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“They’re French,” said Kate, feeling immeasurably cheered, even if she was beginning to see double. “They eat frogs anyway.”

By the time Dr. Devine came to collect them to take them on to wherever they were going, Kate wasn’t quite sure what day it was anymore. She was half-asleep in the back of the truck, her head on Emmie’s shoulder, with Nell asleep in Anne’s lap next to her, and Alice asleep on Nell. Julia sat hunched over her medical bag, trying desperately not to yawn, while Florence snored next to her, sleeping like a horse sitting up.

She hadn’t slept, not really, at least she didn’t think she had, but when Kate opened her eyes, the truck had stopped in front of an entirely unknown building on an unknown street. They were in a town, that much was clear; there were tall streetlights and proper sidewalks. But she had no idea what town it was or how far they had traveled.

“You can put their bags in here,” a familiar voice was saying. “We’ve beds made up for everyone.”

Kate blinked at the woman silhouetted in the light from the open door. “Mrs. Barrett?”

“Welcome to Beauvais,” said Mrs. Barrett. Kate stumbled down, out of the truck, and Mrs. Barrett enfolded her in an embrace that smelled like lavender and laundry soap. “We’ve been worried sick about you all. You remember Williams and White and McCoy and McMorris, don’t you? And, of course, I know you know Miss Shaw.”

Liza waved at Kate from behind Mrs. Barrett. Kate had no idea what Liza was doing there. And Dr. Clare, who was, inconceivably, there as well, wearing a violently patterned silk wrapper with her hair braided for bed. Kate began to wonder if she was still asleep and if there were going to be dancing aardvarks next.

“But—where—”

“We’ve taken over a girls’ school,” said Mrs. Barrett. “This is our headquarters now and I’ll tell you all about it in the morning, once you’ve had some sleep. My poor girls, what you’ve been through!”

There was something rather wonderful about being fussed over by someone who reminded Kate strangely of her mother, even though Mrs. Barrett looked and sounded nothing like her mother. Maybe it was the way she took charge, bustling them all inside, counting heads, ordering their duffels upstairs to the dormitory, talking all the way.

“If you can imagine, they actually let us on a train to Grécourt on Saturday—the wires had been cut by bombs Friday night so we had no word that the drive had happened. We got as far as Noyon, and then they sent us back to Paris. You can imagine we were frantic to know what had become of you. Everyone has been asking about the Unit, and they’re all very keen to help. We’ve been offered everything from motorcars to Victrolas. Mr. White of the White Motor Company called personally to offer a car to us.”

“That’s good,” said Kate, her voice rather creaky. “Because I’m afraid I lost the jitney.”

“Not to mention all your things.” Mrs. Barrett looked sympathetically around the remains of the Unit, all of whom were blinking like moles in the light, looking distinctly disheveled and travel worn next to the new girls. Someone came up to Mrs. Barrett, one of the new girls, White or Williams, Kate didn’t remember which. “Yes?”

“We’ve just had a message from the stationmaster,” said the new girl breathlessly. Her uniform was so clean it made Kate’s eyes ache. Or maybe it was just that Kate’s eyes were aching already. “There are loads of refugees coming into the station—no one knows what to do with them—and they wanted to know if we could find them something to eat.”

Kate looked at Mrs. Barrett, and at Emmie and Alice and Nell and Anne and Florence and Julia, all battered and war-worn, all half-asleep on their feet.

“I could manage to open a few more tins of milk,” Emmie said, rubbing her gritty eyes with the back of her hand.

“Me too,” said Nell, smothering a yawn, and Kate felt so full of love and pride for her friends that she thought she might burst with it.

Turning to Mrs. Barrett, Kate said, as briskly as she could, “We’re ready. What do they need us to do?”

Chapter Thirty

Dear Ma,

It’s Mother’s Day here at the “club.” We helped 160 servicemen write letters home today, and now we’re writing our own.

So much has happened over the last two months. The night we got here, we were called to the station to help feed the refugees coming through—just a big freight shed, two smoking stoves, cases of unopened and unlabeled supplies, thousands upon thousands of wretched old men and women and children and invalids crowding in, and a cluster of exhausted Smith women rushing about diluting milk and desperately trying to find cups and bowls enough to serve everyone. After a night of that, we came up with a system of eight-hour shifts, and got in some more stoves and supplies, so we had that all pretty well up and running within three days. With every train of evacuees that leaves the station, we try to make sure each person has a packet containing a can of meat or sardines, bread, chocolate, and a can of condensed milk.

We’d just got that in order when one night a doctor came to our door asking if we could give his blessés something to eat. So off we went and the next thing we knew we were in the business of providing hot milk and soup and cigarettes to the trains of wounded that go by. They try to put the English-speaking men together, so we gather up all the daily papers in English we can for them. Our own boys were so happy to see American faces again that one thing led to another, and now, on top of it all, we’ve been doing hospital visits, taking writing materials and treats to “our boys,” and have made a sort of club for the men where they can come as they convalesce, with a parlor and a reading room and sing-alongs for the boys two nights a week (it’s become a general theory around here that if they can survive Dr. Clare singing Gilbert & Sullivan at them, they can survive anything that battle has to offer).

As you can see, we’re quite safe here in Beauvais and keeping busy. One of the Red Cross men told us yesterday, “We don’t need any more women who want to hold the dying soldiers’ hands; we need ones like you, who can wash dishes.” If you’ll believe it, he meant it as a compliment. He told me that it gave him hope to see women of refinement (that’s me, apparently) have the spirit to take on the ugly jobs, cleaning up messes, scrubbing floors, and washing dishes.

I know you wanted something more for me, Ma. I know you scrubbed because you had to and not because you wanted to. Everywhere we’ve been, there’s been squalor and confusion and we’ve been able to plunge in and turn it all around—and that’s something I learned from you. Even when we were poorest, you took what little we had and you made it work, somehow. You always found a way. I’ll never be able to thank you enough for showing me that it isn’t what you have, it’s what you make of it—whether it’s turning a can of sardines and some condensed milk into a supper or turning a group of strangers into a band of sisters.

I don’t know when I’ll be back—the work keeps coming and coming and sometimes it seems like this war will never be over, and I haven’t quite given up the hope that we’ll be able to go back to Grécourt and set that to rights again too—but I’m sending love to Dad and the boys and particularly to you. Happy Mother’s Day, Ma.

With love, your Katie

—Miss Katherine Moran, ’11, Assistant Director, to her mother, Mrs. Francis Shaughnessy

May 1918

Beauvais, France