Page 34 of The Unknown Birds

“Must’ve been up there for an age,” Stewart said. “Old Kitch has been dead since June, unless they know something we don’t.”

“It’s true he’s buggered then, isn’t it?” TomTom said.

“Walls have ears,” Rook warned softly, glancing up and down the trench for spies.

“They blamed him for the shortage of shells and then he was lost at sea,” Tom protested. “What’s that if not buggered?”

“I heard it was the Irish Republicans that did him in. Read it in the papers,” Blake whispered.

“What, in The Wipers Times?” Ash asked, rolling her eyes at the trench magazine printing conspiracy theories.

“Sure it wasn’t Lloyd-George himself? Seems like he’s got plans to spare,” Cooper muttered as they drifted to their places for the evening watch.

The direction of the battle shifted with the wind and so after the watch, they were ordered to build out a new fire step down the length of the German communication trench. Rook stood sentry while the rest of them stacked sandbags through the night, and all the time Ashley couldn’t stop thinking about the lad who’d written Blake’s silly note. Was he just like her? Eighteen and far from home for the first time in his God-forsaken life? Did he have friends he would die for or a… frisson with the sharpest shooter he’d ever met?

Was he even still alive? Somehow she hoped so.

“If anyone develops a sudden craving for sauerkraut, do alert me immediately,” Lieutenant Napier said in his trademark, solemn tone while he eyed the concrete walls like they unnerved him.

Ash laughed but stifled it quickly when she was the only one.

“I thought it was funny,” Rook murmured, his face as straight and grim as stone.

“I can see that,” Ash teased, and he raised his eyebrows as if he had no idea what she meant.

“Pick up the bloody pace, lads,” Sergeant Major Chapman called. “You’ll be standing to for morning watch if you have to bloody stand on each other’s backs, and I’d just as soon you didn’t. Those bastards know we’re here in their cushy line, and they’ll be coming for us. Finish early and you can practice tossing grenades.”

Tom sighed. “Hasn’t every minute since we left England been practice enough? What’s one show but practice for the next?”

“Practice makes perfect,” Ash quipped by rote.

Unfortunately the officers heard their brief exchange.

“Practice keeps you from blowing your pretty fingers off,” Chapman growled, his face popping in between Ash and Tom.

“Fingers,” Napier scoffed. “Who needs them? Sure you could train a monkey to do up your buttons for you and hold your todger while you piss.”

That made Tom chuckle, so when Chapman followed with, “Are we downhearted, Private?” he could reply wholeheartedly, “No, sir!”

As it turned out, however, there wasn’t time to practice. The predicted trench raiders didn’t arrive, but a German bombardment began well before the dawn, before the last sandbag was even set in place.

Boxes of grenades were dragged to the new fire step, and Chapman quickly refreshed them on the proper technique to pull the pin and throw.

“The trick with this is to lob it sideways. Wind your arm back and release before your hand goes past your shoulder,” Rook told Ash. “Makes it less likely to fall straight down and bounce back in your face.”

Ash nodded, and held her arm out to the side, tossing it up in a sweeping arc just like he’d shown her, and Rook jostled her shoulders to show his approval.

“You’ve a keen arm, Ashley,” Lieutenant Napier called. “Perhaps you should transfer to artillery. They’re running low on grenadiers.”

And while Ash was dead-pleased her childhood spent hurling rocks at Whitechapel hooligans was paying dividends, she shook her head.

“I think I prefer running, sir, if I’ve a choice.”

“Do any of us have a choice?” he replied soberly.

“Are we downhearted, sir?” Blake asked.

“You will be, if you don’t face front and throw,” Napier replied, smacking the brim of Blake’s helmet down.