Page 110

“Are you talking to me or the chickens?” asked Julia.

“You. The chickens have no choice in the matter.”

“Do you mean to put me in a crate?” Julia raised herself up on her elbows. “You’re not serious, are you? I have no pass, remember?”

Kate stuffed three clean shirtwaists into her duffel. “When did we ever let that stop us? Remember when you talked Liza through the checkpoint with that article from whichever paper it was?”

For a moment, Julia seemed to be listening. But then she lowered herself back against the pillows. “We won’t be able to bluff our way through with Le Monde Illustré this time. They’ve tightened the restrictions.”

“We’ll find a way.” Setting down her duffel, Kate marched up to the side of the bed, folding her arms across her chest. “I will not let that Stapleton man drive you out. I don’t care what I need to do. I’ll truss him and fling him into no-man’s-land myself if that’s what it takes.”

“He’s a foot taller than you are.”

“So was that poilu I punched,” said Kate dismissively. “Height isn’t everything.”

Julia lifted her head. “You punched a poilu?”

“I’ll tell you about it on the train.” Kate tossed Julia’s uniform jacket in the other woman’s general direction. “You’ve been lying around all week and it’s a terrible waste. I won’t have it.”

“You won’t have it.”

“I’m still assistant director,” said Kate firmly. “If you don’t pack, I’ll pack for you.”

“Someone is feeling autocratic today,” commented Julia bitingly. “You do realize that assistant director is not the same as Lord High Tyrant?”

“That’s assistant Lord High Tyrant.” Kate paused in her packing and looked at Julia, who seemed more awake than she had for days. Julia was another one of those people who didn’t do well when she wasn’t busy. “I don’t blame you for not wanting to be in the same room with Dr. Stapleton—”

“That’s none of your concern.” Julia’s face was very white, her cheekbones very pronounced.

“But it is.” Sheer, dogged determination, Mrs. Rutherford had said. That was what Kate brought to the Unit. And something else, as well. “Not just because we desperately need a doctor and you’re a very good one. Although we do and you are. But because we’re a Unit. We stand together. If that man tries to hurt you, any one of us will tear out his guts.”

There was a long pause before Julia said, “You realize that’s not as easy as it sounds. You can’t just go around casually disemboweling people.”

“I’m not feeling the least bit casual about it.” Once, she might have thought Julia was just being standoffish. But now she knew better. She wouldn’t let Julia down the way she’d let down Emmie. “You’re not alone anymore. Your mother may have disowned you—but you’ve got all of us.”

Kate saw Julia blink rapidly before turning away and saying, in a deliberately bored voice, “Just what I needed: a swarm of ill-assorted sisters.”

“We could say cousins if you’d rather be more distantly related.” Kate seized on the excuse to change the topic. “Speaking of cousins, that’s another reason to go back. I’m concerned about yours. She’s been getting letters from that British captain.”

“Are you afraid she’ll suffer a paper cut?”

Kate swept her hairbrush, hair receiver, and book of hairpins into her bag. “I’m afraid she’ll suffer something. You know how impressionable Emmie can be. He’s so—well, British. And he has a highly dubious mustache.”

“A dubious mustache?” Julia’s blond brows rose.

Put that way, it did sound rather ridiculous. But Julia was looking more human than she had in weeks.

“Look, are you coming or not?” Kate demanded.

Julia swung her legs off the side of the bed, moving reluctantly, but moving all the same. “We’re going to be sent back, you know.”

“You never know until you try,” said Kate, shoving Julia’s jacket at her. “Do you remember the story of the kings of Phrygia’s oxcart?”

Chapter Twenty-Four

For livestock, there’s not much change around here. We have eight cows, nine goats, and never enough chickens. We’ve been trying to make sure that in each village the small fields, the fields too small to be plowed by government tractors but too large to be turned over with spades by the old men and women who have to work them, are plowed and made ready to plant. . . . The Unit bought several plows and harrows and others have been loaned by the French Service Agricole.

I thought at first we might be able to go out, two or three of us, and do quite a bit ourselves, but as I realized how much there was, and that multiplied by fifteen villages, I started a hunt for help. For a week, I went from one military authority to another, and at last found a wonderful quartermaster general who, instead of looking at me as though I were mad, immediately said, “How many horses and men do you want and where shall I send them?”