Page 4 of The Unknown Birds

A shiver ran down Charley’s freshly bared neck. The decision was made, had been writ in her heart from the moment her brother’s notice had arrived, but she couldn’t help asking anyway. “Do you think I’m making a terrible mistake?”

Ignoring the quaver in her voice, Frau Wintter gazed back, her face a mixture of tenderness and despair and the deepest understanding. “This war is a terrible mistake, Spatzi. But no decision born of love could ever be. You are brave. You are strong. You are wonderful. And you will be fine.”

They were the same words she’d repeated over and over as she cleaned Charley up and mended her dress after Billy Boyle and his gang had caught her in the alleyway a few years back.

She kissed Charley’s cheek, and Charley kissed her back, pressing a shilling into her palm for the haircut.

Frau Wintter squeezed her hand, leaving the shilling and something else: a bronze medallion emblazoned with her maiden initials: AR.

“Your necklace?” Charley asked in wonder. “I couldn’t.”

“So you’ll always find your way home.”

“Danke,” Charley whispered, refusing to acknowledge the swell of homesickness already rising in her chest as she tugged on her cap and waved goodbye.

The recruitment office wasn’t far, but when Charley peered through the window she realized she hadn’t accounted for a mandatory physical. Dropping her trousers to turn her head and cough, not to mention removing her shirt, would see her instantly unmasked. Blast Charles for not sticking around long enough to get himself through this bit before he’d taken flight.

She’d already cut her hair. Now what was she supposed to do? Talk her way out of it?

Patriotic posters lined the walls, and she looked to them for guidance as she waited, but they were mostly empty platitudes and threats.

it is far better to face the bullets than to be killed at home by a bomb! one poster shouted, as an illustrated zeppelin soared above St. Paul’s. Very helpful. women of britain say, ‘go!’ implored another—exactly what she was trying to do, if only her anatomy didn’t get in the way.

“Papers?” the recruitment officer demanded, just as Charley noticed a man on the street nick an old lady’s handbag.

She couldn’t have said why exactly, but when the lady cried out, only to be ignored by everyone around her, Charley was compelled to take off running down the overcrowded street, as though all hundred-odd pounds of her would be able to fight the thief. But in trousers and a cap, Charley wasn’t little Charlotte anymore. She could truly become as brave and strong as Frau Wintter professed her to be.

Rounding the corner, the thief ducked down an alleyway, but Charley kept pace with him—until a lorry full of sheep blocked her exit from the alley, grinding the motor as though stuck, while pedestrians flooded around it on both sides.

With a running leap, she hefted herself into the bed and pressed her way through the skittish, smelly sheep, then swung down onto the road once more, catching sight of the thief as he turned left at the next crossroads.

Darting down another alley, Charley popped out just in time to trip the thief and snatch the handbag from his flailing arms before turning heel and hoofing it back to the recruitment office, where a constable was speaking to the old woman.

Charley handed back the purse before bending over to catch her breath, waving off the old lady’s gratitude, though when she stood up straight again, she couldn’t stop her chest from puffing up with pride.

“That was quite a run,” the recruitment officer said. “How fast can you sprint the hundred?”

“Twelve?” Charley guessed. Not that anyone had ever timed her. Young women weren’t supposed to run, no matter how much they liked to.

“Twelve seconds? Well, I don’t doubt it,” he said, looking suitably impressed before glancing down at her paperwork. “Charles Ashley?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, lowering her voice to sound more like her brother.

“You’re clearly fighting fit. Says here you’re assigned to the Royal Fusiliers.”

“Yes, sir,” she replied again.

“Well, you’re being reassigned.”

Charley froze, unsure quite what that could mean. “Sir?”

“We need replacement runners at the Front straight away.”

“Runners?” she asked, confused.

“You must know communication is vital to our success in France. Dogs, pigeons, telegraphs—every tool has its place, you understand, but it’s trench runners who’ll see us through, mark my words.”

He scribbled something on her paperwork and shoved a khaki rucksack in her arms.