Dean approached his second tour with a mixture of exhilaration and dread. He knew what it was like to feel the scorch of heat on his back. He had picked up fallen comrades and lived through the nightmares that stalked his sleep. For him and those like him, the war was a more subdued affair. It was more than a vocation. It was a deep-rooted brotherhood that bound them all together and made them want to stand side by side and protect each other. That was what carried them when Hell raged.
Andy was learning to control his thoughts about Sam, visiting them only when he was at leisure to do so. Dean hadn’t mentioned her once since their arrival and Andy hoped that no stronger feelings could be created between them while he was gone. So he trained and he learned and prepared himself for what was to come.
As the first glimpses of spring took hold on the quiet, peaceful fields of England, the men of 9 Rifles were busy in a muddy ditch preparing for war. Their time in pre-deployment training was almost at an end, and the calm of inevitability descended upon them.
“How’s it going with you and ‘lover boy’ then?” Kate asked several weeks later.
“Fine… I think,” Sam replied.
“Fine? That doesn’t sound very good. I was hoping for something more like ‘fab’, or ‘great’, or ‘smoking!’”
“I don’t know. I haven’t heard from him in weeks. Don’t get me wrong, he’s great- I just sometimes feel a little in the dark…inadequate, even.”
“Inadequate?”
“You know. He’s so… perfect.”
“He is good looking, I’ll give you that, but…”
Sam gestured to her own body. “But look at me.”
“What? Hell you’re no fatso yourself. You do all that cycling to and fro, all over the place. You’re in better shape than I’ll ever be and I’ve never had a guy complain about the state of my body. You’re fine, Sam. Your taste in men sucks, almost as much as your taste in music, if I’m honest. But you’re smart, way smarter than me. Look at you. You went to university for Christ’s sake and have a real job, not like me. I’m still bumming around and living with my mum.”
Sam cleared her throat and held up her hands.
“I know, but you’ll be out of here soon. I’ll still be living at home when I’m 40.”
Sam smiled.
“Of course I’m not saying it wouldn’t hurt you to brighten yourself up a bit now and again. Keep them on their toes.” Kate stood up. “You’ve got to be like, ‘Hey boy, this is what you’ll be missing out on if you don’t treat me right’.” She nodded at Sam, who burst out laughing.
“I wish I had your confidence,” Sam said.
Kate sat down again. “Just think of men as mischievous puppies. They need plenty of ground rules, a slap if they misbehave and loads of affection and treats if they do things right. Remember that and you’ll have hordes of them eating out the palm of your hand.”
“But I don’t want hordes of them. I just want one good one: a nice, kind, decent man, who’s easy on the eye and reliable. I want a little house with a bit of garden and two or three kids.”
Kate’s mouth gaped open. “I so do not want any of that. I’ll tell you what. I’ll trawl through all the guys out there and if I find a boring one who fits the bill I’ll pass him over to you, okay? I want to live a little before I die. I want to travel, see the world. I want to get pissed in seventeen different countries and get thrown out of at least two.”
“Good grief,” said Sam. “How are you going to manage all that? Sleep your way around Europe?”
Kate feigned shock. “No. I’m going to win the lottery,” she said.
“But you don’t even play the lottery.”
“Then I’ll find myself a rich man,” Kate concluded.
“Hussy!”
“Mouse!” Kate shot back.
The two girls grinned and giggled. “I can’t imagine you married with kids,” Kate said. “You’ve still got a rag doll.”
“Says the girl with the Zac Efron bedding,” Sam replied.
“Tea’s ready, girls,” Sam’s mum called up the stairs and Kate looked at her watch and got to her feet.
The two girls peered round the door of the dining room.
“Kate, love, there’s plenty enough for you as well, if you want to stay,” Mrs Litton said. Kate looked at Sam, who nodded eagerly. Mrs Litton smiled. “Give your mum a ring and make sure it’s okay.” Kate stepped out of the room.
“I left your cheque on the dresser this morning, Mum. Did you get it?” Sam asked, passing the salt and pepper from the sideboard to her mother by the table.
“Yes thanks, love. And do you want me to pick up a paper in the morning again? See if there’s anything new?”
“Haven’t we got rid of her yet?” her dad asked, walking in with the large dish from the oven and winking at his wife.
“No. I’ll probably still be here when you’re sixty, Dad. Sorry,”
A groan escaped her dad’s mouth but he smiled. Kate walked back in. “Knowing my luck Kate’ll still be with us too,” he said.
Mrs Litton bashed him and he smiled mischievously. “Don’t you take any notice of him, love. Did your mum say it was all right?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Take a seat and ignore the grumpy one over there. He loves having you here, both of you. Don’t you? Now who wants some shepherd’s pie?”
Sam’s dog, Humphrey, trotted in.
“Oh no you don’t,” Mrs Litton said. “Sam, put him in the living room while we eat, love. You know I won’t have him near the food.”
Sam walked Humphrey out to the living room, where his basket lay in the corner beside one of the armchairs. It was small and smart with a tartan blanket folded up neatly inside to make it soft. Up in her bedroom Sam had a squidgy old soft bed for him, but one of the conditions of her being allowed a dog in the house was that her mum’s living room would still look ‘presentable’. Sam told him to get in and lie down and then stroked his head affectionately. “You only had your tea an hour ago, Humph. You can’t possibly be hungry again yet. Good boy.” She walked away without a backward glance. She was hopeless at resisting the sad eyes he turned on her whenever he wanted something and had learned it was better simply not to look.
“So, Kate, what exciting things have you been up to recently?” Mr Litton asked over dinner.
“Oh you know… um…”
“Still no luck on the job front then?”
“No. I’ve got a bit of casual work next week. I’m helping out in a warehouse for a couple of weeks while they get a big order through, but that’s all. But, I did hear through the grapevine that Sally who works at the leisure centre is pregnant, so fingers crossed, there might be some work coming up there soon!”
“Well at least that’s something. And what about you, Sam? Has Jimmy managed to drive the music teacher to drink yet?”
Sam smiled. “Close, I think. No. Nothing exciting really.”
“Apart from pining after Dean,” Kate added, and Sam kicked her under the table. “Ow!”
“What’s this?” Sam’s dad put down his knife and fork. “Sam? You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend?” He looked at his wife for her reaction, but she looked just as surprised as him.
Sam cringed. She had been trying to keep the whole thing under wraps. The last time her mum and dad had got involved; it complicated matters, so she had wanted to keep this one to herself. And Kate knew that!
“Is it anyone we know?” her mum asked.
“No. I don’t think so.”
“His name is Dean Fletcher. His parents live next door to me,” Kate offered, and promptly received another sharp blow to her ankle for her troubles. “Ow!”
“Dean?” Mrs Litton said.
“He’s a soldier.”
“A soldier?” Mr Litton seemed a little more wary.
“I’m going to kill you,” Sam said under her breath, and Kate grinned.
“That’s not your usual type,” her dad said.
; “It’s no big deal,” Sam said trying to calm the excitement down. “We haven’t been going out long.”
“Two months,” Kate mouthed.
“And are we going to meet this young man?” her dad asked.
“Not for a while,” Sam said. “He’s off to Afghanistan in a few weeks.”
“Oh.” The mood changed.
“What’s he like, Kate?” Mrs Litton asked.
In an instant Sam was put aside and Kate was asked to describe Dean to her parents. Afghanistan, Sam thought. Yes, that was something of a conversation-stopper. Only a few more days and he would be back from training and getting ready to go out. Sam looked up.
“Well, at least if he’s on the other side of the world I won’t have to worry how he’s treating you, will I?” her dad said.
“Dad!”
“I’m sorry, but that Rick fellow was bad news, Sam. He treated you exceedingly badly and you refused to see it. I guess you were just too young and too besotted.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Now look what you’ve started.”
“Sorry,” Kate whispered back, unconvincingly. “We’re just trying to look after you, love,” said her mum.
Sam’s dad changed the subject and the meal continued. At the end Mr Litton thanked Kate for staying to tea and told her she was welcome to come again anytime. Sam declared that she was not.
Kate left soon after. Sam waved her off and then took Humphrey upstairs again. She sat down on her bed and thought back to the last time she had seen Dean.
It had only been a quick visit. Dean had turned up at her school five minutes after the bell and surprised her while she was clearing up the classroom at the end of the school day. Sam had felt awkward when Dean started to make a move on her while people were still in the building. Dean had been very persuasive, obviously turned on by the whole schoolmistress thing. Had she been a different person, Sam might have had a great time. Nobody surprised them, no one even came in after he had gone, but it was all too stressful for Sam and eventually Dean gave up trying and left.
Sam finished tidying the classroom and battled with the guilty feeling that she was probably a disappointment as far as girlfriends were concerned. Oh well, she thought at last, there was nothing she could do about it now. Hopefully she could make amends when he got back from training in a couple of weeks.
Sam got up from her bed and walked over to where her big flower press lay on a pile of large books on the floor. Soon, she thought. Soon she would find a house of her own and then she would have a place for everything. She picked up the flower press and lugged it over to the bed. She sat down and patted the space beside her. Humphrey needed no second bidding. He jumped up and made himself comfortable. Sam hugged him to her and then played with his ears. “If only all men were as easy to love as you, Humph,” she said.
Sam carefully opened up the press and counted out the flowers she had saved there. Thirty-two. Good, that gave her one each for every child in her class and a few left over for mishaps, and knowing little Jimmy Richards there were bound to be mishaps. She had seen her flowers turned into crowns, fairies, the sun and endless footballs, but it was those with the imagination to see beyond the obvious that always excited her. She closed the press again and placed it onto her desk with her school diary and the verse she had written out about flowers to go on the classroom wall. She sat back down. “Do you want to go for a walk, Humph?” Humphrey was on his feet in a flash, his stubby little tail wagging eagerly. “Come on then, let’s get out of here.”
Dean called Sam once after he got back from training and Sam asked for his address out in Afghanistan, but despite him giving it to her, he was still too busy to catch up. The time passed when he was due to leave and Sam had heard nothing. She wrote, not too emotionally, as she was still a little unsure about whether he would actually get the letter and who else would see it on the way. There was no reply.
Nearly three weeks passed and still she heard nothing. In place of eager anticipation, she greeted the fall of the mail each day on the mat with the resigned habit of just checking.
On Wednesday, Sam had had a particularly wearing day in school. Jimmy Richards had been caught stealing another child’s tooth to try and extort extra money out of the tooth fairy. Bethany-May had managed to make her whole group of friends hysterical in front of a school inspector over a class pet hamster who had somehow been let out of his cage, (by whom she had yet to determine) and to cap it all off, Peter Davies chose that very same day to bring up his entire lunch all over Lucy Eccles’ lovely long hair.
Sam walked into the house and dropped her bike helmet and bag to the floor. Her mum walked out of the kitchen to greet her. “Oh. As bad as that, was it?”
“Worse.”
Sam’s mum ushered her inside and sat her down with a cup of tea while she heard all about Sam’s miserable day. She tried very hard not to laugh, but by the end of the tale even Sam could see the funny side of things and she felt a whole lot better. “It’s all right for you,” she said. “You only had one child to deal with, I’ve got 28 and Jimmy’s got to count for at least two.”
Mrs Litton laughed. “I’m sorry, dear, but you just couldn’t write the stuff you come home with,” she said, composing herself again.
“Something smells nice,” Sam said.
“Baked ham,” her mum told her.
Sam sniffed at her hands. “Ugh! I stink of sick.”
Mrs Litton smiled and told Sam to go for a nice warm shower and wash her hair as there was plenty of time before tea.
The following day, all was well with the world again. Mary Appleby had a nice shiny fifty pence piece from the tooth fairy, all the pets stayed safely contained and no one was sick over anyone else. Sam cycled home feeling much better about the world. Her job was great, she had a lovely family and the weather was finally starting to feel like spring.
Sam got in and hung up her things. She found her mum sat at the dining room table with the local paper spread out in front of her.
“Anything interesting?” Sam asked.
“There might be actually, yes.”
Sam walked around the table and looked over her mother’s shoulder. Mrs Litton pointed to a terraced house, on the other side of town, with a tiny front garden and next to a street light. Sam looked at the price and then read on.
“What do you think?” her mum asked.
“Well, yes. It looks okay, doesn’t it?”
“Shall we have a drive past and nose about this weekend?”
“Yeah, why not.” She grinned excitedly. Have you got anything sorted out for tea?” she asked.
“Not yet. Your dad rang a short while ago. He’s popping round to Uncle Gerald’s after work, to help him with his car, so it’s just the two of us tonight.”
“Great. Let’s get a Chinese. My treat.”
“What a good idea, but I’ll pay. You can pay when we go to your house for tea.”
Sam laughed. “I won’t be able to afford a Chinese once I’ve got my own place.”
“So, we’ll eat beans on toast. But tonight, I’m paying.”
Half way across the world, Andy was settling into life in theatre. It was a basic way of life, with few of the luxuries of modern living that most people take for granted. Boredom was commonplace and the food, by necessity, was uninspiring.
The vast expanse of sky had been the first thing to hit him when he stepped off the plane in Kandahar. It had been the middle of the night but the sky was clear and it was hung with a myriad of stars. The atmosphere had changed perceptibly en route, with the excitement of the beginning of the flight subduing by mid-flight and then replaced with a more contained sense of tension by the end.
The empty stretchers on the plane had been a chilling reminder of where they were heading. When they transferred onto the Hercules for the short stretch to Helmand, donning helmets and body armour for a blacked-out approach, the adrenaline had definitely begun to flow.
Camp Bastion, in northern Helmand,
was the closest to civilisation they had, with its facilities and air-con pods, but it carried with it its own shadows. The hospital for all the casualties was based there too. But for now, home was a forward operations base to the south near Lashkar Gar.
This was a compound that had been deserted by fleeing locals during some fierce fighting a couple of years before. Andy looked around him at his fellow soldiers. They were all back safe. Relief was expressed in the whoops and cries of the men in his team as they dispersed to their various corners and took off their kits.
Andy checked in with the guys who had been on guard that day, to see if there had been any more contact while they were away. There hadn’t. He looked about him. Piles of water bottles were stacked up under a tarp in one corner and Andy wished he could dive in and bathe in every single one. He was filthy. Dust had got in everything. Mud caked around the bottom of his legs from crossing the drainage ditches and tacking in and out of the fields. It baked hard in the sun as he walked and added to the considerable weight he carried around with him. He took off his helmet and started to remove his body armour. Tomorrow was their turn to man the base while the other team ventured out, so he could wash his clothes in the morning and they would dry out in the heat of the day. He checked his rifle and made sure it was clean and then went in search of food.
The following day they took a delivery of mail, one of the highlights of the week for most of them, but Andy didn’t lose too much sleep looking forward to it. A letter from his mum every couple of weeks and the odd parcel was the most he could expect. However, if one of the lads happened to have a birthday while they were there, you never knew what treat might wing its way over to them.
He decided to take personal responsibility for distributing the mail that day. He wandered through the compound calling out the names and delivering the post to each in turn. Some men got loads. Andy assumed they must have a harem back home constantly writing to them, while others got only one or two. Where they were, they received deliveries of mail about once a week. In larger bases there was internet communication, but he knew from experience that those in other more remote posts had it worse. He shoved his letter from his mother into his pocket and carried on calling out the names.
The Songbird and the Soldier Page 3