Part 3 – The Words in Between
She unfortunately had to sit on Roman Kitt’s lap, nearly all the way to the front lines.
The lorry was packed to the brim with food and medicine and other resources, leaving one seat available in the cab. Just as the captain had forewarned. One seat for Iris and Roman to fight over.
Iris hesitated, wondering how to handle this strange situation, but Roman seamlessly opened the passenger door for her, as if it were a vehicle in Oath and not a massive truck, rusted by war. She avoided eye contact as well as his offered hand and hauled herself up the metal side step into the dusty cab.
It reeked of sweat and petrol. The leather seat was beaten and worn beneath her. There looked to be an old streak of blood across it, and the dash was freckled with mud. Pray it doesn’t rain, Attie had said to her before kissing her cheeks in farewell, and Iris cleared her throat and slipped her bag onto the floorboard between her legs. It must be something about rain and the trenches, Iris surmised, although Attie still hadn’t spoken much of her experience on the front lines.
“All set?” Roman asked.
Iris decided it would be best to tackle this … unpleasantness head on. She turned to address him—you really don’t need to come, Kitt—but he had already shut the door, perching on the side step as he had promised to do.
Iris got a good eyeful of his chest, which was blocking her window. But she could see he was holding on to the rickety metal of the side mirror—which looked like it might come off any moment—as well as the door handle. A strong gust might blow him away, but she held her tongue as the captain turned the engine.
They rolled out of Avalon Bluff, heading along the western road. Iris had never ridden in a lorry; it was surprisingly bumpy and slow, and she watched as the captain shifted the gear stick. She could feel the purr of the engine through the soles of her feet, and she couldn’t help but keep an eye on Roman with every pothole they hit. And there were quite a few of them.
“These roads haven’t been cared for in a while,” the captain explained when Iris nearly bounced off her seat. “Not since the war broke out in this borough. I hope your friend there can hold tight. It’s only going to get worse.”
Iris winced, shielding her eyes from a sudden flood of sunlight. “How long will this ride be?”
“Three hours, if the weather permits.”
Half an hour later, they stopped at the neighboring town of Clover Hill so the captain could load one last round of resources in the back. Iris rolled down her window and prodded Roman in the chest.
“It won’t do us any good if you break your neck on the way to the front,” she said. “I don’t mind sharing the seat. That is, if you don’t mind me sitting on your—”
“I don’t mind,” he said.
He stepped down, his hair snarled from the wind.
Iris opened the door and stood, cramped in the cab, as Roman ascended, sliding into the seat. He wedged his bag next to hers and then reached for her hips, guiding her back to sit on his lap.
She was rigid as a board, settled on his thighs.
This was bad. This was very, very bad.
“Iris,” he whispered, and she stiffened. “You’ll go through the windshield if you don’t lean back.”
“I’m fine.”
He sighed, exasperated, as his hands fell away from her.
Her determination lasted all of ten minutes. The captain was right; the roads got bumpier, rutted from weeks of rain, and she had no choice but to relax, aligning her spine with Roman’s chest. His arm slid around her waist, and she rested in the warmth of his hand, knowing he was keeping her from bashing her head against the windshield.
At least he got mouthfuls of her hair in return, she thought. There was no doubt in her mind that he was as uncomfortable as she was. Especially when she heard him groan after a particularly deep set of ruts in the road, which seemed to knock their thoughts sideways.
“Am I hurting you?” Iris asked him.
“No.”
“Are you squinting, Kitt?” she teased.
She could feel his breath in her hair as he murmured, “Do you want to turn and see for yourself, Winnow?”
She didn’t dare, thinking it would place her mouth far too close to his. At the very least, he was calling her Winnow again. That was familiar ground for them; she knew what she could expect from him in those moments. The word spars and the snark and the frowns. When he addressed her as Iris … it was like completely new territory and it scared her sometimes. As if she were stepping up to the edge of a great cliff.
They reached the front late that afternoon.
A small town had been vacated by the residents, every building given over to the cause. The lorry parked in front of what looked to have been a city hall, and soldiers began to swiftly unload the crates of vegetables and bullets and fresh uniforms. Iris stood in the bustle, Roman behind her. She wasn’t sure where she should go or what she should be doing, and her heart was beating in her throat.
“Correspondents?” a middle-aged woman with a deep voice asked, stopping before them. Her uniform was an olive green with brass buckles, and a golden star was pinned over her breast. A cap covered her short black hair.
“Yes,” Iris said. “Where should we—”
“You’ll be shadowing Dawn Company. I’m Captain Speer, and my soldiers are just finishing up their time in reserves and will be heading to the trenches at sundown. Here, come this way.”
Iris and Roman fell into pace with her as she strode down the dirt street, soldiers sidestepping and casting curious glances at the correspondents as they passed. Iris had the brief, wild hope that she might encounter Forest. But she soon realized that she couldn’t afford to be distracted, letting her eyes roam over the many faces around her.
“Our companies serve on twelve-hour rotations,” the woman said. “Sunrise to sunset, whether that be watching the front, tending the communication trenches, or resting in reserve. This town is the reserve base. If you need to refill your canteens or grab a hot meal, you’ll go there, to the mess hall. If you need to wash, you’ll go to the old hotel on the street corner. If you need a doctor, you’ll go to that house, although do be forewarned that the infirmary is overflowing at the moment and we are low on laudanum. And if you look ahead, you’ll notice this road leads into the woods. That is where you will march with Dawn Company to the communication trenches, which can be found on the other side of the forest. You’ll stay there for the night, and then be ready to move to the front at sunrise. Any questions?”
Iris’s mind was whirling, trying to sort through all the new information. Her hand reached for her mother’s locket, hidden beneath the linen of her jumpsuit.
“Is there a chance we’ll see action?” Roman asked.
“Yes,” Captain Speer said. “Wear a helmet, obey orders, and stay down at all times.” Her gaze snagged on a soldier passing by. “Lieutenant Lark! See to it that the correspondents are given instruction and equipment for their time here. They’ll shadow your platoon for the next several days.”
A fresh-faced soldier stood at attention before his eyes rested on Roman and Iris. Captain Speer was halfway across the road before Lark said, “First time, is it?”
Iris resisted the urge to glance at Roman. To see if he was feeling the same dread and excitement that was coursing through her.
“Indeed,” Roman said, extending his hand. “Roman Kitt. And this is—”
“Iris Winnow,” Iris said before he could introduce her. The lieutenant smiled as he shook her hand. A scar cut through his mouth; it tugged the right corner of his lips down, but his eyes were crinkled at the edges, as if he had smiled and laughed often in the time before the war. Iris wondered how long he had been fighting. He looked so young.
“We’re happy to have you both here,” Lark said. “Come, I’m just heading to the mess hall to eat my last hot meal for a few days. It’d be good to grab a bite yourselves, and I’ll explain more about what you can expect.”
Lark began to lead the way to the city-hall-turned-mess, and Iris moved to walk on the other side of him, so that the lieutenant was between her and Roman. Roman noticed; he granted Iris a slight glance before turning his attention to what lay before them.
“I have a confession, Lieutenant,” she began. “I’m not familiar with how the army is divided. Captain Speer said we’ll be accompanying your platoon?”
“Yes,” Lark replied. “There are four companies per battalion. Two hundred men and women per company, and four platoons in each company. I oversee roughly fifty men and women in mine, with Sergeant Duncan as my second. You’ll soon learn we’ve been dubbed the Sycamore Platoon.”
She should have had her notepad at the ready, but she tucked away the names and numbers to record as soon as she could. “The Sycamore Platoon? Why is that?”
“A long story, Miss Winnow. And one I’d like to share with you when the time’s right.”
“Very well, Lieutenant. Another question, if you don’t mind,” Iris said. “I was curious as to how a soldier is organized into their company. For instance, if a soldier is from Oath but enlists, who decides where they are to serve?”
“A good question, as we have quite a few soldiers from Oath, and Eastern Borough still has yet to declare war on Dacre and join the fight,” Lark said with a sad smile. “When someone from Oath enlists, they are added to an auxiliary company. They are still considered residents of Eastern Borough, but are added to a branch of our military, as if they were one of our own.”
Iris envisioned her brother. She wanted to ask about the whereabouts of the Second E Battalion, Fifth Landover Company, but another question emerged instead. “Is there anything we shouldn’t report on?”
Lark tilted his head to the side, as if considering. “Well, of course. No strategies, should you overhear them. No messages that we pass in the communication trenches. No locations or intel that would grant Dacre an advantage should he catch wind of the paper.” The lieutenant paused so he could open the door for Iris. A waft of air washed over them, smelling of onions and meatloaf. “I hear that you’re to be neutral reporters, but I also don’t think that’s quite possible, if I’m frank. I highly doubt you’ll be welcomed over to Dacre’s side, let alone return whole from it. I think the best piece of advice, Miss Winnow, is to write what you see happening and what you feel and who we are and why it’s vital that the people in Oath and the cities beyond join our effort. Is that something you think is possible?”
Iris paused, meeting the lieutenant’s hopeful eyes.
“Yes,” she said, in almost a whisper.
But the truth was … she felt in over her head. As if a rock were tied to her ankles and she had just been dropped into the ocean.
At five sharp, they marched.
Iris and Roman had been granted helmets and some food for their packs, and they followed the two hundred strong Dawn Company through the winding, shadowed forest road. Lark had informed them it would be a four-kilometer march at a brisk pace, utterly silent save for the sound of their boots hitting the earth, and Iris was suddenly very thankful for those early morning runs with Roman.
Her calves were burning and she was short of breath by the time the woods began to thin, the sunset spilling orange veins across the sky. The road now ran parallel to the front, with stations erected in the cover of the forest as far as she could see. The outposts were built of stones and thatch, with soldiers coming in and out of them. Communication checkpoints, perhaps?
Her thoughts were pruned short by Lark, who suddenly emerged from the river of olive-brown uniforms to speak to her and Roman again.
“We are about to enter the communication trenches here at Station Fourteen,” he explained in a low voice. “We’re still a few kilometers from the front lines, but it’s paramount that you remain low and aware of your surroundings, even if you are at rest in the allotment of ‘safe’ trenches. You’ll also notice there will be bunkers. These are reserved for attacks, whether from Dacre’s soldiers or his hounds.”
Iris licked her lips. “Yes, I wanted to ask you about the hounds, Lieutenant Lark. What should we do if they are loosed in the night?”
“You’ll go directly to a bunker, Miss Winnow,” he replied. “With Mr. Kitt, of course.”
“And the eithrals?” Roman asked. “What is the protocol for them?”
“Eithrals are rarely seen at the front, as they cannot differentiate between Dacre’s soldiers and ours from above. The beasts would drop a bomb on their own forces if they were moving below. They’re a weapon Dacre likes to reserve for civilian towns and the railroad, I’m afraid.”
Iris couldn’t hide her shiver. Lark noticed, and his voice mellowed.
“Now then, the company will soon divide in the trenches, but you’ll trail my platoon. When we come to a stop, you may both also find a place to rest for the night. I’ll ensure you’re up before dawn, to move to the front. Of course, keep quiet and stay low and alert. Those are your imperatives. Should we be bombarded and Dacre’s forces overtake our trenches, I want the two of you to retreat to the town instantly. You may be deemed ‘neutral’ in this conflict, but I wouldn’t put it past the enemy to kill you both on sight.”
Iris nodded. Roman murmured his agreement.
She followed Lieutenant Lark’s Sycamore Platoon down into the trenches, Roman close behind her. So close, she could hear his breath, and the way it skipped, as if he were nervous and struggling to conceal it. A few times, he inadvertently stepped on her heel, jarring her.
“Sorry,” he whispered with a fleeting touch to her back.
It’s all right, she wanted to say, but the words caught in her throat.
She didn’t really know what she had expected, but the trenches were well constructed, with wood planks laid on the ground to ward off mud. They were wide enough for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder comfortably. Sticks were woven along the walls, which curved like the path of a snake. Winding left and then right, and then splitting into two pathways before splitting yet again. She passed artillery stations, where huge cannons sat on the grass like sleeping beasts. A few low points had sandbags piled up, to provide additional coverage, and the deeper she went into the channels, the more she began to see the bunkers Lark had mentioned. Stone shelters were hollowed out of the earth, with dark, open doorways. There was nothing inviting about them, almost as if they were frozen maws, waiting to swallow soldiers, and Iris hoped she didn’t have to shelter in one.
Cool air touched her face. It smelled of dank soil with a touch of rot from the decaying wood. A few times, Iris caught the stench of refuse and piss, all threaded with cigarette smoke. She imagined she saw the scurrying of a rat or two, but perhaps the shadows were teasing her.
Her shoulders sagged in relief when the Sycamore Platoon came to a halt for the night, in a stretch of trench that was relatively dry and clean.
Iris let her bag slip from her shoulders, choosing a spot beneath a small, hanging lantern. Roman mirrored her, sitting across the path from her, his long legs crossed. Lark came by to check on them just as the stars began to dust the sky overhead. He smiled with a cigarette clamped in his teeth, settling down not too far from them, just within Iris’s sight.
The silence felt thick and strange. She was almost afraid to breathe too deeply, welcoming that heavy, chilled air into her lungs. The same air that the enemy was drawing and exhaling, mere kilometers away.
It was a silence to drown in.
She untethered her bag and found her flannel blanket, draping it across her knees as the night deepened. Next, she procured her notepad and a pen, and she began to write down highlights of the day while they were still fresh in her mind.
The darkness continued to unspool.
Iris reached for an orange in her bag, setting her notepad aside to eat. She hadn’t glanced up at Roman one time, but she knew he was also writing. She could hear the faint scratch of his pen marking the paper.
She shifted, only to feel something crinkle in her pocket.
Carver’s letter.
In the furor of the day, she had forgotten about it, still half read. But remembering it now as she was sitting in a trench, hungry and cold and anxious … his letter felt like an embrace. Like reaching for a friend in the darkness and finding their hand.
She studied Roman as he wrote, his brow furrowed. A second later, his gaze snapped up to hers, as if he had felt her eyes on him, and she glanced away, preoccupied with her orange.
She would have to wait for him to fall asleep before she retrieved the letter. The last thing in the world she wanted was for Roman Chafing Kitt to know she was magically corresponding with a boy she had never met but felt sparks for.
An hour passed. It felt like three hours, but time followed its own whim in the trenches, whether that be stalling or flowing.
Iris leaned her head back against the woven birch branches, her helmet clinking against the wood. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep. And she waited, staving off her own exhaustion. When she looked at him beneath her lashes ten minutes later, Roman’s face was slack. His eyes were shut, his breaths deep, as his chest rose and fell, his notepad precariously balanced on his knees. He looked younger, she thought. Softer. For some reason, it made her ache, and she had to push those alarming feelings aside.
But she wondered how much the two of them would change in this war. What marks would it leave on them, shining like scars that never faded?
Slowly, Iris retrieved the letter from her pocket.
Of course, it crinkled loudly in the silence of the trench. When Lark glanced at her, she grimaced, wondering if Dacre could hear such an innocent sound over the expanse of dead man’s zone.
She froze, the paper halfway from her pocket. She mouthed an apology to Lark, who realized what she was doing and winked at her. She imagined letters were sacred on the front.
Her eyes then flickered to Roman. He hadn’t budged. The three-hour lorry ride with her sitting on his lap must have truly worn him down.
Iris eased Carver’s letter the rest of the way free, feeling like she could finally take a deep inhale as it unfolded in her grubby hands.
She found the place where she had left off. Something about his nan, and she read:
—my nan is fine, albeit quite put out with me at the moment—I’ll tell you why when I finally see you. She sometimes asks if I’ve written my own novel on the typewriter she gave me years ago—the typewriter that connects me to you—and I always hate to disappoint her. But sometimes I feel as if my words are mundane and dull. There doesn’t seem to be a story hiding in my bones these days, as she believes. And I don’t have the heart to tell her that I’m not who she thinks I am.
But tell me more about you. One of your favorite memories, or a place you long to go one day, or a book that changed your life and the way you perceive the world. Do you drink coffee or tea? Do you prefer salt or sugar? Do you revel in sunrises or sunsets? What is your favorite season?
I want to know everything about you, Iris.
I want to know your hopes and your dreams. I want to know
Her reading was interrupted by a crumpled ball of paper, flying across the trench to hit her in the face.
Iris winced, shocked until she looked up to see Roman staring at her. She glared at him until he motioned for her to open the wad he had just thrown at her.
She did, only to read his scrawl of What’s that you’re reading, Winnow?
She picked up her pen and wrote her reply: What does it look like, Kitt? She recrumpled and hurled it at him.
Her attention was divided now, between him and Carver’s letter. She longed for a moment in private, to savor the words she had been reading. Words that were turning her molten. But Roman was not to be trusted. He was smoothing the paper out and writing a reply, and Iris had no desire to be smacked in the face again.
She caught it when he tossed it to her, and read, A love letter, I presume?
Iris rolled her eyes in response, but she could feel the warmth flood her face. She hoped the shadows cast from the lantern were hiding her blush.
It’s none of your business, but if you would be so kind as to allow me to finish reading it in peace … I would be eternally grateful, she wrote, returning the paper to him.
Roman scribbled and sent back, So it is a love letter. From whom, Winnow?
She narrowed her eyes at him. I’m not telling you, Kitt.
Their piece of paper was wrinkled beyond saving at this point. He carefully tore a new page from his notebook and sent You should take advantage of me. I can give you advice.
And why did her gaze hang on that first sentence of his? She shook her head, lamenting the day she had met Roman Kitt, and responded, I don’t need your advice although I thank you for the offer.
She thought surely that would settle it. She began to reread Carver’s letter, her eyes hungry to finish that confession of his …
Another paper wad sailed across the trench, striking her on the collar this time.
She was tempted to ignore it. He might persist and send another, but paper was valuable here, and they were both being foolish to waste it. As if he had read her mind, Roman bumped her boot with his own, and she looked at him. His face was haggard in the lantern light, as if he were half wild.
She swallowed and opened the wad to read:
Let me guess: he’s pouring his heart out onto the page, claiming how inadequate he feels because what he truly craves is affirmation from you. And he probably threw something in there about his family: a mum or his sister or his nan. Because he knows you’ll melt at the thought of the other women in his life, the ones who have shaped him. And if he knows you well enough … then he’ll mention something about books or newspaper articles, because surely by now he knows your writing is exquisite, and above all he knows that he doesn’t deserve you and your words and he never will.
Iris was stunned. She stared at him, uncertain how to respond. When Roman held her gaze, as if challenging her, she dropped her eyes to the letter. She would have to wait to finish it. She carefully folded and slipped it back in her pocket.
But nor would she let her old rival have the last word.
She penned and sent: You’re overthinking it. Go to sleep, Roman Kitt.
He sighed and leaned his head back. She realized his face was flushed. She watched as his eyes grew heavy. Perhaps that was all she needed to do to make him heed her: call him Roman. But she fell asleep before she could think further on it. And she dreamt of a cold city with streets that never ended and a heavy mist and a boy with dark hair who ran ahead of her, just beyond her reach.
