“One small thing, mon fils,” his father said. And he reached into his pocket. “This little lighter, as you know, was made for me by a trooper in the Great War. It’s nothing much to look at, but it brought me luck. Take it, and perhaps it will do the same for you.”

Charlie looked at the little shell casing, slipped it into his coat pocket and grinned.

“I shall keep it with me at all times.” He embraced his father. After stepping into the carriage, he turned to look out the open window. As the train moved off, he waved to his father and blew a kiss to Marie. She and Roland stayed on the platform until he was out of sight.

“I’m sure he’ll be all right,” she said.

The months that followed were a strange time. The French army was deployed. A large British force had come to northern France. Yet nothing seemed to happen. Hitler made no further western move. October and November passed. Then Christmas. Still nothing. “The phony war,” the British called it. The funny sort of war, said the French: la drôle de guerre.

As usual, they spent most of the months of winter and spring in Paris. And during this time Marie was interested to observe a new mood setting in. By year end, their friends were starting to talk about what they might do in the summer. In January, a fashionable neighbor who also had a son in the army remarked that it was high time her boy had some leave. “I dare say this war will fizzle out soon enough,” her neighbor concluded. “The Germans won’t dare attack France.” It seemed to be the general view.

Marie couldn’t share it. To her clear mind, this attitude was evidence of how quickly human nature will take a temporary reprieve from disaster as a sign that the threat can be discounted.

Yet as it turned out, the development that would change everything for the family was one she hadn’t foreseen at all. It happened late in March.

She had just returned to the rue Bonaparte from a visit to her brother Marc when a telegram came from Charlie. It was addressed to her, rather than his father. It told her his leg was badly broken, and ended with the single plea: HELP ME.

“Why the devil did he send it to you and not me?” asked Roland, puzzled rather than angry.

Marie didn’t tell him, but she had guessed at once.

In Roland’s aristocratic world, a man might have the best of everything, but when it came to being injured at war, then you took whatever the army doctors offered and you didn’t complain. Charlie hadn’t actually been wounded in battle, but he’d fallen and been struck by a tank during maneuvers, and broken his leg in several places.

“The military doctors know what they’re doing,” Roland told her. “If he walks with a limp, he walks with a limp. No dishonor in that.”