And the next day, as if nothing had happened, he was excited and eager to
set out. He could sleep off his funk in the night, like drink, and get up
in the morning as if it had never been. He was more immune from memory
than any drunkard. He woke to his romance as a child wakes to the renewed
wonder of the world. It was so real to him that, however hardly you
judged him, you couldn't think of him as a humbug or a hypocrite.... No.
He was not that. He was not that. His mind truly lived in a glorious
state for which none of his disgraceful deeds were ever done. It created
a sort of innocence for him. She could forgive him (even after
yesterday), she could almost believe in him again when she saw him coming
down the hall to the ambulance with his head raised and his eyes shining,
gallant and keen.
They were to go to Berlaere. Trixie Rankin had gone on before them with
Gurney, McClane's best chauffeur. McClane and Sutton were at Melle.
They had not been to Berlaere since that day, the first time they had
gone out together. That time at least had been perfect; it remained
secure; nothing could ever spoil it; she could remember the delight of
it, their strange communion of ecstasy, without doubt, without misgiving.
You could never forget. It might have been better if you could, instead
of knowing that it would exist in you forever, to torment you by its
unlikeness to the days, the awful, incredible days that had come
afterwards. There was no way of thinking that John had been more real
that day than he had been yesterday. She was simply left with the
inscrutable mystery of him on her hands. But she could see clearly that
he was more real to himself. Yesterday and the day before had ceased to
exist for him. He was back in his old self.
There was only one sign of memory that he gave. He was no longer her
lover; he no longer recognised her even as his comrade. He was her
commandant. It was his place to command, and hers to be commanded. He
looked at her, when he looked at her at all, with a stern coldness. She
was a woman who had committed some grave fault, whom he no longer
trusted. So masterly was his playing of this part, so great, in a way,
was still his power over her, that there were moments when she almost
believed in the illusion he created. She had committed some grave fault.
She was not worthy of his trust. Somewhere, at some time forgotten, in
some obscure and secret way, she had betrayed him.
She had so mixed her hidden self with his in love that even now, with all
her knowledge of him, she couldn't help feeling the thing as he felt it
and seeing as he saw. Her mind kept on passing in and out of the illusion
with little shocks of astonishment.
And yet all the time she was acutely aware of the difference. When she
went out with him she felt that she was going with something dangerous
and uncertain. She knew what fear was now. She was afraid all the time of
what he would do next, of what he would not do. Her wounded were not safe
with him. Nothing was safe.
She wished that she could have gone out with Billy; with Billy there
wouldn't be any excitement, but neither would there be this abominable
fear. On the other hand you couldn't let anybody else take the risk of
John; and you couldn't, you simply couldn't let him go alone. Conceive
him going alone--the things that might happen; she could at least see
that some things didn't.
It was odd, but John had never shown the smallest desire to go without
her. If he hadn't liked it he could easily have taken Sutton or Gwinnie
or one of the McClane men. It was as if, in spite of his hostility, he
still felt, as he had said, that where she was everything would be right.
And it looked as if this time nothing could go wrong. When they came into
the village the firing had stopped; it was concentrating further east
towards Zele. Trixie's ambulance was packed, and Trixie was excited and
triumphant.
Her gestures waved them back as useless, much too late; without them she
had got in all the wounded. But in the end they took over two of them,
slight cases that Trixie resigned without a pang. She had had to turn
them out to make room for poor Gurney, the chauffeur, who had hurt
himself, ruptured something, slipping on a muddy bank with his stretcher.
Mr. Conway, she said, could drive her back to Ghent and Charlotte could
follow with the two men. She had settled it all, in her bright,
domineering way, in a second, and now swung herself up on the back step
of her car.
They had got round the turn of the village and Charlotte was starting to
follow them when she heard them draw up. In another minute John appeared,
walking back slowly down the street with a young Belgian lieutenant. They
were talking earnestly together. So soon as Charlotte saw the lieutenant
she had a sense of something happening, something fatal, that would
change Trixie's safe, easy programme. John as he came on looked perturbed
and thoughtful. They stopped. The lieutenant was saying something final.
John nodded assent and saluted. The lieutenant sketched a salute and
hurried away in the opposite direction.
John waited till he was well out of sight before he came to her. (She
noticed that.) He had the look at first of being up to something, as if
the devil of yesterday was with him still.
It passed. His voice had no devil in it. "I say, I've got a job for you,
Charlotte. Something you'll like."
There was no devil in his voice, but he stared away from her as he spoke.
"I don't want you to go to Ghent. I want you to go on to Zele."
"Zele? Do I know the way?"
"It's quite easy. You turn round and go the way we went that first
day--you remember? It's the shortest cut from here."
"Pretty bad going though. Hadn't we better go on and strike the
main road?"
"Yes, if you want to go miles round and get held up by the transport."
"All right--if we can get through."
"You'll get through all right." His voice had the tone of finality.
"I'm to go by myself then?"
"Well--if I've got to drive Mrs. Rankin--"
She thought: It's going to be dangerous.
"By the way, I haven't told her I'm sending you. You don't want her
butting in and going with you."
"No. I certainly don't want Trixie.... And look here, I don't
particularly want those men. Much better leave them here where they're
safe and send in again for them."
"I don't know that I _can_ send in again. We're supposed to have finished
this job. The cars may be wanted for anything. _They'll_ be all right."
"I don't _like_ taking them."
"You're making difficulties," he said. He was irritable and hurried; he
had kept on turning and looking up the street as though he thought the
lieutenant might appear again at any minute.
"When _will_ you learn that you've simply got to obey orders?"
"All right."
She hadn't a chance with him. Whatever she said and did he could always
bring it round to that, her orders. She thought she knew what _his_
orders had been.
He cranked up the engine. She could see him stooping and rising to it, a
rhythmic, elastic movement; he was cranking energetically, with a sort of
furious, flushed enjoyment of his power.
She backed and turned and he ran forward with her as she started. He
shouted "Don't think about the main road. Get through.... And hurry _up_.
You haven't got too much time."
She knew. It was going to be dangerous and he funked it. He hadn't got to
drive Trixie into Ghent. When the worst came to the worst Trixie could
drive herself. She thought: He didn't tell her because he daren't. He
knew she wouldn't let him send me by myself. She'd _make_ him go. She'd
stand over him and bully him till he had to.
Still, she could do it. She could get through. Going by herself was
better than going with a man who funked it. Only she would have liked it
better without the two wounded men. She thought of them, jostled, falling
against each other, falling forward and recovering, shaken by the jolting
of the car, and perhaps brought back into danger. She suspected that not
having too much time might be the essence of the risk.
Everything was quiet as they ran along the open road from the village to
the hamlet that sat low and humble on the edge of the fields. A few
houses and the long wall of the barn still stood; but by this time the
house she had brought the guns from had the whole of its roof knocked in,
and the stripped gable at the end of the row no longer pricked up its
point against the sky; the front of the hollow shell had fallen forward
and flung itself across the road.
For a moment she thought the way was blocked. She thought: If I can't get
round I must get over. She backed, charged, and the car, rocking a
little, struggled through. And there, where the road swerved slightly,
the high wall of a barn, undermined, bulged forward, toppling. It
answered the vibration of the car with a visible tremor. So soon as she
passed it fell with a great crash and rumbling and sprawled in a smoky
heap that blocked her way behind her.
After that they went through quiet country for a time, but further east,
near the town, the shelling began. The road here was opened up into great
holes with ragged, hollow edges; she had to skirt them carefully, and
sometimes there would not be enough clear ground to move in, and one
wheel of the car would go unsupported, hanging over space.
Yet she had got through.
As she came into Zele she met the last straggling line of the refugees.
They cried out to her not to go on. She thought: I must get those men
before the retreat begins.
* * * * *
Returning with her heavy load of wounded, on the pitch-black road,
half way to Ghent she was halted. She had come up with the tail end of
the retreat.
* * * * *
Trixie Rankin stood on the hospital steps looking out. The car turned in
and swung up the rubber incline, but instead of stopping before the porch
it ran on towards the downward slope. Charlotte jammed on the brakes with
a hard jerk and backed to the level.
She couldn't think how she had let the car do that. She couldn't think
why she was slipping from the edge of it into Trixie's arms. And
stumbling in that ignominious way on the steps with Trixie holding her up
on one side.... It didn't last. After she had drunk the hot black coffee
that Alice Bartrum gave her she was all right.
The men had gone out of the messroom, leaving them alone.
"I'm all right, Trixie, only a bit tired."
"Tired? I should think you _were_ tired. That Conway man's a perfect
devil. Fancy scooting back himself on a safe trip and sending you out to
Zele. _Zele_!"
"McClane doesn't care much where he sends _you_."
"Oh, Mac--As if he could stop us. But he'd draw the line at Zele, with
the Germans coming into it."
"Rot. They weren't coming in for hours and hours."
"Well, anyhow he thought they were."
"He didn't think anything about it. I wanted to go and I went. He--he
couldn't stop me."
"It's no good lying to me, Charlotte. I know too much. I know he had
orders to go to Zele himself and the damned coward funked it. I've a good
mind to report him to Head Quarters."
"No. You won't do that. You wouldn't be such a putrid beast."
"If I don't, Charlotte, it's because I like you. You're the pluckiest
little blighter in the world. But I'll tell you what I _shall_ do. Next
time your Mr. Conway's ordered on a job he doesn't fancy I'll go with him
and hold his nose down to it by the scruff of his neck. If he was _my_
man I'd bloody well tell him what I thought of him."
"It doesn't matter what you think of him. You were pretty well gone on
him yourself once."
"When? When?"
"When you wanted to turn Mac out and make him commandant."
"Oh, _then_--I was a jolly fool to be taken in by him. So were you."
She stopped on her way to the door. "I admit he _looks_ everything he
isn't. But that only shows what a beastly humbug the man is."
"No. He isn't a humbug. He really likes going out even if he can't stand
it when he gets there."
"I've no use for that sort of courage."
"It isn't courage. But it isn't humbug."
"I've no use for your fine distinctions either."
She heard Alice Bartrum's voice calling to Trixie as she went out, "It's
jolly decent of her not to go back on him."
The voice went on. "You needn't mind what Trixie says about cold
feet. She's said it about everybody. About Sutton and Mac, and all
our men, and me."
She thought: What's the good of lying when they all know? Still, there
were things they wouldn't know if she kept on lying, things they would
never guess.
"Trixie doesn't know anything about him," she said. "No more do you. You
don't know what he _was_."
"Whatever he _is_, whatever he's done, Charlotte, you mustn't let it hurt
you. It hasn't anything to do with you. We all know what _you_ are."
"Me? I'm not bothering about myself. I tell you it's not what _you_ think
about him, it's what _I_ think."
"Yes," said Alice Bartrum. Then Gwinnie Denning and John Conway came in
and she left them.
John carried himself very straight, and again Charlotte saw about him
that odd look of accomplishment and satisfaction.
"So you got through?" he said.
"Yes. I got through." They kept their eyes from each other as they spoke.