* * * * *
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 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."