high wall of a barn, undermined, bulged forward, toppling. It
answered the vibration of the car with a visible tremor. So soon as she
passed it fell with a great crash and rumbling and sprawled in a smoky
heap that blocked her way behind her.

After that they went through quiet country for a time, but further east,
near the town, the shelling began. The road here was opened up into great
holes with ragged, hollow edges; she had to skirt them carefully, and
sometimes there would not be enough clear ground to move in, and one
wheel of the car would go unsupported, hanging over space.

Yet she had got through.

As she came into Zele she met the last straggling line of the refugees.
They cried out to her not to go on. She thought: I must get those men
before the retreat begins.

* * * * *

Returning with her heavy load of wounded, on the pitch-black road,
half way to Ghent she was halted. She had come up with the tail end of
the retreat.

* * * * *

Trixie Rankin stood on the hospital steps looking out. The car turned in
and swung up the rubber incline, but instead of stopping before the porch
it ran on towards the downward slope. Charlotte jammed on the brakes with
a hard jerk and backed to the level.

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