She couldn't think how she had let the car do that. She couldn't think why she was slipping from the edge of it into Trixie's arms. And stumbling in that ignominious way on the steps with Trixie holding her up on one side.... It didn't last. After she had drunk the hot black coffee that Alice Bartrum gave her she was all right. The men had gone out of the messroom, leaving them alone. "I'm all right, Trixie, only a bit tired." "Tired? I should think you _were_ tired. That Conway man's a perfect devil. Fancy scooting back himself on a safe trip and sending you out to Zele. _Zele_!" "McClane doesn't care much where he sends _you_." "Oh, Mac--As if he could stop us. But he'd draw the line at Zele, with the Germans coming into it." "Rot. They weren't coming in for hours and hours." "Well, anyhow he thought they were." "He didn't think anything about it. I wanted to go and I went. He--he couldn't stop me." "It's no good lying to me, Charlotte. I know too much. I know he had orders to go to Zele himself and the damned coward funked it. I've a good mind to report him to Head Quarters." "No. You won't do that. You wouldn't be such a putrid beast." "If I don't, Charlotte, it's because I like you. You're the pluckiest little blighter in the world. But I'll tell you what I _shall_ do. Next time your Mr. Conway's ordered on a job he doesn't fancy I'll go with him and hold his nose down to it by the scruff of his neck. If he was _my_ man I'd bloody well tell him what I thought of him." "It doesn't matter what you think of him. You were pretty well gone on him yourself once." "When? When?" "When you wanted to turn Mac out and make him commandant." "Oh, _then_--I was a jolly fool to be taken in by him. So were you." She stopped on her way to the door. "I admit he _looks_ everything he isn't. But that only shows what a beastly humbug the man is." "No. He isn't a humbug. He really likes going out even if he can't stand it when he gets there." "I've no use for that sort of courage." "It isn't courage. But it isn't humbug." "I've no use for your fine distinctions either." She heard Alice Bartrum's voice calling to Trixie as she went out, "It's jolly decent of her not to go back on him." The voice went on. "You needn't mind what Trixie says about cold feet. She's said it about everybody. About Sutton and Mac, and all our men, and me." She thought: What's the good of lying when they all know? Still, there were things they wouldn't know if she kept on lying, things they would never guess. "Trixie doesn't know anything about him," she said. "No more do you. You don't know what he _was_." "Whatever he _is_, whatever he's done, Charlotte, you mustn't let it hurt you. It hasn't anything to do with you. We all know what _you_ are." "Me? I'm not bothering about myself. I tell you it's not what _you_ think about him, it's what _I_ think." "Yes," said Alice Bartrum. Then Gwinnie Denning and John Conway came in and she left them.