Page 83 of The Unknown Birds

“Where would you go if you could go anywhere for as long as you wanted?” he asked late one evening as they played cards.

“Just… away,” Rook said.

Billy Merle’s expression was blank as he leaned his head against the wall. “I’d get a transport home. See my baby girl.”

Ash exchanged a glance with Rook. “How old is she?”

“Thirteen months,” Merle said, voice cracking.

“How long since you’ve seen her?” Rook asked sympathetically.

“Thirteen months,” he whispered. “Hawkins just rejected my leave request because it’s too soon since the last and I got that one nine months early.”

The angry flame in Ashley’s chest flared hotter on his behalf. She was spoiling for a showdown with their new captain.

Rook clapped Merle on the shoulder and offered him a smoke, which the other sniper gratefully accepted.

“Months don’t matter any more. I’m overdue,” Dusty told them. “Heard he’s rejecting all requests as a matter of principle.”

“Do you ever hear from the Old Man?” Ashley asked, meaning Davies.

“No.” The one clipped word sounded so despondent, she wished she hadn’t even brought it up.

“Too bad they couldn’t have promoted the sergeant major,” Merle muttered sadly.

The other three nodded in silence because the walls had ears. It wouldn’t do to say aloud what they were thinking—that Hawkins’s promotion seemed like some sort of cosmic joke.

As if speaking his name had summoned him, their new captain approached the dugout bellowing, “Merle! Patrol! Now!”

“I’ll go,” Rook offered, probably because the dead look in their companion’s eyes unnerved him as much as it did Ashley.

“Did I ask for volunteers?” Hawkins rebuffed, and Ash could see the muscle in Rook’s jaw pop with anger, though he kept his temper in check.

“No, sir. I only thought Private Merle looked a bit under the weather⁠—”

“Then the fresh air will do him good. Merle!” he barked again, making the man jump.

“Yes, sir,” Merle replied, his voice as dead as his eyes.

Rook shook his head. “He should’ve let me go,” he complained once both captain and sniper were safely out of earshot.

“Look there. He’s forgotten his tin hat. I better try and catch him,” Ash said, snatching up the helmet, but Dusty stopped her.

“If he wanted it, he’d have taken it. If you go looking for him now, you’ll only invite trouble.”

Ash turned to Rook, annoyed that Dusty was right. If Hawkins caught her, he’d punish Merle for forgetting or both of them for disobeying orders.

Rook nodded and held her gaze till she sat back down.

“What would you eat?” Dusty asked. “If you could have anything and as much as you wanted?”

“Franzbrötchen,” they both replied, their stomachs rumbling in unison at the memory of happier times.

Merle didn’t return from patrol that night or in the morning either, and Ash couldn’t help feeling her best friend had dodged an unlucky bullet. A few days later, they marched to the forward line under a cold, grey, rainy sky, and there, Captain Hawkins rode Rook beyond exhaustion, demanding he stand double shifts on sniper duty night and day.

As he grew quieter and more withdrawn, Ash worried the captain was trying to break him, and she feared if it went on much longer, he might succeed. She took to keeping watch alongside Rook, claiming insomnia now plagued her, and during those long nights she recounted Dickens tales from memory. She couldn’t tell whether he was listening to her words or just her voice, but it was the companionship that mattered at times like those.

In the rare few moments between duties, they slept sitting back to back, heads lolling on each other’s shoulders, in the shade. It went on for days, Ash lost track of quite how many, until at last they were released to billets in a barn some miles away.