Frost crunched under Peter's feet as he carried Charlotte's aluminum pail to the water pump. Despite his semi-healed condition and a slight headcold, he'd managed to convince the French couple to let him help with chores, as long as he was careful. Jean's mill supplied the little town to the south with flour and other grain materials from what the farmers brought. While he and Charlotte kept to themselves for the most part, they were well respected. This put them in a very good position to offer an unusual service—smuggling stranded Allied soldiers. Since yearly hired help was a common practice of Jean's, nothing was thought of men coming and going at the mill. Charlotte kept two spare rooms for this purpose.

Peter was amazed by their courage. With all but the very southern part of France under Nazi control, they were risking everything they had for complete strangers.

So three weeks were filled with pumping water, carrying firewood, and helping Jean prepare his deliveries for trips in the horse-drawn cart. They had no interest in modern ways when the old ones worked just fine. Peter, out of courtesy for his hosts, diligently took note of everything he heard in French, with Jean and Charlotte's help. Not only would it help when he finally continued his journey, but it seemed decent not to force Jean to speak English all the time. Charlotte didn't know any at all.

He should have known it was too good to last, though.

Jean was making deliveries, so it was up to Peter to finish winterizing the old watermill. It was slow work, owing to his wrist (tightly splinted and wrapped) and the effect of a brisk wind on the stream. He had just made the final adjustments, however, when a loud crack sounded from some distance behind him.

When one has been in the war, there's no mistaking gunfire.

A figure broke cover on the far side of the open meadow, heading straight for the mill. Distant shouts followed him…shouts in German. Peter bolted for the house just as Charlotte came out to investigate.

"Germans!" he hissed. "Get inside! L'intérieur!1 Now!"

A horse whinnied to their right; Jean was home. Charlotte glanced from the man stumbling toward them to her husband, and finally at Peter.

"S'enfuir, Peter,"2 she replied, shaking her head and pointing at the continuing woods on the other side of the stream. They both jumped as shots were fired once more. Jean came, huffing, to join them, rifle in hand.

"You must go, Peter, now. We shall try to 'elp 'im as best we came, but it iz too risky to try 'iding both of you. Goot luck."

"Merci," Peter said faintly.

"Adieu," Jean and Charlotte replied together. They urged him on as German soldiers appeared over the slight ride of the meadow. He was off again, in the opposite direction. Except this time, he met opposition almost immediately. The banks of the stream were steep and slippery, and as he made his way back up, he had to catch himself with his right hand, jarring it painfully. Wet and grimacing, he made it to the woods. More shots echoed from the direction of the house. Peter hung his head.

This trip was going to be harder, he knew. While he still had daylight to dry his clothes, the air was definitely cooler than before. Furthermore, he had no food, and no idea where he was going. He just knew he couldn't stop.

Brambles snagged his clothes, and low branches whipped his face. Peter hadn't been going for very long before his breathing grew ragged. Pure adrenaline was all that kept him in motion—until his foot discovered a rotted log. Momentum carried him flat onto the ground, winding him completely.

Eerie silence was pierced only by his own struggling breaths. Luck proved Peter's boot to be sturdier than the wood which had trapped it; his ankle was none the worse from falling. His wrist was a different story. The splint was fairly ruined now, and renewed pain shot up his arm.

"So much for three weeks' healing," he muttered to himself. Light streaks of blood smeared from his cheek to his sleeve. A frosty wind skimmed his exposed back, sending shivers up it. Something light and rather crinkled was blown loose from under him, but he managed to catch it. It was the small photograph of Caity he always kept with him. Though worn and faded now, her happy smile lifted Peter's drowning spirits. He had made her a promise, once.

"I'm coming back to you, Caity…"

New energy carried Peter to his feet. The wind protested and his body complained, but determination burned once again in his mind.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

"Peter, your journey is not finished yet."

"But it's so warm here. Why can't I just stay here?"

"Because here is not where you are meant to be, Son of Adam."

"I'm so tired…how much farther is it?"

"Peter!"

This time it was not only Aslan's voice that spoke. Peter saw his picture of Caity—except she was moving! Gracefully, she came towards him, hands extended to help him up and her limp gone. Rippling sunlight pulsed behind her. Inner warmth and strength seemed to well up from nowhere.

"Go," Aslan's command echoed with a building roar. "Go!"

And as Peter felt himself uncurl from his cocoon of oblivion, cold and pain hit him once more. Muscles seized involuntarily against the chills and coughing that followed.

"Uhnn…" He would have shaken his head in disbelief if it didn't already hurt so much. Wandering outdoors in early winter took its toll. Peter felt weak and feverish, as well as hungry. Fresh streams were easy to find, but the search for food had only yielded some crabapples that had yet to fall off the tree. Had that been just this morning, or three days ago? Time blurred under the endless twilight of the forest.

Wood, brambles, and other forest loam kept Peter stumbling his way onward…but to where? To England? Right into the enemy? To nowhere but more land through which to trod until his body simply gave up?

Distant rumbling churned through the air around him, though it seemed much too late in the season for a thunderstorm. Yet there it was; chilled drops of water fell upon Peter as the trees thinned into a small field. He crossed his arms tighter across his chest, and trudged on. If it weren't for his dogtags bouncing rhythmically with his steps, he could almost have imagined himself back in Narnia. Whether with Edmund or some of their dear friends, or on his own, this was not the first difficult situation to come his way.

But Narnia never seemed to be this depressing.

The rumbling grew louder, and somehow more punctuated. Or maybe it was just Peter's imagination. He would have given it more attention had he not already been soaked to the skin with freezing rain and nursing his throbbing wrist. Then, suddenly, he was spared the effort of having to investigate at all.

BOOM!

A concussive force of air and spraying dirt knocked Peter right off his feet. His wrist crumpled under the instinct to catch himself. To the right, men poured out of both sides of the field. Shouts and small arms joined the din. Peter rolled to his feet. He was still weaponless, in the middle of a battlefield. How'd he miss this, even in his condition?

The German voices were closer—Peter had nowhere to hide, nowhere to go. If he stayed, certainly he'd be shot. But if he ran for the other side, would the Allied troops recognize him as friend or foe?

Before his body could respond to any decision, however, someone tackled him from the side. He felt a slim knife blade run across his arm as if the coat sleeve were not there. Emotionless eyes burned into Peter's as they tumbled down a short slope. The German soldier, who couldn't be older than himself, cried out as Peter finally landed a blow to the side of the head. They came to an abrupt halt against a log, the German on top.

Two dull impacts hit them from somewhere, but there was no pain. Peter glanced around his limited field of vision. The boy pinning him down had stopped moving.

Dirt showered them as another shell landed close by. Too close. He had to get out of there. Taking the dead German's knife, Peter wiggled out of his unlikely shelter and bolted for the Allied side. Even with adrenaline pumping through his body, though, fatigue, injuries, and the rain-soaked ground slowed his efforts.

Peaceful twilight enveloped him once again as he finally gained the tree line, but artillery and human screams continued to follow him, unhindered. The Allied forces had seemed large' surely that meant that some kind of camp was close.

Darkness fell, and so did the temperature. The rain slacked off to a drizzle under the trees, but Peter's clothes had already absorbed all the water and mud that they could hold. Now that his focus was not required elsewhere, the wracking, painful cough started up once more, shaking his whole body.

Is that a light ahead? He thought blearily. It was hard to tell, between the shadows and the rain. His vision was beginning to swim. But yes, there was definitely a light of some kind now, and her thought he could hear voices. The air around Peter opened up. There was a shape moving towards him. She seemed familiar—wait, no, Caity's hair was darker…he didn't know anymore, didn't understand. And before she could get close enough for him to be sure, the ground floated up to meet him…

1 'inside, indoors'

2 'run' (command)