Chapter 16 #2
Once awakened, Ash became aware of a pain like fire, like bayonets being driven right through the soles of her feet all the way to her ankles.
It was the most excruciating torment she had experienced in her life, so piercing that her vision went blinding white, and she leaned over the bed to vomit on the floor. Ash the Splash strikes again.
Two nurses rushed to her bedside, as tears streamed down her cheeks while she apologized over and over for the mess. On the other side of the bed, Max whined and licked her hand despite the nurses trying to shoo her out again.
Nurse Jo removed the compress and poked at Ashley’s red and splotchy feet. She could barely feel the gentle prodding, just a hint of pressure beneath flames of ceaseless pain.
“You’re all right, soldier,” Jo said softly. “It hurts like the dickens now, but it’s a good hurt. Means the nerves are coming back to life, and that’s what we want, yes? Yes,” she answered for Ash, who could only clench her jaw and hold back tears.
After wiping Ashley’s forehead with a cool, damp cloth, Nurse Jo gave her more bitter medicine to drink, and soon enough she faded back into oblivion.
She awoke some hours later, the pain a dull but tolerable ache, and Ash could finally feel her toes wiggle when she tried.
“Good. You’re up,” Nurse Jo told her. “Someone’s been waiting quite a while to say hello.”
For a brief second, Ash expected to find her mother, having come to stroke her hair and hum soft ditties at her side, but of course that was the silliest of notions.
Her mum was safe in London with no idea of Ashley’s woe, and once the postcard reached her, she’d learn only some half-truths and outright lies.
Heavy footfalls made their way towards her as Jo helped her to sit up, then Ashley gazed into the anxious face of Alex Rook. The comfort she’d been craving settled heavy on her chest like a warm and cozy blanket by the fire and she blinked back stinging tears that filled her eyes.
“Swinging the lead are you, Little Bird?” he murmured.
“What are you doing here, Private? You’re not injured?” she asked, scanning his handsome face, broad chest, and arms, fearing some ill effects still lingered from the harrowing trench collapse.
Rook shook his head. “Haven’t you heard? It’s Lance Corporal now,” he said with a smug little grin, showing off the new chevron upon his sleeve. “Surprised you didn’t read about it in The Wipers Times.”
“Well done, you,” she told him, and on second thought added, “Sir.”
He gave her a tiny, embarrassed eye roll and then pulled up a stool to sit, idly scratching Maxie’s head where it rested on his knee. It looked as though someone must have given the dog a bath.
“How are you, really?” he asked.
“Seems I’ll live even if my pride won’t.”
Rook shook his head. “Could’ve been any of us.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. And that’s why I brought you a present,” he said, tossing a soft parcel in her lap, roughly wrapped with pages from the trench newspaper.
“You’re the one who was promoted. I should’ve gotten you a present.”
“You can owe me one,” he said. “Going to open it?”
Pretending to be nervous about what she might find inside, Ash carefully unfolded the paper. Out into her lap fell five new pairs of socks, knitted in the softest of soft grey wool. They must have cost a fortune.
“Rook… these were meant for you.”
“No one back home is sending me socks.”
“How did you get them then?”
“I knitted them.”
“You never did,” Ash said, glancing at his rifle-calloused hands. “You knit?”
“Keeps the fingers limber.”
“I suppose,” she laughed.
He licked his lips and tilted his head. “Told you I studied the organ before the war. I’d like to get back to it when this all ends.”
“And so you knit.”
“And so I do. Should’ve given them to you for your birthday instead of useless toffee,” he said, his voice tinged with regret.
“Rook…” Ash was lost for words.
“This way you’ll remember to change them whenever you see my ugly mug.”
“I’ll change them every day.”
“Twice on Sundays,” he reminded her.
“Thank you.”
“Welcome. Are you bored out of your mind in here?”
“No. I have the book you gave me,” she said. “And…”
“And?”
“I’ve done a little writing of my own,” she admitted.
“Have you? Comedy, tragedy, or problem play? Come now, don’t hold back.”
“It’s nothing,” she demurred, instantly bashful. “Forget it.”
“Ash, it’s only me,” he said, and those four words might well have been her undoing.
She reached under her pillow and took out the postcard, which she’d slipped inside The Life of the Fields. “It’s a poem…” she admitted, then shrugged and rolled her eyes. “Poem-like.”
“May I read it?” he pleaded.
It felt conceited to share her work, but there would probably never be a moment in all her life where Private Charley Ashley could refuse Lance Corporal Alex Rook when his eyes looked soft and hungry, so she handed it over, holding her breath and watching as he read.
We crouch inside a thunderous wall of sound
and cling unto our minds as though a thread
unravels. Gurgling sanguine groans abound—
we choke on hell’s own water as if fed.
We dine on hopes and lies, but never bread,
and sing unuttered songs of untold fears—
of lying left in craters where we bled,
unmasked at last and weeping bitter tears.
We youth, unyoung, now sigh for unspent years
and dreams of running, fresh, across a ground
untraveled. ’Stead we dodge through fiery spears
in search of home which never can be found.
Unquiet silence wracks our souls with dread.
Grief for the living, envy for the dead.
A thousand emotions seemed to cross Rook’s face as he was reading. “You’ve a way with words,” he finally rasped.
“Do you think so?”
He nodded. “The Bard himself would be proud.”
Ashley’s cheeks burned at the compliment.
He smiled at her, a little shy, and she smiled back, eager to give him a part of herself, so he could know her soul if not her truth.
“Keep it, if you like. As a thank you for the socks.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Please? I want you to.”
So he folded it in half and placed it in his own breast pocket.
“Fly back to us soon, Little Bird.”
“Fly true, Lance Corporal.”
“True as Troilus,” he said with another smile, the most solemn promise, and then, like a passing breath of fresh air, he was gone.