Page 56 of The Unknown Birds

“Fly true, Lance Corporal.”

“True as Troilus,” he said with another smile, the most solemn promise, and then, like a passing breath of fresh air, he was gone.

Chapter 17

London, April 1939

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

That mark our place; and in the sky

The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

—John McCrae

In Flanders Fields

Days and weeks passed pleasantly enough despite Ashley’s growing sense of dread. War had stolen happiness from her once, and she loathed how the mere shadow of another one looming threatened to steal it all again. But at least there was Rook. For now, there was Rook. And that was enough because it was everything.

As March became April, she saw him most every day. He seemed as eager to have his friend back as she was, making up for lost years. They were both hungry to know the person each had become. It became a habit, his showing up to walk her home from school—often enough the children were calling him her beau despite her insisting he was just a very good chum. They didn’t understand that he might be a flirt but some men preferred men, and that was the way of things.

Sometimes she and Rook stopped by the pub and other times the pictures. Walking home after dark, Ash tried to always make a point of gazing up at the stars. So many years removed from the trench, and still, she never took the clear, open sky for granted.

Their preference at the cinema ran to comedies, though this afternoon it had been The Arsenal Stadium Mystery, which left Ash melancholy, reminiscing about her races against dear old Coop.

“Shall we wander a while and soak up the sun?” Rook asked, as finely attuned to Ashley’s moods as he’d ever been.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s wood. It doesn’t tire,” he insisted, the stubborn mule. And so they walked in the direction of the nearest park. “Cooper would’ve loved it if they’d shot that twenty years ago, hey?”

“Can you imagine? Hamming it up—he’d have been the only face on screen. Do you suppose they filmed at the actual stadium?” Ash wondered as they ambled along.

“Oh yes, that was definitely Highbury. And you’re right. No one else would’ve stood a chance.”

“So you’ve been there? Highbury?” she asked, hesitantly. “You kept in touch.”

Rook opened his mouth, then closed it like he’d changed his mind, the specter of her deception wedging itself between them as they walked.

“I did,” he finally admitted. “Though it’s been a few years now. For a time I went to every match, hoping against hope you might turn up.”

“I wanted to,” she blurted. “How could I? But I very badly wanted to.”

“You could have.”

“I was too afraid he wouldn’t be there, and then I’d know.”

“Know?”

“Know he hadn’t ever made it home. Until one day I saw the papers, and I learnt he did make it back. Then I was too afraid… he wouldn’t want to know me.”

“He did know you. We all did.”

She shook her head. They had all been closer than close, and she had kept so much from them. Lied to their faces day after day after day.