Lou in the flames. Anna in the flames. August’s face in the light of the hot tongues of fire.

It wasn’t illness that would take Lou from me. Not a water shortage. It was fire. I would also lose her to the fire. My entire world would burn up. And there was nothing I could do.

“David.” Marguerite thumped hard on my arm. I still was unable to move. “David!”

And she ran toward the flames herself. That woke me up. I ran after her, toward the heat.

But Francis got there before us. He was quicker. He jumped lightly across a burning wallboard on the ground, followed the hose, and disappeared in the direction of the purple singlet inside.

Time stopped. Time flew by.

I just stood there.

And then he finally came out. I had no idea he was able to move so quickly.

She was on his back. I couldn’t see her face. She hid it. His back became a shield for her. He ran toward the flames that separated them from us. Ran straight into them, protecting her with his body. And in that way he saved my daughter.

At the same time, the flames consumed the barracks behind them. Soon there was nothing left.

But I was no longer staring into the flames, only at Lou, whom I held in my arms.

I brought her to the first-aid barracks. Somebody had opened the door, broken the lock. There were a number of people who needed help, who had burns on their hands from fighting the fire. But no doctors or nurses were to be found. Instead people helped each other. Took what they needed in the way of Band-Aids, bandages, and pain relievers.

Lou was the only child there and everyone let her through. Children still came first. Some things were still as they ought to be.

Every injury from the fire was dressed and bandaged by Martin, who worked with practiced hands. He had apparently done this before.

Lou didn’t ask about Francis. Maybe she had already figured out what had happened. That he was lying in the next room, that Marguerite and Caleb were with him, that they were doing what they could.

No, he wasn’t what she asked about. “The women’s shower, Daddy, did it burn down? Did everything burn down?”

She could barely sit still on the hospital cot where Martin had put her. The whole time she wanted to jump down and run away.

“Wait,” Martin said. “The barracks burned down but nothing else. We were able to put out the fire before it spread.”

But she wouldn’t listen. “We have to go, Daddy. We have to go back. There’s something I have to check.”

Martin rubbed some ointment on her and put on a final bandage. Far too big for her minor injury.