Charlie and Company K had watched it all in horror, hiding in the woods a kilometer away. On September 12, the British and Canadian forces entered Le Havre, and the Germans surrendered. Six days later, Charlie was with the American forces entering the town, a trek through rubble and concrete, over glass and viscera. The troops had to cover their noses with scarves and rags to avoid the stench of rotting carrion. Most of the townspeople were homeless, and food was scarce. The citizens of Le Havre had been pulled quickly into degraded states. They were focused solely on survival, with only the occupying forces to try to keep order.

Charlie had spent only five days at Le Havre, but he spent much of the next decade trying to forget what he saw. Starting with what he found when he followed the sound of a mournful wail into what had once been a storage facility for the hospital. He had assumed someone was dying and needed help. He ducked into the rubble and entered a dark room barely illuminated by a flickering lantern. Squinting, he approached two shapes that turned out to be a large man in fatigues—he couldn’t tell which army—humping a young girl, barely pubescent. Charlie recoiled, then stepped closer. The girl wasn’t actually moving. He kicked the soldier off her, and the man grunted, stunned, having not even known Charlie was in the room. Charlie knelt next to the girl.

She wasn’t breathing.

What’s more, she was cold to the touch. She had been dead for some time.

Charlie backed away, horrified at his realization, as the soldier quickly ran out of the rubble.

What have we become? Charlie wondered.

Or maybe the question was even more disturbing than that: Is the war only now revealing what we have always truly been?

Now, without thinking, Charlie jumped down into the mud, took the man by his throat, pulled him off the girl, and threw him onto his back. His eyes met the man’s, and Charlie thought, for a moment, about crushing his skull. The frustration of these past months surged in him, this disoriented feeling he couldn’t shake and his anger at himself for his own stupidity and laziness. He caught his breath, then said to the man through clenched teeth, “Get out of my sight before I fucking kill you.”

The man stood up, shirtless, shocked, and terrified. He grabbed the waist of his pants and, without looking back at the girl, sprinted for his life. Charlie watched him for a moment, then knelt to help the girl. She skittered away from him, eyes wide, then stood, hauled the skirt of her dress over one shoulder, and took off.

Charlie sank to his knees in the mud.

“Charlie, boyo, you okay?” Lawford asked, gently shaking his shoulder.

He didn’t know what had just happened.