A shrug intimated that their orders were not the lieutenant's affair.
They couldn't go on.

"But we _must_ go on. We've got to fetch some wounded."

"There aren't any wounded," said the lieutenant.

Charlotte had an inspiration. "You tell us that tale every time," she
said, "and there are always wounded."

The Belgian guide and the lieutenant exchanged glances.

"I've told you there aren't any," the lieutenant said. "You must go
back."

"Here--You explain."

But instead of explaining the little Belgian backed up the lieutenant by
a refusal on his own part to go on.

"He can please himself. _We're_ going on."

"You don't imagine," Charlotte said, "by any chance that we're _afraid_?"

The lieutenant smiled, a smile that lifted his ferocious, upturned
moustache: first sign that he was yielding. He looked at the sergeant and
the corporal, and they nodded.

John had his foot on the clutch. "We're due," he said, "at the dressing