Jack was right. Defeat was obvious now; it was stale in the air, clinging to them and everything around them like a corpse amongst the living. But what did that mean for Lilly? She hoped her friend had made it to the beach in time and hadn’t been caught by a German patrol.

“So if our army has left us behind, and we can’t steal a vehicle, what do we do?” She tried to disguise the panic in her voice, but she couldn’t quell the feeling inside her.

Jack let out a low, shuddering sigh. “We wait until nightfall, and then we start to walk.”

“In the dark?” she asked.

“In the dark,” he confirmed. “It’s our only hope if we want a chance at survival.”

“Where will we go? How is that a safe option?” Terror rose like bile in Cate’s throat. “Do you not think we’ll make it?”

“Cate, we’re lying in the dirt beneath an abandoned ambulance, surrounded by the enemy,” he said. “There is no safe option, but it’s our best bet. Trust me, I want to live just as much as you do.”

“And where are we going to go? Do we try to make it to the beach?”

“No,” he said quickly. “We don’t even know if the evacuation was successful. The Germans could be attacking our soldiers right now, while they wait on the beach. We could be heading straight into a trap if we do that.”

“You think they might not make it home?” Surely hundreds of thousands of soldiers couldn’t be killed as they waited to evacuate?

“At this point, I honestly don’t know,” Jack said. “But when you think about that many men and how fast everything’s moved since then . . .”

Cate nodded. She understood. She wished she didn’t, but she did. As she stared at the hospital and wished she could sneak back to the house to collect her warm clothes and personal items, a sense of calm settled over her. They had a chance. If nothing else, they had a chance to make it to safety. What would happen after that, with France under German occupation, she had no idea, but she did have hope, and that was better than nothing.

Rain started to pelt more steadily now, making gentle dinging sounds on the vehicle above them, big plops soaking into the dirt around them and slowly turning it to thick mud. At least they were dry while they were hiding.

“We’re alive, Cate, and for now, that’s something,” Jack whispered, grunting as he shuffled back and reached for the blanket.

She should have asked about his pain, offered him the blanket, but she didn’t. Because there was nothing she could do to ease his suffering, and for the first time in almost a year, it was nice to have someone pull a blanket over her, take care of her, for a change.