“I wish I didn’t. If you were a dilettante or a hobbyist, it would be much easier to urge you to get out. The trouble is that what you’re doing is making a difference.” He looked at her, his eyes shadowed by the brim of his cap. “You know the children have a game they play. They call it Les Dames Américaines. The heroine of the game is called Mademoiselle Aimée. That is what they call you, isn’t it? Aimée?”
She who is beloved. Emmie gave an awkward sort of shrug. “It’s only because they can’t pronounce Emmie. Please don’t tell me the game is something awful.”
“It’s not if you’re six. Someone lies down and pretends to be sick and the others dance around and sing a song and the Mademoiselle Aimée character helps the first child up. It’s a bit more than that, but that’s the gist of it. I asked the little beasts what it was about. They said you were saving them.”
Emmie blinked rapidly, trying not to show how close she was to tears. “All I did was get them milk and a village pump.”
“And blankets and beds and shoes and clothes. They appreciate it, you know. We just march through, but you stopped for them. Half those children would have died this winter without you. Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating. I’m not. You’ve done the hardest part—you’ve kept them going through winter. But winter is over. And the sooner you get out, the better.”
“But there’s still so much left to do—it’s not just winter.” Emmie looked at him appealingly, trying to make him understand. “There’s still the rest of the planting. We’ve done a first round of distributions for basic needs, but that’s only the beginning. We need to canvass everyone again and find out what else they need, and that takes time. It all takes time.”
“Time is what you don’t have.” Captain DeWitt lowered his voice, looking over his shoulder. “There’s going to be fighting—you must have heard talk. Haven’t you?”
“There’s always talk.” He was standing so close that she could see the insignia on his buttons. “We’ve thought we were going to be shelled out at least a dozen times since we arrived. And we’re still here.”
“It’s not like that this time. There have been rumblings across the line. There are trucks coming in from the east, trucks and men. We’ve caught the Germans studying our lines. They’re planning something, and whatever it is, it’s going to happen soon. We have plans in place to try to stave them off, but . . . I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.”
“No, you shouldn’t.” Emmie looked quizzically at him. “Your colonel did say the Unit could stay.”
Captain DeWitt made a noise of frustration. “It’s not the Unit I’m concerned about. It’s you. I was half hoping you’d all be out—that I could know you were safely in Paris, on your way back to the States, anywhere but here.”
“Because I can’t be trusted to take care of myself?”
“Because the Germans can’t be trusted not to shoot everyone on sight,” Captain DeWitt said roughly. “Do you think they’ll care that you’re only here to help? Or that you’re American rather than French? You’re at war now too. I can’t tell you to go—I haven’t the right to tell you to go—but there are nights when I wake up in a cold sweat, dreaming the Germans have come and you’re here in their path. There’s no protection for you here, nothing.”
“Only you,” said Emmie, looking up at Captain DeWitt, at his weathered, worried face. “You stand between us and them.”
“I wish we were equal to that trust—oh, don’t think we won’t do our damnedest. We will. But numbers tell in the end. It doesn’t matter how pure your heart is, no matter what the poets say.”
“Are you trying to scare me?” Emmie asked seriously. It was hard to reconcile this talk of death with the sun shining down, with the smell of springtime in the air, with Zélie chasing Minerva across the lawn, trying to get back someone’s winter underclothes.
“Would it work if I did?” Captain DeWitt asked hopefully.
“I’m not going,” Emmie said. She hadn’t even realized she’d made her decision until she said it. “I made a promise to the people here—and to the Unit. I can’t just run away to save my own skin.”
“I know,” Captain DeWitt said soberly. “You have your duties and I have mine, and it’s entirely beside the point that I want you to live. I want us both to live. Preferably together. If you could bring yourself to have me if this war ever ends.”