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“Mr.—” Florence’s craggy face broke into a broad smile. “Kate. They’re a kind of chicken.”

“And this is why we have you—yes, Alice?”

Alice had stuck her head through the door. She looked dreadful, her eyes pink and her chignon lopsided. She hadn’t even bothered to put on her lace jabot, and her uniform looked strangely incomplete without it. “There’s a camion stuck in the mud by the gates. Would you come see to it?”

“I’ll be right there.” But Alice was already gone. She’d been like this for days now. Kate wondered if it was something at home—they’d had mail last week, and Alice had been like a week of wet Sundays ever since. Even their new aviator friends flying by to do stunts and drop them messages attached to long ribbon streamers hadn’t cheered her up.

Emmie would know; Emmie usually did. Kate made a note to ask her.

Reassuring Florence that the planting would start—soon!—Kate made her way down to the gate, her feet warm and dry in her Christmas boots. The ground made a happy squelching sound around her toes. Marie had sworn the weather they were having was only a false spring and there would be more snow to come, but it was heaven to be able to walk about without being muffled from head to toe. The sky had gone from the flat silver of impending snow to actual blue, with fluffy little clouds in it. The snow had melted, leaving behind the smell of good, damp earth, and birds chirped on the bare branches of the trees.

And mud, of course. Acres of mud, and a flood in the cellar of the château that had ruined a good half of their supplies.

But it still felt heavenly being not cold. After the deep freeze just before New Year, hauling from village to village in the bitter cold, forty-five degrees felt semitropical. Everyone was flinging off their coats and dashing about with renewed energy.

They’d seen Dr. Stringfellow off two days ago, with a cake made from all of their sugar rations put together.

“Don’t like the new doctor better than you like me,” she’d told them gruffly. “Marjorie Clare is a decent doctor but she plays terrible pinochle.”

Liza, Maud, and Ethel had taken the train with Dr. Stringfellow, to Paris, Ethel to wait out her mandatory six weeks before sailing to the States and embarking on a lecture tour, Liza and Maud to canteen work.

“I can come back for a few months if you need me,” Liza had offered, and Kate had been reminded of how much she liked Liza when she wasn’t with Maud. “It’s just that the Salvation Army really does need every American woman helping. You wouldn’t believe the state of our poor boys, all alone over here, tempted by wine and Frenchwomen. It’s just dreadful for them.”

“But now they’ll have you to keep them on the straight and narrow,” Kate had promised, trying not to laugh as she’d hugged Liza goodbye. “We’ve got four new girls waiting for their passes in Paris—if we need you to come train them in our ways, we’ll let you know.”

She was only half joking. It was a little disconcerting to think of so many of their original number departing, with their new director due to arrive this week. It wasn’t just the weather that was changing. It was everything.

The French army had clamped down on the distribution of essence, saving it for the February push. The White truck, now with hard tires and a repaired engine, had been shipped down to them by train to save the gasoline and was currently sitting, useless, in the Orangerie, with their other trucks. For the very first time since they had arrived in September, they hadn’t been able to buy any gasoline at all, not even when Anne had taken the train down to Amiens and wheedled every official she could think to wheedle.

But it was the sort of day on which it was easy to see silver linings. To save on essence, they were spending the whole week at home at Grécourt, engaging in Herculean housekeeping efforts before the arrival of the new people. The Augean stables had nothing on it. The flooded cellar had to be emptied, the goods sorted to see what was soaked beyond repair and what could be dried out and salvaged. Rooms had to be cleaned and reassigned. Kate’s makeshift desk was covered with maps of their villages, fields marked out for plowing—once they managed to wrangle some plows. And horses. And men.

Bit by bit, though, it was all coming together. As Kate rounded the side of the château, she could see a buzz of activity near the ruined stables. Families were moving their possessions out of the cellars where they’d lived since the German retreat and into the temporary houses the Unit had built for them. The temporary houses might not be much, but they had walls and roofs and could be heated in a way the broken old cellars just couldn’t. Kate waved to Zélie, who had, of course, declared herself Kate’s deputy and was directing everyone, her pet goat tagging along after her.

Their next task would be to move the supplies from the flooded castle cellars to the newly emptied stables . . . and then . . .

Kate’s head was full of plans.

They had schools up and running now in most of the villages, led by schoolteachers who had weathered the German occupation or managed to return, which meant that the Unit’s classes were purely extras, freeing up the women to concentrate on spring planting and building infrastructure. Anne had an idea about starting clubhouses; Nell wanted a traveling lending library.

Someone would have to take over the store now that Liza and Maud were gone. Not Emmie. Nell, perhaps? She could combine the store with the library, with Alice to drive . . .

If they stayed. If they were allowed to stay.

For the past two weeks, the roads had been bright with French blue as the French army moved out of the region. There were days the Unit couldn’t get their trucks through at all, the roads were so thick with soldiers. And then, just like that, the poilus were gone, and the Tommies were slogging through, drab in their khaki, the officers at their head strolling along with lordly unconcern, as if they were just out for a spot of a walk, what? The Unit had already been visited by a rather grim British major, who had poked around every corner of their camp, as if searching for hidden Germans.

It hadn’t helped that Maud, being Maud, had put on a fake German accent and tried to convince their British guests that they were all spies.

But for the moment, the women were still here. And they intended to stay.

“Kate!” Emmie hailed her from just outside the gates, where a truck was stuck in the ditch, a morose French driver smoking a nasty-smelling cigarette standing by. “It’s Dr. Clare’s trunks. Eight of them—and he says there are three loads equally big in Noyon, but it’s not worth the trouble to his truck coming all the way out here.”

“Better give him double the usual tip,” said Kate in English, before turning to the driver and thanking him in her by now nearly local French.

Triple the usual tip persuaded him to help them unload the trunks and several duffel bags containing Dr. Clare’s personal effects, which included a load of bricks—or possibly medical reference works.

The driver took the trunks over the moat. It was left to Emmie and Kate to manhandle the baggage under shelter in the Orangerie.

“There can’t really be more, can there?” Kate collapsed onto a trunk, stretching her sore arms. “Three more loads! I can’t even imagine. Did she bring her whole house with her? Good thing we’ve got the basse-cour cellars now. I’ve asked Anne to give them a whitewash and then we can move all this in there.”