Bluebird by Genevieve Graham

Author:Genevieve Graham
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Published: 2022-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

At first, it wasn’t so bad, but as soon as they’d hollowed out enough of a hole that they were able to stand underground, Jerry’s chest constricted. It was silly, he knew, and it lasted only a blink, but he didn’t think he’d ever be able to go under the earth again without this kind of fear. When John lit a match for the lanterns, they both stared at it out of habit. In the tunnels, where breathing clean air meant life or death, they’d learned that if the match only burned red, there wasn’t enough oxygen for a man to survive. Now, the flame bloomed yellow, and they both exhaled.

“All right,” Jerry said, shrugging off the claustrophobia. “Let’s keep going.”

It was a different colour dirt from so many other tunnels he’d dug, but it was dirt just the same. Heavy and thick and endless. In the beginning, all Jerry heard was the crack of the pickaxe, then the scrape and push of their shovels. After three days, they’d moved so far underground that Jerry had to remind himself to unclench his jaw. And while he told himself that men were not dying above him, he couldn’t help listening for explosions, and for German shovels coming from the other side.

John was watching him. “Do you hear them too?”

Jerry nodded, aware his hands were shaking. They hadn’t done that for a while.

“We should sing,” John suggested, then he launched into an old song they’d sung when they were done with their shifts and clear of the tunnels, safe to use their voices again. The men had squeezed the words through their strained throats to ease the fear they all felt.

Oh what a life! Oh what a life!

Living in a trench.

Oh what a life! Oh what a life!

Fighting for the French.

We haven’t got a wife or a nice little wench,

We’re all quite happy in an old French trench.

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