Page 11 of The Unknown Birds

Normandy, June 1916

While the rest of B Company, including TomTom, scarfed down rations of bully beef on toast, Rook took Ash to the rifle range early, glowering the whole way there.

The range had been set up in the far end of a pasture where the East Surrey Regiment was encamped. There were three targets affixed to hay bales. Two on each end were classic bullseyes, but in the middle someone had hung a large, garish drawing of a bulbous-nosed, bespectacled and fanged Prussian soldier that looked nothing like Ashley’s beloved Wintters. Still she could well imagine the lads would be hungry to riddle the paper enemy full of holes.

“Right, is it loaded?” Rook asked, sounding a bit bored as he nodded towards her heavy rifle.

The possibility hadn’t occurred to Ash. As she studied the Lee-Enfield, searching for an answer, the muzzle tipped towards Rook’s belly, and he used two fingers to casually aim it back down at the ground, glaring at her.

“If you don’t know, then it is. Understand?”

She nodded, scowling right back at him, ashamed of her mistake but also feeling the keen injustice of being blamed for her lack of training.

Rook held out his hand for the rifle, and Ash passed it to him, this time careful to keep the muzzle pointed down.

He slid back the top bolt. “Empty,” he said, tipping it to show her the cartridge slot. “Single round goes here.”

Taking a long cartridge from his ammunition pouch, he slipped it into the slot. “Push it forward. Lock. Cock. Fire,” he added, demonstrating each step slowly and then lifting the rifle and pretending to shoot. “Got it?”

Ash nodded and Rook eyed her skeptically down his long, sharp nose.

“Do you? You don’t look as if you do.”

“What do I look like?”

“Like you’re barely weaned.” He reversed the steps he’d just taken, unloading the rifle before handing it back to her. “Show me.”

Her hands fumbled like a child attempting delicate needlework as she wrestled through the motions he’d made look so smooth, but after a few excruciating minutes the gun was reloaded, and she looked up into his waiting eyes. He glanced down at the battered watch he wore around his wrist and sighed as though she’d taken hours to get it right.

“Rear uprighted sights,” he said, pointing to the markers on the gun, and when Ash tilted her head imagining peering through those sights, he stepped closer, putting his arms around her and positioning her hands.

The faint scent of bergamot clung to his skin as he hefted the heavy gun roughly to her shoulder so she could look through properly. A thrill ran up her spine, but she focused on the distant targets until he stepped away, leaving a cool breeze in his wake.

She lowered the rifle, arms already tired, and Rook smirked, the left side of his mouth tipping up as though he could see right through her.

“Magazine,” he said, nodding to a metal sort of canister at the back of the gun. He showed her how to pop it off and held it out for her to see that it was also empty. Retrieving more shells from his ammunition pouch, he carefully filled the magazine. “Ten rounds. Clip it in. Remove the safety. Fire. All right?”

“Yes,” Ash lied, to keep from admitting no, no, no, no, no.

“Really?”

This time she didn’t answer.

“Tell me if you don’t understand something. It’s all our necks on the line if you can’t tell your trigger from your todger."

“Ten rounds, clip it in, fire,” she sassed, causing him to smirk once more.

“Bayonet attaches at the top,” he said, demonstrating how to move the sharp spike into place. “Do not play with this. Do not fuck with this. Do not run with this unless ordered to do so.” He shook his head. “Ghastly thing. I’ve seen lads trip on their bootlaces—impaled straight through with their own bayonets.”

“Like Antony,” Ash whispered, wide-eyed.

Rook tilted his head in question, and her cheeks began to burn.

“Antony and Cleopatra,” she mumbled. “Shakespeare.”

His eyes clouded for a moment as though memories of Shakespeare were so very far away, then he nodded once and snapped back to the present, holding the gun upright beside her.

“Taller than you, I reckon,” he said, though she was tall enough for a girl, and he wasn’t much taller.