John looked up as she came to him. His face glistened 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 time. Lying was part of their defiance, a denial that the enemy's effort had succeeded. Nothing mattered but the fixing of the splints and the carrying of the men.... John was cranking up the engine 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 from shrapnel under the shelter of the wall. She brought 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 them with its muzzle pointing down the road. Charlotte put her arm round it to steady it. On the way back to the dressing-station she sat silent, thinking of the three wounded men in there, behind, rocked and shaken by the jolting of 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, 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