With Miss Lind on one side and me on the other, we helped Jane to sit. She moaned again as Miss Lind examined her hand. Her twisted fingers were horrible.

“I don’t think these are broken,” Miss Lind said cheerfully. “The same thing happened to one of my brothers—well, very nearly—and when we rushed him to the doctor’s it turned out they were only dislocated. May I?”

I could not look. I held Jane tightly, and Sergeant Elisabeth Lind straightened those fingers out all by herself.

“Can you bend them?” she asked kindly, and Jane could, a little. “Good. And the wrist—can you move it?”

Miss Lind held her own hand palm to palm against Jane’s, their fingers interlocked. She rocked Jane’s hand gently back and forth and side to side.

“I don’t think you’ve broken a thing, Mrs. Warner,” said Miss Lind. “I think the wrist is just a sprain. But it will all hurt a good deal while everything mends. We ought to bind these fingers together and wrap up your wrist.”

“But I won’t be able—” Jane sobbed.

And I thought of a hundred things she would not be able to do, just without those three fingers, never mind her wrist. Playing piano duets was the least of it. She wouldn’t be able to dress herself; go to the toilet; put on shoes; use her sticks. She wouldn’t be able to walk independently, or sit down on her own, or stand up again.

“How shall we get you off the floor?” Miss Lind mused. “I don’t think we can lift you.”

“If I put this arm around Louisa’s shoulder and you help on the other side, I think we can manage,” Jane whispered.

I was so relieved to hear her speaking sensible English without tears that I kissed her. She was still in pain, unsteady, but no longer a defeated, whimpering old woman.

“What happened?” I asked Miss Lind. “I thought it was an earthquake!”

“It was a bomb,” said Elisabeth Lind in a low voice. “They very nearly got us that time.”

“Yes, they did,” I answered accusingly. “They know just where we are. Maybe they will stop if they think it was a direct hit.”

She flushed and changed the subject. “Last time I was caught in an air raid I had my clothes on! This is most embarrassing.” She snapped the top of her one stocking against her thigh.

“On the contrary,” whispered Jane. “You always look lovely.”

It was true, Miss Lind was annoyingly lovely, even wearing nothing but underthings and one darned stocking, her hair flying out of its plait like an untidy cloud of corn-colored candy floss. Her makeup never seemed to smear—I wondered if she slept in it. She didn’t even look cold. She jumped up and began scavenging for something to wrap up Jane’s fingers and wrist.