Free House of Doors by Chaz Brenchley Page B

fall of birds.
    The colonel had pulled his jacket up over his head, for what protection that could offer him. Now he came pacing over, almost like a bird himself, like a heron spreading its wings to cast a shadow over water: except for the sheer bulk of him, nothing bird-like in those legs.
    â€˜Come now, Sister. Your turn, let’s have you out of this.’
    â€˜Colonel, what—?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Some freak electrical discharge? Ask the boffins. I swear some of these birds are smoking . I’d say lightning, but there’s been none. Come on  . . .!’
    He took her under his wing, as literally as he could manage, and they stumbled through birds ankle-deep as far as the hatchway. Still bombarded all the way, more and more birds plummeting helplessly, thrown down. Once she was on the ladder his bulk above her served as protection, and there was no courteous nonsense in him now, no waiting. She had to move fast to avoid his big feet coming down on her fingers on the rungs.
    There was a scatter of birds on the landing too, those that had fallen through the open hatch. Only a scatter, though, and she could ignore them all, except the one that wasn’t quite dead yet, that hauled itself over floorboards at her feet. There was something infinitely creepy about that, and she couldn’t keep from backing away. She should go with her patient, but the men were well ahead of her, a turn and a half down the broad wind of the stairs. It was only polite to wait for the colonel to come to ground, before she went down with him.
    He fussed for a moment on the ladder, pulling the hatch closed, shutting out that storm of birds, and then huffed his way to the bottom. And looked at her, saw where she was and what she was doing – and somehow that great foot of his just happened to come down blindly, firmly on the crawling bird.
    Ruth shuddered, and lifted her eyes to find him as bereft of words as she was. Overhead, they could still hear the impact of bone and feather striking on the great glass skylight.
    Afterwards, she wondered if perhaps they shared a telepathic moment, she and the colonel. Some transient touch of foreknowledge, that had them both finding each other by eye and then moving together, still speechless but backing away from the open well, his arm sheltering her again as they huddled against the wall as that shatter came at last, and—
    Oh, Peter  . . .
    â€”there was a shape in all the falling glass and she thought it was him, she thought that he had come for her. Only it fell apart as it fell and no, not him: only an aggregate of dead birds and black glass, though it really had looked like a man coming down and she had every reason to scream, every reason in the world.
    Nor was she the only one. Voices of shock came echoing up from below, something to hide her shame in; the colonel’s arm was something to clamp on to until it became a reason to let go, to find her self-control and wield it strictly.
    To pull herself erect and clip smartly down the stairs to where staff and patients were milling about, only waiting for someone – her – to take charge; to organize them in such a way that her own ignorance and newness didn’t matter, sending some for brooms and bins, mops and cloths and soap and water, some to seek out tarpaulins for the roof.
    When Matron came, she could hand all that over and have someone show her to the nearest cloakroom, where she could finally wash the filth from her own hands and emerge to find the colonel unexpectedly waiting for her.
    â€˜We were interrupted,’ he said, deliberately bathetic, forcing her to laugh. But he was right, of course. Every patient was a priority; ward rounds must still go ahead, whatever the excitement elsewhere. In London, they happened with the air full of cordite and dust. She brushed a feather from her uniform, suppressed a shudder, carried on. The fainted man would be in bed by now, and