Chapter 2 #2
“That was quite a run,” the recruitment officer said. “How fast can you sprint the hundred?”
“Twelve?” Charley guessed. Not that anyone had ever timed her. Young women weren’t supposed to run, no matter how much they liked to.
“Twelve seconds? Well, I don’t doubt it,” he said, looking suitably impressed before glancing down at her paperwork. “Charles Ashley?”
“Yes, sir,” she said, lowering her voice to sound more like her brother.
“You’re clearly fighting fit. Says here you’re assigned to the Royal Fusiliers.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied again.
“Well, you’re being reassigned.”
Charley froze, unsure quite what that could mean. “Sir?”
“We need replacement runners at the Front straight away.”
“Runners?” she asked, confused.
“You must know communication is vital to our success in France. Dogs, pigeons, telegraphs—every tool has its place, you understand, but it’s trench runners who’ll see us through, mark my words.”
He scribbled something on her paperwork and shoved a khaki rucksack in her arms.
“East Surrey Regiment. I haven’t got a proper kit for you. The jacket and cap will have to do. Bring every pair of socks you own. The quarter bloke will give you the rest when you arrive.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Can you be on the five o’clock train from King’s Cross to Folkestone Harbor?”
“Tonight, sir?”
He blinked at her. “You’d prefer I have them hold the ship until a more convenient time? Yes, tonight!”
Ship? “I thought—”
“Don’t think, Private Ashley. You’re in the army now.”
Physical exam aside, Charley wasn’t surprised it had been so easy. In fact, the ease merely reinforced her certainty she was doing exactly the right thing, like providence had somehow intervened. Though, she was surprised to be leaving England quite so soon.
“You can’t leave tonight,” her mother cried. “I thought we’d have more time.”
“Orders are orders,” she said, trying to swallow down her mother’s anxiety along with her own as she searched her bureau for socks.
“When have you ever taken orders in your life?” her mother snapped.
It stung as much as any slap. Charley was headstrong, but she’d always tried to be good.
“I’m sorry,” her mother said, stepping towards her. “I’m sorry, my darling, I’m upset, I…” She pulled Charley into an embrace and held her tight, stroking her newly shorn hair. Then she stepped back, holding her at arm’s length, tsking her tongue and shaking her head.
“This will never do.”
“What?”
“That,” she said, nodding at Charley’s chest. “You’re a young woman. Someone’s going to catch you out, especially as you grow.”
Frowning, Charley looked down at her unimpressive bosom. “It can’t be helped,” she called after her mother, who returned a few moments later with several rolls of bandages made from rags.
“You were saving those for the Red Cross,” Charley said, perplexed.
“I was saving them for soldiers. Top off,” she ordered, and once Charley lowered the overall straps and unbuttoned her shirt, her mother pointed to her under garments. “You cannot go to war in a brassiere.”
Instead, they wrapped the bandages around her chest so the shirt fell flat. Her mother gave her three additional rolls to use for her monthlies, then helped her gather every pair of socks in their small flat.
“You will come back to me?” she whispered as they embraced.
Charley nodded, swallowing hard.
“I’ll strangle Charles if I ever find him,” her mother muttered, turning towards the window to hide her tears.
“That would rather defeat the purpose of all this,” Charley teased, relieved when her voice didn’t wobble.
“Shall I go with you?”
“You can come to King’s Cross if you can bear it.”
And so she did, holding tight to Charley’s hand the whole way there.
Her mother took a shuddering breath as the train drew near. “It’s not too late to change your mind.”
“I think we both know it is,” Charley said, squeezing her tight, making her huff out a laugh more like a sob.
“You’ll write to me?” she demanded, and Charley nodded.
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 quarter-master.
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.
“Yes, sir,” Ashley replied.
“Sir,” he laughed. “I love getting new recruits.”
Next he handed each of them a steel-brimmed helmet with a leather chin strap.
“Tin hat. Won’t do much good if you stick your head above the bags, mind.”
Then he offered Charley a long gun like the one Tom already carried. “Rifle and bayonet. Don’t”—He snatched the gun and dagger attachment back when she reached out—“try to use them until you’re shown how.”
“Yes, sir,” she said with a nod. “I mean, I understand,” she added, and he relinquished the heavy gun, which she nearly dropped the moment he let go.
“Identity discs.” He checked the stamp on one before handing a pair to Tom and the other set to Charley. She slipped the long string over her head so the green octagonal disc hung at her chest, and she held the red one out where she could read it.
No longer Charlotte Elizabeth or even Charley, she was Private Ashley of the First Battalion now.