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Alice, didn't I say, the minute I saw Mr. Conway with that car of his, didn't I say we ought to have him?" "You did." "Thanks. I'd rather take my orders from the Colonel." "And I'd rather take mine from you than from McClane. Fancy coming out at the head of a Field Ambulance looking like that. Tell you what, Mr. Conway, if you'll join up with us I'll get the Colonel to make you our commandant."
Trixie Rankin and the McClane men were at the front cars taking out the stretchers; John and McClane were going up the road. She had got out her own stretcher and was following them when the battery came tearing down the road and cut them off. It tore headlong, swerving and careening with great rattling and crashing noises.
They were all listening, and Alice Bartrum had made fresh tea for her; McClane was setting down her cup. She was thirsty; she longed for the fresh, fragrant tea; she was soothed by the kind, listening faces. Suddenly they drew away; they weren't listening any more. John had come into the room.
It's only that I don't care as much as I did about what you call the romance of it; and I do care more about the solid work. It seems to me that it doesn't matter who does it so long as it's done." "I'd very much rather I did it than McClane. So would you." "Yes. I would. But I'd be sorry if poor little Mac didn't get any of it. And all the time I know it doesn't matter which of us it is.
She must know; it was a thing she must know for certain, or she would never have any peace. And when the Flamand was laid out on McClane's table, while McClane dressed his wound, she slipped down the lane and opened the green door. The man lay on a row of packing cases with his feet parted. She put one hand over his heart and the other on his forehead under the lock of bloodstained hair.
When all the artillery had passed he was not there; only McClane, going on up the middle of the street by himself. She ran after him and asked him what had happened to John. He turned, dreamy and deliberate, utterly unperturbed. John, he said, had gone on to look for a wounded man who was said to have been taken into one of those houses there, on the right, in the lane.
Would they take a stretcher and find him? He had to go back to the tramway. The last tram was coming in from Lokeren. He ran back, fussy and a little frightened. John shouted out, "Hold on, McClane, there's another tram coming," and set off up the street. They had taken all the men out of the houses; therefore the man with the bad wound must have been left somewhere by the plantation.
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 were the only passengers besides some young soldiers, and these had left them a clear space on the deck. Charlotte was sitting by herself under the lee of a cabin when McClane came to her there. He was straddling and rubbing his hands. Something had pleased him. "I knew," he said, "that some day I should get you three. And that I should get those ambulances."
Lying on her bed that night Charlotte made it out. "Gwinnie you know why McClane won't have John?" "I suppose because Mrs. Rankin's keen on him." "McClane isn't keen on Mrs. Rankin.... Can't you see he's trying to hoof John out of Belgium, because he wants all the glory to himself? We wouldn't do that to one of them, even if we were mean enough not to want them in it." "He wanted Sutton."
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