We have been driving and driving and driving. Liza and I have become milkmen as well as peddlers. We spend half the day taking milk to girls with Boche babies and the other half taking the doctors on their rounds. I can’t tell you the misery of driving in the falling dark with the rain coming through the open truck and the wind howling like anything—and it’s only October! I don’t want to think what it will be like come Christmas. But maybe by then . . . we’ll see.
There’s no rest for anyone as we’re a depleted group. Mrs. Rutherford is gone for good. One girl had to leave as her mother died and another went with her to keep her company. Another girl had a breakdown—a real breakdown—and had to go to Paris for her nerves. The official line is that she’ll be back, but I wouldn’t put money on it. And our agriculturalist still hasn’t arrived. It’s really quite dire. We’ve got seventy-two chickens and not a one has laid an egg in the three weeks we’ve had them. One of the girls—the one in charge of the dairy!—mistook a cow for a bull simply because it had a ring through its nose.
I can’t imagine why more farms aren’t clamoring for Smith graduates. . . .
—Miss Maud Randolph, ’09, to her fiancé, Mr. Henry Craig
October 1917
Grécourt, France
“—and they had a wonderful dinner for us!” Alice said as the White bumped back across the moat. “It wasn’t a cakeless day, so we reveled.”
“That was kind of the Paris Committee.” Kate maneuvered around a rut masquerading as a swimming pool. The rainy season was upon them, turning everything to mud, mud up to their knees, mud that tugged at the tires of the trucks and created hazards at every turn. The Paris Committee had invited her—in her new position as assistant director—but Kate had turned them down on the grounds of work. To take two days away, as things were, was impossible.
It had nothing at all to do with the fact that she was afraid of using the wrong fork.
“Well, we are something of a sensation now,” said Alice frankly. “Mrs. Barrett was telling me there have been articles in the Chicago Tribune and New York Globe—they’ve been terribly complimentary, but they all include that same horrid photo of us together before we sailed. I do wish our uniforms were more becoming.”
“They may not be glamorous,” said Kate, drawing up by the Orangerie, “but no one can deny we’re well supplied with pockets.”
“Yes, because Mrs. R—” Alice looked at Kate, flushed, and broke off, looking guilty. Kate had never asked, but she strongly suspected that Alice had been part of Maud’s cabal to oust Mrs. Rutherford, not out of any personal animus, but because Maud had asked and Alice wouldn’t have liked to say no.
Kate wondered what they had been saying of her in Paris. She knew that Maud had been writing to the committee again, writing about her.
“Did you see Margaret in Paris?” asked Kate, swinging down from the truck.
“Only briefly.” Alice stepped down somewhat more gingerly, wincing as her Paris boots sank ankle-deep in mud. “She didn’t stay at the Quai Voltaire—I don’t think she wanted to be around the Unit after—well, after whatever happened. I bumped into her once shopping, and she seemed awfully broken up about breaking her contract and leaving.”
“Well, thank goodness you’re back,” said Kate honestly. “No one has a way with the motors like you do. We’ve been relying on the engineers to fix our engines, and they’re not nearly as good at it as you are.”
Alice’s head popped up, a gratified expression on her face. “It’s just a knack; I can’t think where I got it. . . . Do you mean the 11th Engineers—the ones we met before I left?”
“Those are the ones. They’ve taken to inviting themselves over at odd hours, along with half the other men on the front. We’ve been overrun by American engineers and Canadian foresters—and even some Quakers. They’ve got a base near Ham.”
Maud had tried to send the Quakers packing, on the grounds that they didn’t want a pack of pacifists hanging about, but Kate had overruled her, on the grounds that whatever the Quakers’ principles, they certainly had better carpentry skills than the Unit. Maud was still simmering over that.
“Goodness.” Alice sat up straighter, unconsciously adjusting her hat to a more flattering angle. “I hadn’t realized it would be so social.”
“Neither did we,” Kate said wryly. “We’ve had to ask them to confine their visits to weekends. The engineers had us to supper at their camp last weekend—which means we’ll have to reciprocate at some point, although goodness only knows how. We haven’t nearly enough cups and plates to go around.”
Or enough food, or enough coal to cook with. The cold had set in with a vengeance, but the coal delivery they had been promised had yet to arrive.
Kate was finding it very hard to untangle Mrs. Rutherford’s systems. Mrs. Rutherford had procured supplies from all sorts of places, getting the Unit classified as an infirmary so they could receive more than the usual ration of sugar, and as a military unit, so that they might qualify for an allowance of essence, but not everything had been properly recorded; some transactions were with the civil authorities, others with the military, and others still with the American aid organizations: the American Fund for French Wounded and the Red Cross. Mrs. Rutherford seemed to have managed almost entirely on force of personality. Lacking that kind of charisma, Kate would have been glad for some nice, plain record keeping.
Ledgers, for instance. Ledgers would have been marvelous. Not just piles of letters and receipts and carbons typed too thin to read.
It was all impossibly knotty and Kate never seemed to have enough time to tackle the paperwork to even try to untangle it. With only two drivers left at Grécourt, she spent her days in the White truck, driving the social workers and doctors from village to village. By the time Kate settled down with Mrs. Rutherford’s records, it was usually past nine and freezing cold, and she was more likely to fall asleep on the papers than read them.
But now that Alice was back . . . she might just possibly be able to clear a day. Even a few hours would help.
“Alice!” Emmie was skimming and sliding through the mud, embracing Alice with a force that nearly sent them both flying. “Welcome back!”
Alice disappeared in a welter of greetings, Miss Ledbetter waxing poetic about returned warriors.
In the midst of the hubbub, Anne Dawlish quietly touched Kate’s shoulder. “Kate. The coal came while you were away.”
Kate let out a long breath. “Thank goodness. Dr. Stringfellow told me she has enough to do without tending to frostbite.”
Two worried lines appeared between Anne’s eyes. “You might want to come see it.”
“Did I hear coal?” asked Liza, detaching herself from the scrum around Alice. “Oh, goody. I’m freezing. And we haven’t been able to do any baking for days.”
“I had them put it here,” said Anne, pointing to a crate next to the barrack they used as their dining room. It was not a large crate.
“Is that for the week?” Kate had thought Mrs. Rutherford had arranged for monthly deliveries, but maybe . . .
Anne shook her head, looking like she was about to cry. “They said it’s for the month.”
“For the month?” Liza turned too fast and nearly landed on her bottom in the mud.
“I don’t know how I’m meant to keep the children warm during lessons,” said Anne, her voice scratchy. “I’d hoped they could at least be warm with us before they have to go home to the damp and the cold. And not a decent coat among them.”
“We could burn wood,” said Liza hopefully.
“No. Not if we want to try to provide any shelter for the villagers.” The Germans had felled as much as they could, sending it back to Germany to fuel the German war effort. Wood was desperately needed, for rebuilding, for furniture, for heat. To burn it for themselves would be selfishness beyond countenancing. Although if it got much colder, Kate might just be willing to live with the guilt. “I hope you brought extra sweaters. And warm socks.”
“We could, like the medieval peasants, burn the dung of the cow,” offered Miss Ledbetter. “One takes the hardened pats and—”
“No,” said Maud firmly. “I don’t care what the peasants do, I’m not scenting my room with cow dung.”
Liza looked thoughtfully toward the stables. “If it gets cold enough . . .”
“No,” said Maud.
“We can keep warm by walking,” interposed Kate. It was time to relay the rest of the bad news. “We’ll have to walk anyway. We’ve run through most of our allowance of essence. We’re going to have to start rationing it.”
“Can’t we get more?” asked Miss Mills, looking outraged. “Surely, given the importance of the services we’re providing . . .”
“I tried,” said Kate shortly. She’d written the French military authorities, the French civil authorities, the Red Cross, and the AFFW, all of whom had told her the same thing. “They can’t conjure essence out of thin air. There’s only so much to be had. We’ll just have to be careful with what we have.”
“Mrs. R—” began Emmie, and then stopped. But Kate knew what she had been thinking. That Mrs. Rutherford would have found a way. “That nice French officer who stopped by the other day offered to bring us a pony and trap. I could use that to get to Courcelles and Canizy.”
“All that way by yourself?” It was far enough by car; by trap, on the rutted roads, it would be hours. “It’s so far, Emmie.”
“We could go in pairs,” Emmie argued. She’d adopted Courcelles as her own since Margaret left, and had clashed with Kate more than once when Kate had vetoed extra trips on the grounds of saving their gas ration.
Kate wasn’t convinced. “But how would a pony carry two of us? And supplies?”
“We’re not that heavy,” insisted Emmie.
“For a pony?”
“I had a pony once,” said Liza. “Her name was Snowdrop.”
“Not Snowdrop again.” Rounding on Kate, Maud demanded, “What are we meant to do about the store? Unless you mean us to yoke ourselves to the truck like oxen and pull it all the way.”
“No,” said Kate reluctantly. The store had been a smashing success, thanks in no small part to Maud. “You and Liza are working wonders with the store. We may have to hold more store hours here in the château, though. Anyone near enough to walk can come to us.”
Maud folded her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes at Kate. “Shouldn’t Dr. Stringfellow be making these decisions? She is our director. Or had you forgotten?”
The others had stopped talking. They were all watching, with varying degrees of interest and discomfort.
“Dr. Stringfellow is seeing patients,” said Kate neutrally.
“It’s absurd having a doctor as director of the Unit,” said Maud, addressing herself to the circle of women. “We need someone proper to manage us. Like Mrs. Barrett in Paris.”
Kate didn’t miss the way Alice began fiddling with the brooch on her coat. So that was it, then. Another coup. A coup against Dr. Stringfellow—which meant a coup against Kate, since Kate was the one actually running things. Kate had no illusions about the matter: she was the one Maud wanted out.
Kate didn’t intend to oblige her. She might not have asked for this job, but now that she had it—she wasn’t prepared to relinquish it.
“Mrs. Barrett,” said Kate reasonably, “is in Paris. Where her husband is. I doubt she’d be interested in relocating to Grécourt—even if we wanted her, which we don’t.”
“She sets a wonderful table,” put in Alice unhelpfully. “She had the most wonderful dinner for Smith girls in Paris. And it wasn’t a cakeless day.”
“Mmm, cake,” said Liza wistfully. “I do miss cake.”
“Oh, look,” said Maud, before Liza could wax rhapsodic about chestnut cream and almond paste. “Here comes our director.”
Dr. Stringfellow ignored her, nodding briefly at Alice and then looking past her, at the bags in the White truck. “Welcome back. You brought our medical supplies?”
Alice picked at a clump of mud on one boot with the toe of the other. “I did try.”
“When you say try . . .” Dr. Stringfellow made a visible effort to retain her patience. “Do you mean to tell me that our supplies are still in Bordeaux?”
“Well, no. Mrs. Barrett made inquiries on our behalf—and it seems that our medical supplies were distributed.”
“Distributed?” Dr. Stringfellow’s eyebrows were practically vertical. “Distributed to whom?”
“She’s not quite sure. Hospitals most likely?” Avoiding Dr. Stringfellow’s eyes, Alice added hastily, “You know the Red Cross is pooling all donations and giving them out as they’re needed, so it probably made sense at the time, since we weren’t there.”
“Those weren’t donations,” Julia said, as though speaking to a toddler, all short words and simple sentence construction. “Those were our supplies, bought and paid for.”
“Well, yes, but . . .”
“It’s not her fault,” said Kate, stepping in on Alice’s behalf. Even if Alice was possibly plotting against her. “It wasn’t her mistake.”
Julia’s blue eyes were practically black. “No, it was ours for not collecting them at the first opportunity. Instead of collecting trucks, we ought to have made sure of our medical supplies.”
“Without the trucks, we wouldn’t be here,” pointed out Kate.
Julia looked at Kate, her lips a thin line. “We’ll have to go to Amiens and beg. There’s only so much we can do with bicarbonate of soda and prayer.”
“I’m surprised you don’t just go light a candle,” said Maud, who had never forgiven Julia for making her participate in a Catholic mass.
“Yes, to the patron saint of small annoyances.” Julia turned to Kate. “When can we go to Amiens? Or does our essence allowance not stretch to medical necessities?”
“I’ll drive you to Amiens tomorrow.” Never mind that she would rather do anything but. Kate raised her voice, trying to pretend that she was in control, that she wasn’t failing miserably in her role as assistant director. “Shall we go in to dinner? We would have brought out the fatted calf for you, Alice, but Emmie refused to let us slaughter any of her cows.”
“Some idiot’s blocking our drive,” said Julia.
The rain was sluicing down by ten the next morning, when Julia finished her morning shift in the dispensary and appeared beside the White truck—as though Kate were her chauffeur.
Which she was, Kate reminded herself.
“Is it Dave, the Red Cross driver?” Dave frequently landed in the ditch beside the gates. It happened with such regularity that they’d begun to suspect intent rather than incompetence.
“No. Some buffoon in a bow tie.”
“Halloo? Anybody home?” The buffoon in a bow tie was slipping and sliding his way along the path around the château—or what had once been a path before it turned into a mud slick. “Is this the Château de Robecourt?”
“No. It’s the Palace of Versailles,” snapped Julia. “Your truck is blocking our gates.”
The man’s smile wobbled slightly. “Lowell Markham of the Boston Commercial Advertiser. I’m meant to be finding the Smith Social Service Unit?”
He sounded as though he rather hoped he’d landed in the wrong place. Gritting her teeth, Kate hopped off the running board and walked forward with hand extended. “Welcome. I’m Miss Moran, assistant director of the Smith College Relief Unit, and this is Dr. Pruyn, of our medical department.”
“Doctor?” Mr. Lowell Markham regarded Julia with frank interest, examining her as though she were a zebra caught sunning itself in Central Park. “I didn’t know you had lady doctors.”
Kate cut in before Julia could say anything rude. “Dr. Pruyn is one of two doctors attached to the Unit, both graduates of Smith College. We were just leaving on urgent medical business. . . .”
The reporter’s eyes lit up. He was going to ask to come with them, Kate could tell. They all did. He was the fourth reporter they’d had that month. It was all part of Mrs. Rutherford’s plan to outwit the committee, to make the Unit such a media sensation that no one would think of disbanding it—which was all very well for Mrs. Rutherford in exile in Paris, but an absolute nuisance in Grécourt. They didn’t have time to coddle self-important journalists who saw them as amusing curiosities. And they certainly didn’t want to drag one to Amiens to watch them beg for supplies.
Kate spotted Emmie heading toward the basse-cour, head lowered against the rain, a roll of chicken wire clamped under her arm. “Do come meet the head of our social service department, Miss Emmaline Van Alden.”
“Of the New York Van Aldens,” said Julia, straight-faced. Kate frowned at her, knowing how much Emmie hated to be seen as an extension of her mother. But the reporter had already taken the bait.
“Any relation of Mrs. Livingston Van Alden?”
“Her daughter.” It was for the Unit, Kate reminded herself. Emmie would understand that. “Emmie! Come meet Mr. Lowell Markham. . . .”
The last thing Kate heard as they made their escape was Emmie saying, “Do you know anything about chicken coops, Mr. Markham?”
As they pulled away in the White, she could see the bemused reporter tangled in chicken wire as Emmie explained something, her hands moving vigorously in illustration. Members of the basse-cour had come out to inspect and comment and three of the chickens appeared to have escaped and were pecking at Mr. Lowell Markham’s good Boston shoes.
“That should hold him for a bit,” said Kate neutrally.
“It had better,” said Julia, inspecting the contents of her medical bag. “If he interrupts Dr. Stringfellow’s surgery, she’ll go after him with her scalpel. Of course, they’ll never find the body in this mud.”
Kate looked sharply at Julia, but Julia’s face, as always, betrayed nothing. It was a perfect blank, as serene as a statue of Diana getting ready to skewer some upstart huntsman. Just as she’d skewered Kate all those years ago.
Emmie’s latest charity case.
“He won’t be able to write the article if we bury the body,” said Kate, more sharply than she’d intended.
“Are you so eager for publicity?” Julia made it sound distasteful. Something sordid and common. Like Kate.
Kate focused on the road. “I’m eager for donations.”
“Socks knit by granny and lumpy aprons?”
Admittedly, Kate had just been complaining to Emmie about some of the boxes they’d been sent, which had been packed with more enthusiasm than consideration, but it still annoyed her to hear Julia say it.
“Money,” she said distinctly. “Donations of money. Or is that too vulgar a topic for you?”
Julia gave a short bark of a laugh. “My dear, I root in people’s entrails for entertainment. I’m hardly going to quail at a bit of filthy lucre.”
Kate knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t help herself. “Even if it’s charity? You wouldn’t want to have anything to do with charity.”
That caught Julia’s attention. She stared at Kate for a moment and then said, very slowly, “Not such a mouse, after all, are you? You do have teeth.”
Kate wasn’t sure why Julia should mind; it was Julia who had sneered at Kate for being a charity case all those years ago, not the other way around. But for whatever reason, Julia retreated into an offended silence. The silence continued all the way to Amiens, where Julia remained elegant and uncommunicative as Kate wrangled her way through the various levels of underlings to the commander’s office.
“Do feel free to join in at any time,” muttered Kate, who knew that her French, while good, was nowhere near as aristocratic as Julia’s, and that these things did matter.
“You’re the assistant director,” said Julia blandly in English. “Do go on. . . .”
Monsieur le Commandant was more than willing to help them. And by help, he meant chat for longer than they could spare, offer a coffee they hadn’t time to take, and direct them to the hospital with his compliments. He was, Kate knew, being exceptionally helpful and she was being exceptionally ungrateful. It was Julia’s presence setting her on edge as Monsieur le Commandant escorted them to the hospital, making the necessary introductions, interspersed with compliments and small talk that strained Kate’s French and her courtesy.
A nurse was sent to fetch a junior doctor, who, in turn, was sent to fetch a more senior physician.
“We only need to borrow supplies,” said Kate in desperation. The rain was pouring and the clock was ticking.
“It is good to know one’s colleagues,” said the commandant, patting her arm in a fatherly way. “And everyone wants to know the so intrepid dames Américaines.”
“More muddy than intrepid right now,” said Kate, and everyone laughed as though she’d said something very clever. Except Julia, of course. “Dr. Pruyn has prepared a list of the items we need most desperately. . . .”
“We must not have you reduced to desperation!”
Underlings were dispatched to fetch various items. More coffee was offered and refused. Kate suggested that she sign a receipt and felt that she had committed a faux pas.
“Ah, one of your countrymen!” The commandant waved at someone above Kate’s head. “Dr. Stapleton! Dr. Stapleton is visiting from the hospital of the Red Cross in Nesle. Have you met les dames Américaines?”
They had, Kate noticed, gone from being collégiennes to being dames. She wasn’t sure whether that was a promotion or a demotion.
“Not in this country, I haven’t,” said an American voice. A man wearing a white medical coat walked up to them, stopping at the sight of Julia. “Julia. What brings you to this mud pit?”
“That’s Dr. Pruyn.” Julia’s voice was as sharp-edged as ground glass.
“On such long acquaintance?” He began humming something. Kate recognized it immediately as “Auld Lang Syne.” “Should old acquaintance be forgot . . .”
The song had the most remarkable effect on Julia. Her back tensed; her face was totally expressionless except for her eyes, which glittered in a most disconcerting way, like seeing the painted eyes in a portrait come alive.
Kate looked from one to the other. “I take it you know each other.”
“Classmates,” Julia bit out, her lips clamping down hard on the words. “At Johns Hopkins.”
“And now colleagues.” Dr. Stapleton held out his hand. Julia pointedly failed to take it. Dr. Stapleton shrugged, not visibly distressed. “I look forward to renewing our acquaintance.”
“We’re very busy,” said Julia flatly. “Kate. We have everything?”
It was, thought Kate, the first time she had ever heard Julia use her name. “Yes, we should be getting back. I’d rather not drive after dark.”
“No,” agreed Dr. Stapleton, falling into step with them as they walked to the door. Julia made sure Kate was between them, but since Kate was considerably shorter than both, she proved a less-than-effective barrier. “It’s dangerous out there for young ladies.”
“Don’t worry,” said Julia, looking straight at him over Kate’s head. “I have a revolver and I’m not afraid to use it.”
“You don’t really have a revolver, do you?” asked Kate as they loaded the parcels into the White truck.
“Why not?” Even in the grips of some strong emotion, Julia was careful with the precious parcels. She saw the last one secured and then looked defiantly at Kate. “Maybe, like Maud, I have an ambition to ‘pot a German.’”
A German—or her old classmate? Julia, Kate remembered, had always been insanely competitive. She’d been first in their class at Smith and never let anyone forget it. Kate squinted at the road, or what had once been a road before the rains had got started on it. Army trucks had carved deep ruts in the mud. What had happened? Had Dr. Stapleton come out tops in an exam? It would be just like Julia to hold a grudge. Kate entertained herself thinking of various possibilities. A thwarted romance? A scholastic competition?
She couldn’t resist needling Julia just a bit. “That Dr. Stapleton—do you think he’d help out with the infirmary once a week? If you went to school with him . . . We could use the extra pair of hands.”
“We don’t need the help,” said Julia flatly.
“Oh, don’t we?” One of Kate’s innovations had been to have all the committees submit weekly reports. She knew exactly how many patients Julia and Dr. Stringfellow had seen last week and how many remained to be seen. The numbers were staggering.
“Not his help,” said Julia fiercely.
Kate looked at her askance. “Is he that bad a doctor?”
“That’s what I should judge, isn’t it?” There was a strange note to Julia’s voice. She took a deep breath, choosing her words very carefully. “His value as a doctor. That’s what matters. As to that . . . I don’t know what kind of doctor he is now. He was an ambitious student. Whether that translates to success in practice, I can’t tell you.”
It was dusk already, a rainy-day dusk, casting Julia into shadow. But Kate could see Julia’s hands clenched on the edge of the bench, as though holding on for dear life. Kate didn’t think she was that bad a driver. They hadn’t hit a pothole for at least a mile.
“I imagine any doctor is better than none,” said Kate, looking sideways at Julia. “Out here.”
“No.” The word exploded from Julia. “You don’t want him at Grécourt. He’s a pig. A vile, rutting pig. He can’t be trusted—”
Julia stopped, closing her lips on the words.
“All right,” Kate said. “No dinner invitations.”
They drove in silence, the dusk thick around them, the rain weeping down off the roof of the White. Kate concentrated on making her way past a cart that had stuck in the mud and been abandoned. A plane whined overhead, a noise so commonplace they barely noticed it now. The night was alive with the distant sound of the guns at the front.
Next to her, Julia was very still. It was a brittle, haunted silence. Like a mouse in a hole, although it was really absurd to think of Julia in those terms. There was no one less mouse-like than Julia. But there it was. Not hauteur. Wariness. Worse than wariness. Fear.
Kate thought of the way Julia had looked when Dr. Stapleton had hummed “Auld Lang Syne.” He had made it seem a joke. But Julia had looked—terrified. Sick. She’d never seen Julia look like that before.
Or had she? Uncomfortably, Kate remembered the way Julia had stiffened when the doctor in Paris had patted her arm, her insistence on not spending the night where men might walk through her room in Noyon, the way she had frozen when Dr. Stapleton approached them. As if trying to decide whether to fight or run.
But this was Julia. It wasn’t that Kate hadn’t heard of such things—especially here, where Dr. Stringfellow had delivered at least five Boche babies already. But Julia was one of the golden ones. It was the unprotected women who got taken advantage of. The maids and the shopgirls. Not the Julias of the world.
It was probably just an academic rivalry, Kate told herself. She’d probably got the wrong end of the stick. Julia would laugh at her. No, Julia would be offended. And then she would laugh at her.
“You don’t need a revolver,” Kate said before she could think better of it. “Not if you know where to hit. The best place to strike a man is the nose. He won’t expect it, and if you hit hard with the palm of your hand, you can break it fast. Nails to the eyes also work.”
Julia’s head jerked toward Kate. “Were you also—”
“No.” The single syllable felt like a betrayal. She hadn’t really thought—but there it was. That word also. Everything she hadn’t believed could happen to Julia. Kate swallowed hard. “My stepfather taught me. Just in case. He felt it was something I ought to know.”
Julia was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Would you teach me?”
She was dead serious. Kate tried to make light of it. “Perhaps we should organize a boxing class for the Unit.”
“Not boxing,” Julia said passionately. “No Queensberry rules. They don’t abide by them. Why should we?”
Tentatively, feeling on very uncertain ground, Kate asked, “Did you tell anyone—about Dr. Stapleton?”
“Are you mad? They would have said I invited it. Bad enough to have women in medical school. Worse to have them distracting the real doctors. I would have been out on my ear.” Julia flexed her gloved hands. “I started carrying a knife in my pocket. I told him if he did it again, I’d gut him and stand in the dock with pleasure.”
Her voice resonated with emotion, so much emotion, more emotion than Kate would have thought Julia was capable of feeling.
Kate said the only thing she could think to say. “Maybe we’ll get lucky. Maybe he’ll be hit by a shell.”
Julia gave a guttural laugh. “I’m not sure I want to rely on the intervention of Providence.”
“We can just tell Maud he’s a German spy and let her at him,” Kate offered.
“That might be punishment enough.” Julia cast Kate a long, sideways look. “You won’t say anything to Emmie?”
Kate had never expected to feel sorry for Julia. Or to feel kinship with Julia. “No.”
Julia stared straight ahead, at the raindrops glinting in the light of the lamps. “I was such a little fool. I thought we were colleagues. Equals. When he said he wanted to exchange notes, I actually thought he wanted to exchange notes.”
Kate winced as the White slid a little too far to the right, fighting to keep the truck on the road. “He ought to have. You were always at the top of our class at Smith.”
“That was only because I worked extra hard to stay ahead of you.” Julia turned away before Kate could see her face, pointing at the signpost. “There’s the turnoff for Grécourt. Do you think that reporter’s still infesting the place?”