“Estelle,” Rachel said again as she reached her and enveloped her in a hug. “I was so worried. The men coming back said that some of the shells were reaching beyond the lines and—” She stopped and pulled back. “You’re hurt.” Rachel reached up to touch Estelle’s temple, and her fingers were bloody when she withdrew them.

“I’m fine,” Estelle whispered. She realized that the tears she hadn’t shed with Jerome were now running freely down her cheeks.

“What’s wrong? What’s happened?”

Estelle tried to speak but couldn’t seem to make the words come out.

Rachel backed up a step. “Alain.”

Estelle nodded.

Her friend put a hand out and grasped the ambulance door. “Is he—” She couldn’t seem to say it either. As if neither of them saying what they both knew would make it not true.

“I’m sorry, Rachel,” Estelle said. “I’m so sorry.”

Rachel staggered and sat down hard on the back of the ambulance. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, and Estelle had no idea what to do. Or what to say.

After a moment, Rachel stood and approached Estelle. “How much fuel do you have left?”

“What?” Estelle shook her head, not understanding.

“How much fuel do you have? My ambulance isn’t drivable anymore; the front axle broke when I—”

“Rachel.” Estelle cut her off. “What are you doing?”

“I’m doing what Alain would have wanted us to do,” she said, her voice shaking. “There are men out there he would have considered friends, men he fought beside, men who are still fighting. Men who need our help. He would not want us to fall apart now.” She took Estelle’s hand and squeezed it tight.

“Rachel—”

“I won’t cry now,” she said, and the pressure on Estelle’s hand increased. “Because if I do, I won’t be able to stop. And that helps no one. We need to find some fuel.”

“Yes.”

Rachel let go of Estelle’s hands. “We need to get back to Jerome.”

The two women started across the yard, skirting the smallest of the outbuildings. Estelle hadn’t gone more than a dozen steps before she stopped, abruptly aware of the stillness of the yard. Vehicles sat unattended, posts had seemingly been deserted. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a young soldier running toward the barn.

“What’s happening?” she called out.

“A radio address,” he replied without slowing down. “From our government.”

Estelle exchanged a look with Rachel, and for the first time in a long while, hope surfaced. Estelle started forward, daring to believe that this would be the announcement they had been waiting for. That somehow, some way, more troops and more help would be coming. That the goddamn Boches would indeed be driven back to where they had come from and their seemingly unchecked aggression halted before it was too late.