Dan sighed. “I think Warren’s wrong. We won’t know until we find the first one though.”

“How does a world become so evil?” Jess said, staring out at what she could see of Germany. “That’s why I think people say it can’t be true. Because they can’t imagine there are worse things. But every time we think that, we find evidence of something worse than the worst possible thing.”

“Do you want to come when we do? You don’t have to. Nobody would think any less of you.” Dan’s voice was gentle, his eyes like soft fingers stroking her face.

“I would think less of me. I already have one piece I’m too scared to write.”

“Your piece about the rapes?”

Jess nodded. “I keep telling myself it’s not the right time, that now, when Germany must surely be close to surrendering, I shouldn’t do anything to hurt morale. But what if it means that every week I delay, another woman is raped? Doesn’t that make me responsible? Doesn’t that make me a coward? I assume it’s why the edict about fraternizing with the locals came down—because the powers that be have got wind of what’s happening too. But how do you square that with the prevailing view—which I’ve heard is General Patton’s own—that fornication without conversation is not fraternization? So if you club a German woman over the head and make sure she can’t speak, then you can do whatever the hell you like to her?”

“You’re not a coward, Jess. In fact, you’re the bravest woman I know.”

Their eyes locked just like they had on the balcony that night at the chateau; honesty, care and concern all caught there—but something more too, the shadow of what had happened in the ballroom.

“Hey Jess.” Jennings had come to fetch his CO, making Jess and Dan start.

“Goddammit,” Dan said through gritted teeth. “I have to go. I’m sorry I’ve been absent. But I’ll come and get you if I hear anything about a camp. I promise.”

With that he hopped into the jeep and Jess returned to the mess, where she had to field Lee’s questions about Dan and avoid Martha’s knowing eyes when Jess found that every time she said Dan’s name, her cheeks flushed in a manner entirely unlike that of the worldly Jessica May.

* * *

Only a night passed before Dan returned to the press camp in the early morning to collect her. Luckily she was up and about and had spotted him pulling in before anyone else asked for a ride too. “Where are we going?” she asked after she’d raced outside to meet the jeep.

“The scouts came back with a report that nobody can quite reconcile. I think it’ll be gruesome,” Dan said soberly.

“Just like the past two years then,” she replied, more lightly than she felt, even as her stomach lurched.

“Yep.”

The passenger seat of the jeep was occupied by Sparrow, who seemed lost in a trance.