“I don’t think so … I …” She clutched at both of his hands then. “Oh, God … oh, I’m … sorry… Joachim! Don’t leave me!” It was the first time she had said his name, although he had often said hers, and he wanted to take her in his arms and tell her how much he loved her.

“Sarah, please … you have to help me … it’s going to be all right.” He told Emanuelle how to brace her legs, and held her shoulders for her as the pains came, so she could push the baby out more easily. She fought him terribly at first, but his voice was quiet and strong, and he seemed to know what he was doing. After an hour or so, the baby’s head started to come, and she wasn’t bleeding nearly as badly as she had the last time. It was just obviously another large child, and it was going to take a long time to push it out, but Joachim was determined to stay there and help her for as long as he had to. It was almost morning when she finally pushed the head out, and a small wrinkled face poked out, but unlike Phillip, this baby didn’t take a breath, and the room was filled with silence. Emanuelle looked at him worriedly, wondering what it meant, as he watched the child, and then quickly turned to Sarah.

“Sarah, you have to push the baby out!” he said urgently, looking again and again at the blue-tinged face of the baby. “Come now…. Now, Sarah, push!” he commanded, sounding more like a soldier than a doctor, or even a husband. He was commanding her to do it, and this time he did what Emanuelle had once done, pressing down hard on her stomach to help her. And little by little the baby came out, until it lay lifelessly between her’legs on the bed, and she looked down and cried in sorrow.

“It’s dead! My God, the baby’s dead!” she cried, and he took it in his hands, still attached to its mother. It was a little girl, but there was no life in her as he held her and massaged her back, and patted her. He slapped the soles of her feet, and then he shook her, holding her upside down, and suddenly as he did, a huge plug of mucus flew out of her mouth, and she gave a gasp and then a cry, and wailed louder than any child he had ever heard as he held her. He was covered with blood, and he was crying as hard as Sarah and Emanuelle, with relief, and the beauty of life. And then he cut the cord and handed her to Sarah, with a tender smile. He couldn’t have loved Sarah more if he’d been the child’s father.

“Your daughter,” he said, as he laid her gently beside Sarah, wrapped in a clean blanket. And then he went to wash his hands, and do what he could to repair his shirt, and he returned a moment later to Sarah’s bedside. She held out a hand to him, and she was still crying as she took his hand in her own and kissed it.

“Joachim, you saved her.” Their eyes met and held for a long time, and he felt the power of having shared the gift of life with her in these last hours.

“No, I didn’t,” he denied what he had done. “I did what I could. But God made the decision. He always does.” And then he looked down at the peaceful child, so pink and round and perfect. She was a beautiful little girl, and except for her blond fluff of hair, she looked just like Sarah “She’s beautiful.”

“She is, isn’t she?”

“What are you going to call her?”

“Elizabeth Annabelle Whitfield.” She and William had decided that long before, and she thought it suited the peacefully sleeping baby.

He left her after that, and came back again late that afternoon to see how they were doing. Phillip was watching the baby in fascination, but snuggling close to his mother.

Joachim brought flowers, and a big piece of chocolate cake, a pound of sugar, and another precious kilo of coffee. And she was sitting up in bed, looking surprisingly well considering all she’d been through. But this time had been easier than the first, and the baby weighed “only” nine pounds, Emanuelle announced as they all laughed. The near tragedy had ended well, thanks to Joachim. Even Emanuelle treated him kindly. And as Sarah looked at him, after Emanuelle left the room again, she knew that no matter what happened in their lives, she would always be grateful to him, and she would never forget that he had saved her baby.

“I’ll never forget what you did,” she whispered to Joachim as he held her hand. That morning, an undeniable bond had formed between them.

“I told you. It was God’s hand that touched her.”

“But you were there. … I was so frightened….” Tears filled her eyes as she remembered. She couldn’t have borne it if the baby had died. But he had saved her.

“I was frightened too,” he confessed to her. “We were very lucky” He smiled at her then. “Funnily enough, she looks a little like my sister.”

“Mine too,” Sarah laughed softly. They each had a cup of tea, and he had smuggled over a bottle of champagne, and he toasted her and the long life of Lady Elizabeth Annabelle Whitfield.

Eventually, he stood up to leave. “You should sleep now.” Without saying a word he stooped to kiss the top of her head. His lips brushed her hair, and he closed his eyes just for an instant. “Sleep, my darling,” he whispered, as she drifted off to sleep before he even left the room. She had heard what he said in the distance, but she was already dreaming of William.






Chapter 15





Y the summer of the following year, London had almost been destroyed by the constant bombing, but not the British spirit. She had had only two letters from William by then, smuggled in to her through circuitous routes in the Resistance. He insisted that he was well, and reproached himself repeatedly for not getting her out of France when he should have. And in the second letter, he rejoiced over the arrival of Elizabeth, after he had gotten Sarah’s letter. But he hated knowing that they were in France, and that there was no way for him to reach them. He didn’t tell her that he had explored numerous possibilities of being smuggled into France, at least for a visit, but the War Office had objected. And there was no way of getting Sarah out of France, either, for the moment. They just had to sit tight, he said, and he assured her that the war would soon be over. But it was a third letter from him in die fall that brought Sarah the news which almost killed her. But he hadn’t dared not to tell her, lest she heard the news some other way. Her sister Jane had written to him, since she knew she could not contact Sarah. Their parents had been killed in a boating accident off Southampton. They had been on a friend’s yacht when a huge storm had come up. The yacht had sunk, and all of the passengers on board had drowned before the Coast Guard could reach them.