Five days later, Paris was liberated. Five hundred Resistance fighters were killed in the fight for Paris. Louise and her crew had saved nine of them, one of them being the most important Resistance leader of the war.

Even after the liberation of Paris, which was a jubilant event, people’s nerves were frayed. They were tired of the war. It had gone on for too long. Five years since it all started in Europe. And three for the Americans, who were fighting alongside their Allies in Europe and the Pacific, even if not on home turf, as the Europeans were. They kept hearing promises that it would be over soon, but it never was. Another devastating battle would happen, another border would be crossed, and for every victory there were costly defeats and heavy losses.

It had been two months since Pru’s brother had been killed in August, and she wanted to go back to Yorkshire to see her parents, but hadn’t had a day off since. She knew Max hadn’t had leave since then either. He hadn’t had time to visit her. They all worked constantly. Pru wrote to her mother regularly, and her mother’s letters sounded valiant, but there was an undercurrent of sadness now beneath the surface of the brave words.

Pru had just mailed her a letter the day before she took off on a flight to pick up men in the Argonne Forest, from a field near the American 12th Evacuation Hospital. Ed was supposed to fly with her, but Lizzie had somehow gotten a day off, and he put in a request for a day off so he could be with her. He apologized to Pru the night before. She said she didn’t mind.

“Someone should have some fun around here.” She hadn’t in a long time. She was still sad about her brother but tried not to let it show. Everyone had their losses to deal with and her stock-in-trade was her cheerful, positive demeanor. She thought it was important for a nurse. And she didn’t begrudge Ed the time off. He and Lizzie were so much in love that it made everyone around them happy to see it, and she told him to have fun and forget their missions for a day.