Page 27 of The Unknown Birds

“I am and it is.”

Ash sagged with relief. “I’ve a message from Captain Owens of the West Kents,” she said, handing him the letter.

“Thought you said you were Surrey,” the patrolman murmured, eyeing her suspiciously.

Ash shrugged. “Needs must.”

Mayweather scanned the letter. “Does Owens want a reply?”

Her heart sank at the prospect. “He only said to deliver it and get back to my unit.”

“Better do it then. The shelling will start soon.”

He didn’t have to tell her twice.

Afraid to go back out into the open, she set off down the trench once more, making for the reserve line. An hour later she was only halfway back to Cherrydale Lane when she began to recognize familiar faces among the dozing men she passed. But how could she know anyone there, in a trench in northern France?

Were they men from Whitechapel who she recognized from the streets back home? And would they recognize her, thinking she was Charles?

Glancing back over her shoulder at one familiar face, she ran smack into another.

“Watch it,” the red-haired soldier growled, and then recognition struck him the same moment it did Ashley, and his lip curled up in a sneer. It was Lance Corporal Reid of the Buffs, and he looked as though he still had a score to settle.

“Surrey…” he said.

Unwilling to show even an ounce of fear, Ash forced a sneer of her own as she channeled Robin Blake and said, “You lost fair and square, Lance Corporal.”

Grabbing her by the front of her coat, he slammed her up against the muddy trench wall.

“Best take this one on the chin,” she gasped with her last shred of nerve.

His nostrils flared, but in that second the whole earth shook as a shell landed somewhere in the front line, showering them with mud and flaming grit.

It was enough to startle Reid into loosening his grip on Ashley’s collar so she could wrench herself out of his grasp and run off down the trench as hard and fast as her legs would carry her.

That first shell was only the beginning of a barrage that followed her all the way down the reserve line, growing louder as she turned up the communication avenue to the front line. It felt wrong, running towards the shelling, and yet Ash was driven onward by the urgent need to put space between herself and Lance Corporal Reid and the even more urgent desire to find her friends.

By the time she reached Cherrydale Lane Trench, the opening salvo had begun to peter out. The Surreys were lined up after Reveille, standing silently on the fire step for the morning watch, and though she was so weary she could almost drop down dead, she had no choice but to join her comrades on the step. She peered into the darkness and waited for dawn to come, on guard against a raid from the other side.

“Gentlemen,” the captain said when they were finally ordered to stand down. “It has been quite a welcome. But are we downhearted?”

“No, sir!” they chorused all as one, the only acceptable answer no matter how dejected, no matter how much Ash longed to crumple in a heap.

“No indeed. And though today be not St. Crispin’s Day, from this day to the ending of the world, we in it shall be remembered—we few, we happy few, we band of brothers. For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother. And gentlemen in England now a-bed shall think themselves acurs’d they were not here to fight with us today and every day.”

“Some kind of poetry, is it?” TomTom whispered.

“Shakespeare,” Rook and Ash both replied and when she glanced at the sniper he allowed a tiny smirk to grace his lips.

Blake snorted. “More or less.”

“Our goal this day will be to take sector six of the German trench. Take and hold, whatever comes. His Majesty has implicit confidence in you,” the captain went on. “As have I. Now go and have your rum ration and your breakfast. We’ve a long few days ahead.”

Perhaps the modified speech didn’t stir all the men as he intended, but Ashley’s soul stoked hot and burning, even as she slid down to her haunches shivering when her adrenaline ran dry.

The mess sergeant moved down the line, doling out a drink for each soldier in turn. Following the lead of her newfound brothers, Ashley gulped her ration down, but the sweet rum barely had time to scorch her empty stomach before she heaved it back up on her boots to a round of hoots and applause and a few groans as the others jumped away.

“Oh, now, don’t waste it,” Sergeant Major Chapman mourned as he strolled past.