I don’t know, she wanted to say. I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.
But part of her job was to give people hope, to make them feel like there was some certainty, some safety, in this horrible, mixed-up madhouse of a world into which they had plummeted, so she smiled and said things like, “As soon as we know more, we’ll be sure to tell everyone,” which meant the same thing, really, but sounded so much better, because it made it sound like the Unit had some control over the situation when they hadn’t really, not at all. All they had was this hotel, for which they were paying a rather alarming amount, and one duffel each—and Alice didn’t even have that, because her duffel had got lost in the transfer from Roye to Montdidier, goodness only knew where or how, so she would have to borrow clothes from Emmie and Anne, because she was too tall for Kate’s or Florence’s or Nell’s, and Julia hadn’t bothered to bring much in the way of personal possessions, instead cramming her bag with all the medical supplies they could manage. Alice, of course, was pretending this was all very well, but Emmie knew she minded horribly, that her frills were her armor and she was as cut up about it as Emmie was about leaving Will’s letters.
Will. Somewhere on the front lines. It didn’t mean he was lost. People survived, they did, she’d seen it. She’d seen them survive in all sorts of ways, some almost worse than not surviving at all. Emmie pushed back that horrible thought, hating herself for it. Nothing could be worse than Will not surviving.
She tried not to think of the men in the American hospital at Neuilly, having their faces rebuilt, like a child’s exercise in clay.
No one knew anything. No one could tell them anything. She’d stopped asking, because it was all the same, from everyone she’d asked. There’d been fog and the Germans had come out of nowhere, overwhelming them, and no one knew where his own messmates were, let alone another regiment.
Only that the Germans were pushing on and on and on.
They’d heard conflicting accounts throughout the day. The Germans were bombing Paris. The Germans had been stopped at Cambrai. The English were all fleeing. The English were making a stand. Only one thing was solid and true—there were people here, living, breathing, lonely, scared people who needed help, who had been pushed from their homes and separated from their families. Emmie rolled up her sleeves and scrounged stoves and badgered the Red Cross for supplies and tried not to think too much of what was happening a dozen miles away, what Kate and Florence and Anne and Nell were driving back into again and again and again.
Or Will. Out there at the front. Riding up out of the mist to warn them and then riding away again, gone.
Useless to remind herself there were other women’s sweethearts out there too. It was hard not to be selfish when you’d found the one person in the world whose mind marched with yours, who made you feel in all ways better than you could ever possibly be.
“—the blankets?” someone was saying.
It was one of their Quaker friends from Ham, who had worked so hard at rebuilding the roofs that the Germans were at the present engaged in tearing back down. They’d shown up at the hotel earlier in the day, offering their services in getting the refugee center up and running, and had been working like troopers ever since.
Whenever she looked at them, Emmie saw in their eyes something she was desperately afraid of seeing in her own: a bewildered sort of grief, confused and desolate all at once.
Emmie blinked rapidly and handed over the bundle. “Sorry—I have them here. Is everyone tucked up?”
“Almost. Madame Lenois’s two-year-old is rampaging all over the place pretending to be an elephant. We may have to tie him to his cot.” The young man hesitated and then said, “Would you like to go take a rest? We can hold the fort for you for a bit.”
Alice had staked out two rooms for the Unit, insisting that they needed to sleep if they were to help anyone. The idea of going upstairs, of pulling the covers over her head, was tempting beyond belief. Every muscle in her body felt sore with tension. This morning, she’d had enough energy for fifteen people, but it was beginning to wear off, leaving exhaustion and achiness and a horrible, howling sort of emptiness.
She had to keep moving, she had to keep working, or the emptiness would grab her and pull her in. If she let herself close her eyes in the darkness, she would have to acknowledge everything that had happened, that they had lost Grécourt, had lost everything they’d worked and worked and worked for, that their people were homeless again.