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his leg. He bit down hard on his lower lip and waited.
    “
Ici
,” a woman whispered to someone with her in what he thought was French. If a woman had come, then she must be local and perhaps he might not be shot.
    He felt the branches and straw that covered him being cleared away and heard the rustle of silk. A man’s voice—deep and husky—gave directions also in French or some dialect close to French. He and the rest of the crew had been told that Belgium was a multilingual society—French, Dutch, and German were all common. They had joked that the only language they hoped to hear was English.
    Buying precious seconds to assess his situation, Peter remained as motionless as possible. Of course, now that he was fully exposed to the wind and cold, it was hard not to shiver. Someone touched his shoulder, startling him, and he jerked away. Having revealed that he was alive, he tried to push himself to a sitting position.
    “Lie still,” the female said now, speaking in English. “We will roll you onto the parachute. Just be very still, all right?”
    He grunted as he noticed the man folding the parachute into layers and placing it next to him. The man’s movements were those of an old person—stiff and slow. The woman moved quickly, and she was very small—surely no more than a teenager. Perhaps she was the man’s granddaughter and the sister of the boy who had found him. How she and the old man were going to move him, he had no idea. Then he saw the cart—a rustic old wooden wheelbarrow-type, but deeper.
    “Which leg is hurt?” she asked.
    “Left,” he replied, wondering how she knew. The boy of course. He had sent them. He had kept his promise to go for help. “I was hit—wounded.” He realized that he could no longer feel his leg.
    It was so dark that he could not read her expression, but he saw the way she glanced at the man, who shrugged as the two of them knelt on the ends of the parachute to keep it from blowing and together slowly rolled him out of the ditch and onto the smooth, cold fabric. The morphine was wearing off but still had some value. At least he was able to remain mostly silent as they moved him.
    Next she instructed him to make himself as small as possible, and in spite of the pain, he eased his knees closer to his chest and tucked his arms close to his body. The old man brought the cart closer and tilted it, dumping out a pile of straw while the girl wrapped the chute tightly around Peter. Then the two of them bent and lifted him into the cart, dropping him like a sack of potatoes.
    He could not swallow a yelp.
    “Shhh,” she ordered and then began quickly covering him with straw that she and the old man scooped up with both hands.
    “Let’s go,” the girl said, her voice betraying her nervousness. She led the way while the old man pushed the cart. The ride was bumpy, and twice the cart almost turned over. But after what seemed like a very long time, Peter saw the glow of a lamp through the mat of straw that covered his face. Then he saw a woman standing in the doorway of a small house, her arms around a boy.
    The boy broke away and ran to meet them. He blurted out a question in French. Peter’s French was of the high school variety, but he understood the word
mort
. The kid was asking if he was dead.
    “
Non
.”
    Well, that was good news. He had begun to wonder if all of this was some kind of delirium—a dream that would precede him freezing to death. The way his head was swimming and his eyes refused to focus, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
    Instead of wheeling the cart up to the door, the old man headed around the side of the house toward a dark outbuilding, and once the girl had pulled the door open against a drift of snow blocking it, he rolled the cart inside. Using the slickness of the parachute for leverage, the man and girl turned Peter until he was facing backward, and as the man tipped up the cart, Peter slid out and onto a pile of fresh and fragrant