Page 62 of The Unknown Birds

“About time you showed up,” Rook said, his face beaming at the sight of her in a way that made her feel buttery-soft like she’d eaten a million biscuits. “We were preparing to send out a search party.”

“Had to walk to the ends of the earth to get you your promotion present,” she replied, handing off a package wrapped in The Illustrated London News.

“I did say you owed me one. But then you gave me a sonnet, so I thought we were square,” he added, putting one hand to his chest for a moment, as though surprised, and it warmed her again that he would think her poem a fair trade for the life-saving socks.

Ashley shrugged, so he tore open the paper, revealing the tiny volume of Shakespeare she had bought. “As You Like It,” he read the title.

“Do you know that one?” She licked her lips and searched his face for a flicker of recognition, begging him to understand the deeper meaning. If he figured it out on his own, then she wouldn’t be breaking the promise to her mother. “It’s a comedy.”

“Good,” he sighed. “We’ve tragedy enough to spare. How was home?”

“Strange,” she said, relieved and a little heartbroken by his lack of reaction. “It was the same and not the same. I’m the same and not the same at all. But the pastries are still divine,” she added, showing him the baked goods Frau Wintter had promised.

Summoned by the scent of treats, TomTom arrived as though he were the dog and not Maxie, and he scooped Ash into a side-armed hug so rough she nearly dropped the sweet rolls.

“Glad you’re back. It’s been frightfully dull,” he said, already shoving a pastry in his gob.

“Ash the Flash!” Cooper called. “How are the feet?”

“Well enough to beat you in the mile,” she answered.

“Oh-ho! Fighting words,” he laughed, tucking into his own Franzbrötchen.

“Keep eating those, Ash and Rook will beat you with their legs tied together,” Blake teased.

“Worth it,” Cooper said, mouth still crammed full to bursting, and the others all nodded their agreement.

Within days, word had reached them of a new threat back at home. No longer content with nighttime zeppelin raids, Germany had sent aeroplanes to level parts of London in broad daylight.

“Where in London?” Ash asked Blake with a sinking feeling in her gut. He’d been reading them the article from The Wipers Times.

Blake looked at her and then back at the paper. “Dunno. Doesn’t say,” he told her before folding it up and putting it away, and she just sort of knew it had been the East End.

Sick with worry, Ashley dashed off a letter to her mother and took it straight to Private Merle for the mail, but as the days and weeks went by with no reply, she grew more frantic and more twitchy.

“No doubt the Royal Mail’s been disrupted by it all,” Rook suggested, offering her half his chocolate bar one night.

“Yes, I’m sure you’re right,” she agreed, dying just a little bit inside. She’d gone to war to save her brother, now missing, and to save her mother the pain of losing him. What would she do if she lost both of them instead?

Rook offered her a hesitant smile. He understood better than anyone. At least they had each other.

Almost one year and one month to the day after her baptism at the Somme, Ashley and her regiment found themselves heading back into the line near Ypres.

The weather in Belgium was hotter than hot had any right to be, and the air felt thick and heavy in the trenches.

“Hotter, even, than the devil’s own arsehole,” as Cooper was fond of reminding them, and the lads stripped off their sweat-soaked shirts while they worked to refortify the walls and parapet.

Ash, of course, could not remove her top, and the lads made endless fun at her expense, often led by Tom, who deftly diverted questions and persuasion into jokes about her physique.

“Ashley’s back is so pale the Red Baron would think it was a signal from a mirror on the ground,” he teased. “That’s the real reason for the nickname Ash the Flash.”

“Ash once took his top off and a seagull attacked, thinking he was its mother,” he said another time, and, “Ash’s shirt is so dirty, if it came off the whole thing would crumble into dust,” and so on and so forth, keeping the others laughing to keep them from asking why. God bless dear old Tom.

She was terribly uncomfortable and jealous of the lads, but only until their sunburns all set in. And until Rook took off his own shirt, exposing taut muscles and a chiseled chest, with a dusting of dark hair that trailed down his sternum and into his trousers. Then, well… Ashley didn’t exactly mind the view. Even if it did make her excessively thirsty.

“Don’t you think it’s time I should tell them?” she asked Tom when they finally had a moment alone.

“No.” He shook his head emphatically, and she sighed.