But Zélie wasn’t consoled and neither was she.
“I don’t even know where we’re going,” said Kate with despair as the last wagon rattled away. The hotel felt eerily empty with the canteen packed up and all their patients gone. Their duffels sat in a pathetic pile in the courtyard, ready to be loaded into the White truck. “How can I tell her?”
“Amiens,” said Emmie, wiping her hands on her apron. “Dr. Devine just sent word that we’re to go to Amiens.”
“That’s not so very bad.” Kate looked at Emmie with new hope. “If they let us stay that close, then maybe things aren’t as bad as they made it sound.”
It wasn’t as bad. It was worse. They’d just made it to a hotel in Amiens and begun eating supper when there was a tremendous crash and all the lights went out.
“I think—I think we’re being bombed,” said Alice in a small voice.
Another terrific crash shook the building. Kate found herself part of the general rush to the cellar, which was very small and very crowded. She sat in the dark with Emmie on one side and Julia on the other as the bombs fell continuously all night.
“It feels like the whole world is falling down around us,” said Emmie worriedly.
Kate shivered, leaning closer to Emmie for warmth. They’d thought they’d known what it was like being under fire in Grécourt, but it had been nothing like this. She was terrified of the house collapsing on them, terrified of being buried alive. “I feel like a mouse in a hole.”
They sat there, holding hands in the darkness, listening to the never-ending drone of engines, the rumble of bombs blasting houses to shreds, wondering if they would be alive come the morning.
“Do you remember how scared we were when we first got here?” said Kate.
“And on the ship,” said Emmie. “Do you remember how we thought we were going to be torpedoed?”
“And that first air raid.” Kate remembered standing out there on the balcony of the hotel, watching the planes, feeling awkward and out of place. She’d never been so scared as she was now, but she didn’t feel out of place anymore. These were her people. Even Julia.
“Maybe,” said Emmie bravely, “maybe six months from now we’ll be sitting somewhere, saying, remember that time we were bombed in Amiens.”
Another tremendous crash shook the walls of the cellar.
“You mean while we’re being bombed somewhere else?” said Kate shakily. “Or maybe we could have some machine-gun fire, just for variety.”
“This war has to end sometime,” said Emmie, although she didn’t sound quite sure.
“This night has to end sometime,” said Kate, although she wasn’t particularly sure of that either.
But it did. At dawn, the last of the planes flew away. They emerged on shaky legs into a ravaged world of crumbled buildings and people being borne away on stretchers, firemen racing to put out blazes, people mourning their dead.
“I don’t think we should stay in Amiens,” said Nell very seriously. “It really isn’t healthy.”
And that was how Dr. Devine found them, outside the hotel, holding on to each other and snorting with laughter.
“Oh, good. Your hotel is still standing,” he said. “I’ve come to tell you that you’re being sent on.”
“To another safe place?” said Julia sarcastically.
Dr. Devine looked rather embarrassed. “We could hardly know. . . . We’ll let you know shortly where you’re to go.”
But first there were people to help in Amiens. There were refugees at the station who needed to be fed, and wounded who needed to be evacuated. Dizzy with fatigue, scarcely knowing what she was doing, Kate handed out blankets and condensed milk. Florence had the bright idea of paying the refugees for their rabbits and hens, since the money would be more use to them than the livestock, and turning the meat into stew on the spot. The next thing they knew, the station was thick with feathers as Florence wrung necks, Emmie plucked, and Anne stewed, while Kate organized people into orderly lines and handed out bowls.
She was so tired that everything was starting to blur a bit on the edges. It felt as though she’d always been in this train station, like some sort of purgatory, always heating milk and ladling soup, always helping endless rows of bewildered people onto trains, headed they knew not where.
It was the old question and answer: “Où allez-vous?” “Je ne sais pas.”
Except this time it was the Smith Unit who didn’t know where they were to go, half-dead on their feet, ladling soup in their sleep. Kate couldn’t remember the last time she had brushed her hair. Or changed her clothes.