“That’s where I’m headed,” Jess said, eyeing Dan appraisingly as they threaded through a maze of tents and guy ropes. First Flick, now a woman in Anne’s quarters; he really did seem to take Martha’s philosophy—that you needed love, or at least bodily comfort, in the midst of war—to heart.

After a few minutes they stopped at one tent from which Jess could hear, incongruously, a child’s laugh. She picked up the Rollei, feeling a prickle of alertness creep over her skin, and readied it.

“Victorine?” Dan called and Jess heard an excited gasp, followed by the tent flap opening, and then a little girl tore out and into Dan’s arms.

Jess had the camera in the perfect position to catch the moment of their embrace, Dan’s back to her, the girl’s smiling, ecstatic face full to the camera.

“You’re back!” the little girl cried.

The faces of the two nurses who’d emerged from the tent reflected everything Jess felt: that the ordinary moment of an embrace had been transformed by war into something precious. And she was so glad that she’d come back to Italy. These were the stories she could tell, the pictures she would take: of the humanity behind the guns. The compassion beyond the bloodshed, and the fact that, as a counterbalance to evil, charity, mercy and love still existed and could therefore triumph.

“I am Victorine,” the little girl announced to Jess. “What is that?” She slithered out of Dan’s arms and pointed to Jess’s camera.

“Pleased to meet you, Victorine,” Jess said. Then she switched to French, detecting the girl’s accent. “It’s my camera. Would you like to see?”

Victorine clapped her hands. “You speak like Papa,” she said, also in French, and Jess wondered who the hell her papa was and why he’d left her in such danger.

Jess squatted closer to the ground, held out the camera and pointed to the viewing lens. “You look through here,” Jess said, “and then this here,” she pointed to the lens that would capture the image, “will copy a picture of what you see when you press the button. But the picture will stay inside the camera until I go back to London and have it printed out for you. I promise I’ll bring it back next time I’m here. It’ll probably take a few weeks.”

“Everything takes a long time,” Victorine said with a sigh of resignation well beyond her years.

Jess looked up at Dan. What was a child doing in a field hospital? Was she his? She’d said her papa spoke French, and Dan was about as French as the Empire State Building. But the way Dan and the girl had greeted one another; it was as intimate as a father and child.

“Where’s Vicki?” Jess heard another voice shout and two soldiers appeared. “We got you some chocolate, Vicki,” one of them said, holding out a white packet emblazoned with the words “U.S. Army Field Ration D.”

“It’s Victorine,” the little girl said crossly. “But thank you.” She stood on tiptoes to kiss each soldier on the cheek, all the while never letting go of Dan’s hand.