bed by his steering.

But as they ran into Ghent the romance of it, the romance of it, came
back to her. It wasn't over yet. They would have to go out again for the
wounded they had had to leave behind at Berlaere.

"John--John--It's like nothing else on earth."

"I told you it would be."

Slowly realization came to her. They had brought in their wounded under
the enemy's fire. And they had saved the guns.

* * * * *

"Do you mind," John said, "if Sutton goes instead of me He hasn't
been out yet?"

"N-no. Not if I can go too."

"Do you want to?"

"Awfully."

She had drawn up the ambulance in the Square before the Hospital and sat
in her driver's seat, waiting. Sutton came to her there. When he saw her
he stood still.

"_You_ going?"

"Rather. Do you mind?"

Sutton didn't answer. All the way out to Berlaere he sat stolid and
silent, not looking at anything they passed and taking no more notice of
the firing than if he hadn't heard it. As the car swung into Berlaere she
was aware of his voice, low under the noise of the engine.

"What did you say?"

"Conway told me it was you who saved the guns."

Suddenly she was humbled.

"It was the men who saved them. We just brought them away."

"Conway told me what you did," he said quietly.

Going out with Sutton was a quiet affair.

"You know," he said presently, "it was against the Hague Convention."

"Good heavens, so it was! I never thought of it."

"You must think of it. You gave the Germans the right to fire on all our
ambulances.... You see, this isn't just a romantic adventure; it's a
disagreeable, necessary, rather dangerous job."

"I didn't do it for swank. I knew the guns were wanted, and I couldn't
bear to leave them."

"I know, it would have been splendid if you'd been a combatant. But," he
said sadly, "this is a field ambulance, not an armoured car."

IX

She was glad they had been sent out with the McClane Corps to Melle. She
wanted McClane to see the stuff that John was made of. She knew what had
been going on in the commandant's mind. He had been trying to persuade
himself that John was no good, because, from the minute he had seen him
with his ambulance on the wharf at Ostend, from the minute he had known
his destination, he had been jealous of him and afraid. Why, he must have
raced them all the way from Ostend, to get in first. Afraid and jealous,
afraid of John's youth with its secret of triumph and of cour