“We’ll have to stay the night,” said Fran Englund, ignoring her. “There’s no point pushing on to Grécourt now. We’ll never find our way in the dark.”
“No,” said Julia with such force that they all stared. “I’m not staying.”
Dr. Stringfellow stepped in. “We stayed in Noyon while we were touring hospitals—the only available room had a door leading to the main stair. We had soldiers passing through our room half the night. I wouldn’t recommend it.”
“After those air raids in Paris, I could sleep through a platoon,” said Liza cheerfully.
“I couldn’t,” said Julia.
“Perhaps we could find someplace else?” Alice suggested, fiddling with her collar.
“Or we could just leave the truck,” proposed Emmie, looking sideways at Julia, who was looking decidedly thin-lipped. “There’s nothing on it we need tonight.”
“Only our luggage,” said Fran Englund.
“It makes more sense to stay here, rearrange the loads, and try to find our way in the morning,” said Kate, siding with Fran. “It’s taken us this long to get here; what does it matter if we arrive tonight or tomorrow? No one will be waiting up for us this late.”
Everything she said made perfect sense, but Emmie felt, strongly, that it did make a difference. Certainly to Julia, who looked as though she wouldn’t be dragged back into that inn for all the world. And to Emmie. Two days, the mechanic had said. Maybe three. To have made it this far and be stranded in Noyon seemed intolerable.
“Fran and I could stay with the truck,” offered Margaret Cooper, “and the rest could go on.”
“No need for that!” Mrs. Rutherford appeared from the scrum of French soldiers, dragging a thin man in a uniform with the three gold bars denoting a captain. “Look who I found! This is Captain Jaouen, currently of the French army, but previously a professor at the University of Michigan. He’s offered us a replacement truck and the men to drive it.”
“A temporary loan only,” Captain Jaouen said quickly.
“The camion or the men?” Alice whispered with a giggle, and was hushed by Kate.
“So we can get on immediately,” said Mrs. Rutherford. “Well, as soon as we transfer our load from the Ford to the camion. The captain has said he’ll have his men get started right away—we’ll be on our way within the hour.”
“How does she do that?” asked Margaret Cooper, staring at Mrs. Rutherford as she marched off arm in arm with Captain Jaouen, discussing something that happened in Crete back in ’98 or ’99. “It’s as though she snapped her fingers and conjured him out of thin air. Like—magic.”
“She does seem to find a way to make things happen,” said Kate cautiously.
“Magic,” said Emmie. Four months ago, no one had even thought of such a thing as a Smith Unit, but one speech from Mrs. Rutherford and here they were, equipped and ready, mere hours from their post, all the intricate layers of army and civilian bureaucracy dealt with, all the red tape cut through. Mrs. Rutherford had done all that, and now she’d even conjured an army truck for them. “And just think, we’ll be escorted by brave cavaliers all the way.”
“Don’t you mean poilus?” said Kate practically. Poilus were the rank and file of the French army. “I doubt any of them will be on horseback.”
“I don’t care who they are,” said Fran Englund, “as long as they’re the one hefting the trunks instead of me. I can’t think how she got them to do it.”
“Neither can I,” said Maud darkly.
“Only Betsy,” said Dr. Stringfellow, to no one in particular, and went to help direct the disposition of their belongings.
Chapter Nine
Our scrap of France must have once been lovely. Down a long lane of poplars, half-felled by the Germans, one passes through a massive iron gate, beyond which you see the scarred, roofless walls of a once grand chateau. In a bowl of green behind, at the edge of a great wood, the army put our three barracks, each with two rooms—each smaller than our room in Northampton! I’ve bunked in with two class of ’11 girls, Emmie Van Alden and Kate Moran. Emmie is a dear and very welcoming. Kate is a little harder to know—but not unkind. Just quiet. She’s so efficient, it makes me feel all arms and legs.
The handful of people left in Grécourt live in the ruined stables, except for the gardener’s wife, who has stubbornly remained in what is left of her old cottage by the castle gate, with a canvas awning in place of a roof. She is in possession of the one stove in the village, so she once cooked for the Germans and she now cooks for us—when she has a mind to.