—Miss Eleanor （“Nell”） Baldwin, ’14, to her family
December 1917
Grécourt, France
The Canadians were true to their word and perfectly lovely in every way.
Their housekeeper, in a flannel wrapper and long gray braid, came out to make hot soup and sent Emmie and Kate off to bed in her own room with blankets that smelled of lavender and a hot water bottle tucked in by their feet.
But Emmie kept thinking back to that other room, the man with his arm around her shoulders, unbuttoning her coat for her.
“Don’t say anything to anyone about this, will you?” Kate murmured as they snuggled down into their borrowed bed, their borrowed chaperone on guard in the next room. “About those men, I mean. If anyone asks, say just what we told the foresters. We got lost in the snow and the jitney broke down on us.”
“But why? If they’re deserters, shouldn’t someone be told? Unless you don’t want them to get into trouble. . . .”
“I don’t want us to get into trouble.” The bed dipped as Kate rolled onto her side. “We can’t let anyone see us as a liability. If they think we’re weak, that we need defending—our position here might be compromised.”
“You didn’t need defending. You defended both of us.” Emmie hated how useless she had been, how entirely ignorant.
“I got lucky. Another time . . .” Kate lowered her voice. “It’s not common knowledge yet, but there’s a rumor our sector might be transferred over to the Brits. If it is—they don’t like women in their war zone. They’ll seize on any excuse to see us out.”
“But they’ve been so helpful.”
“You mean Captain DeWitt has been so helpful?” said Kate with some amusement. “We don’t need the authorities being reminded that we’re female. Right now they’re charmed by the idea of us, and they like what we’re doing, and everyone is only too happy to help, but that’s only so long as we pull our own weight and don’t cause anyone any trouble. No one wants to have to shoot a soldier over us. Or deal with the flurry in the American press if American women are—well, hurt.”
“If you and I had been . . . hurt tonight, what would have happened?”
Kate thought for a moment. Emmie could hear the old building creaking around them. “They would want to keep it quiet, I imagine. It would be very embarrassing to both governments. And that would be it for the Unit. They wouldn’t want us here after that—or anyone like us.”
Emmie had never thought that she might be endangering not only herself but the future of the Unit.
“But nothing happened,” said Kate firmly. “We’re both fine, and the Canadians are pleased as punch with having rescued us. It will make a good story, we’ll both be teased for getting lost, and no one ever needs to know the rest of it.”
But Emmie knew. Yes, they were in danger here, she’d always known that, but it had been an impersonal sort of danger, the same sort of dangers that threatened the foresters or their Quaker friends over at Ham: shells, Germans, frostbite. The usual dangers of war and weather.
Emmie felt terribly naive. Sheltered, Kate had called her. She’d never thought of herself as sheltered. She’d thought her settlement house work had made her terribly worldly, but—she had always known herself to be safe. These sorts of things happened. But they happened to other people. They happened to factory workers and French villagers, not girls like them, not Smith women. Not to a Van Alden.
For the first time, Emmie noticed the safeguards built into Kate’s schedules. She’d assumed, if she’d thought about it, that they went places in pairs because they needed to maximize their few forms of transportation, or because it made sense for a doctor to visit alongside a social worker, or for a social worker or doctor to ride along with the store. But what it really meant was that no one was ever out on her own.
Because it was a war zone, and there were desperate men about.
It was hard to remember that when everything went on as usual, when there were engineers and aviators for tea on a Sunday, French poilus—such nice, friendly poilus—helping to put up temporary houses, and Canadian foresters visiting with loads of firewood and greenery, decking the Orangerie with wreaths and garlands as their own particular Christmas gift to the Unit. Everyone was so kind.
But out there, beyond the gates of Grécourt, were places where a woman wasn’t safe, and not just because there was a war on.
The idea that anyone would hurt them—Emmie just couldn’t quite wrap her mind around it. To be sure, there had been a French soldier who had made an inappropriate comment to Alice in Paris, but he had apologized profusely once she had identified herself as American, and they had all thought it was a great joke.