They walked on to the site of the field hospital, but there was little left to show of the lives of the doctors and nurses and ambulance drivers and orderlies and patients and men who had passed through. In the burnt remains of a hut, Ben found a blue and white teacup. In a grassed-over shell crater, Lotti found a tobacco tin. In the hole left by an uprooted tree, Federico unearthed a boot.

They went on to the river, and saw why it had become unnavigable, as Captain de Beauchesne had told them. A few hundred yards upstream, its banks had collapsed in the bombing, and trees had been blasted across the water, creating an unpassable barrier that, for now at least, had been left to rot.

This was what they were aiming for, thought Ben. Not the hospital—the river. And then, This is where Nathan died. Why aren’t I upset?

He searched himself quite carefully, looking for appropriate emotions, but felt nothing but a terrible numbness. After a while, realizing there was nothing for him here, he said they should leave. They walked back along the raised road. The evening sky reflected in the ponds and pools and ditches was the color of blood.

In a lonely corner of the Protestant cemetery, they found Nathan’s grave, his name and date of death roughly carved on a plain wooden cross. Ben stood before it for a long time, still numb, but forcing himself to remember. Nathan, the first time Ben and Sam had met him, with Bessie and his soft hat, bandaging Ben’s foot … Nathan, who had painted him a robin, Nathan teaching him to read, to write, to pilot the Sparrowhawk, Nathan, who had loved him and Sam like sons … Little by little, the memories forced their way through the numbness, and Ben sat down right there on the grave and sighed, but still he did not weep.

Lotti, watching from a discreet distance with Federico, felt that her heart might break.

I shouldn’t have suggested this, she thought. Just because I wanted to get away—I wanted to come to France—but I should have thought. I shouldn’t have put him through this.

At last, Ben turned away from the grave.

“Let’s go back to the Sparrowhawk,” whispered Lotti. “Let’s go back to Clara and Elsie and the puppies.”

But Ben’s jaw was clamped in a way she had not seen before, and his features had hardened into fierce, stubborn resolution.