"Rot."
And they were silent.
"I say, John--my car _does_ cover Gwinnie's a bit, doesn't it?"
"Yes," he said abruptly.
"_That's_ all right. You must go now. They're coming for the stretchers."
His face quivered. He thrust out his hand quickly, and as she took it she
thought: He thinks he isn't coming back. She was aware of Mrs. Rankin and
two of the McClane men with stretchers, passing; she could see Mrs.
Rankin looking at them as she came on, smiling over her shoulder, drawing
the men's attention to their leave-taking.
She thought: _They_ don't shake hands when they're going out. They don't
think whether they're coming back or not.... They don't think at all. But
then, none of them were lovers as she and John were lovers.
"John, you'd better go and carry Mrs. Rankin's stretcher for her."
He went.
She watched them as they walked together up the short straight road to
the battlefield at the top. Sutton followed with Alice Bartrum; then the
McClane men; they nodded to her and smiled. Then McClane, late, running,
trying to overtake John and Mrs. Rankin, to get to the head of his unit.
Perhaps he was afraid that John, in his khaki, would be mistaken for the
commandant.
How childish he was with his fear and jealousy. Childish. She thought of
his petulant refusal to let John come in with them. As if he could really
keep him out. When it came to action they _were_ one corps; they couldn't
very well be divided, since McClane had more men than stretchers and John
had more stretchers than men. They would all be infinitely happier,
working together like that, instead of standing stupidly apart, glaring
and hating.
Yet she knew what McClane and Mrs. Rankin had been playing for. McClane,
if he could, would have taken their fine Roden cars from them; he would
have taken Sutton. She knew that Mrs. Rankin would have taken John from
her, Charlotte Redhead, if she could.
And when she thought of the beautiful, arrogant woman, marching up to the
battlefield with John, she wondered whether, after all, she didn't hate
her.... No. No. It was horrible to hate a woman who at any minute might
be killed. They said McClane didn't look after his women. He didn't
care how they exposed themselves to the firing; he took them into
unnecessary danger. He didn't care. He was utterly cold, utterly
indifferent to everybody and everything except his work of getting in the
wounded.... Well, perhaps, if he had been decent to John, she wouldn't
have believed a word of it, and anyhow they hadn't come out there to be
protected.
She had a vision of John and McClane carrying Mrs. Rankin between them on
a stretcher. That was what would happen if you hated. Hate could kill.
Then John and she were safe. They were lovers. Lovers. Neither of them
had ever said a word, but they owned the wonderful, immaterial fact in
secret to each other; the thought of it moved in secret behind all their
other thoughts. From the moment, just passed, when they held each other's
hands she knew that John loved her, not in a dream, not in coldness, but
with a queer unearthly ardour. He had her in his incredible, immaterial
way, a way that none of them would understand.
From the Barrow Hill Farm time? Or from yesterday? She didn't know.
Perhaps it had gone on all the time; but it would be only since yesterday
that he really knew it.
A line of soldiers marched by, going up to the battlefield. They looked
at her and smiled, a flashing of bright eyes and teeth all down the line.
When they had passed the street was deserted.
... That rattle on the stones was the firing. It had come at last. She
saw Gwinnie looking back round the corner of the hood to see what it was
like. She called to her, "Don't stick your head out, you silly cuckoo.
You'll be hit." She said to herself, If I think about it I shall feel
quite jumpy. It was one thing to go tearing along between two booming
batteries, in excitement, with an end in view, and quite another thing to
sit tight and still on a motionless car, to be fired on. A bit trying to
the nerves, she thought, if it went on long. She was glad that her car
stood next to the line of fire, sheltering Gwinnie's, and she wondered
how John was getting on up there.
The hands of the ambulance clock pointed to half-past three. They had
been waiting forty minutes, then. She got down to see if any of the
stretcher bearers were in sight.
* * * * *
They were coming back. Straggling, lurching forms. White bandages. The
wounded who could walk came first. Then the stretchers.
Alice Bartrum stopped as she passed Charlotte. The red had gone from her
sunburn, but her face was undisturbed.
"You've got to wait here," she said, "for Mr. Conway and Sutty. And
Trixie and Mac. They mayn't be back for ages. They've gone miles up
the field."
She waited.
The front cars had been loaded, had driven off and returned three times.
It was six o'clock before John appeared with Mrs. Rankin.
She heard Mrs. Rankin calling sharply to her to get down and give a hand
with the stretcher.
John and Mrs. Rankin were disputing.
_"Can't_ you shove it in at the bottom?" he was saying.
_"No._ The first cases _must_ go on top."
Her mouth snapped like a clamp. Her eyes were blazing. She was struggling
with the head of the stretcher while John heaved at the foot. He
staggered as he moved, and his face was sallow-white and drawn and
glistening. When Charlotte took the shafts from him they were slippery
with his sweat.
"Is he hurt?" she whispered.
"Very badly hurt," said Mrs. Rankin.
"John, I mean."