Page 6 of The Unknown Birds

Her mum kissed first one cheek and then the other before squeezing her hand and stepping back so she could climb aboard.

Then, instead of heading to a training camp as her brother was meant to do, Charley trundled down the tracks wholly unprepared for the circus waiting at the other end.

Throngs of cheering civilians lined both sides of the road from the Folkestone railway station all the way to the port. More, too, crowded the harbor eager for a peek, waving hands and flags and scarves to all the soldiers boarding their ship to France. Charley knew, of course, neither her mother nor her brother was among them, but still she couldn’t help searching for their faces in the crowd.

“I almost wish they wouldn’t wave,” another soldier told her, resting his arm on the ship railing from which they watched. “I don’t think they’re anyone’s family. Just townspeople who want to be a part of it, but instead they make us feel abandoned by our own.”

Charley turned to face him and was met with a shock of tawny hair all pushed up at the front like he’d been fussing with it and more freckles than she’d ever seen on any one person.

“Thomas Ephron Tomasson of Runnymede,” he said, sliding a pair of eyeglasses further up his nose. “Replacement runner for the East Surrey Regiment.”

“Charley Ashley of Whitechapel, and… same,” she said, shaking his freckled hand.

“You can call me TomTom. Reckon I’ll call you Ash,” he said, offering her some chocolate from his pack. “What’s it like being from London?”

“I don’t know. What’s it like being from Runnymede?”

“Best place in the world,” he assured her, shouldering his pack.

“Have you been many places?”

He tried to hide a self-conscious smile at being found out. “There and Aldershot,” he said with a shrug. “But I passed through a great many places on the train.”

“More than me, then.”

“City lad through and through?”

She nodded.

“You scared?” he asked.

“Mm-mmm,” she lied, shaking her head, letting the excitement of the port wash over her and fill her up instead.

“Me neither,” he replied solemnly. “Stick with me. We’ll be all right.”

She and TomTom became fast friends before the ship had even docked in Calais. There, they were directed to a train which took them south along the coast, and if it weren’t for all the soldiers, Charley would never have known the country was at war.

Once the train turned inland, they changed at Amiens for Albert, where they were greeted by the Virgin Mary herself, standing atop the basilica’s domed roof, lifting the baby Jesus to the sky in golden glory.

“Blimey,” TomTom whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The image stayed with Charley through God’s longest night of marching towards the camp where their unit was out on rest. They marched so long she was half-afraid she’d fall down dead asleep and be trod over by the soldiers just behind.

After a quick kip in an open field that left her cold and aching and somehow more tired than when she’d lain down, morning dawned and they were brought before the quarter­master.

He laughed at the state of her rucksack and handed her a new one so full it could practically stand all on its own.

“Compliments of Private Jensen,” he said.

Glancing nervously at Tom, she refrained from asking who Private Jensen was and why his kit was up for grabs.

“Full service dress, red runner’s band, balaclava, hussif, bed roll, canteen, and respirator,” the quartermaster listed off. “D’you have a box respirator?” he asked, turning to Tom.

“No.”

The quartermaster handed over a second small bag, which Tom slung over his shoulder.

“Have one of the lads show you how to use those straightaway. Once prepared, twice rewarded,” he muttered.