Page 79 of The Unknown Birds

We that have seen the strongest

Cry like a beaten child,

The sanest eyes unholy,

The cleanest hands defiled,

We that have known the heart-blood

Less than the lees of wine,

We that have seen men broken,

We know that man is divine.

—W. N. Hodgson

Back To Rest

Summer came, and with it, the official break from classes, so Rook invited Ashley on a trip to the countryside. She tried not to read anything into it. They were going to visit Captain Davies at his family estate just like any two former soldiers might be invited to do.

And yet, she was nervous—not just about seeing the Old Man after so many years, but about the hours alone with Rook aboard a northbound train, with only each other for company and not much besides conversation to pass the time.

She fretted more than usual over what she ought to wear. Dining at a fine estate called for her finest dresses. But long tramps through flowery fields meant something else entirely—like the heavy brown skirt and cozy old cardigan she often wore to school. Her mother may bemoan the state of them, but needs must, and she decided in the end to pack them both.

“That isn’t what you plan to wear sea bathing, is it?” her mum asked, having wandered in with a packed lunch for the train.

Ash had told her and Frau Wintter she was taking a short holiday at the seaside, though from the look on her mother’s face, the lie had not passed muster.

“Course not,” Ash assured her. “I haven’t got anything appropriate for swimming. Perhaps I’ll buy something there.”

“Well you can’t mean to wear that old thing on the train.”

“No, it’s for rambling.”

“On the shore?”

“I don’t know, Mum. I’ve never been to… Brighton.”

“Are you going with friends?”

“I don’t have friends,” she answered automatically, because until recently it had been rather true. She’d lost them all after the war, and besides, she knew her mother meant female friends.

“Perhaps you should make some. The seaside must be crawling with Bright Young Things this time of year.”

Ash laughed. “I’m hardly a candidate for that sobriquet,” she said, glancing self-consciously towards the mirror at her short, greying hair and too-thin cheeks.

“Pah. If you’re not young, what does that make me, hey?”

“As beautiful as ever,” Ash replied, snapping her suitcase shut and kissing her mother’s cheek.

“Be careful, Charley. Come back to me in one piece.”

The innocuous-sounding words hung in the air heavy with meaning. The last time Ash had gone away, she’d returned whole, but still in pieces.

She squeezed her mother’s hand. “I’ll be back in a week.”

Her things were packed and ready much too early to leave for the station. In a fit of impulse, and to keep from pacing, she dug out an old shaving box from the depths of her wardrobe, a gift from the Red Cross in 1917. With no need to shave, Ash had traded away the razor and horsehair brush, but kept the box.