Soldier's Daughters (35 page)

Michelle’s blood pressure rocketed when she remembered that the blonde had called her a whore. The cheek of it! The blonde was a tart if ever she saw one. She ought to have slapped the bitch there and then, but she’d missed her chance. Michelle fumed and considered her next move. Texting Maddy didn’t seem to have worked and the doorstepping had been a bust. There had to be something she could do to peel that leech-like woman off Seb. She’d have to think about it.

Her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID. Her father. This was such a bad time for a call from him. She took a deep breath to try and calm down before she answered it.

‘Daddy.’

‘Hi, Michelle. I thought I’d ring to see what you’ve been up to.’

‘Oh, nothing much,’ she lied.

‘I wondered if you’re going to be around tomorrow?’

‘You coming down this way, then?’ They both knew that Michelle would never visit her father at home – not as long as her step-mother drew breath. Michelle knew this was a source of sadness to her father but she couldn’t – wouldn’t – change how she felt.

‘I’ve got a meeting at the MOD on Monday – really early. Whichever way I look at it I’m going to have to come down on Sunday, so I’ve either got to book myself into a mess in London, or, I thought, I could book into yours at Pirbright.’

‘I suppose,’ said Michelle. She loved her father, she did, even though he’d married That Bitch, but she wasn’t sure she wanted to see him at the moment. Perversely, although she wanted his attention more than anything in the world, she didn’t want it right now. Now was completely the wrong time for him to want to see her. What if he got into a conversation with the other mess members and they mentioned her rowing phase which had stopped as abruptly as it had started? Her dad was bound to ask questions, dig away. And if her answers weren’t satisfactory he’d keep digging some more and she knew she’d end up in shit creek. She could imagine his reaction if he found out about Seb. He’d disapprove, he’d get all sanctimonious, he’d tell her – as he’d done several times before in her life – that she was amoral, then he’d get angry with her and then they’d row… and all she wanted him to do was love her. Love her – not That Bitch. Not that smug woman who had stolen her father away from her, sent her away to boarding school and who had ruined her life.

‘So can I? Stay at your mess? Tell you what, I’ll take you out to dinner.’

Ah, dinner outside the mess. So maybe he wouldn’t get to talk to the other mess members in the evening, and if his meeting was early he’d be off at sparrow’s fart… result. ‘Yeah, of course Dad, I’ll book a table somewhere. I know some nice places in Bagshot.’

And maybe, when he saw her in situ, at her posting, getting saluted by the recruits, getting respect from the NCOs, he’d stop writing her off as a flake and a liability.

Maddy was starting to feel increasingly uncomfortable. The baby had obviously got itself into a really weird position and was pressing on bits of her she had never been aware of till now and it wasn’t helping her back pain either. She couldn’t stop herself from grimacing as she shifted the cushion behind her back to try and get comfortable. It didn’t help matters that Nathan had fallen asleep on her lap and was making her legs go to sleep. She thought about putting him down in his cot but couldn’t raise the energy to take him upstairs. Somehow it seemed easier to put up with the discomfort.

Jenna looked up from where she was sprawled on the sofa, watching a re-run of
Escape to the Country
, and saw her friend’s expression. ‘You all right, hon?’

‘Yeah. You know, hot, uncomfortable, the baby’s giving me gyp.’

‘Erm,’ said Jenna casually. ‘Look, I could be wrong but there isn’t something else going on, is there?’

‘Like?’

‘Well, you know, you’ve been in a lot of pain on and off today. It couldn’t be, you know… labour?’

Maddy snorted. ‘The baby isn’t due for weeks. Ages and ages. Of course it isn’t.’

‘Sorry,’ said Jenna. ‘What do I know?’

But even so, Maddy glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and casually logged the time. Of course it wasn’t labour, it couldn’t be… but she’d been feeling most odd, and the uncomfortable feelings had been all a bit… the same. And had they come at regular intervals?

‘Anyway,’ said Jenna. ‘Of course I’m being stupid. You’d know, wouldn’t you? I mean you’ve done it before.’

‘Sort of. I had to be induced because Nathan was late. One minute I was fat and pregnant, then they stuck a drip in my arm and I was straight into contractions every ten minutes. All the stuff I’d learned at the antenatal class about the early stages of labour went straight out the window, I can tell you. So, if I’m honest I haven’t got a clue about normal labour. But it can’t be – not six weeks early. Not when Nate was two weeks late.’

‘Of course it isn’t,’ said Jenna. ‘I was being silly and I shouldn’t have scared you. Blimey, you’ve had enough scares for one day without me making things worse.’

Maddy smiled. ‘It’s been a bit eventful, hasn’t it? I’m glad you’re here, though. I can’t tell you how reassuring it is to have a friendly face around.’

Immi was trying to brace up, she really was, but it was hot, her boots were giving her a blister and everything,
everything
, she encountered either bit, stung or scratched. She trailed behind Jack, keeping to the centre of a well-worn path, but the branches of the thorn threes seemed to be able to reach out and snag her even though she was sure she was giving them a wide berth. And because the scratches on her arms wept very slightly, the insects seemed to be extra attracted to her. Was it like sharks and drops of blood in the water? she wondered. In fact, she thought, knowing her luck, a sodding, huge, great white shark was probably about to leap out of a watering hole and take a chunk out of her. Why not? Every other fucking critter seemed to have done. She slapped her neck again as she felt the pinprick of yet another insect bite.

‘Are we nearly there yet?’ she asked.

Jack turned. He was laughing. ‘Are we nearly there yet?’ he mimicked. ‘That’s the sort of thing five-year-olds say.’

‘Bully for them,’ muttered Immi. She took another swig from her water bottle.

‘And yes, we are. Another few hundred yards. Look,’ he said.

‘At what?’ grumped Immi. The last time he’d told her to look it had been at a rat trundling off into the bush. She shivered at the thought. What kind of weirdo wanted to look at a rat? He’d said they weren’t like the rats in London. Really? Well, she for one wasn’t going to get close enough to find out.

‘There.’ He pointed at the sky, and she saw a little trail of blue smoke drifting upwards.

‘So?’

‘So it’s probably a cooking fire. In the village.’

Immi felt her spirits lift as she watched the smoke dissipate in the massive blue arc of sky. It really was quite close – maybe Jack was telling the truth.

A vicious pain lanced into her leg. ‘Aieee,’ she squealed and looked down and saw that she’d bumbled straight in to a dead branch from a thorn tree lying across the path. If only she’d looked where she’d been going. The spikes on it were all a couple of inches long. Absolutely fucking huge, so no wonder it had hurt. She pulled up the leg of her tropical combat trousers and saw blood was pouring down her shin from a series of puncture wounds. She blinked, trying to keep tears at bay. She really didn’t want to cry in front of Jack. He’d probably laugh again. But, jeez, it hurt.

‘That looks nasty,’ he said, a genuine note of concern in his voice.

His sympathy made Immi feel even more self-pitying. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied, swallowing down a sob.

‘Let me have a look.’

He crouched down. ‘I don’t think the thorns have broken off in your skin. I’m going to clean away the blood. Sit down,’ he ordered, as he knelt in the dust.

Immi parked her bum in the middle of the path. Jack lifted up her leg and rested it on his thigh, then unscrewed a bottle of water and poured half the contents over her shin. He wiped away the bloody residue with a clean hanky and peered closely.

‘I think you’ll live,’ he pronounced. ‘I bet it canes, though.’ He gave her a hug.

That was it. His sympathy tipped her over the brink and tears rolled down her face.

‘You poor thing,’ he said. ‘It’s all my fault.’ He still kept his arm around her shoulder.

Through her damp sniffs, Immi said, ‘How do you work that out, you daft bugger? I’m the one who didn’t look where I was going.’

‘It was my idea to drag you through the bundu.’

Immi found a tissue in her jacket pocket and blew her nose. ‘I didn’t have to come, though, did I?’ She brushed her fingers across her cheeks to wipe away her tears. ‘Bet I look dead minging now.’

Jack shook his head. ‘No, you look lovely.’

Immi looked unconvinced so he took his camera out and snapped a picture then showed her the image. ‘See?’

Immi peered at the little display. ‘Hmm. My eyeliner’s not run, that’s something, I suppose.’ She removed her leg from his thigh and pushed herself to her feet. She winced slightly as she put her weight on her injured leg.

‘Is it sore?’

She nodded. ‘A bit. Still, I don’t think I’m a candidate for Help for Heroes, so best I man up.’

Jack, encumbered by his camera equipment, clambered to his feet and then held his hand out to Immi. As they moved off on their journey their fingers were linked.

‘I suppose we ought to get going again,’ said Sam, as she tried to imprint on her memory the view from the top of the escarpment.

Beside her, Blake nodded. ‘If we’re going to get that genny there by nightfall, then, yes, ma’am.’

My God, thought Sam, he’s almost garrulous. She risked asking him a question. ‘Is that the Rift Valley down there?’ Given his GCSEs and the fact he’d been to Kenya before, she thought there was a fair chance he might know.

Blake shook his head. ‘No idea, ma’am.’ He paused, then he said, ‘There is something down there that might interest you.’

‘Yes?’

‘You see where the road comes off the hill? There.’ He was pointing into the middle distance.

Sam squinted and moved closer to Blake to try to look along his arm but he dropped his right arm and pointed with his left.

She had no idea what she was looking for. ‘Not really.’

Blake sighed. He sounded exasperated. ‘At the bottom. There’s two triangles of dust on either side of the road. See?’

Sam peered. Finally she saw what he was talking about. ‘Oh yes. And?’

‘There’s a tunnel under the road there. It’s for migrating elephants.’

‘No! You’re kidding!’ That nugget of information made her feel bizarrely cheerful. ‘How mad is that? A tunnel for elephants,’ she repeated. ‘Well I never.’ Then, impulsively, ‘Look, we’re going to be stuck in each other’s company for quite a while. I don’t mind knocking the formality on the head if you don’t.’ She smiled at him. ‘It’s Luke, isn’t it?’

Blake looked at her, his face stony, his eyes drilling into her, a muscle pulsing in his cheek. Sam had to force herself to return his gaze and feel the full heat of his anger. Then he said, ‘Actually, ma’am, it’s Corporal Blake. I earned my rank and I’m proud of it.’

‘I see…
Corporal
Blake.’

They both climbed back into the Rover and a few seconds later they were back on the road and heading down the hill, off the high plateau and onto the plain below. With each few hundred feet they dropped so the temperature climbed. From the balmy, almost temperate climate at the top, suddenly they were heading into an oven. Sam broke out a bottle of water and cracked it open. She took a swig and without thinking offered it to Blake. He shook his head.

‘If it’s all the same to you, ma’am, I’d rather drink out of my own bottle.’

Silently she reached into the back of the vehicle, got another bottle out of the case and handed it to him. Deliberately she didn’t crack the seal on the top. It was petty and childish, she knew, but it was no more than he deserved, she thought as she watched him struggle to open it single-handedly.

‘Watch out!’ she yelled. The Rover was heading off the road towards the rutted verge. Blake wrenched the wheel round and the vehicle lurched as it swerved back on course.

‘What the hell were you playing at?’ said Sam.

‘Sorry,’ mumbled Blake.

They zoomed over the top of the elephant tunnel but, disappointingly, there were no elephants to see, and then on and on they drove, over the mercilessly hot and flat and, frankly, quite boring plain to Archers Post. They passed a few things of interest and Sam found she couldn’t help exclaiming about some of them – the termite hills, the clumps of weaver birds’ nests, a spotted guinea fowl, and a warthog that trotted across the road, its spiky tail held high at a jaunty angle.

They pulled into Archers Post as the day was cranking up to about its hottest. The actual town of Archers Post was a small community on a wide, muddy river with a road running through the middle and a few shops and bars that fronted onto it. On one side of it was the Samburu Game Reserve and on the other side was the start of the training area and miles and miles of wilderness and scrub. The camp was outside the town in a fenced compound but whether it was to protect the locals from the soldiers or vice versa wasn’t clear. But this was where anyone who needed to be casevaced off the exercise would be sent initially for medical treatment. It was basically a staging post and where troops could laager up for the night and get final orders before moving off onto the ranges and start manoeuvres properly.

Blake zipped through the gates and onto the dusty track that led onto the ranges. Back off the metalled road he had to drop down the gears and slow down so they – and the Land Rover – weren’t shaken to bits.

‘How much further?’ asked Sam, hanging onto the side of the Rover with one hand and her seat belt with the other.

‘A couple of hours. We’ll be there before sundown.’

‘Excellent.’ She reached forward and took the map off the dash. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him flick a glance at her. Idly she traced the route across the range to the sappers’ camp. Then she laid the map on her lap and went back to admiring the scenery.