Chapter 10 #2
“Wipers Express,” Rook told them, setting down the football to glance at his watch and then looking through the mirrored scope he called a loophole, which allowed him to peer out over the parapet into No Man’s Land without risking a bullet through the head. “Woolly bear. Pip-squeak. Big Bertha.”
With each new boom and pop and whiz, his practiced ear identified them as the others huddled close together in silence.
“Quick Dick. If the bang comes before the whiz, you know it’s our shell, not theirs.”
“Both’ll kill you just the same,” Blake murmured.
Finally, the order went round to shoulder their gear and place ladders on the fire step.
Last night Ash had been running towards allies, towards her friends.
Now she was struck once more by how unnatural a thing it was to run into enemy fire with the sole intent of killing the men on the other side, and everything in her rebelled.
Every ounce of self-protection which had made her fight the boys of Whitechapel now screamed for her to flee with all due haste.
What if the preliminary barrage had not done its job, and they were running directly into a barbed wire ambush?
How did her gun even work? Was she truly expected to stab a man with the ghastly bayonet, and could she do it with enough force to take him down?
She’d come to France to save a life, not to take one.
She couldn’t breathe. She was going to be sick. The air was so damp and hot and thick.
“All right?” Rook asked, peering into her face, his own now drawn and stony.
Ash was shaking so hard that when she nodded, she felt like she might never stop, her head bouncing every which way as though she was also saying no.
“Screw your courage to the sticking place,” he teased, but she couldn’t even make herself force a laugh.
What if she just stayed behind in the latrine and pretended she was already dead? Would anyone notice her when they were all hell-bent on taking sector six?
“Ash?” Rook said, his tone serious but gentle as he squatted down before her, forcing her to look him in the face.
Tears filled her eyes immediately. She was going to be sick. “I’m not supposed to be here,” she whispered.
“None of us are.”
She shook her head again. She couldn’t go out there and die, not at least without one last confession. “My brother ran away when his conscription letter arrived. I stole his name. I stole his place.”
Rook took both her shoulders in his strong broad hands. “Then he’s the coward, not you. That makes you doubly brave.”
“No—”
“How many miles did you run last night?” he asked, startling her out of her nerves.
“A dozen, I suppose.”
“Just a few more now, and then you can sleep.”
“I can’t—”
“Listen to me, Little Bird.” He shook her gently. “You don’t have to kill anyone out there. You only have to make it to the other side. Focus on the football.” He held it up to remind her. “Just chase it until you reach the German line.”
“What if I can’t?”
“What’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done?”
“The hardest?”
“Aye, something that tested your mettle. Surprised even you?”
“One night I was trapped in an alley by Billy Boyle and his gang.”
Rook’s expression grew even more sober until Ash shrugged.
“They learnt I had teeth and claws. Not one of them limped home without a scratch.”
His face softened. “That’s right—you do. There ain’t nothing out there but boys as young and scared as you. Just a bunch of Billy Boyles and his gang. So when Cap says go, you’re going to fly as fast as you can and never look back, one foot in front of the other.”
“What happens when we reach the other side?”
The muscle in his jaw popped. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about the whole damn war. Just focus on the next right thing, and that’s chasing this football. Easy as cherry pie.”
“I hate cherries.”
“Strawberry, then,” he laughed.
“Strawberry pie?” she asked, but something inside her had begun to settle.
“Whatever kind you like.” He grinned. “Here, take this for luck,” he said, handing her a pocket-sized book from his rucksack. “I’ve read it too many times.”
“What is it?”
“The Life of the Fields. Something peaceful to study while you’re waiting for the rest of us to catch you up. Come on.”
Ash nodded her thanks and swallowed down the lump that had choked her throat, as she followed Rook to the fire step and took her place. She breathed through her mouth to avoid the anxiety-laden perspiration that hung over the trench like a cloud of poison gas, mingling with the acrid mortar smoke.
Ladders were thrown up to reach the parapet, and all the boys pushed and jostled as the stretcher bearers lined up just behind.
It was the sight of the stretcher bearers that made her feel faint again, and she looked wildly around, finally catching Rook’s eye. Still cool and calm, he gave her a tiny wink, and she could breathe once more.
Fly safe, he mouthed, and all she could do was nod.
Next to her, Tom trod lightly on her foot. “All right, Ash?” he asked, pushing his glasses up his nose.
“Right as rain,” she gasped, but her words were lost as the first whistle blew and the world erupted into chaos.
With a god-awful roar, the first wave scrambled over the parapet, and Ashley’s heart shot to her throat so she couldn’t swallow, their blood-curdling howls harmonizing with the shrieks of death and dying.
Ash and Tom were shoved forward by the eager boys behind them.
The whistle blew again, and suddenly there was no one left between Ashley and the ladder.
She tried to look for Rook, but the men around her were all faceless, a homogenous and ghoulish gang. Finally she caught the captain’s eye, and he nodded once to her box respirator, waited while she pulled the too-big goggles over her eyes.
Then he blew the whistle one last time.
Ashley scrambled up the ladder before her nerves could fail her, into the pandemonium above. Not flying, but more like swimming through a murky fishbowl.
She charged through the wall of fiery bullets and smoke so thick it blotted out the sun, rifle in her hand though she dared not open fire. Even Tom’s red runner’s band was lost within the deadly shroud.
Enemy fire brushed past so close it tickled. Shrapnel as fine as sand singed her skin like spattering grease.
She stumbled over the uneven ground, riddled with craters, tripping over fallen rucksacks, fallen people trapped in mud—Englishmen, Frenchmen, Germans—they were all just men, all looked the same writhing on the ground in pools of ruby blood.
Ash ran up on Rook’s football, nestled between two dead soldiers whose names she didn’t know. Though her goggles, fogged and splattered, made it difficult to read, she could just make out the words he’d scribbled, no referee.
She kicked it and kept running, running, running, chasing the ball as Rook had told her to drown out the moans and cries which bled together in a sanguine symphony as the whistling, shrieking, drumming artillery searched out each new victim to fall face first until the river ran with blood.