ohn didn't
matter. John didn't exist. He was nothing but a pair of hands working
quickly and dexterously with her own.... She looked up. John's mouth kept
its hard, glued look; his eyes were feverish behind a glaze of water, and
red-rimmed.

She thought: It's awful for him. He minds too much. It hurt her to see
how he minded. After all, he did matter. Deep inside her he mattered more
than the wounded men; he mattered more than anything on earth. Only there
wasn't time, there wasn't _time_ to think of him.

She turned to the next man and caught sight of the two machine guns with
their tilted muzzles standing in the corner of the room by the chimney.
They must remember to bring away the guns.

John's hypnotic whisper came again. "You might get those splints,
Charlotte."

As she crossed the road a shell fell in the open field beyond, and burst,
throwing up a great splash and spray of brown earth. She stiffened
herself in an abrupt gesture of defiance. Her mind retorted: "You've
missed, that time. You needn't think I'm going to put myself out for
_you_." To show that she wasn't putting herself out (in case they should
be looking) she strolled with dignity to her car, selected carefully the
kind of splint she needed, and returned. She thought: Oh well--supposing
they _do_ hit. We must get those men out before another comes.

John looked up as she came to him. His face glistened with pinheads of
sweat; he panted in the choking air.

"Where did that shell burst?"

"Miles away."

"Are you certain?"

"Rather."

She lied. Why not? John had been lying all the time. Lying was part of
their defiance, a denial that the enemy's effort had succeeded. Nothing
mattered but the fixing of the splints and the carrying of the men....

John was cranking up the engine when she turned back into the house.

"I _say_, what are you doing?"

"Going for the guns."

There was, she noticed, a certain longish interval between shells. John
and the wounded men would be safe from shrapnel under the shelter of the
wall. She brought out the first gun and stowed it at the back of the car.
Then she went in for the other. It stood on the seat between them with
its muzzle pointing down the road. Charlotte put her arm round it to
steady it.

On the way back to the dressing-station she sat silent, thinking of
the three wounded men in there, behind, rocked and shaken by the
jolting of the car on the uneven causeway. John was silent, too,
absor