The Romantic Part 12

"Same way as McClane. If he can go to Head Quarters, so can I."

"I wouldn't," Sutton said. "It might give a bad impression. Our turn'll come before long."

Gwinnie laughed. "It won't--unless Charlotte dines with the Colonel."

"It certainly _mayn't_," said Charlotte. "They may commandeer our cars and give them to McClane."

"They can't," said Gwinnie. "We're volunteers."

"They can do anything they choose. Military necessity."

Gwinnie was thoughtful.

"John," she said, "can I have one of the cars to-morrow afternoon?"

"What for?"

"Never mind. Can I?"

"You can have both the d.a.m.ned things if you like; they're no good to me."

The next afternoon they looked on while Gwinnie, who wore a look of great wisdom and mystery, slipped her car out of the yard into a side street and headed for the town. She came back at tea-time, bright-eyed and faintly flushed.

"You'll find we shall be sent out to-morrow."

"Oh, shall we!" John said.

"Yes. I've worked it for you."

"You?"

"Me. They've seen my car."

"Who have?"

"The whole lot of them. General Staff. First of all I paraded it all round the blessed town. Then I turned into the Place d'Armes. I kept it standing two solid hours outside the Hotel de la Poste where the blooming bra.s.s hats all hang out. In five minutes it collected a small crowd.

First it was only refugees and war correspondents. Then the Colonel came out and stuck his head in at the back. He got quite excited when he saw we could take five stretcher cases.

"I showed him our tyres and the electric light, and I ran the stretchers in and out for him. He'd never seen them with wheels before.... He said it was 'magnifique'... The old bird wanted to take me into the hotel and stand me tea."

"Didn't you let him?"

"No. I said I had to stay with my car. And I took jolly good care to let him know it hadn't been out yet."

"Whatever made you think of it?"

"I don't know. It just sort of came to me."

Next afternoon John had orders to go to Berlaere to fetch wounded.

VIII

At the turn of the road they heard the guns: a solemn Boom--Boom coming up out of hushed s.p.a.ces; they saw white puffs of smoke rising in the blue sky. The French guns somewhere back of them. The German guns in front southwards beyond the river.

Charlotte looked at John; he was brilliantly happy. They smiled at each other as if they said "_Now_ it's beginning."

Outside the village of Berlaere they were held up by two sentries with rifles. (Thrilling, that.) Their Belgian guide leaned out and whispered the pa.s.sword; John showed their pa.s.sports and they slipped through.

Where the road turned on their left into the street they saw a group of soldiers standing at the door of a house. Three of them, a Belgian lieutenant and two non-commissioned officers, advanced hurriedly and stopped the car. The lieutenant forbade them to go on.

"But," John said, "we've got orders to go on."

A shrug intimated that their orders were not the lieutenant's affair.

They couldn't go on.

"But we _must_ go on. We've got to fetch some wounded."

"There aren't any wounded," said the lieutenant.

Charlotte had an inspiration. "You tell us that tale every time," she said, "and there are always wounded."

The Belgian guide and the lieutenant exchanged glances.

"I've told you there aren't any," the lieutenant said. "You must go back."

"Here--You explain."

But instead of explaining the little Belgian backed up the lieutenant by a refusal on his own part to go on.

"He can please himself. _We're_ going on."

"You don't imagine," Charlotte said, "by any chance that we're _afraid_?"

The lieutenant smiled, a smile that lifted his ferocious, upturned moustache: first sign that he was yielding. He looked at the sergeant and the corporal, and they nodded.

John had his foot on the clutch. "We're due," he said, "at the dressing station by three o'clock."

She thought: He's magnificent. She could see that the lieutenant and the soldiers thought he was magnificent. Supposing she had gone out with some meek fool who would have gone back when they told him!

The lieutenant skipped aside before the advancing car. "You can go," he said, "to the dressing-station."

"They always do that as a matter of form--sort of warning us that it's our own risk. They won't be responsible."

She didn't answer. She was thinking that when they turned John's driving place would be towards the German guns.