And in John’s face and in his alert body there was happiness, happiness that was almost ecstasy; it ran through and shone from him, firm and still, like a flame that couldn’t go out.  It penetrated her and made her happy and satisfied and sure of him.  She had seen it leap up in him as he swung himself into the seat beside her when they started.  He was restless, restless every day until they were sent out; he couldn’t wait in peace before they had set off on the adventure, as if he were afraid that at the last minute something would happen to dash his chance from him.  She couldn’t find this passionate uneasiness in herself; she waited with a stolid trust in the event; but she had something of his feeling.  After all, it was there, the romance, the fascination, the glamour; you couldn’t deny it any more than you could deny the beating of the blood in your veins.  It was their life.

They had been in the village three quarters of an hour.  John and Charlotte waited while McClane at his table was putting the last bandage on the last wound.  In another minute they would be gone.  It was then that the Belgian Red Cross man came running to them.  Had they taken a man with a wound in his back?  A bad wound?  As big as that?  No?  Then he was still here, and he had got to take him to the ambulance.  No, he didn’t know where he was.  He might be in one of those houses where they took in the wounded, or he might be up there by the tramway in the plantation.  Would they take a stretcher and find him? He had to go back to the tramway.  The last tram was coming in from Lokeren.  He ran back, fussy and a little frightened.

John shouted out, “Hold on, McClane, there’s another tram coming,” and set off up the street.  They had taken all the men out of the houses; therefore the man with the bad wound must have been left somewhere by the plantation.  They went there, carrying their stretcher, going, going up to the last minute, in delight, in the undying thrill of the danger.

The wounded man was not in the plantation.  As they looked for him the tram from Lokeren slid in, Red Cross men on the steps, clinging.  The doors were flung open and the wounded men came out, stumbling, falling, pushing each other.  Somebody cried, “No stretchers!  Damned bad management.  With the Germans on our backs.”  A Red Cross man, with a puffed white face, stood staring at John and Charlotte, stupefied.

“Are they coming?” John said.

“Coming?  They’ll be here in ten minutes—­five minutes.”  He snarled, a terrified animal.

He had caught sight of their stretcher and snatched at it, thrusting out his face, the face of a terrified animal, open mouth, and round, palpitating eyes.  He lifted his hand as though he would have struck at Charlotte, but John pushed him back.  He was brutalized, made savage and cruel by terror; he had a lust to hurt.

“You can’t have our stretcher,” Charlotte said.