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She tried not to think of the men in the American hospital at Neuilly, having their faces rebuilt, like a child’s exercise in clay.

No one knew anything. No one could tell them anything. She’d stopped asking, because it was all the same, from everyone she’d asked. There’d been fog and the Germans had come out of nowhere, overwhelming them, and no one knew where his own messmates were, let alone another regiment.

Only that the Germans were pushing on and on and on.

They’d heard conflicting accounts throughout the day. The Germans were bombing Paris. The Germans had been stopped at Cambrai. The English were all fleeing. The English were making a stand. Only one thing was solid and true—there were people here, living, breathing, lonely, scared people who needed help, who had been pushed from their homes and separated from their families. Emmie rolled up her sleeves and scrounged stoves and badgered the Red Cross for supplies and tried not to think too much of what was happening a dozen miles away, what Kate and Florence and Anne and Nell were driving back into again and again and again.

Or Will. Out there at the front. Riding up out of the mist to warn them and then riding away again, gone.

Useless to remind herself there were other women’s sweethearts out there too. It was hard not to be selfish when you’d found the one person in the world whose mind marched with yours, who made you feel in all ways better than you could ever possibly be.

“—the blankets?” someone was saying.

It was one of their Quaker friends from Ham, who had worked so hard at rebuilding the roofs that the Germans were at the present engaged in tearing back down. They’d shown up at the hotel earlier in the day, offering their services in getting the refugee center up and running, and had been working like troopers ever since.

Whenever she looked at them, Emmie saw in their eyes something she was desperately afraid of seeing in her own: a bewildered sort of grief, confused and desolate all at once.

Emmie blinked rapidly and handed over the bundle. “Sorry—I have them here. Is everyone tucked up?”

“Almost. Madame Lenois’s two-year-old is rampaging all over the place pretending to be an elephant. We may have to tie him to his cot.” The young man hesitated and then said, “Would you like to go take a rest? We can hold the fort for you for a bit.”

Alice had staked out two rooms for the Unit, insisting that they needed to sleep if they were to help anyone. The idea of going upstairs, of pulling the covers over her head, was tempting beyond belief. Every muscle in her body felt sore with tension. This morning, she’d had enough energy for fifteen people, but it was beginning to wear off, leaving exhaustion and achiness and a horrible, howling sort of emptiness.

She had to keep moving, she had to keep working, or the emptiness would grab her and pull her in. If she let herself close her eyes in the darkness, she would have to acknowledge everything that had happened, that they had lost Grécourt, had lost everything they’d worked and worked and worked for, that their people were homeless again.

That Will was missing, likely dead.

“No, that’s all right,” said Emmie brightly. “You go on. Kate and Anne and Nell are still out there and I don’t want to go to bed until they get back.”

Kate had come back for five minutes and then gone off again. One minute she had been there, and the next the jitney was gone, presumably back to Nell and Anne. Florence, coming back dusty but cheerful as ever, had said that Nell was directing traffic and Anne was at the crossroads, reuniting families. Neither of them drove, so Kate must have gone back for them.

Emmie reached for the watch at her breast before remembering it was lost, lost since yesterday, which felt more like ten years ago.

Mme Lenois came to ask her for warm milk to settle her son, who was driving everyone mad with his elephant impression (Nell had taught him that, and was entirely unrepentant about it). Emmie went to dilute and warm the milk, glancing at the clock in the kitchen. Nearly ten. Surely they should be back by now? Alice and Florence had already gone to bed, leaving the White and the Ford parked outside.

A truck rumbled to a stop outside. There were voices. American voices. Thank goodness.

Emmie popped the door open, but it wasn’t the jitney outside. It was a Red Cross truck, with Dr. Baldwin at the wheel and Anne and Nell saying their goodbyes. Emmie looked behind them for Kate, but there was no sign of her.

“Hello,” she said to Dr. Baldwin. “Did the jitney break down? Where’s Kate?”

“Isn’t she with you?” asked Anne, rubbing her gritty eyes with the back of her hand. Her hair was straggling out from under her hat. She looked thoroughly done in. “She came back here hours ago.”

“No,” said Emmie slowly. “She came here and then she left again. I thought she went back to you.”

“Maybe she went straight to bed.” Nell staggered as she stepped down from the truck. “My legs feel like they’re about to give out. I never knew it was such hard work directing traffic.”

“Alice saved two rooms for us upstairs if you want to go up.” Maybe Nell was right; maybe Kate had gone upstairs. There had been confusion with a woman whose husband had been hit by a cart during the retreat, who insisted on bringing in the body to be resuscitated even though he was clearly well past saving, and that had occupied Emmie’s attention for some time, trying to gently get the woman away from the body and find a friend to sit with her.

Dr. Baldwin was asking about his patients. “Oh, yes, this way. Julia’s set up a room as a children’s hospital. We’ve added quite a few to your original patients, I’m afraid. Julia and Mrs. Goodale have been working tirelessly.” Pausing, Emmie looked back at Nell, feeling silly but worried all the same. “Would you mind seeing if Kate’s upstairs? I’m sure she is, but . . .”

It wasn’t like Kate to just go to bed when there was work to be done. But even Kate was human, and ferrying refugees was a bone-wearying test of endurance, emotionally and physically trying. It would, however, thought Emmie, cheering up a bit, be very like Kate to just sit down for a moment and be so tired her body gave out on her. She was probably asleep in her clothes right now, still thinking it was four hours ago and she’d just nodded off for a moment.

“We have twenty-two children here at present,” Emmie said, taking Dr. Baldwin into the infirmary. “There were three cases from Sancourt that looked like measles, so we’ve put those children into a separate room and Marie—our mayor from Grécourt—is sitting with them.”

Marie and Mme Gouge, the cook/housekeeper Mrs. Barrett had hired, had been in competition to show who could do more for the Unit. In the end, they’d had to separate them, leaving Mme Gouge in command of the kitchen and Marie in charge of the infectious diseases, which had the added benefit, as Julia had acidly pointed out, of getting them both out of her infirmary so she could actually care for her patients without having spoons of broth being thrust under her nose every three seconds.

Julia was kneeling next to a pallet, listening to a boy’s chest. At Dr. Baldwin’s entrance, she pushed herself stiffly to her feet and began briefing him.