taking medical stores to the convent hospital at Bruges and convoying
Gurney, the sick chauffeur, to Ostend for England. Charlotte was to go
out with Sutton, and Gwinnie was to take poor Gurney's place. She was
glad she was going with Billy. Whatever happened Billy would go through
it without caring, his mind fixed on the solid work.

And John, for an hour before he started, had been going about in gloom,
talking of death. _His_ death.

They were looking over the last letter from his father which he had asked
her to answer for him. It seemed that John had told him the chances were
he would be killed and had asked him whether in this case he would allow
the Roden ambulances to be handed over to McClane. And the old man had
given his consent.

"Isn't it a pity to frighten him?" she said.

"He's no business to be frightened. It's _my_ death. If I can face it, he
can. I'm simply making necessary arrangements."

She could see that. At the same time it struck her that he wanted you to
see that he exposed himself to all the risks of death, to see how he
faced it. She had no patience with that talk about death; that pitiful
bolstering up of his romance.

"If McClane says much more you can tell him."

He was counting on this transfer of the ambulances to get credit with
McClane; to silence him.