“We have our orders, sir. And you have yours.” The soldier flicked his cigarette and returned to his tent.

“Plonker,” Bertie said, returning to Susan. “They squat on our land, even eat our food, but they won’t lift a finger to help us.”

Susan noticed Bertie’s cheeks had turned red.

“Orders, my arse,” Bertie said. “They just sit in their tent, waiting for the bloody bells to sound. I can tell you this, my dear. In the Great War, our military were not such lazy sods.”

Susan watched Bertie pick up a basket and hobble to the truck. The fact that the soldiers were sitting in their tent, likely playing cards or napping, made her furious. An old man, one who could barely walk, was laboring right under their noses. And they did nothing. So before she lost her nerve, she marched to the tent and threw open the canvas door.

A soldier, reading a magazine, slapped the cover shut. His comrade shot up from lying on a cot.

“Get off your bahookies!” Susan’s pulse pounded in her ears.

Their faces flushed, as if a woman had just stepped into their shower room.

“Outside and help!” She pointed. “Otherwise, I will call your commander and report that you are sleeping on the job.”

The soldier, the one who had been reading the magazine, said, “You’ll do no such thing.”

“Yes, I will.” Susan placed her hands on her hips. “Or would you prefer me to make a call to Air Vice-Marshal Keith Park?”

The soldier’s jaws dropped. They glanced to each other, then scuttled outside.

Bertie, carrying a basket of pigeons, stopped and grinned. He watched the soldiers pick up baskets and walk toward the truck. “Nicely done,” he said, stepping to Susan.

“Can’t believe I did that.” She pulled in a lungful of air, attempting to calm her racing heart.

“The name-dropping was a nice touch, something I should have done. But I think it was your cussing that got the blokes moving.”

Susan’s shoulders relaxed. “Heard Granny use it once, or twice.”

“Always worked on me.” He smiled at Susan and returned to work. “Bahookie,” he chuckled to himself.

For the remainder of the morning, she and Bertie placed pigeons into baskets, while the soldiers, muttering occasional profanities, loaded them onto the truck. While the assembly line worked efficiently, Susan knew that the training runs would be the least of her worries. The big problem was the quota of an additional 500 pigeons. Inside the lofts, she selected every bird that was old enough and strong enough to fly the Channel, even though many of them had limited training. So, to ensure their guidance on the training run, she mixed in thirty or so veteran birds, fatigued from their return from France. By the time she was finished, the lofts were left with nothing but squabs and nesting mothers.