Louise headed quickly into the back room with the other corpsman. There was a man lying unconscious on an old mattress, and a teenage boy lying on a blanket with a nasty abdominal wound. He had been close to the explosion. His wound was infected and he had a raging fever. Louise understood immediately that they were at the heart of the Resistance and the unconscious man on the mattress was their leader. She wondered if he would even survive long enough to worry about the Germans capturing him. But whatever happened, the Nazis would surely kill the others.

She knelt beside the unconscious man and opened the bag she had brought with her. The corpsman was dealing with the boy, who moaned when his wound was dressed, and then the corpsman left the room to join the others. The boy looked a little better by then.

Louise opened the leader’s clothes and saw that there was shrapnel embedded in his chest and arms. While he slept, she removed it with the instruments she’d brought, taking advantage of the fact that he was unconscious. She cleaned the wounds and dressed them, and put antibiotic powder in the wounds. She gave him two injections to help fight the infection, and she started an IV of antibiotics. She examined the rest of his body, and found a bullet wound in his calf, which she dressed as well. The soles of his shoes were bare, and his clothes were tattered from the explosion. He had minor burns as well. Carefully, she cleaned him up, bandaged what she could, and sat silently beside him and waited for him to wake up. One of the men from the Resistance came in to check on him several times and was satisfied with what Louise was doing. She seemed like a very competent nurse and had wasted no time treating him.

“What’s his name?” she whispered to the Frenchman who watched her.

He hesitated before he answered. “He answers to ‘Tristan.’” She didn’t challenge him, but she wanted something more.

“It’s important,” she said.

And after hesitating again, he whispered, “Gonzague.”

She nodded, and began speaking to her patient softly, as though he could hear her. The young Frenchman left and she was alone with her patient. She bathed his brow with cool water. He had a heavy brown beard, and she gently stroked his face and one undamaged arm, and then rubbed his hands to increase the circulation. An hour later, he moaned, and slowly opened his eyes.

“You’re safe, Gonzague. You’re going to be all right,” she said in French. He tried to move the leg where he’d been shot, and he moaned again. The bullet had been dug out by someone else before she got there. They’d done a rough job.

“Who are you?” he said in a voice that was more of a groan. His voice was hoarse.