She heard Mrs. Rankin calling sharply to her to get down and give a hand with the stretcher.
John and Mrs. Rankin were disputing.
"Can't you shove it in at the bottom?" he was saying.
"No. The first cases must go on top."
Her mouth snapped like a clamp. Her eyes were blazing. She was struggling with the head of the stretcher while John heaved at the foot. He staggered as he moved, and his face was sallow-white and drawn and glistening. When Charlotte took the shafts from him they were slippery with his sweat.
"Is he hurt?" she whispered.
"Very badly hurt," said Mrs. Rankin.
"John, I mean."
Mrs. Rankin snorted. "You'd better ask him."
John was slouching round to the front of the car, anxious to get out of the sight and sound of her. He went with an uneven dropping movement of one hip. Charlotte followed him.
"Get into your seat, Sharlie. We've got to wait for Billy and McClane."
He dragged himself awkwardly into the place beside her.
"John," she said, "are you hurt?"
"No. But I think I've strained something. That's why I couldn't lift that damned stretcher."
* * * * *
The windows stood wide open to the sweet, sharp air. She heard Mrs. Rankin and Sutton talking on the balcony. In that dreadful messroom you heard everything.
"What do you suppose it was then?" Mrs. Rankin said.
And Sutton, "Oh, I don't know. Something upset him."
"If he's going to be upset like that every time he'd better go home."
They were talking--she knew they were talking about John.
"Hallo, Charlotte, we haven't left you much tea."
"It doesn't matter."
Her hunger left her suddenly. She stared with disgust at the remains of the tea the McClane Corps had eaten.
Sutton went on. "He hasn't been sleeping properly. I've made him go to bed."
"If you can keep him in bed for the duration of the war--"
"Are you talking about John?"
"We are."
"I don't know what you're driving at; but I suppose he was sick on that beastly battlefield. It's all very well for you two; you're a trained nurse and Billy's a surgeon.... You aren't taken that way when you see blood."
"Blood?" said Mrs. Rankin.
"Yes. Blood. He was perfectly all right yesterday."
Mrs. Rankin laughed. "Yesterday he couldn't see there was any danger. You could tell that by the idiotic things he said."