Puffing at a pipe that he had just lit Renetter refused to be hurried, but after a moment's thought it seemed to him that, anyhow, there could be no harm in getting his men into some of the nearby buildings, so he gave the necessary orders while the interpreter passed on to the Mayor the information about the anticipated air-raid. He then nodded to Gregory.
'Right-oh; you'd better lead the way, and I warn you I'll shoot you if you attempt to play me any monkey tricks.'
In this somewhat undignified manner Gregory proceeded at a swift pace up the hill, the Captain following with a quick but apparently leisurely stride. At the hospital they found everything in a bustle. The nurses and male-attendants were already shepherding the less serious cases down into the air-raid shelters which had been prepared during the past fortnight, while outside the building were three ambulances, to which others of the staff were carrying out the bedridden on stretchers.
They found Gussy dressed and a nurse was just completing the adjustment of a sling to carry his arm.
The lean-faced Gregory was of such a type that he might well have been taken for a dark-haired Briton, a southern German or even a Frenchman, but about Gussy there was no question at all. His beautifully-cut suit of Glenurquhart tweed positively screamed Saville Row and no one but a British diplomat could possibly have sported that long, drooping moustache in the year of grace 1940 and got away with it. Captain Renetter had hardly to exchange two sentences with him before he was confident of his bona fides; which automatically established Gregory's as well.
'Where did you get this information?' he asked.
'Sorry, I can't tell you,' Gregory replied promptly, 'but I'll take my oath it's authentic. There's one German armoured column advancing up the Osterdal Valley and another which will be rattling through here within a few hours. You can't possibly resist tanks, flame-throwers and ground-strafing aircraft with infantry, so the sooner you pack up and get out the better.'
'I'm afraid I can't do that. My orders are to advance south until I contact the enemy and then to go into action.'
'But good God, man! There's no sense in doing that when you've already been told that you'll be up against immensely superior forces! Your men will only be massacred. You'd much better get back up the valley. Blow up a bridge if you can find one, to halt their tanks, then hang on there until reinforcements reach you.'
Renetter shook his head. 'I wouldn't care to retreat until I've at least put up some sort of a show.'
'All right, then,' shrugged Gregory angrily, 'hang on if you insist, and ambush the tanks from houses on either side of the main street; but if you do that, it's a hundred to one that you'll be cut off and surrounded here, which is a senseless way to try to serve your country.'
'Thanks! but I think that I'm the best judge of that,' replied the Captain a little stiffly. 'After all, I'm a soldier.'
'True.' Gregory's eye glinted. 'I'm sure that you'll put up a jolly good show and die very gallantly. But the trouble is, my young friend, that you do not yet understand what you're up against. I, on the other hand have spent several months in Germany since the war, so I know very much more about the German Army than you do. Incidentally, I also happen to have won my Military Cross when you were still in your perambulator. However, probably you're a braver man than I am. I mean to get out before this place gets too hot to hold me.'
'I'm sorry,' Renetter apologised, handsomely if a little awkwardly. 'I didn't mean to be rude or anything but it seemed as if you were suggesting that I should run away from the Germans.'
'That's quite all right,' Gregory assured him with a smile; 'it's your show and you must use your own judgment, but knowing the facts I'd see to it anyhow that you leave yourself a good line of retreat open, because I'm afraid you'll need it. Best of luck to you. Come on, Gussy.'
Together they walked out into the pale, spring sunshine. The Captain flicked his battle bowler with a smile and went off down the hill to his men while Gregory and Gussy joined the small crowd that was gathered about the three ambulances. They were now loaded up with four stretcher-cases and a nurse apiece, but the driver of the rear car was missing, as he had run off a few minutes before to collect some valuables from his house. The doctor was anxious to get the convoy started and said that they would not wait for the man if they could find another driver. Gregory at once volunteered and got into the driving-seat with Gussy on the box beside him. The doctor jumped on the leading car and the little cavalcade set off.
The leading ambulances, moving at an easy pace on account of the injured people who formed their cargo, ran down the hill towards the main square, but Gregory did not follow. Jamming his foot down on the accelerator he tore along the side-road in which the hospital was situated and, clanging his bell to clear the way ahead, turned down a number of other side-streets towards the northern entrance to the town.
'Hi!' exclaimed Gussy. 'Steady on! Think of your poor passengers.'
'I am,' said Gregory grimly, swerving to avoid a farm-cart. 'If we had stayed in a column we'd have made a tempting target for a Nazi bomb once we got out on to the open road, and we need every ounce of speed this bus will give us if we're to get well clear of the others before the trouble starts. It's better for the people behind us to have a bit of a shaking-up than to be blown to bits.'
They left the town a quarter of a mile ahead of the other two ambulances and streaked up the gradient of the valley road along which they had chased von Ziegler a fortnight earlier. When they had covered a bare three miles they heard the crash of bombs behind them but gradually the noise faded in the distance, and for the sake of the invalids inside it Gregory eased down the pace at which he was driving the ambulance.
'Poor devils!' he muttered, suddenly.
'You were thinking of the troops and that Captain feller,' said Gussy slowly.
'Yes. I'd hate to have been in his shoes. I should have felt just the same about things myself. The very idea of retreating from the enemy without even firing a shot seems cowardice—particularly when one's young and it's against orders. I felt an awful cad trying to scare him into getting out, but I was right, you know.'
'Urn; I'm afraid you were. Infantry can't possibly hold up an armoured column unless they are equipped for the job.'
'That's what makes me so livid,' Gregory went on. 'They're going to be slaughtered because the people whose job it was to equip them were still thinking in terms of war as it was twenty-five years ago; they stand no more chance against Nazi shock-troops than the archers of mediaeval times would have stood if they had been sent against the grenadiers and batteries of artillery which took the field at Waterloo. I wish to God the whole damned Army Council was in Lillehammer at this moment instead of that poor Captain and his boys!'
'It's no good getting excited about it,' Gussy replied quietly, 'and it isn't really fair to blame the Generals.'
'Oh, I know what you're going to say,' retorted Gregory, with swift sarcasm; 'it's not really the Generals'
fault; it's the fault of the Treasury, with their eternal cheese-paring and obstruction. Every time the soldiers ask for a new weapon the Treasury argues that it isn't necessary and vetoes it on account of the expense.