Page 49 of The Unknown Birds

She was hurrying back to her section of trench when a blast ripped through the very fabric of life itself and shook the world, sending massive clods of earth raining down upon her.

Racing back to her friends, heart in her throat, she found them all in utter chaos.

“What happened?” she screamed at Dusty as they staggered down the reverberating duckboards. “Did a mortar explode?”

“A mine, we think, due east!”

Not directly underneath them then, thank God, but close enough it had showered them with mud and sent their already sodden parapet and parados sliding inward.

“All right?” TomTom asked, grabbing her arm.

Ash nodded, scanning the faces of her friends. Stew was holding Max tightly in his arms while the collie licked him feverishly about the ears. Cooper had pulled up the tail of his shirt to scrape mud out of his eyes, and Blake looked down at trousers he’d clearly soiled.

Grimacing, Ashley glanced towards Rook’s post, but the sniper wasn’t there. She’d forgotten he’d been resting in a funk hole when she’d left.

Turning towards the cubby where Rook had folded himself for a nap, she grew disoriented—for there was no hole, only a slick wall of mud. Was it further back? Had she passed it? Or—no, further along? But that wasn’t right either.

She spun in a frantic circle, feeling as though she were losing her mind.

“Rook?” she shouted over the din, catching Tom’s elbow.

He looked in the same direction she had, confirming her deepest fears—and then she noticed a single gum boot, or at least the tip of one.

“Dear God, he’s been buried,” she gasped, racing to the spot along the trench and grabbing the nearest thing to hand—her tin hat—which she used to scrape carefully away at the thick-packed mud. She couldn’t lose him. She wouldn’t. She refused.

When the others saw her digging they quickly followed suit.

“Go and get a spade,” Cooper yelled.

“Careful,” Blake warned him. “Don’t know how deep it is. Don’t want to hurt him.”

Together they scraped at the mud until they uncovered one of his hands, which twitched and writhed desperately. His skin had a ghostly pallor beneath the layer of sticky mud, and Ashley paused only a second to squeeze his fingers and let him know she was there. Then she slid to her knees, losing her breakfast over the side of the duckboards before dragging herself back up to start again.

She’d dropped her helmet somewhere, so instead she clawed at the mud until her knuckles bled.

“Gently,” Sergeant Major Chapman said, joining their efforts, helping them move faster as they scraped away enough mud to free Rook’s full right arm, which had gone still, fist clenched, as they struggled through the heavy clay until finally they could see his face and he gasped in great lungfuls of air.

Cooper and Stewart grabbed both his shoulders and heaved him out of the muck, setting him upright against some corrugated iron where he could catch his breath as the rain continued to pour down, washing over his face, washing over Ashley’s, too, and hiding her tears.

She wadded up her coat and placed it behind his head, cradling him just a little, as he stared out at all of them in shock, his breaths coming quick and shallow.

“I need a runner!” Captain Davies yelled from somewhere nearby. “Ashley?”

Her head shot up. Run a message? Now?

“I’ll go,” Tom told her, jumping up and disappearing into the surrounding chaos.

“Let’s get you to a dressing station, Private,” Sergeant Major Chapman said, but Rook shook his head.

“I’m fine, sir,” he panted.

Truth be told, he didn’t look fit to stand on his own two feet.

“Private—”

“I’m fine, sir,” he repeated. “Another minute and I’ll be all right.”

Chapman studied him a moment. “If anything changes, call a bloody medic,” he ordered before heading down the trench to the next crisis.