"Yes, rather.... The little Belgian Army doctor was there. He was
adorable, sticking on, working away with his wounded, in a sort of
heavenly peace, with the Germans just outside."
"How many did you get?"
"Eleven--Thirteen."
"Oh good.... I've the rottenest luck. I'd have given my head to have gone
with you."
"I'm glad you didn't. It wasn't what you'd call a lady's tea-party."
"Who wants a lady's tea-party? I ought to have gone in with the Mac
Corps. Then I'd have had a chance."
"Not this time. Mac draws the line somewhere.... Look here, Gwinnie, I
wish you'd clear out a minute and let me talk to John."
Gwinnie went, grumbling.
For a moment silence came down between them. John was drinking coffee
with an air of being alone in the room, pretending that he hadn't heard
and didn't see her.
"John--I didn't mind driving that car. I knew I could do it and I did it.
I won't say I didn't mind the shelling, because I did. Still, shelling's
all in the day's work. And I didn't mind your sending me, because I'd
rather have gone myself than let you go. I don't want you to be killed.
Somehow that's still the one thing I couldn't bear. But if you'd sent
Gwinnie I'd have killed you."
"I didn't send Gwinnie. I gave you your chance. I knew you wanted to cut
Mrs. Rankin out."
"I? I never thought of such a rotten thing."
"Well, you talked about danger as if you liked it."
"So did you."
"Oh--_go_ to hell."
"I've just come from there."
"Oh--so you were frightened, were you?"
"Yes, I was horribly frightened. I had thirteen wounded men with me. What
do you suppose it feels like, driving a heavy ambulance car by yourself?
You can't sit in front and steer and look after thirteen wounded men at
the same time. I had to keep hopping in and out. That isn't nice when
there's shells about. I shall never forgive you for not coming to give a
hand with those men. There's funk you can forgive and--"
She thought: "It's John--John--I'm saying these disgusting things to.
I'm as bad as Trixie, telling him what I bloody well think of him, going
back on him."
"And there's funk--"
"You'd better take care, Charlotte. Do you know I could get you fired out
of Belgium to-morrow?"
"Not after to-night, I think." (It was horrible.)
He got up and opened the door. "Anyhow, you'll clear out of this room
now, damn you."
"I wish you'd heard that Army doctor damning _you_."
"Why didn't he go back with you himself, then?"
"_He_ couldn't leave his wounded."
He slammed the door hard behind her.
That was just like him. Wounded men everywhere, trying to sleep, and he
slammed doors. He didn't care.
She would have to go on lying. She had made up her mind to that. So long
as it would keep the others from knowing, so long as John's awfulness
went beyond their knowledge, so long as it would do any good to John, she
would lie.
Her time had come. She remembered saying that. She could hear herself
talking to John at Barrow Hill Farm: "Everybody's got their breaking
point.... I daresay when my time comes I shall funk and lie."
Well, didn't she? Funk--the everlasting funk of wondering what John would
do next; and lying, lying at every turn to save him. _He_ was her
breaking point.
She had lied, the first time they went out, about the firing. She
wondered whether she had done it because then, even then, she had been
afraid of his fear. Hadn't she always somehow, in secret, been afraid?
She could see the car coming round the corner by the Church in the narrow
street at Stow, she could feel it grazing her thigh, and John letting her
go, jumping safe to the curb. She had pretended that it hadn't happened.
But that first day--No. He had been brave then. She had only lied because
she was afraid he would worry about her.... Brave then. Could war tire
you and wear you down, and change you from yourself? In two weeks? Change
him so that she had to hate him!
Half the night she lay awake wondering: Do I hate him because he doesn't
care about me? Or because he doesn't care about the wounded? She could
see all their faces: the face of the wounded man at Melle (_he_ had
crawled out on his hands and knees to look for her); the face of the dead
boy who hadn't died when John left him; the Flamand they brought from
Lokeren, lying in the road; the face of the dead man in the shed--And
John's face.
How could you care for a thing like that? How could you want a thing like
that to care for you?
And she? She didn't matter. Nothing mattered in all the world but Them.