Lines of Courage

The narrative now shifts to center on Juliette. The French army orders the evacuation of Verdun in preparation for the German military’s arrival, so Juliette, her mother, and her younger brothers Marcel and Claude are packing up their belongings. Juliette is tasked with carrying the money intended to pay for her father’s bribe. As they are among the last families to leave, they are alone on the road when a troop of German soldiers suddenly appears ahead of them. They try to hide in a field but their wagon gets stuck. Juliette walks into a nearby thicket to find a stick to pry the wagon’s wheel out of the mud; she returns to see the Germans have already discovered her family. She hides in a bush and, when the soldiers decide to set up camp for the night, decides to stay in place until the next morning, eventually falling asleep in the cold.

The next day, Juliette wakes up in a bed on Kara’s ambulance train. Orderlies passing her location noticed her red hat sticking out of a bush and brought her aboard to be treated for hypothermia. Juliette panics about being separated from her family, and Kara comforts her.