Martha exploded with laughter, which set off the rest of the men at the bar, who’d heard all too clearly Jess’s tirade, delivered at full volume.

Stone spoke so softly that Jess had to lean down, despite her disinclination to do so, to hear him. This time, there was no humanity, no vulnerability in him at all. “One day, Captain May, you will regret this conversation very much. And on that day, I will remind you just what you said about the brusque upward thrust.”

With that he left, Jess’s victory as empty as any in Italy that had cost a hundred lives. By publicly calling him out on the fact that his “war” service was confined to hotel bars rather than battlefields, she’d openly and unwittingly skewered another of Warren’s most tender spots. Neither she nor Martha would witness the invasion by parachute, and now she had to also try to forget what he’d just said, and what he’d meant by it. Everything he’d done and said to her before had been immature horseplay. But that threat wasn’t.

She shivered and swallowed more whiskey.

* * *

At Portsmouth, it seemed incongruous that, across the Channel, one could see France, see the enemy. Today was invasion day plus one; yesterday, everyone had decamped to the south of England and Jess and Martha had had to sit and watch the flood of male journalists boarding planes that blackened the sky, watch the soldiers who’d never seen battle swarming onto ships bound for France, stand in this very spot and stare across at the war that no female was allowed to witness.

But instead of letting Warren’s threat and almost obsessive interest in Jess get them down—what could he really do to her in a hotel full of people?—Jess and Martha decided to use it to their advantage. So long as Jess stayed in Warren’s line of sight, Martha could at least try to get herself across the Channel.

It was dawn when Martha embraced Jess and said, “I sure am glad I saw you at that party in New York.”

“Me too. Now go.”

Jess made sure to stride provocatively into the bar and sit beside Warren, ready to engage him in another battle of words while Martha slipped off to the beach. Then, between taking Warren’s barbs, Jess imagined Martha creeping onto the hospital ship as planned, hiding in a bathroom—would it really work? It sounded so simple and foolish now—landing at Omaha Beach and getting her story. The first woman to set foot on French soil post-invasion, the first woman to tell people how it really was. Not the way the men saw it.

After a good hour or two, when she was sure that Martha had got away, Jess turned her attention to a couple of officers and availed herself of a ride to the village school nearby; Warren had, of course, refused her a jeep. She walked up the driveway to the school and heard her name, screamed at the top of tiny lungs, then a little girl in a muddle of dark curls and a too-big uniform ran out to throw herself into Jess’s arms. This time it was Jess who picked her up and swung her around, for Dan, who could not.