The trees, the shady trees that had kept the camp cool, were a firetrap. The branches stretched toward the ground. If they should catch fire, that would be the end. Then we would have no other choice but to get out of there. Run away, as we had run away from Argelès.

People were running back and forth with half-empty buckets. Some stood with hoses in their hands. Feeble streams of water were sent into the flames, only to evaporate and disappear.

“The water,” Marguerite said softly. “They’re using up the water.”

She was right. The fire was consuming the last of the camp’s water.

The woodwork caught fire, the flames ate their way inward, upward, disappearing in a tail of thick, black smoke.

Martin, Christian, and Caleb had also thrown themselves into the firefighting effort. They carried a plastic water tank between them, a few liters sloshing at the bottom.

“More for the hoses,” Caleb shouted.

More people ran past us, so close to me that somebody rammed into me, a hard shoulder against my own. I almost lost my balance.

Lou tugged at my shirtsleeve. “Daddy? We have to help! We have to stop them! We have to stop the fire!”

But then she discovered something. “Francis.” She walked a few steps closer. “He’s doing it!” The light from the fire illuminated him. He was standing strong and tall, holding a hose in his hands. Suddenly he was a man, no longer an elderly fellow.

He walked steadily forward, fighting the flames, in the front lines. He gave orders and everyone did what he said. He, too, was on fire.

He shouted that everything around the barracks had to be removed so there would be no fuel for the fire.

Caleb and Christian started taking down a tent while Martin joined those who were spraying water onto the flames.

I walked farther ahead, away from Marguerite and Lou. Marguerite stood with one hand on Lou’s shoulder. Taking care of her.

I have to help out, I thought. I must do something too. But there were no tasks in need of doing—everything was already being done. There was nothing I could do.

So dizzying. The smell of smoke. The heat from the flames. The ashes descending like snowflakes to the ground. The sound of the fire, a creaking, crackling roar.

All I managed to do was stand completely still.

But suddenly somebody was screaming, drowning out everything else. “The child! No!”

At first I didn’t understand what they meant. Then I spotted Lou’s purple singlet on its way into the burning barracks. And after it: a hose she was dragging with her, a green garden hose that was being pulled into the roaring building.

She was inside.

I heard nothing but my own breathing, heavy, rasping, as the smoke filled my lungs and my chest contracted.