Foreign News: The Bravest

A Times obituary called her "a London stray," but a memorial plaque on the wall of the little Church of St. Augustine-with-St. Faith-under-St. Pau's-Cathedral, flanked by citations from two continents, testified that she was more than that. The plaque told of a night when Faith, a gentle grey and white cat, had "endured horrors and perils beyond the power of words to tell" and through them all "stayed calm and steadfast." Even the Times paid tribute to this heroine who "stuck, while the bombs fell, to her kitten."

There was a time some twelve years ago when Faith's only friend in...