Part 18 (1/2)

John had told her to stay there with the wounded man up the turn of the stable yard while he went for the stretcher. His car, packed with wounded, stood a little way up the street, headed for Ghent. Sutton's car, with one of McClane's chauffeurs, was in front of it, ready; she could hear the engine purring.

Instead of going at once for the stretcher John had followed Sutton into the house opposite, the house with the narrow grey shutters. And he had called to her again across the road to wait for him.

Behind her in the yard the wounded man sat on the cobblestones, his back propped against the stable wall. He was safe there, safer than he would have been outside in the ambulance.

It was awful to think that he would have been left behind if they had not found him at the last minute among the straw.

She went and stood by the yard entrance to see whether John were coming with the stretcher. A soldier came out of the house with the narrow shutters, wounded, limping, his foot bound to a splint. Then Sutton came, hurrying to help him. He shouted to her, ”Come on, Charlotte, hurry up!”

and she called back, ”I've got to wait here for John.”

She watched them go on slowly up the road to Sutton's car; she saw them get in; she saw the car draw out and rush away.

Then she saw John come out of the door of the house and stand there, looking up and down the street. Once she saw him glance back over his shoulder at something behind him in the room. The same instant she heard the explosion and saw the sh.e.l.l burst in the middle of the street, not fifty yards from the ambulance. Half a minute after she saw John dash from the doorway and run, run at an incredible pace, towards his car. She heard him crank up the engine.

She supposed that he was going to back towards the yard, and she wondered whether she could lift up the Belgian and carry him out. She stooped over him, put her hands under his armpits, raising him and wondering. Better not. He had a bad wound. Better wait for the stretcher.

She turned, suddenly, arrested. The noise she heard was not the grating noise of a car backing, it was the scream of a car getting away; it dropped to a heavy whirr and diminished.

She looked out. Up the road she saw John's car rus.h.i.+ng furiously towards Ghent.

The Belgian had heard it. His eyes moved. Black hare's eyes, terrified.

It was not possible, he said, that they had been left behind?

No, it was not possible. John had forgotten them; but he would remember; he would come back. In five minutes. Seven minutes. She had waited fifteen.

The Belgian was muttering something. He complained of being left there.

He said he was not anxious about himself, but about Mademoiselle.

Mademoiselle ought not to have been left. She was sitting on the ground now, beside him.

”It'll be all right,” she said. ”He'll come back.” When he remembered he would come back.

She had waited half an hour.

Another sh.e.l.l. It had burst over there at the backs of the houses, beyond the stable.

She wondered whether it would be safer to drag her man across the street under the wall of the Town Hall. They would be sure to aim at it and miss it, whereas any minute they might hit the stable.

At the moment while she wondered there was a third tremendous explosion, the crash and roar of brickwork falling like coal down an enormous chute.

It came from the other side of the street a little way down. It couldn't be far from the Town Hall. That settled it. Much better stay where they were. The Belgian had put his arm round her, drawing her to him, away from the noise and shock of the sh.e.l.l.

It was clear now that John was not coming back. He had forgotten them.

The Belgian's hold slackened; he dozed, falling against her and recovering himself with a jerk and begging her pardon. She drew down his head on to her shoulder and let it rest there. Her mind was soaked in the smell of his rank breath, of the warm sweat that oozed through his tunic, the hot, fetid smell that came through his unlaced boots. She didn't care; she was too sorry for him. She could feel nothing but the helpless pressure of his body against hers, nothing but her pity that hurt her and was exquisite like love. Yesterday she had thought it would be good to die with John. Now she thought it would be good to die with the wounded Belgian, since John had left her there to die.

And again, she had a vehement desire for life, a horror of the unjust death John was bringing on them.

But of course there wouldn't be any death. If n.o.body came she would walk back to Ghent and bring out the ambulance.