Lines of Courage

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.

Juliette begins looking for her mother in every town where the train stops. After a while, Captain Stout decides that she cannot stay on the train any longer, so Kara and her mother give Juliette provisions and set her on her way. Before she leaves, Kara offers Juliette the Golden Cross of Merit to help her bribe the Germans holding her father hostage.

Juliette goes to Lille, her now-occupied hometown, where her father is imprisoned. She soon realizes that she has nowhere to stay, but she recognizes a girl named Monique, who is kind and friendly. When Juliette approaches her, Monique invites her to stay. Monique’s father worked with Juliette’s, and has also been taken hostage, and her mother was imprisoned for failing to pay the war tax. Monique warns Juliette against trying to bribe the Germans, who may take offense at her offer and punish her.

Despite Monique’s repeated warnings, Juliette tries to learn where her father is being kept and which officer to bribe. Monique asks her how far she would go to save her father, and Juliette tells her that she would do anything. Days later, she finally walks up to a German officer, who introduces himself as Major Dressler and tells her he knows her father. Juliette tries to offer him money and he becomes offended, but Monique intervenes, reassuring Major Dressler that Juliette does not have money. Indeed, Juliette soon realizes that Monique has stolen her money to pay for her own mother to be released. Furious, she starts packing her bag to leave, but German soldiers come to take her and Monique to a wagon full of other young French girls.

The girls are led to a camp, where they are made to work the fields for the Germans until the end of the harvest. Monique tries to comfort the other girls, but Juliette is still angry at her.

A few months later, Juliette and Monique are not yet back to being friends, but Juliette admits that she has forgiven her. The overseeing soldiers announce that British troops are arriving to fight a battle in the area and the girls must be transferred. Monique tells Juliette that she will prove her friendship by helping Juliette run away. She creates a distraction, allowing Juliette to escape through the fields. She finds an abandoned house and plans to hide under a bed there until the German train carrying the other girls has left. However, the house is soon surrounded by German and British soldiers, and the battle begins.

As the battle rages, soldiers enter the abandoned house. Juliet is terrified when a German soldier enters the room where she is hiding and releases homing pigeons. When he looks under the bed, Juliette punches him and tries to escape. However, she is quickly caught by other soldiers. The officer she hit turns out to be Major Dressler, who remembers her. He reveals he made a promise to her father, with whom he has become friendly, and takes Juliette to safety. Major Dressler and Juliette ride a horse away from the battlefield to a river marking the border with Allied territory. As the Major tells her about his decision to do the right thing rather than simply follow orders, Juliette pleads with him to release her father, who is innocent of any crime. Major Dressler wishes her good luck and rides away, leaving Juliette to walk to the nearby ambulance train, where she reunites happily with Kara.

After two months of helping on the train, Juliette must leave again. As she and Kara exchange tearful goodbyes, Captain Stout enters their car. He tells Kara that Juliette has intervened in her favor, and that he is reinstating Kara as a nurse-in-training. Kara is overjoyed, and Juliette leaves with little hope of finding her family again.

Juliette speaks to a woman in one of the towns she is crossing and their conversation leads her to believe her mother may be hiding in a cave near Verdun. With renewed hope, she goes back to Verdun, now a battle-ravaged no-man’s-land. She explores the trenches and surrounding caves, finding traces of people who took shelter there.

Juliette meets a family hiding in one of the caves who invites her to stay with them for a while. A few weeks later, the sounds of battle outside finally stop. Juliette remembers her mother telling her that, in the event of their separation, they should meet in Verdun after the fighting ends, so she decides to return home.

When she arrives in Verdun, Juliette is shocked at the destruction of the city. She eventually finds her old home, now in ruins, and loses hope of finding her family again. She encounters an old man who tries to comfort her and reminds her that things rarely go as planned.

Juliette goes back to the cave, but the family she was staying with has left. Walking around the trenches to gather supplies, she sees a young Russian soldier standing in the middle of the battlefield. He seems injured and disoriented, and collapses when she calls out to him. Despite her fears of landmines, Juliette retrieves him and drags him back to her cave to dress his head wound.