“Luckily my division has been put into reserve so there’s no one particularly official around here at the moment. Gellhorn might just be able to get away with staying.”

* * *

With Dan’s division enjoying a well-deserved rest, life was almost normal for a few weeks. Having an address of sorts meant that Jess received the occasional letter from Amelia, who plied Jess with hilarious tales of her nightly antics, over which Jess wasn’t sure whether to laugh or to cry, as it seemed like Amelia was talking about a different world, one Jess could never really return to. Dan had moved Victorine to a boarding school in Paris, which meant Jess could visit her occasionally as Reims wasn’t far, and Dan had been making the most of the quiet time to visit her too. And Martha was allowing the natural beauty around them to provide a balm for Hemingway’s betrayal and to slowly mend her heart.

Just lately, Jess had been writing a story that had nothing to do with battles and war, but about what each man most missed from home. They were such simple things—the coffee mug they always used even though it was chipped around the rim, the crocheted blanket that had been on their bed since they were a boy, the particular creak of a step that meant their mother was up and in the kitchen making bacon and eggs for breakfast. She planned to accompany her words with photographs of each man’s young and smiling face, wanting to show that every man here was his own story, taking shots that were simple and very close up so the viewer could see every one of Jennings’ freckles, see the strange sadness that now lurked in the back of Sparrow’s once confident eyes.

So she gathered up her cameras one morning in December as close to happy as she’d ever been. The advance into Germany had been stopped by the early winter and nobody expected they would be doing any more fighting until the spring of 1945. News had come down that the Germans had pushed into the Ardennes, but no one really believed it.

She threaded her way through the tents, dotted always with bare-chested men shaving out of their helmets, past GIs lounging around reading letters and smoking, playing cards, feeling a restlessness in the air that hung around Dan too, a sense that they’d all forgotten how to be still, how to be unafraid. Only last night at dinner, Dan had complained to her that his men were all bored and that boredom led to mischief and that he wished they’d be called up to the Ardennes to join the rumored fight going on there. She hadn’t been surprised to find that he’d gone out early that morning to drive to the front to see what was happening.

“Jess!” Jennings, newly returned from the hospital after setting his foot alight by accidentally stepping into a campfire—much to Dan’s resigned amusement—called out eagerly when he saw her. “Everyone’s ready.”