War Girls

by Adele Geras

  Mindful not to startle him, I retreated from the glade. Only then, when I felt sure that he could not see me, did I make my presence known.

  ‘If I was the enemy,’ I called out, ‘my voice would be the last you ever heard in this world.’

  ‘Who is there?’ The boy scrambled to his feet. At the same time, while frantically looking one way and then the other, he let the rifle drop and snatched a pistol from his belt. ‘Identify yourself!’ he cried.

  ‘A fellow patriot.’ Setting my rifle on the ground, I made a decision in that moment to trust the soldier with my life. I had spoken with a deliberate gruffness, but there was no threat in my tone. Slowly, I emerged from behind the bracken, my hands held high. The boy looked stunned. He took a step back, dropping his pistol to his side and then stood and simply stared at me. Carefully, I lowered my arms and spread my hands. ‘I am here for you,’ I added.

  ‘Zeki?’ He sounded shocked and uncertain. ‘It’s me, Timur!’ he crowed. ‘My God!’

  In a blink, I realised what conclusion he had drawn. The boy looked tormented, not just, I supposed, by the apparent resurrection of his friend but by the constant shelling and shooting. It was some way off, but sounded wholly unpredictable, as if we could be engulfed at any moment. I drew breath to explain myself, and then thought better of it.

  ‘It isn’t safe here,’ I said, keeping my voice low and quiet, and then gestured at the path I had been following. ‘But I know of a place close by where we will have the upper hand.’

  Timur asked no further questions. He simply trailed behind me to the edge of the forest. I chose not to engage him in conversation, unwilling to turn and let him look me in the eye. But as we progressed, I decided he must have come to recognise I was not the young man he had declared me to be in the shock of that moment. Despite being wrapped in the thick tunic, which hid my body shape, my frame was slight compared to his former companion’s. We spoke the same language, of course, which must have assured him that we were fighting for a common cause. Still, he didn’t press me once. Even if the young man had worked out that he was in the company of a woman, perhaps my true identity was not as important to him as the fact that another human being had taken him under wing.

  ‘Thank you,’ I heard him whisper at one point, though I did not reply.

  On seeing the first glimpse of my former home, there beyond the foliage, my emotions surged again. I’d carried a sense of anger here since finding the body of the fallen soldier. Now I felt silent outrage at what I saw before me. With the roof collapsed into the rooms below, the place was barely recognisable. My memories of the years we had lived there as a family remained vivid, but what I faced felt like something that should be forgotten. They say you should fight for your country, but it was the life I’d lost with my family that drove me onwards. I felt no sentimentality. It was time to take a stand.

  I turned to Timur. For the first time, I let him look me in the eyes. Even with the scarf around his mouth and nose, I saw no sense of surprise, just an air of apprehension as to why I had led him to this spot.

  ‘I always believed that I would end my days here,’ I told him.

  Timur blinked, and considered what I had said. Briefly, he glanced back at the ruins of the farmhouse. When his gaze came back to me, I knew he understood just what I meant.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ he said, and bowed his head.

  Now it was my turn to look again upon the stricken building. If it had once been a place of love and laughter, the ruins would soon come to serve a completely different purpose. I took a step back and looked upwards. Here stood pines so dense that the branches of each tree meshed with the next.

  ‘In time they will come to this place,’ I told Timur. ‘And when they do, we shall be ready.’ I gestured at the canopy overhead. ‘We can position ourselves far apart or we can operate together.’

  Timur looked at me. ‘Together,’ he said with some certainty. ‘We should watch out for each other.’

  I guessed that Timur and Zeki had worked from different vantage points. This had probably saved Timur’s life. Sniping in close proximity would double our vulnerability. But it was clear to me that my new companion had no further wish to be alone.

  We began to climb. Watching Timur find a handhold on the lower branch, and then carefully work his way up the tree, I wondered whether he had ever used the rifle issued to him. He seemed so uncomfortable with it strapped to his back, as if it had been forced upon him. He could certainly climb without difficulty, which was probably a skill he’d picked up in childhood. Firing a weapon was a very different challenge; the same one I faced myself. My husband had owned a shotgun to keep the rabbits at bay. I had never even held it, let alone pulled a trigger, nor had I felt any desire to do so. In a way, I thought to myself, Timur and I might well turn out to be kindred spirits. We possessed the will to fight, perhaps, but could we live with killing another human being? It was an ability that many soldiers had discovered within themselves. No doubt some had found that they could shoot with ease, but many others would be scarred for the rest of their lives by what they had been ordered to do. For the first time since I picked up the sniper rifle, driven by rage, I dwelled on how it might change me. I was mindful of the fact that I had already been transformed by the loss of those I loved, but could I be responsible for breaking another mother’s heart? Standing at the foot of that tree, I had no regrets about following my instinct here. It just remained to be seen whether I would find my true calling in this war.

  From the lower boughs, Timur reached down and offered me his hand.

  ‘I will find my own way,’ I told him after a moment, blinking from my thoughts.

  Much like a match that has flared, I could sense the anger and indignation within me begin to taper. What it left behind took me by surprise. Instead of the sense of darkness in which I had arrived on the front line, I found myself watching the boy make his way up the tree with a glimmer of pride at his courage and commitment. In the scramble to defend our soil, soldiers like Timur had been dispatched across the peninsula with little training or preparation. But I felt sorry for him as well. At his age, like my son, he should have been working in the fields with the sunshine on his shoulders. Instead, my boy was dead while Timur suddenly found himself struggling to free himself from the spur of a branch that had caught the shoulder of his tunic.

  ‘Can you help me?’ he called down, a little bashfully.

  I chuckled to myself. In that moment, I knew that making my presence known to the boy back in the clearing had been the right thing to do.

  ‘Of course.’

  Carefully, I began to make my way up the tree. I had never attempted such a thing, only watched with anxiety many years before when my own child had first climbed this same trunk. I wondered what he’d make of me now. I even thought I heard him laughing at the sight. When I finally drew level with Timur, several minutes after my feet had left the ground, I found him hooked like a fish on a line. I smiled to myself behind my scarf, which must have been evident in my eyes because the boy smiled back at me. I asked him to turn around as best he could, and then clambered alongside.

  ‘Do you think Zeki knew that he was going to die?’ he asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

  I took hold of the branch where it had caught his tunic. I was pleased that he had acknowledged me in this way; without demanding that I reveal my face in full or questioning what on earth I was doing here. We each had our reasons, and I hoped he recognised that was enough.

  ‘Everyone dies in time,’ I reminded him. ‘All we can hope for is that it’s quick.’

  ‘And that we’re not alone when our moment comes.’

  Releasing the branch, I jerked my head clear as it swung towards me with a rush of air. As I looked back, the farmhouse caught my attention. Sometimes, my boy would call to me from up here in the trees and on hearing his voice I would step outside. It would always take me some time to spot him. Now I hoped I shared his skill at hiding.

/>   ‘Surprise is on our side,’ I told Timur. ‘When they arrive we must use it to our advantage. I will shoot first, and you must be ready to follow it in a heartbeat. Is that clear? If they spot us, we will have nowhere to go.’

  Timur nodded, seemingly relieved to be under instruction. Taking control like this felt quite natural to me. My husband and son were strong men, but in the farmhouse both relied on me for order and routine. I was keenly aware that feeding their bellies was a world away from firing a rifle. Despite my doubts, I would have to pull that trigger now, even if it changed me forever.

  ‘You seem certain that they will come,’ Timur said finally, and slapped at a midge that had settled on his wrist. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘Trust me. I know.’

  Months earlier, when the officer paid a visit to the farmhouse and ordered me to leave, he explained that the ravine at the foot of the clearing was a point of vulnerability. Even with the coils of barbed wire hastily rolled into place, a determined detail could still creep through the scrub and get behind our lines. Zeki had lost his life within sight of the ravine, which told me the enemy had to be close at hand.

  The sun was high overhead as Timur and I settled into the branches. It was hot and dry, but we were in shade. Every move we made caused the foliage to quiver. We kept as still as possible. Tucked under my thigh, my left foot lost all feeling, but I did not change position. In fact, when the tingling stopped and the numbness crept in, it felt as if I had begun to turn invisible. If I dared to look down, perhaps I would no longer see the boot borrowed from a dead soldier. There would simply be nothing there. And the longer I remained, the more of me would disappear.

  For some time, to keep myself focused, I studied the rifle. The weapon was beautifully engineered, but hard to admire. My thoughts turned to the invading forces, and the campaign that they had mounted. The troops had poured from ship to shore in a show of strength that should have cowed us all. But it didn’t. Now, in a position to join the fight, I had found the will to avenge the memory of the life I once had here. I just couldn’t dismiss the doubt in my mind that this was the right way to do it.

  ‘Are you frightened?’

  The voice, just a whisper, drew me from the rifle sights. We had been silent for several hours, and the question cut across my thoughts. I looked through the foliage. Timur was gazing up at me. A glimpse into his eyes told me he had been keeping his own counsel for too long.

  ‘Put your fears into words,’ I told him. ‘It’s the surest way to overcome all demons.’

  Timur gazed out across the clearing. Some distance away, gunshot punctured the air. ‘I’m scared that I’ll never go home.’

  Judging by the return fire, a fierce skirmish had erupted near the beach. This was how it had been for months. A kind of call and response that could break out at any point along the peninsula.

  ‘We are Turks,’ I said to remind him. ‘This country is our home.’

  My answer silenced him for a moment.

  ‘So, what was life like for you?’ he asked next, and gestured vaguely into the air. ‘Before this.’

  Weeds had sprung up around the farmhouse, I noticed. I felt a foolish urge to climb down and fetch the hoe from the store. Then I sighed at myself and shook my head. The place was history.

  ‘Tell me about your family, Timur,’ I said instead.

  The boy faced up to me once more, squinting a little in the light. ‘I miss my mother,’ he said frankly. ‘I told her I was old enough to fight. Now I feel I’m too young to be left out here without her.’

  I wanted to climb down to him. Just to be close. It seemed increasingly evident from such frank admissions that this was what the boy sought from me. I was only stopped by the thought that the swaying branches would give away our presence.

  ‘Your mother will be proud of you,’ I assured him. ‘It’s clear to me that you come from a loving home.’

  ‘They say a good sniper should come from nowhere.’ Timur grinned at me, wiping his cheek with the heel of his hand. ‘Like a ghost.’

  ‘Then let’s be ghosts,’ I said eventually. ‘We come and then we go.’

  It was then that the breaking of twigs across the clearing silenced our exchange.

  Hurriedly, we return to our rifle scopes and scan the treeline beyond the farmhouse. Timur whispers something at me. He sounds excited and scared in equal measure. I will him to be quiet. When the soldier creeps into my crosshair, crawling on his elbows through the long grass, I study him closely. It is the first time I have seen the enemy in the flesh. For months he has simply been an unseen force; a presence on the peninsula that I could hear spitting and raging, like a dragon from behind the ridge. My personal loss had made these men monsters in my mind, and yet the individual inching towards the farmhouse, tired and drawn, is nothing like I had imagined. He doesn’t appear to be much older than Timur, with fear in his eyes and an uncertainty in his manner. For a second, I feel sympathy for him, and then shut the thought away. I have assumed the role of a sniper. I must live and breathe as one, or what hope do I have of making a difference in this war?

  I hold the gun steady as the soldier progresses, and let him slip from my sights. Sure enough, another figure follows him out of the scrub; eyes bright against his muddy face, peering longingly at the farmhouse door. No doubt all food stores have been plundered, and with the roof destroyed the building provides little shelter. Even so, I understand what brings them closer. I only have to think about my own urge to come here. Without a doubt, there is something that reminds them of home in the ruins of mine.

  I brace myself in case more figures appear. When it is clear that these two are operating as scouts, I find the first soldier in my sights once more. Between us, we can finish this within a matter of seconds. I slip my finger over the trigger, not thinking beyond the moment of firing, and that’s when Timur’s shot rings out across the clearing. I see the dust rise up an inch from the second soldier’s head, and then a blur as the pair scramble to retreat.

  ‘What have you done?’ I hiss, for the boy has made a mess of our plan. With only two targets, we could have taken the soldiers out one after the other, as I had intended. Now, as they return fire from the undergrowth, yelling for support in that foreign tongue, we face real danger.

  ‘I’m sorry!’ he wails, and then gasps as a bullet tears through the branches above us.

  With my heart kicking in my chest, I seek out the soldiers in my rifle sights. A flash of fire marks the second shot. It hits the trunk beside me. Blindly I squeeze the trigger in response, hoping that I will find my target. In that moment, besieged by noise and panic, I can’t even be sure that I have fired at all. As the soldiers reply, Timur’s gasps turn to a shriek. I catch sight of him dropping his rifle, before he follows it down, a frozen expression on his face. He falls in a slow tumble, caught every few seconds by the branches of the tree, and then released again.

  ‘No!’ I cry, and scramble down the tree to be with him. ‘No more!’

  I give no consideration to my safety as I rush to reach the forest floor. I even miss my footing and fall the last few feet. Landing on my tailbone, the impact leaves me winded but no less determined to do something for the lost boy in a heap before me. My descent had been marked by the snap and whistle of yet more bullets, which promptly gives way to desperate shouting. I can only guess that I have escaped the soldiers’ line of sight for now. Despite the voices, I clasp Timur’s hand. He feels so heavy, as if gravity has suddenly conspired to bear down upon his body with brutal force. Blood trickles from his mouth and the wound in his chest. He rasps and gurgles, each intake of breath finding liquid in his lungs. But he does not take his eyes off me.

  ‘Don’t leave,’ he mouths, his voice just a trace. ‘Please.’

  I tighten my grip. Another bullet strikes the tree behind us, followed by what sounds like a battle cry as the two soldiers seize the moment. It’s then that I know, with absolute certainty, I have done the right thing in coming
to the front line. Not to kill, as I had believed, but to comfort.

  ‘You are not alone,’ I promise the boy. ‘I am here.’

  The bullet, when it hits me between the shoulders, feels like a hammer strike.

  I grasp at the throat of my tunic, which is hot and wet. Consumed by shock as much as pain, I am at the mercy of this final moment. Still clutching Timur’s hand, as if it’s my only purpose in this world, I slump across his chest. He grunts, choking briefly, and I feel his free hand flop across my back. There is no strength left as his palm lifts and falls, but when his fingers spread I succumb to his embrace.

  ‘Mother,’ he whispers, sounding elated and released from his fears, before his voice trails away along with my last breath.

  Storm in a Teashop

  by Mary Hooper

  Storm in a Teashop

  ‘Well, well, well,’ said Grandad, rustling the ‘War Latest’ section of his newspaper.

  Neither Mum nor I took any notice.

  ‘Well, well, well,’ he said again, and then delivered his punch line. ‘Three holes in the ground.’

  No one laughed. Well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not if you’d heard it a hundred and one times before.

  ‘Who’d have thought it,’ he went on, prodding the newspaper. ‘They’re stopping folk having pigeons now! They’re asking you to hand them over to the authorities. If you want to keep them, you have to have a special licence.’

  ‘Why’s that then?’ I was forced to ask.

  ‘Because, Harriet, the only pigeons allowed now are carrier pigeons – those flying about on war work.’

  ‘That seems fair enough,’ my mum said.

  ‘Violation of our rights, that is! A man should always be allowed his pigeons.’