Geertrui
- Late on Wednesday, after a bombardment, a man is found in the garden of Geertrui's house. The men bring him downstairs to the cellar, where Geertrui and her mom try to help the banged-up soldier; he's got a deep cut on his head, and another bad one on his right leg.
- One of the soldiers brings an orderly over, who explains what must have happened. He was probably near an explosive and got hit from flying shrapnel. He's lucky though—he's nowhere near as bad as some of the others.
- The medic tells them to dress the wound and be careful when he wakes up—he could be dazed and confused to say the least.
- Half an hour later, Geertrui and her mom are still cleaning the poor guy's wounds when they recognize the soldier. It's Jacob—that guy they gave water to on Sunday. Geertrui remembers he called her an angel of mercy then, and her mom points out just how prophetic that was.
- They clean him up and when they get to his underwear, Geertrui looks away. Oh she wants to look, to explore what she's never seen before, but she thinks she's supposed to look away for whatever reason; her mom tells her she's left her childhood behind now.
- Over the next four days, the fighting gets worse. More and more soldiers get brought to the cellar to be cleaned up, and each time, Geertrui and her mom try to do whatever they can to help.
- She's still trying to perfect her English, so she and her dad say a bunch of common phrases in English to each other like "come what may" and "all things come to he who waits." The British soldiers hear this and join in, and suddenly everyone is laughing and having a good time, repeating all of these familiar sayings.
- Geertrui's mom doesn't know a lick of English, so she's not really sure what's happening, but everyone else is cracking up.
- Just then, Sam starts crying and everyone stops laughing. Then he says, calmly, eerily, "'I have desired to go where springs not fail, to fields where flies no sharp and sided hail and a few lilies blow. And I have asked to be where no storms come, where the green swell is in the havens dumb, and out of the swing of the sea."
- (Psst… This is from a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins called "Heaven-Haven," that's about finding happiness in the world without anything—you know, just like the soldiers are trying to do during the war.)
- Geertrui is floored by these beautiful words, and she lets us in on a secret: Jacob taught her this was a poem later on, and she's treasured it ever since. Yep, that's foreshadowing.
- In the silence after Sam's impromptu poetry reading, everyone hears a muffled voice. It's Jacob—he's awake and Geertrui goes over to him to tell him what's happened.
- The next day, the soldiers are ordered to leave because their run-in with the Germans didn't go as planned. The British soldiers fought really hard and kept the Germans off for four days, but eventually, they were overtaken. Anyone who could was to roll out.
- At first, everyone was optimistic, but now that they've received these orders, all the soldiers re pretty bummed—this isn't good news.
- Geertrui thinks about how Ron died trying to protect their home, and how they aren't going to be liberated now like they originally thought.
- Jacob tries to convince the men that he can go along with them, but in reality, he knows he can't—he can't even put weight on his leg, let alone run away from an enemy or swim across a river. He's down, but he'll stay behind and try to fight off the Germans as the other men escape.
- Of course, Geertrui is angry about this. How can Jacob be okay with staying behind and dying? Why doesn't anyone do anything?
- Her mom scolds her, pointing out that they've done everything they know how to do.