Later that afternoon, in a meadow surrounded by wildflowers, they saw the shell of a fighter plane. Lotti, thinking of her parents, heaved over the edge of the bow. Clara went to comfort her but Lotti pushed her away, and sat frozen for some time holding Federico, staring unseeing at the landscape which looked so similar to landscapes she had visited with her parents, and yet which felt so different.

In the early evening, they passed a graveyard. It was a war cemetery, and it was not clear from the canal to which country it belonged, but it seemed to stretch for miles, grave after grave, some older, some freshly dug, each marked with a wooden cross. Ben cut the engine, and the Sparrowhawk drifted in silence interrupted only by the song of birds and the faint rustle of the breeze in a nearby copse, and they all thought the same thing but didn’t say it—that crossing the Channel had been child’s play compared to finding Sam in the midst of such monumental destruction.

They moored for the night under some poplar trees, by a field where brown cows grazed. They ate cold chicken and an apple tart given to them by Madame Royère, and they cuddled the puppies, but not even the soft sweetness of the little dogs could erase what they had seen. Later, when Clara had gone to bed in Nathan’s workshop, Lotti reached her hand down from her berth. Ben stretched up to hold it and they lay like this for a while, awkward and uncomfortable but not wanting to let go.

“So many graves,” whispered Lotti at last. “It seems …”

“Impossible,” said Ben.

“But we’ll find him, Ben. You just see if we don’t.”

Ben squeezed her hand, then whispered, “Your parents. The plane. Lotti, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I brought you here.”

“You didn’t,” said Lotti. “It was my idea, remember? We brought each other.”

Eventually it grew too uncomfortable to keep holding hands, and with another squeeze they let go, though neither could have said who let go first.

“It will be all right,” said Lotti. “As long as …”

“ … we’re together,” said Ben.

They both wondered, as they drifted off to sleep, when they had started to finish each other’s sentences.