The Lives She Left Behind by James Long

looked down at the trees towards where she thought the trenches lay and knew the boy had come this way
before he fell.
    She heard Ali’s voice below. ‘Jo, come down. We mustn’t stay here.’
    They sat by the path looking out across a meadow but no one came that way. They talked about their stories and Jo agreed she would stand behind Ali and prompt her if she lost her way, but mostly
she sat quietly and let the other two talk because Gally was with her again, not speaking to her but with her, just as if she was sitting there on the grass. After a long time two uniformed
policemen came puffing round the hill, hot with hurry and with the weight of the signs they carried. They tied incident tape across the gateway and gave the girls unnecessary instructions about
going back to their camp by a safe route. Bomb Disposal would be along soon, they said, with the air of people privy to higher secrets and dangerous affairs.
    Back at the campsite, there was no sign of the teacher or the boy. Before supper, Rupert called them all together.
    ‘I’m really sorry to tell you this,’ he said, ‘but the dig’s over. We’ve found some sort of wartime bunker. I’ve been talking to the War Museum and they
think it’s part of the BRO network – that’s the British Resistance Organisation, put in place after Dunkirk when we thought Hitler was going to invade at any minute. It seems this
one got lost in the wash.’
    ‘What happens now?’ asked Dozer.
    ‘They’re going to make it safe. If possible they’ll remove the explosives, because the bunker is a pretty remarkable find. There’ll be a bit of work to do afterwards if
so but only for people who’ve done the right training. That’s seven of my students, basically, because we did the Lancaster bomber crash site last year.’
    Dozer grunted. ‘I could have sworn I was at Omaha Beach for the D-Day digs. Can’t have been me then, but there was a bloke who looked just like you, Rupe.’
    ‘I’m sorry, Dozer, I forgot you’re trained too. Of course you’re welcome to stay. I need all the help I can get, but I’m really sorry to say the rest of you will
have to leave first thing in the morning, so let’s make the best of it and have a good time tonight.’
    For all his words, the meal was a quiet affair full of anticlimax but afterwards, when the diggers were lying around the fire and the sticks began to crackle, Rupert passed
bottles of wine around the circle, clapped his hands and said, ‘Right, enough moping. Where’s tonight’s story?’
    There was silence, then Conrad said, ‘The girls are doing it, aren’t they?’
    Rupert couldn’t see them. ‘Are they here?’
    Three figures moved from darkness into firelight and the ring of flame-splashed faces turned to them in expectant silence. They wore masks cut from blue plastic and red tea-towel turbans wound
around their hair. There was an appreciative round of applause.
    Two stepped forward, one standing behind the other. ‘We have two stories for you tonight,’ said the one in front, ‘and each story is about a castle. I am the Lady Alicia and my
story is about the first earth castle from when the Normans came.’
    The Lady Alicia was very clearly Ali and she told them a tale of an old sword, dug up as they built the ramparts. She forgot her way once or twice and the girl behind her muttered words to get
her back on track, but the sword proved to have a mystical power which frightened the invading Normans, and the ghost of a long-dead British warrior made a timely appearance to free a prisoner
threatened with torture. The story came to an abrupt halt and when the audience was finally sure it wasn’t going to start again, they clapped.
    The two of them sat down and the third girl took her place. ‘I am the Lady Louisa,’ she said, ‘and my story is about the second castle and the wood they cut to build
it.’
    Her tale was of the Normans felling oaks for their new palisade and of the brave