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"If we only would--"

"Of course we shall If I thought ouldn't, if I thought ere going to let the Belgians down, if we betrayed them--My God! I'd kill h I'd give up ian Why, they trust us They trust us to save Antwerp"

"If we don't, that wouldn't be betrayal"

"It would The worst kind It would be like betraying a woundedyou, Jeanne You needn't look like that It's so bad that it can't happen"

Through the enveloping sadness she felt a prick of joy, seeing him so valiant, so unbeaten in his soul It supported her certainty His soul was so big that nothing could satisfy it but the big thing, the big dangerous thing He wouldn't even believe that Antas falling

She knew She knew There was not the smallest doubt about it any e near Lokeren, the village whose name she couldn't re; they were in Lokeren At any h a little town to get to it And there they had been told that they e they were told that they iven five et in their wounded and they had been there three-quarters of an hour, she and John working together, and Trixie Rankin with McClane and two of his men

Charlotte had been sorry for Sutton and Gwinnie and the rest of McClane's corps who had not coain to Melle where things had been so quiet allthat they hadn't filled their a She had fretted at the stupidity which had sent theh hands for the stretchers, and Charlotte anted every second of the time From the first minute you could see what you were in for

The retreat

And for an instant, in the blind rush and confusion of it, she had lost sight of John She had turned the car round and left it with its nose pointing towards Ghent Trixie Rankin and the McClaneout the stretchers; John and McClane were going up the road She had got out her own stretcher and was following the down the road and cut thereat rattling and crashing noises She could see the faces of the ; there was no terror in theer and resentment