Elinor immediately signed up for a class on a day she wasn’t expected to report at the hospital. The nurses were supposed to take turns going to the class so the kitchen wouldn’t be overcrowded during the demonstration, but Elinor attended every one without fail. Besides staring at Frederick and listening to his accent, which she loved even though some of the words sounded abrupt and even harsh, the classes gave her something fun to do besides nursing. Her free time until then had been spent on two activities: occasionally riding horses with Gwyneth and playing cards with the other nurses. Now she could add learning to bake German pastries to her short list of positive experiences as an army nurse.6

Frederick’s class became a hit. As the nurses hovered over a prep table in the kitchen, Frederick showed them how to make bauernbrot, with its signature hard crust; roggenmischbrot, a sourdough bread made with rye and wheat flour; and brötchen (German rolls) and buns. Elinor did her best to concentrate on the bread rather than daydreaming about Frederick, but her heart pounded as she watched him in his white hat, T-shirt, and apron. During his demos, when he asked a question to be sure everyone was following, Elinor nodded in agreement, barely able to focus. She was falling in love—with a German.

Before long, the baking classes, like his moments with Elinor in the officers’ mess, weren’t enough; plus there were only so many recipes he could demonstrate with the limited number of ingredients he had at his disposal. He needed to put a much bigger plan into motion, and once he began to volunteer at the hospital, that is what he did. According to his POW card, and despite what his family thought, Frederick had been a low-ranking medic in the Luftwaffe, and he could speak English, which was enough to be considered useful to the medical staff, who always needed translators when treating German POWs. It was an ideal situation. The nurses were never very busy, and Frederick would have plenty of time to spend with Elinor.

The nurses were on duty from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., a twelve-hour shift with a few breaks throughout. There weren’t many emergencies, so Elinor’s schedule was usually free of intense lifesaving activity and critical demands. This meant that she and Frederick were able to find plenty of time to sneak away and be together with little risk of being missed, let alone caught. There weren’t many guards roaming the corridors, as the threat of POWs escaping from the hospital was quite low. Only the perimeter of the camp, especially near the POW barracks, was guarded constantly.