Page 28 of The Unknown Birds

“Are we downhearted?” Lieutenant Napier called.

“Maybe just a bit,” she choked.

Cooper slapped her on the back, making her cough harder. “S’alright. Ash the Flash didn’t get fast being no sot.”

“Ash the Splash, more like,” Blake said, his voice dripping with disdain.

Rook passed her his own canteen. “You’ll be glad for a tot of rum come winter,” he said, and she nodded before sipping his cool clean water and wiping her mouth on her sleeve.

“And come battle,” Stewart said, swigging his own ration with practiced ease. “I prefer whisky, but a little Dutch courage goes a long way.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Rook agreed, chasing his rum with a drink of water from his canteen before offering it to Ashley once again. Now, instead of shame, she burned with the notion of pressing her lips to the same place his had been, and she took another grateful sip.

A steady enfilade resumed over the next hour, christening them with mud as they waited for the order to go.

Each blast made Ashley jump until she didn’t have the energy to flinch.

Her run the night before had been terrifying, but at least she’d been moving, which kept the fear somewhat at bay. This standing and waiting was a special form of torture, and she was beginning to crawl out of her skin.

Rook didn’t even seem to notice as he sat and calmly inked a football with the words no referee.

“Blimey, that one sounded like a locomotive,” Tom whispered.

“Wipers Express,” Rook told them, setting down the football to glance at his watch and then looking through the mirrored scope he called a loophole, which allowed him to peer out over the parapet into No Man’s Land without risking a bullet through the head. “Woolly bear. Pip-squeak. Big Bertha.”

With each new boom and pop and whiz, his practiced ear identified them as the others huddled close together in silence.

“Quick Dick. If the bang comes before the whiz, you know it’s our shell, not theirs.”

“Both’ll kill you just the same,” Blake murmured.

Finally, the order went round to shoulder their gear and place ladders on the fire step. Last night Ash had been running towards allies, towards her friends. Now she was struck once more by how unnatural a thing it was to run into enemy fire with the sole intent of killing the men on the other side, and everything in her rebelled. Every ounce of self-protection which had made her fight the boys of Whitechapel now screamed for her to flee with all due haste.

What if the preliminary barrage had not done its job, and they were running directly into a barbed wire ambush? How did her gun even work? Was she truly expected to stab a man with the ghastly bayonet, and could she do it with enough force to take him down? She’d come to France to save a life, not to take one. She couldn’t breathe. She was going to be sick. The air was so damp and hot and thick.

“All right?” Rook asked, peering into her face, his own now drawn and stony.

Ash was shaking so hard that when she nodded, she felt like she might never stop, her head bouncing every which way as though she was also saying no.

“Screw your courage to the sticking place,” he teased, but she couldn’t even make herself force a laugh.

What if she just stayed behind in the latrine and pretended she was already dead? Would anyone notice her when they were all hell-bent on taking sector six?

“Ash?” Rook said, his tone serious but gentle as he squatted down before her, forcing her to look him in the face.

Tears filled her eyes immediately. She was going to be sick. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she whispered.

“None of us are.”

She shook her head again. She couldn’t go out there and die, not at least without one last confession. “My brother ran away when his conscription letter arrived. I stole his name. I stole his place.”

Rook took both her shoulders in his strong broad hands. “Then he’s the coward, not you. That makes you doubly brave.”

“No—”

“How many miles did you run last night?” he asked, startling her out of her nerves.

“A dozen, I suppose.”