Chapter 19 #2
Then a firm, gentle hand caught and held her up, pulling her free from the grasping carnage so she could finally find her legs.
“Steady on,” Rook said, drawing her focus away from the dead as he demonstrated how to take a slow, deep breath. “Steady on,” he repeated, rubbing her back as she forced her skin to know only him and to forget the feel of bodies underneath.
A line from a Dickens story floated through her mind about the face of a man, with his soul in it, encouraging another to be brave and true. In that moment, she realized Dickens had been an oracle writing of Rook, of her, of this war, somehow, years ahead of his time.
“All right?” Rook asked before she ripped off her gas mask and embraced him with abandon, not giving a fig who else might witness her relief.
He squeezed her back, until something nudged her leg, and all good feeling evaporated as she released him to fight off the enemy soldier rising from his grave.
But it was only Max nuzzling her shin. She dropped to her knees and buried her face in the collie’s soft warm fur, kissing her head and scratching behind her ears.
“Tom?” she gasped, looking up into the faces of Stewart and Sergeant Major Chapman standing alongside Rook. “Did he make it over?”
Stew shook his head grimly and shrugged. “Just us, I reckon.”
“Too far bloody east, I’ll warrant,” Chapman grumbled, holding his watch up to the sky, trying to locate the sun through smoky haze—a trick to quickly ascertain the right direction. “Need to move if we’re going to find B Company by sundown.”
Rook and Stew shouldered their packs, and together the five, including Max, began to creep their way along the winding trench. Almost instantly, a wall of enemy fire forced them to their bellies, and they scuttled for the nearest dugout they could find.
“Other way then?” Ash suggested. “Find a comm trench?”
Rook grabbed her shoulder, stopping her from leaving the dugout. “No joy. Our own damn mortars are aimed on us.”
She glanced from Rook to Stew who nodded soberly. “Not even a little bit passable.”
“We’ll have to wait it out,” Chapman said.
A shiver ran down Ashley’s spine. “For how long?”
“Until it bloody stops,” he growled, though she hadn’t really expected him to answer.
As the hours crept by, the British mortars seemed to inch their way closer, each blast rocking their concrete bunker, threatening to bring down great chunks of plaster on their heads.
Ash was having flashbacks to the cave-in which had trapped Rook, and from the grim set of his mouth as he flinched at the dust raining down upon them, he was right back in that funk hole with her too.
German fire picked up as well, each side knowing their little group was pinned, each side supposing they were the enemy.
“We’ll have to send a message or we won’t last the bloody night,” Sergeant Major Chapman finally said. “Don’t reckon it can wait until dark.”
“I’ll go,” Ash offered, swallowing down a sliver of fear.
“No, send me,” Stew argued.
“I’m shorter, Long-Leg Logan.”
“I’m faster,” he countered.
“The hell you are.”
“Be that as it may, your height is a disadvantage,” Chapman decreed, scrawling out a note for Ash to carry.
Resigned, Stew offered his hand, and squeezed hers tight, his mouth a thin straight line. She hugged him impulsively, and he whispered, “You can do it, Ash the Flash.”
She nodded to Rook and the sergeant major, and they nodded back, Rook mouthing, Fly safe like a lucky charm.
No ladders remained to be found, so the only way out was the same way Ash had come in—back up the pile of unfortunate broken men.
Careful not to tread on anyone’s face, she scrambled, whispering, “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” the whole way up.
At the top, she was met with an immediate barrage of gunfire that sent her toppling back down into the trench.
“Are you hit?” the sergeant major demanded.
“Only clumsy,” she gasped. “Let me catch my breath, and I’ll have another go.”
This time, she slithered out into No Man’s Land more gingerly than before and paused a moment, then pushed up to a crouch. But the force of a too-close mortar shell knocked her back where she began, lying face up in the bottom of the trench.
“Blimey…” she gasped, each breath a total agony.
Rook and Chapman dragged her into the protection of the dugout, and Stewart ripped open her coat, searching for a wound.
“Wait!” She caught his arm before he went for her shirt as well. “Only winded… I think.”
He nodded, scanning her torso with concern, while Rook’s thumb slid up her neck to check the pulse point beneath her chin.
“Give me a moment,” Ash gasped, back aching from where she’d fallen. “Third time lucky. I promise. I’ll try again.”
“Dinnae be daft,” Stewart said. “I’m going. No argument.”
“No bloody point,” Chapman growled, a hand on Stew’s shoulder to still him. “I don’t need either of your pretty heads for a sieve. Bloody pigeons all over Trafalgar Square, but you never actually have one when you need it, hey?”
“Send Max,” Stew whispered.
Ash could barely look at him through her own defeated shame, but he stared back at her without an ounce of blame. The dog had a job to do, same as anyone, and he was determined they would make it out alive.
Hearing her name, Max jumped up and padded over to sit in front of Stewart, awaiting his next command.
“The dog?” Chapman asked. “You sure, lad?”
“If anyone can get through, it’s her.”
“Right then.” He retrieved the note from Ashley and rolled it inside the pouch on Maxie’s collar, before scratching her ears and patting her on the head.
“There’s a good girl.” Stew pet her face tenderly and rested his forehead against hers for the briefest moment. “You know what to do, lass. Ain’t nobody can touch you. Fly now, if ever in your life you flew.”