They carried him out through the wood on to the road. He lay inert, humped up, heavy. They had to go slowly, so slowly that they could see the wounded and the Red Cross men going on far before them, down the street.
The flagged road swayed and swung with the swinging bulge of the stretcher as they staggered. The shafts kept on slipping and slipping; her grasp closed, tighter and tighter; her arms ached in their sockets; but her fingers and the palms of her hands were firm and dry; they could keep their hold.
They had only gone a few yards along the road when suddenly John stopped and sank his end of the stretcher, compelling Charlotte to lower hers too.
"What did you do that for?"
"We can't, Charlotte. He's too damned heavy."
"If I can, you can."
He didn't move. He stood there, staring with his queer, hypnotised eyes, at the man lying in the middle of the road, at the red pit in the white back, at the wide, ragged lips of the wound, gaping.
"For goodness' sake pick him up. It isn't the moment for resting."
"Look here--it isn't good enough. We can't get him there in time."
"You're--you're not going to leave him!"
"We've got to leave him. We can't let the whole lot be taken just for one man."
"We'll be taken if you stand here talking."
He went on a step or two, slouching; then stood still, waiting for her, ashamed. He was changed from himself, seized and driven by the fear that had possessed the men in the plantation. She could see it in his retreating eyes.
She cried out--her voice sounded sharp and strange--"John--! You can't leave him."
The wounded man who had lain inert, thinking that they were only resting, now turned his head at her cry. She saw his eyes shaking, palpitating with terror.
"You've frightened him," she said. "I won't have him frightened."
She didn't really believe that John was going. He went slowly, still ashamed, and stopped again and waited for her.
"Come back," she said, "this minute, and pick up that stretcher and get on."
"I tell you it isn't good enough."
"Oh, go then, if you're such a damned coward, and send Mac to me. Or Trixie."
"They'll have gone."
He was walking backwards, his face set towards the turn of the road.
"Come on, you little fool. You can't carry him."