o you want him?"

"Not yet."

A soldier brought a chair for her. She sat down with her back to the
trestle table. At the lighted end of the room she saw Sutton stooping
over a young Belgian captain, buttoning his tunic under the sling he had
adjusted. The captain's face showed pure and handsome, like a girl's,
like a young nun's, bound round and chin-wrapped in the white bandages.
He sat on the floor in front of Sutton's table with his legs stretched
out flat. His back was propped against the thigh of a Belgian soldier
seated on an upturned barrel. Her hurt eyes saw them very plain and with
detail in the light of Sutton's lamp.

That part of the room was full of soldiers. She noticed that they kept
clear of the trestle table as they went in and out. Only one of them, the
soldier who supported the young captain, kept on looking, raising his
head and looking there as if he couldn't turn his eyes away. He faced
her. His rifle stood steadied by his knees, the bayonet pointing up
between his eyes.

She found herself thinking. It was Sutton's back that made her think.
John must have been stooping over the German like that. John's wound
was in his back. But if he was stooping it couldn't have come that
way. The bullet would have gone through his chest.... Perhaps he had
turned to pick up his stretcher. Billy was there. He would tell her
how it had happened.

She thought: No. I've had enough. I shall give it up. I won't ask him.
But she knew that she would ask him. Once started, having gone so far,
flash by flash and step by step, she couldn't give it up; she would go
on, even now, till her knowledge was complete. Then she was aware again
of the soldier's eyes.

They were very large and bright and black in his smooth boy's face; he
had a small innocent boy's mouth that seemed to move, restless and
fascinated, like his eyes. Presently she saw that he was looking at her,
that his eyes returned to her again and again, as if he were aware of
some connection between her and the thing that fascinated him, as if _he_
were somehow connected.

He was listening to her now as Sutton spoke to her.

"We must get him away quick."

"Yes. Do let's get him away."

Sutton shook his head. He was thinking of the wounded captain.

"We can't yet. I'll come back for him."

"Then I'll wait with him here."

"Oh no--I think--"

"I can't leave him."

"It isn't safe. The place may be taken."

"I won't leave him." Sutton hesitated. "I