"I don't care. If he's in a clean bed--if they take his boots off--"

"I told you they can't spare clean beds for corpses. He'll be dead before
you can get him there."

"Not if we're quick."

"Nonsense. We must get him out of that."

He seized the handle of the stretcher and began pulling; she hung on to
his arm and stopped that.

"No. No," she said. "You shan't touch him."

He flung her arm off and turned. "You fool," he said. "You fool."

She looked at him steadily, a long look that remembered, that made
him remember.

"There isn't time," she said. "They'll begin _firing_ in another minute."

"Damn you." But he had turned, slinking round the corner of the hood to
the engine. While he cranked it up she thought of the kit that one of the
men had left there in the yard. She made a dash and fetched it, and as
she threw it on the floor the car started. She snatched at the rope and
swung herself up on to the step. The dying man lay behind her, straight
and stiff; his feet in their heavy boots stuck out close under her hand.

The four men nodded and grinned at her. They protected her. They