Jean sighs again. He keeps his hand over his heart. “The setting of the sun never waits for the conclusion of battles, and it was already growing dark. Did you know, after her first fight at Saint Loup, Joan told me that she could lift a whole cart out of the mud with no men to assist her. Now at Les Tourelles she ran down a line of men, foot soldiers and citizenry both. They had been pushing a battering ram toward the door of a fortress when two of the wheels broke. It was no trickery, just bad luck and bad timing. For hours they had been fighting, digging, shouting at the top of their lungs. These men were tired, and news had traveled quickly. They had heard that an Englishman’s arrow had struck her, that it had pierced her neck. So, they thought she was dying, if not already dead. They thought all of their efforts had been in vain. And so, when the wheels of the battering ram gave out just short of the fortress door, they believed God would not let them win. Not today.

“As we ran to aid these men, I passed her banner to another soldier and said, ‘Spread the news. Tell everyone she is alive and well,’ before I followed her. She acted swiftly, gripping a corner of the battering ram and directing others to their place. They said, ‘It is impossible. Two of the wheels are broken. We will not be able to reach the door, and there are far from enough of us.’ She only replied, ‘There are enough.’ And when they still balked, she said, ‘I have come back from the dead in order to aid you. So do not let me down.’ And you could tell from their faces that they weren’t looking at her but staring at the wound, the hole in her neck still trickling with fresh blood.

“She pushed, and it made the hair stand on my arms, my neck, to see the siege engine move forward by whole inches. Yes, whole inches. I would swear this in the cathedral of Orléans before the altar. These men, too, could not believe it. They stared as the contraption shifted in their grip, moved away from them while they stood idling. ‘Stop staring,’ she yelled. ‘Help me push!’ The men listened, and the several faces around her strained. Everyone’s skin flushed a ghoulish shade. Their eyes bulged until we heard the first rumbles of thunder, and the battering ram creaked forward, closer and closer to the door. And even when, by some miracle, we reached the door, the door shook but did not give. ‘Again!’ her voice bellowed. Her voice was its own kind of thunder. ‘Again!’