Page:Restless Earth.djvu/118

“Hurt?”

“Lost one hand. He was about all in, but as cheerful as though he’d won a double. All he seemed to be worrying about was whether the Grand Hotel had gone.’

“Which hand?”

“They didn’t say. It’s going to be pretty hard for him, whichever it is. I’ve only met one hair-dresser with one hand, and he lost his other as a kid. Jerry’s too old to learn new tricks.”

“He’ll have to concentrate on the book. Book-makers don’t need two hands.”

“Except in the silly season. Am I to go straight through to Palmerston?”

“Expect you’ll have to. Waipuk. is overcrowded now. Here’s the doctor’s report on your cases. The woman I told you about was hauled out of Roach’s. She’s———”

Harley heard no more, for the two moved away to the front of the ambulance conversing in a lower tone. He saw that the driver was moved by the other’s information, for he shook his head pityingly as he climbed into his seat.

The ambulance lumbered away, operated with a care to which it was completely unused.

There had been silence in the car since it had halted, save for the unobtrusive ticking of the idling engine. Roy had watched the operations of the stretcher-bearers with half-closed eyes, his stubby fingers drumming silently on the wheel the while, his lips pursed. His thoughts were back in France, where he had often sat at a wheel, waiting while hospital orderlies dumped “blightys” into his rattling ambulance. He had worn a steel helmet then—a helmet which had been very useful for boiling eggs or to sit on in the mud—and none had thought to tell him to be careful on the bends.

The background of shattered walls, visible between the slightly-battered and chimneyless suburban houses, aided the illusion of war, and, when