Page 48 of The Unknown Birds

“Course they can,” Rook agreed. “Went to Paris when I had leave, and all the best chefs were men. Perhaps you could train there for a bit before you go home.”

“The first item on my award-winning menu: Rat du Guerre,” Ash said, and they collapsed in another fit, laughing at the ridiculous dish as much as the impossibility of home, chuckling until they drifted back to sleep.

Despite the rain, or perhaps because of it, Command decided to press their advantage, and the next day a bombardment began before dawn.

“Eat up,” Sergeant Major Chapman warned the runners who sat bleary-eyed at breakfast. “Don’t know when you’ll get another bloody chance.”

“I’m too wet to eat,” Blake moaned.

“Aww, poor Blakey. Want some jam on it?” Cooper teased.

“I’ll have yours,” TomTom said, reaching across the table, but Blake snatched his breakfast closer to his chest.

Inside, though, they all agreed with him. Ash wasn’t sure she could remember what the word dry even felt like.

The gutters running along either side of the duckboard path were so full water sloshed across their boots as they walked—water that was filled with climbing, hopping, chirping little frogs who tried to escape their marching boots by scaling the mud-caked walls.

“Where do they come from?” she asked, both horrified and intrigued.

“Such a city lad, hey?” TomTom teased. When she shrugged, he added, “From the earth, right? They live down in the mud and get sort of floated up by the rain.”

Ash looked to Rook for confirmation, but of course he was a city lad like herself and merely shrugged. “Good an explanation as any.”

“Reckon Cook’ll fry ’em up for tea like the Frenchies do?” Cooper asked, eyeing the frogs suspiciously and making Ashley gag.

“It’s a bloody nightmare,” Blake whined. “Rats and rain and frogs—like a fucking plague.”

“Not as bad as all that,” Stew cajoled him.

But Blake badly needed a few days’ leave and would not be consoled. “Cause you’re sleeping with the terriers.”

“They do enjoy the taste of rat.”

“He has a point though,” Cooper said. “All them rats, you think they’ll bring the plague?”

“Not the plague. A plague,” Blake corrected.

“Like from the Bible? Moses and Pharaoh and them?” Tom asked.

“Were there rats?” Ash tipped her head, trying to remember her Bible.

“There were snakes,” Cooper said, and they all glanced suspiciously at the ground.

“There weren’t snakes,” Rook said with a sigh that grew deeper when he realized he had every bit of their attention. He closed his eyes a moment like he already regretted speaking up.

“First the river ran with blood,” Ash said, looking to him for confirmation, and he nodded, his lips a thin, flat line.

Blake nodded too. “Then frogs and lice and flies.”

“How d’you remember all that, mate?” Cooper asked.

“Mum wants me for the church,” Blake grumbled.

“You, a reverend? Giving sermons? That’d be a sight,” Stew teased.

The aerial bombardment intensified, and Blake looked up at the rainy, smoke-filled sky. “Yeah, well. Have to survive this first, don’t I?” he asked, as they wandered back to try and get some rest before the push.

They hadn’t yet received any orders to mount the fire step and charge out into the muddy morass beyond, but something was coming, Ash was certain, and she completed her business with all due haste at the latrine. One didn’t wish to be caught with a full bladder or trousers down when the order was given to advance.