Winter was coming to an end, but still it snowed. It wasn't as bad as it had been in Bastogne – 'bad' was quite the under-statement – but still it was cold, miserable, and no one took their warm beds for granted. Every time Emilie went outside, to dart from building to building in order to check in on the soldiers, she was greeted by snow: frozen on top so it was crunchy and loud underfoot. Everyone said they would have been able to hear them in Berlin.

She was the only one permitted outside in daylight, joy oh joy. Some men had tried to bring up the soldier that had died on the bank, to say they had been watching her efforts and that she had done all she could, but she had refused to let them talk about it. When they attempted to, she would either walk on and pretend she hadn't heard them, or simply interrupt them and change the topic. They soon got the message.

The down side of living indoors was there was nowhere to hide from Eberhardt. He had learnt of the dead man, and hadn't been quite so merciful, to say the least. She should have taken that pistol and shot him between the eyes. She was sure no one would have minded. A simple "oops, my finger slipped" would probably suffice. But she was still just not that person. Funny. What was she doing in the army then? Drafted or not, she could have run away, back to being a nurse and helping in some other way. But she couldn't do that. This was who she was now. This was her life. These were her men.

Eventually, the Americans she knew as the 101st Airborne were moved into reserve, and Emilie felt a great sense of relief, mixed with remorse and plain, unbridled anger. Relief because at least Eugene and his friends would be out of immediate danger; remorse because she could possibly never see him again, though fate always seemed to throw them ruthlessly together; and anger because, just as much as anyone else, she wanted revenge on the men that had given that man on the bank an agonizing death. But she couldn't dwell on it. She couldn't.

But she did.

Within an hour of the new American soldiers taking their place in the OP2, the Germans pin-pointed them and Emilie watched coldly as the shells landed smack-bang on their target that had already taken quite a beating. But she couldn't remain emotionless, not when she saw the enemy soldiers running about, scared and looking for somewhere, anywhere, to take shelter.

Then she and the others were dragged away from their beds and the rooms they had made theirs, and there were mixed feelings. Of course they wanted to stay in relative comfort, but, somehow, the entire time they had been indoors, it hadn't felt quite right. They were soldiers now. They lived in the dirt, in foxholes. They weren't civilians anymore, and few could ever properly adjust back to that easy life.