“Even so. One must always ask if the ends justify the means. After working all these years in the hospital, you’ve seen firsthand the damage wrought by mustard gas. I’m sure the inventor of that was told that he could help end the war faster. Do you think that makes it right for him to have done so?”

Lily tossed her pencil case into the basket with Mama’s paints and brushes, knowing her frustrations were mirroring her mother’s growing agitation. “You cannot possibly be likening propaganda to poison gas!”

“No.” A ghost of a smile settled on Mama’s lips. “It’s worse, I think. Poison gas destroys only a man’s body. But propaganda, Lily . . . it tells them a story, invites them to believe in something it cannot back up. It lures our men into supposedly glorious battle and then crushes their spirits—their very faith in God and country—when it instead delivers an inglorious hell on earth.”

Lily wanted to deny it. Wanted to provide the arguments Daddy always did—that men had always told of the glories of battle to inspire one another to take it up. That they’d always found one cause to champion and another to put down to rouse the hearts of their neighbors toward action. The ideas were nothing new. Just the methods.

But at the same time, like her mother pointed out, Lily had seen those men in hospital. The ones scarred not by gas on the outside but by horror on the inside. This war, she’d heard her father and his friends say quietly behind closed doors, was not like any that came before. The weapons were so much more deadly. The offensives so long and pointless. The death tolls so high. The boys who signed up with glee, determined to do their bit for king and country, came home broken, disillusioned, and . . . empty. Unable to believe any longer in patriotism.

Unable, all too often, to even believe in God.

Mama may have a point when it came to propaganda that made promises so blatantly false. But that wasn’t what Lily’s work was used for. Would her mother see the difference? “But what if . . . what if you could do something that would help the men in the field?”

Leaning over to pour out her rinse water, Mama shook her head. “I’ve tried to think of a way to do that, my love. To help them see God still at work in the trenches.” She straightened, her face lined with failure. “My imagination isn’t so good. I know He is there. But I don’t know how to show Him.”