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She turned to the next uns with their tiltedin the corner of the roouns

John's hypnotic whisper caet 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'veto putherself 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 et those men out before another colistened 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 ti was part of their defiance, a denial that the ene of the splints and the carrying of the ine 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 froht 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 the down the road Charlotte put her ar-station she sat silent, thinking of the three woundedof the car on the uneven causeway John was silent, too, absorbed by his steering

But as they ran into Ghent the romance of it, the romance of it, cao 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 caht in their wounded under the eneuns