"The lieutenant has a friend who was friends with Sara," Christopher Johnson tried to explain.

"Ann Chambers," Charity said. "The writer?"

That registered immediately with Grace Higham. "Of course! How is Ann?"

"She's missing-"

"I'm terribly sorry," Grace Higham said.

"And I thought that Sara might have some idea where she is or maybe what happened to her. At the very least, just tell me the last time that she had seen Ann so I could try to retrace her steps."

Grace Higham was nodding. But there was clear distress in her expression.

She looked Charity in the eyes with a piercing gaze.

"I'm terribly afraid that that will be a bit difficult," Grace Higham said softly.

Christopher Johnson looked at Grace Higham and said, "If I may?"

Grace nodded.

"Sara," Johnson explained, "never made it here to Higham Hills. We are, as you can see"-he glanced over his shoulder at the people on the covered porch-"quite full. She was taken to Manor House."

"Which is...?" Charity asked.

"Another residence that has taken on responsibilities similar to ours," he said. "It's near Yardley Hastings, just south of Northampton. I would think you passed it coming up here."

"We were informed," Grace Higham put in, "that Sara was taken to Manor House with another woman-"

Charity's eyebrows went up. "Really!"

"And that they had been injured not by a bomb directly but by loose bricks falling from a storefront. I was told that Sara's injuries were mostly superficial but that she was having difficulty speaking. Apparently, some severe type of shock."

"And the other woman?" Charity said.

Grace Higham was quiet, then looked at Christopher Johnson.

Johnson began, "Her injuries were far worse-"

"There was significant trauma to the head," Grace Higham added. "The doctors were able to reduce the pressure on the brain, we were told, and believed that she was ready for recovery. And so she was picked up by the runners at Manor House and taken there."

"Runners?"

"People who help out doing odd jobs. We have a few. They have many more. The Motor Transport Corps has been stretched rather thin, their vehicles in short supply, so Manor House does not bother relying on them."

Well, Charity thought, Charity thought, they should soon have another ambulance at their disposal. they should soon have another ambulance at their disposal.

Soon as it is "re-allocated."

Charity said, "You say believed that she was ready for recovery. That suggests-"

"She didn't make it, I'm afraid. There was an aneurysm..." Grace Higham said, her voice trailing off.

Charity suddenly had trouble hearing anything clearly for a moment. She found herself hyperventilating. Tears flowed down her cheeks.

"I'm very sorry to have to tell you that," Grace Higham was saying somewhat stiffly. "But you do realize that this may not be your friend. There sadly are too many such stories...."

Charity struggled to hold back her deepest emotions.

"Can you tell me how to find this Manor place?" she said after a moment, her voice shaking. "I pray you're right, that it's not Ann. But, if it is, I need to know. And, if it isn't, maybe I can get Sara to tell me something."

Grace Higham thought about that, then said, "I have been meaning to get over there to visit but simply have not had a moment to spare. I do think that I could go with you now."

"Thank you," Charity said. "Can you drive? We can take my car. But I don't think I'm right now in any condition to do so."

"Of course," Grace Higham said, surprised by the lieutenant's vulnerability and how she was unafraid to show it.

She studied Lieutenant Hoche a moment, then decided that maybe she had been indeed a bit quick to judge this book by its cover.

The forty-five-kilometer drive south-with a ten-minute stop for Charity, who thought she might be getting sick to her stomach-had taken them just shy of an hour.

Charity Hoche and Grace Higham stood with a squat woman who wore a white nurse's outfit. They were in the doorway of what not very long ago-no more than a month-had been a working barn at Manor House.

The four horses that had been there had been moved to another barn nearby. The dirt floor had been improved, concrete poured, and the stalls modified so that they now resembled small rooms. Additional rooms had been built, fashioned from boarding. And wooden bunks had been built to hold straw mattresses.

Charity Hoche had been shocked by all that she had seen as they had walked through the main building of Manor House, past the patients there, then out to the barn.

There were indeed patients, all progressing well in their recovery, as Ann Chambers had written in her article. And there were the children. But also there were patients who looked like ghosts, some with grave injuries that had left them looking horrid.

Charity could not help but notice that these extreme cases even had a smell of death about them.

Ann hadn't written about them because what she had written about was bleak enough.

Ann knew her audience. They wanted to read about the good that Grace Higham was doing.

Dwelling on the darkness would have lost a lot of readers-ones who would not have finished the piece, and then not have sent the packages of toys and animals for the children.

Then Charity had another thought and it was a struggle for her to contain the wave of emotion that came with it.

Was that how Ann looked-and smelled-before that artery burst in her head?

"Now, I must caution you," the squat nurse was saying, "that what you're about to see may be disturbing."

"We'll be fine," Grace Higham said, then looked at Charity and added: "Both of us."

This little lady has a backbone of steel, Charity thought. Charity thought.

"Very well," the nurse said in an officious tone.

They came to one of the stalls converted into a room. There was the shape of a female on her back under the white sheet. The sheet was slowly rising and falling with her breathing.

The nurse motioned that they could go in.

As they stepped forward together, Grace Higham suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, God!"

Charity inhaled deeply, then whispered, "Ann!"

"Say that again," Charity Hoche told the squat nurse as Charity, her eyes red, gently stroked Ann Chambers's dark hair.

"She has amnesia."

"She can't remember who she is?" Charity said.

"Or where she came from," the nurse said.

Charity turned and looked Ann Chambers in the eyes.

"You're Ann," she said softly. "Ann Chambers, remember?"

Ann blinked her eyes, and when she opened them again, Charity was convinced she saw some sign of recognition, some acknowledgment.

And even if there wasn't, there will be eventually.

"She kept muttering, 'Sara, Sara,'" the nurse explained. "And she would write it down. We thought that that meant she was trying to tell us her name."

Charity's and Grace's eyes met.

"Then what happened to the other woman?" Grace said. "The one who died of the aneurysm?"

"We have our own cemetery, and a full, appropriate burial service was performed," the nurse said. "Was that a mistake also? We were told there were no relatives."

"In this case," Grace Higham said, "that was true about Sara."

"It wouldn't be with Ann," Charity added softly, looking down at her. "She has plenty of family...including me."

Charity turned to the nurse. "She's well enough to travel?" she said, more a statement than a question.

"Oh, no. The doctor said that she needs quiet time to recover."

"No," Charity said evenly. "You misunderstood me. What I said was: She is is well enough to travel. I'm taking her home. Right after I pay my respects to Sara. Can you show me her resting place?" well enough to travel. I'm taking her home. Right after I pay my respects to Sara. Can you show me her resting place?"

Grace Higham felt a lump form in her throat.

Oh, how I like this Yank!

Not only is she taking charge of her friend, she's taking the time for Sara, too-not at her "grave" but at her "resting place."

Ann Chambers, you are indeed one fortunate soul to have such a friend.

[TWO].

Whitbey House Kent, England 2150 4 April 1943 Charity Hoche surprised herself at how fast she made the return trip to Whitbey House. She realized that that was in part thanks to Grace Higham's having arranged for a runner to shuttle her back to Great Glen, saving Charity a two-hour round-trip, and putting her-with Ann Chambers in the backseat-that much closer to Kent.

When they had arrived, Charity had not exercised a great deal of self-control. She had been impatient; she found it difficult not to bark at anybody who she felt got in her way or who did not immediately do what she asked of them in a manner she considered satisfactory.

Bob Jamison had had to delicately take her aside and say that he would handle the details, including getting Ann down to the dispensary.

"You just went through a hellish emotional roller-coaster ride," Jamison had said. "Catch your breath and let me worry about the little things."

When Charity had looked him in the eyes, Jamison saw a fury mixed with fear.

Then, slowly, her eyes softened, her body grew less tense, and she nodded.

"Thank you, Bob."

"She has a mild amnesia," Major Richard B. Silver, M.D., said to Charity Hoche and Bob Jamison. He held the medical file that the staff at Manor House had put together on Ann Chambers and given to Charity. "It's a dissociative amnesia."

They were in the left wing of the mansion, in the dispensary, what had once been the ballroom of Whitbey House. Ann Chambers lay sleeping peacefully in one of the sixteen field-hospital beds. Under Dr. Silver's supervision, the medical staff had given her a complete checkup, then a bath, and then she had been made comfortable.

Silver was a tall man, easily six-four, with a deep, commanding voice that he modulated with the skill of a radio broadcaster. His tone could be strong, but at the same time the sound of his voice would carry no farther than those in the immediate conversation-all the while conveying an utter confidence and authority that was not to be questioned.

He was good at what he did. He knew it. And those he dealt with knew it.

"Dissociative?" Charity repeated.

Major Silver nodded.

"Amnesia is too commonly misunderstood," he went on, "and, accordingly, very often misinterpreted. Broadly, amnesia is defined as profound memory loss. Ann has dissociative amnesia. A person blocks out critical information, usually something that is stressful or traumatic. Thus, she would be dissociative to that event."

Charity looked at Ann, then back to Silver.

"I believe that we can rule out transient global amnesia," he said.