well?"
"Well--You wait."
They waited. Even the McClane Corps had to wait.
* * * * *
"I don't care," said Charlotte, "how beastly they are to me, provided
they leave John alone."
"What can they do?" he said. "They don't matter."
"There's such a lot of them," said Gwinnie. "It's when they're all
together they're so poisonous."
"It's when they're _separate_," Charlotte said. "I think Mrs. Rankin
_does_ things. And there's McClane swearing he'll get us out of Belgium.
But he won't!"
She didn't care. She had got used to it as she had got used to the
messroom and its furnishings, the basket chairs and backless benches, the
two long tables covered with white marbled American leather, the
photographs of the King and Queen of the Belgians above the chimney
piece. The atmosphere of hostility was thick and penetrating, something
that you breathed in with the smells of ether and iodine and
disinfectant, that hung about the grey, leeking corridors and floated in
the blond light of the room. She could feel a secret threat in it, as if
at any minute it might work up to some pitch still more malignant, some
supreme disaster. There were moments when she wondered whether McClane
had prejudiced the authorities against them. At first she had regarded
the little man as negligible; it was the women who had fascinated her, as
if they had or might come to have for her some profound importance and
significance. She didn't like McClane. He straddled too much. But you
couldn't go on ignoring him. His dreamy, innocent full face with its
arching eyes was a mask, the mask of dangerous, inimical intentions; his
profile was rough cut, brutal, energetic, you guessed the upper lip thin
and hard under the hanging moustache; the lower one stuck out like a
sucker. That was his real face. It showed an adhesive, exhausting will
that squeezed and sucked till it had got what it wanted out of people. He
could work things. So could Mrs. Rankin. She had dined with the Colonel.
Charlotte didn't care. She _liked_ that beastliness, that hostility of
theirs. It was something you could put your back against; it braced her
to defiance. It brought her closer to John, to John and Gwinnie, and
shut them in together more securely. Sutton she was not quite so sure
about. Through all their depression he seemed to stand apart somehow by
himself in a profounder discontent. "There are only four of us," he
said; "we can't call ourselves a corps." You could see the way his mind
was working.
Then suddenly the atmosphere lifted at one point. Mrs. Rankin changed her
attitude to John. You could see her beautiful hawk's eyes pursuing him
about the room. When she found him in the corridors or on the stairs she
stopped him and chattered; under her breath because of the hushed wards.
He told Charlotte about it.
"That Mrs. Rankin seems inclined to be a bit too friendly."
"I haven't noticed it."
"Not with you. With Sutton and--and me."
"Well--"
"Well, I can't answer for Sutton, but I don't like it. That isn't what
we're out here for."
They were going into the messroom together towards dinner time. Mrs.
Rankin and Alice Bartrum were there alone, seated at their tables, ready.
Mrs. Rankin called out in her stressed, vibrating voice across the room:
"Mr. _Conway_, you people ought to come in with us."
"Why?"
"_Because_ there are only four of you and we're twelve. Sixteen's the
proper number for a unit. Alice, didn't I say, the minute I saw Mr.
Conway with that car of his, didn't I _say_ we ought to have him?"
"You did."
"Thanks. I'd rather take my orders from the Colonel."
"And _I'd_ rather take _mine_ from you than from McClane. Fancy coming
out at the head of a Field Ambulance looking like that. Tell you what,
Mr. Conway, if you'll join up with us I'll get the Colonel to make you
our commandant."