where they're
safe and send in again for them."

"I don't know that I _can_ send in again. We're supposed to have finished
this job. The cars may be wanted for anything. _They'll_ be all right."

"I don't _like_ taking them."

"You're making difficulties," he said. He was irritable and hurried; he
had kept on turning and looking up the street as though he thought the
lieutenant might appear again at any minute.

"When _will_ you learn that you've simply got to obey orders?"

"All right."

She hadn't a chance with him. Whatever she said and did he could always
bring it round to that, her orders. She thought she knew what _his_
orders had been.

He cranked up the engine. She could see him stooping and rising to it, a
rhythmic, elastic movement; he was cranking energetically, with a sort of
furious, flushed enjoyment of his power.

She backed and turned and he ran forward with her as she started. He
shouted "Don't think about the main road. Get through.... And hurry _up_.
You haven't got too much time."

She knew. It was going to be dangerous and he funked it. He hadn't got to
drive Trixie into Ghent. When the worst came to the worst Trixie could
drive herself. She thought: He didn't tell her because he daren't. He
knew she wouldn't let him send me by myself. She'd _make_ him go. She'd
stand over him and bully him till he had to.

Still, she could do it. She could get through. Going by herself was
better than going with a man who funked it. Only she would have liked it
better without the two wounded men. She thought of them, jostled, falling
against each other, falling forward and recovering, shaken by the jolting
of the car, and perhaps brought back into danger. She suspected that not
having too much time might be the essence of the risk.

Everything was quiet as they ran along the open road from the village to
the hamlet that sat low and humble on the edge of the fields. A few
houses and the long wall of the barn still stood; but by this time the
house she had brought the guns from had the whole of its roof knocked in,
and the stripped gable at the end of the row no longer pricked up its
point against the sky; the front of the hollow shell had fallen forward
and flung itself across the road.

For a moment she thought the way was blocked. She thought: If I can't get
round I must get over. She backed, charged, and the car, rocking a
little, struggled through. And there, where the road swerved slightly,
the