Soldier's Daughters (12 page)

‘Oh, Sam, I’ve got to share this with someone. I’ve met this man.’

‘You lucky thing.’ Sam rubbed her head to try and minimise the throbbing. ‘More than I’ve done.’

There was a splort down the phone. ‘Pull the other one, Sam, you’re in an all-male battalion. You’re surrounded by men.’

‘Yeah, well…’ Sam dickered with the idea of telling Michelle that there was a bloke she half fancied but it was a bit early for that. Just good friends was really the only appropriate description of her and James. ‘Anyway, tell me about this bloke. Who is he, where did you meet? I want every detail.’

‘Well… where do I start? We met yesterday and he’s gorgeous and fit. And fit in the old sense too. Honestly, even his muscles have muscles, and he’s tall and did I say he was gorgeous?’

Sam laughed. ‘You might have mentioned that.’

‘And he’s called Bas and he rows and he’s teaching me how to row.’

‘You? Rowing?’ Sam couldn’t contain her amusement.

‘Yeah. And your point is? Just ’cos I usually avoid team sports… Anyway, Bas says I am perfectly built for it. Long limbs,’ added Michelle, smugly.

‘I suppose,’ conceded Sam.

‘And he’s clever and funny.’

‘Well, lucky old you, he sounds a catch.’

‘Well, I haven’t actually caught him yet, but, Sam, I really hope I do. He is gorgeous. Did I say that, because he really, really is.’

‘So, this gorgeous Bas bloke, what does he do?’

‘He’s a soldier. In fact, you probably know him; he’s with the Hertfordshire Regiment.’

‘Officer?’

‘Of course.’

Sam racked her brains. ‘Nope, no Bas. We don’t have a Bas in the battalion.’

‘You sure?’

‘Pretty positive.’

‘He must be with one of the other battalions or off doing a staff job somewhere.’

‘That’s probably it.’

‘Honestly, Sam, there I was in charge of all these hairy-arsed squaddies putting up tents and then this full-on Adonis pitches up and I thought I’d died and gone to heaven when I saw him. And we had a bit of a chat and then he bribed me with a promise of dinner if I had a go at rowing – and, well… I mean, what sane girl would turn down an offer like that?’

‘And your mental health has never been an issue,’ said Sam, dryly.

‘Indeedy. And then, well, let’s say I don’t mind being stuck here this weekend after all. Things are looking up.’ Michelle sighed, contentedly.

‘So all is rosy in Michelle-world.’

‘Well, things are certainly better than they were. I’m hoping now I’m going to make the squad of rowers so I get to see a lot more of him. And I mean a
lot
more of him.’ There was a pause. Sam suspected Michelle was busy imagining her new flame in the buff. ‘Oh, Sam, he is so wonderful. Honestly, if he’d invited me to spend last night in his tent at the lake I’d have been there like the proverbial rat up a drainpipe.’ There was another pause. ‘I’ve got it bad, haven’t I?’

Sam laughed. ‘Considering you probably haven’t even known him for a whole twenty-four hours, you certainly have! But I’m pleased for you, really I am. He sounds lovely… and gorgeous.’

‘He is, he is! And I know you’d agree with me if you met him too.’

‘Then we’ll have to fix something up. Try and stay out of trouble so you don’t pick up any more extras—’

‘Hey, that’s unfair… well, thinking about it, maybe not.’

‘And tell me when Bas can make it too and we’ll sort something out. Maybe, you never know, I might have found someone nice and we can have a double date.’

‘Ace idea. It sounds like a plan to me.’

Sam wasn’t the only person in the battalion feeling a little bored. Immi Cooper was also kicking her heels and wondering what on earth she could do. Unusually for her she was without a current boyfriend, which was why she was stuck on camp for the weekend. She had her elbows on the windowsill of her bunk and was staring at the view across the parade square. She supposed she could catch the bus into Warminster and go shopping, but she was finding it hard to raise the enthusiasm to do even that. She was about to fling herself down on her bed and read a magazine when she saw someone walking around the edge of the square. She recognised who it was. Luke! So he was stuck here too. Maybe the weekend wasn’t a dead loss after all. Maybe she could engineer a chance meeting… she’d take a trip to the corporals’ club later on and see if he popped in. It was time to put Operation Luke into action.

At lunchtime Immi strolled into the corporals’ club, bought herself a glass of red wine – ignoring the startled look the barman gave her – and carried it over to a quiet corner, away from the bar. There she extracted a pair of glasses and a book from her handbag and began to read. She’d Googled the top classic books of all time and had found the second on the list –
Pride and Prejudice
– in the garrison library. Surely Luke would be impressed. He ought to be, it had some fucking long words in it. Prejudice for starters. Who wanted to read a book where you had to eat a sodding dictionary before you could get a handle on it? On the other hand, she’d got the DVD up in her room so she didn’t have to read that much of it to find out what happened. But while she waited for Luke to turn up she’d have to make a stab at the opening pages.

God, it was dull. Where was the sex, the action, the plot? Her mind drifted away from the page. How long would she give it before she threw in the towel and returned to her room? She glanced at her watch and decided that if he hadn’t arrived by one o’clock she’d give up. She forced her attention back to her book. Come on, Luke, get a move on. This is as boring as fuck, she thought as she struggled through a few more pages. And reading it wasn’t made any easier by her glasses. They might have been the weakest easy-readers in the shop but they still made the words a bit blurry. She sipped her wine, pretending she was enjoying her sophisticated drink, while she tried to make sense of her book and kept a vague eye on the comings and goings in the bar to be sure she didn’t miss Luke.

‘Wotcha, Ims.’

Immi glanced up and whipped her glasses off. Des from B Company. Where had he sprung from? He was all right – good company and everything but not the man she was waiting for.

‘Hi, Des.’ She shoved her book into her lap. She knew Des – he’d rip the piss if he saw what she was reading.

‘Can I?’ he asked, looking at the spare seats at her table, and before she could answer he’d hooked a chair out with his free hand and plonked his beer on the table.

Immi gave him a look which she hoped he’d take as a hint he wasn’t welcome.

Des ignored it. ‘What’s with the face furniture, Ims? Didn’t know you wore glasses.’

‘I don’t.’ She corrected herself. ‘I mean, I don’t as a rule.’

‘Oh, contacts, then.’

Immi nodded.

‘Ever thought of having your eyes lasered?’

She shuddered. ‘Yuck.’

‘Honest, it’s brilliant. I had mine done. What they do is, they shove some drops in and then when your eye is numb, they laser open the cornea, flip it back—’

Immi held her hand up. ‘Stop! If you want to see what I had for my breakfast you’re going the right way about it.’

‘Squeamish?’

‘Des,’ said Immi sternly, ‘if I was into that sort of stuff, do you think I’d have chosen to be a clerk? I like sitting in a nice warm office, I like shuffling paper, I do not like getting wet, cold or muddy and I don’t like anything medical. Got it?’

‘Sorry,’ said Des, grinning at Immi’s rant. ‘I’ll get you a drink to make it up. What’s that?’

‘Red wine.’

Des started to laugh. ‘Red wine? You’re kidding me, right? And did I see you reading when I came in?’ He shot a hand across the table and fished the book off Immi’s knees before she could stop him. He glanced at the title and his eyebrows hit his hairline. ‘
Pride and Prejudice
? Red wine? Glasses? Come on, Ims, what’s your game?’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’

Des laughed harder. ‘Ims, don’t lie to Uncle Des. Who are you trying to impress?’

‘No one,’ she countered primly. ‘Why shouldn’t I read
Pride and
…
and
… whatever,’ she finished lamely. Des turned towards the others in the bar, brandishing the book, but Immi grabbed his arm and hauled it down to his side. ‘Shh, Des. Please.’

Des turned back and put the book on the table. ‘OK, I’ll keep quiet but only if you spill the beans.’

‘OK.’ She took a deep breath. She was beaten, she knew it. ‘It’s Luke, Luke Blake.’

Des made a face of complete disbelief. ‘You fancy Blake?’

Immi shrugged. ‘And? Why not?’ She stared at Des.

‘Because he’s weird, that’s why.’

‘Just because he’s got more brains than your average grunt doesn’t make him weird.’

‘And he’s always got his nose in a book, he doesn’t go out on the lash, he doesn’t get in fights, he doesn’t play
Call of Duty
…’

‘And your point is?’ said Immi.

‘He’s a soldier, in case you haven’t noticed, Ims. That’s what soldiers do. All of them. Except Blake. That’s why he’s weird.’

‘Well, I disagree,’ said Immi, firmly. ‘I think that makes him a bit more interesting, that’s all.’

Des shook his head. ‘Trust me, Immi, he’s not for you. Stick with guys like me.’ He blew her a kiss. ‘You know you want to really.’

Immi picked up her book and stuffed it back in her bag, drained the last drops of her wine and handed her empty glass to Des. At least if he was going to keep her company she was spared from reading Jane Austen. ‘Now, about that drink you offered me…’

She had to hope that Des would have the good sense, or the good manners, to bugger off if and when Luke did turn up.

‘That’s it, Michelle. Watch the angle of your blades.’ Bas was puttering along in a motor launch in the wake of the double scull that Michelle was rowing in with another female soldier. ‘And drive with your legs. Now, remember to pull your elbows through as you start to extract the oar from the water. Feather the blade, slide forward, catch and drive. Brilliant. Feather, recover, catch, drive.’ Bas repeated the mantra time and time again to keep the two girls in perfect rhythm as they swept along the rowing lake, their sculls dipping in and out of the water with the elegance of a swan in flight, leaving little puddles of ripples at perfectly evenly spaced intervals. ‘You’re doing fabulously,’ he called. ‘Keep it up and keep practising for another k or two while I go and help a couple of the other crews.’

‘He’s a slave driver,’ panted Michelle’s rowing companion, Katie.

Michelle could hear how laboured her breathing was and was heartened by the realisation that Katie was finding this as hard as she was. To take her mind off her thundering heart rate and her aching lungs she gazed across a few yards of water to Bas’s boat and fantasised, for a moment, about being seduced by him. God, what would it be like to feel his mouth on hers?

‘Hey,’ shouted Katie, a second before one of Michelle’s sculls clattered into her partner’s. The little boat lurched dangerously as Michelle almost overbalanced. ‘Watch it!’ shrieked Katie, afraid they were both going to end up in the icy water. They both let go of their sculls and clutched the sides of the tiny craft until the violent rocking settled and they recovered their equilibrium.

‘Sorry,’ puffed Michelle, half-collapsing with exhaustion. ‘I don’t know what happened there.’ She heaved in another lungful of air. ‘Lost my concentration for a second.’ She was glad that she was in the bow and thus Katie couldn’t see her face. Mind you, she thought, Katie would be hard pressed to spot a flush caused by embarrassment given that she knew she was sweating like the proverbial pig from all this thundering up and down Eton Dorney Lake. Rowing might look almost effortless if you were watching it but the reality of being a participant was somewhat different. The muscles in her legs were trembling with fatigue and her shoulders and upper arms were burning.

‘Let’s take a breather for a minute,’ gasped Michelle, slumping forward over her oars.

‘Good shout… A couple of minutes… and we can… go again.’ Katie’s words came out in groups of two or three between heavy breaths.

The boat lay still on the water as the two girls recovered, but after about thirty seconds the light breeze began to chill them down.

Michelle shivered. ‘Let’s go before we freeze,’ she said. ‘But let’s take it steady; concentrate on technique, not speed.’

They pushed their hands forward so their blades were in the water as close to the bow of the boat as they could get them, their knees hauled up against their chests, then Katie, as stroke, said, ‘And drive…’

They pulled on the oars, their sliding seats rolling backwards as their feet pushed as hard as possible against a metal plate, and the boat shot forward. Michelle followed Katie’s movements as closely as she could, extracting and feathering her blades in unison with her team mate.

‘And drive,’ called Katie again. The pace was slower than when Bas had been spurring them on, but Michelle reckoned their style was tidier.

They completed another kilometre along the lake and wound up back at the boathouse end feeling completely knackered.

Bas was standing on the pontoon ready to greet them as they pushed their oars onto the jetty and began to climb shakily out of the little craft, which rocked wildly.

‘Here,’ said Bas, leaning down and holding out his hand to Michelle.

She took it and felt a bolt of something powerful – electricity? Lust? Animal magnetism? – course right through her. Involuntarily, she glanced up at his face; had he felt it too? Given the way he was staring at her with wide, dark-eyed intensity, she was sure he had. She thought of the Michelangelo painting in the Sistine Chapel where God’s finger points at Adam’s and brings him to life, and suddenly understood how Adam must have felt at that moment. Bloody hell… she felt rocked to the core.

‘How are you settling in?’ asked Jenna as she held out a gown for Sam to slip on.

‘Yeah, fine, I suppose.’

‘Dan says you had a bit of an accident the other day. Wound up in the medical centre.’

Sam nodded and touched her head. ‘Yeah, and I’ve still got a bloody great bruise. Just here…’ she indicated the spot ‘…so if you could go carefully round it, I’d be grateful.’