by Fiona Field
Michelle stopped in her tracks. ‘God, you are such a genius, Sam. Respect.’
The plan worked and shortly after the party, which was a roaring success, Michelle’s warning was removed.
‘I’m back in the game,’ she announced, skipping into Sam’s room without knocking.
‘Phew. Just make sure it stays that way,’ said Sam. ‘It’s all about survival and doing what it takes to get to the end.’
She had a vested interest in Michelle’s survival – when Michelle got into trouble she sometimes caused a lot of collateral damage, and Sam had no desire to be caught up in the fall-out if Michelle screwed up. Michelle was huge fun, wonderfully generous and kindness itself, but she was wild and impetuous and often acted before she’d considered the consequences – and with Michelle, Sam knew, the consequences could be serious, unforeseen and far-reaching.
In the meantime, they had the rest of their second term to get through, although with regard to their skills, experience and ability they’d come a zillion miles from their starting point the previous September. Sam felt as if they had been climbing a mountain, concentrating on plodding upwards, one foot in front of the other, eyes only on the path ahead, and now they were allowed to turn around and look at the view. And to see how far they’d come was stunning. She knew that, as a result, they all stood a little taller, their backs were a little straighter, and they held their chins an inch higher.
Their progress through the Sandhurst mill continued, punctuated by days of real fun, like when they were taken for a week’s adventurous training, to times of utter torment, when they were on a field exercise for days in one of the coldest and wettest Februaries on record. But they survived and, with each challenge they overcame, their own Sovereign’s Parade came closer. The lectures, the fitness training, the drill, the fieldcraft and all the other military skills they would one day need continued and then suddenly they were allowed another two weeks’ leave and on their return they were the senior intake. Wide-eyed juniors looked up to them with real respect, and even the attitude of the training officers was friendlier. Now, instead of being knocked into shape, they were being polished to a final, shimmering finish. Military tailors arrived at the Academy to fit them for their uniforms and the various corps and regiments of the army sent representatives to interview the cadets, to see which ones they wanted to select to join their ranks.
It was with trepidation that Sam waited to be called for her interview with the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers to see if they thought her worthy of becoming a REME officer. And if they didn’t…?
Michelle’s goal of becoming a helicopter pilot had taken a huge knock as she’d failed the aptitude test. Sam had wondered privately if Michelle’s ambition hadn’t been a bit of a stretch – given the fact she couldn’t even drive a car, having twice failed her test – but it didn’t make Michelle’s disappointment any less devastating.
‘So, what are you going to do now?’
‘Stick pins in models of helicopters.’
‘Seriously?’
Michelle sighed. ‘I don’t know. Join some outfit that’ll have me and have another go later. Maybe I’ll take some private flying lessons.’
Sam didn’t state the obvious – that maybe Michelle ought to have done that before. But that was Michelle all over – wise, after the event. ‘So what appeals?’
Michelle sighed yet again and slumped back in the armchair in her bedroom. ‘If there’s one thing all these field exercises here have taught me it’s that I am not a fan of being wet, cold and miserable—’
‘Who is?’ interrupted Sam with feeling.
‘Hence wanting to be a pilot; all cocooned in a nice little Plexiglas bubble with climate control, no yomping across moors, no lugging one’s own body weight in kit… I suppose if I can’t do that I need to look at something office-based. Admin-fodder, I suppose.’
‘You’d be great at that. You’re so good at that HR and personnel stuff.’
‘You mean I’m crap at everything else?’
‘You said it,’ said Sam with a grin.
Michelle reached behind her for a cushion, which she threw at Sam. ‘At least I won’t be a garage mechanic.’
‘Maybe I won’t either.’ After all, her best mate had failed at what she wanted to do, so there was no guarantee that she would be granted her wish.
Sam needn’t have worried, although for a fortnight, until she heard, she’d felt sick with apprehension every time she’d considered the possibility that the REME mightn’t think her good enough. But when she finally got the news that she could join the corps of her choice it made her feel floppy with relief.
The day of Sovereign’s Parade was overcast and cool but it was better that way. Who wanted to be standing in blazing sun for the duration? She and Michelle checked each other’s appearance before they were inspected by their colour sergeant, then their platoon commander and finally the company commander. From windows at the front of Old College they could see the stands on the far side of the parade ground filling up with the friends and relatives of those about to receive their commissions. Somewhere in amongst the smart business suits, uniforms, dresses and hats was Sam’s father.
And then the moment came to march onto the parade ground, the band playing jaunty tunes, and Sam knew that the past forty-eight weeks of near hell had been more than worth it. The sense of achievement was overwhelming and when she and her peers finally marched up the steps and through the double doors, followed by the Academy Adjutant on his white horse, she was thankful she had her back to the crowds as tears of relief and pride streamed down her face, making her mascara run in a trickle of black smears.
Once through the door and in the gloom of the main hall, she and Michelle hugged and cried. They’d done it.
And later her father told her he was proud. He mightn’t have told her he loved her, but it was a start.
3
The consequence of their success was that Sam and Michelle would be separated again. After a fortnight’s leave Sam was going off to the army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering to complete her platoon commander’s course and Michelle was going to Winchester to, as she put it, ‘learn how to fill in forms’.
‘But we can see each other at weekends,’ said Sam.
‘Every weekend,’ said Michelle.
Possibly not, thought Sam. They’d have work to do. Just because they’d made it through Sandhurst it didn’t mean they were home and dry. And in her case, if she didn’t pass her young officers’ course for the REME, her career plans could yet go horribly wrong. This was no time to start slacking and thinking that every weekend for the next few months was going to be free.
‘We may have to work,’ she said tentatively.
The two girls were sitting side by side on Sam’s stripped bed in her now-empty bedroom. The walls, which had been covered with posters and pictures, were bare, the ironing board had gone, folded flat and stowed in the boot of her dad’s car, along with suitcases, bulging with the rest of her civvy and army kit, and her uniforms, in their suit carriers, laid carefully on top. Her father and Henry Flowers had gone on a tour of Sandhurst, a trip down memory lane for both of them, leaving their daughters to say their farewells and gather their last bits and pieces together.
‘I am so going to miss this,’ said Sam.
‘Bet you never thought you’d be saying that last September,’ said Michelle.
‘Shit, no. That first month was so awful.’ The pair lapsed into silence as they considered it.
‘God, I got some bollockings,’ said Michelle.
Yes, you did, thought Sam. But then they all did.
‘Do you remember the time I had that negligent discharge?’ said Michelle.
‘How could I forget?’ said Sam. Firing a gun by accident was about the worst thing a soldier could do. ‘Shit, if the sergeant major had twigged you really had had an ND can you imagine the bawling out?’
‘I’d have been on a charge, for
sure. I still don’t know how I had the presence of mind to loose off a whole magazine and yell for everyone to “stand to”.’
‘Listen,’ said Sam, ‘doing that covered it up. Not that the sergeant major was convinced. He didn’t half give you a hard stare but he couldn’t prove otherwise.’
‘No, he couldn’t,’ said Michelle, with a giggle. ‘Sandhurst has taught me a zillion things but thinking on my feet is the main one.’
‘Except in this instance you were lying on your stomach in a puddle.’
‘With my elbow in cow poo.’
‘And people think army officers are glamorous.’
‘They do? Bonkers,’ said Michelle, giggling more.
Sam’s father stuck his head into the room. ‘You girls aren’t still gassing, are you? I don’t want to get stuck on the M25.’
‘Yeah,’ said Sam. She gazed about her room. ‘Time to go, I suppose. End of an era.’
‘Nah,’ said Michelle. ‘Start of a journey.’
Sam’s faint hope that her father’s slight unbuttoning might be the start of a change in their relationship faded almost instantly. When she’d suggested it would be nice if he came with her to her grandparents’ place in Devon he’d insisted it would be impossible to get leave. Sam supposed she ought to be grateful he’d taken time off to see her get her commission. Not that she minded about spending time with her grandparents; as always, as soon as she’d stepped through the door, she’d been almost swamped by a virtual comfort-blanket of love, spoiling and home-made scones and jam. From the instant she’d arrived, her granny and grandpa had wanted to know everything about the course and her plans, so she’d given them the expurgated version of life at Sandhurst, omitting the awfulness of some of the exercises and having to shit in the woods like a bear, and the new words and phrases she’d learned from the NCOs who had been less than impressed with her performance with a bayonet. On the positive side she’d been able to tell them all about the parties, the commissioning ball and about the new focus in her life, the REME, and what working for them would entail.
‘Your dad must be so proud,’ said her gran. She looked up from the saffron cake she was making for their tea.
Sam nodded. Well, he had been, for a minute or two, but she didn’t want to tell her gran that, even after twenty-three years, life with her father could still be pretty bleak. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think he is.’
Her gran wasn’t a fool and picked up on the momentary hesitation. ‘I know you never got to meet your dad’s folks but they were much the same; not a family to show emotions. You’d think they imagined the world would end if anyone even thought of wearing their heart on their sleeve. And a life spent in the army can’t have helped your father in that respect either.’
‘Not much hope for me, then,’ said Sam. ‘Same genes, same career choice.’ She said it as a joke but there was a niggle of worry at the heart of the glib sentence.
‘Ach, don’t be daft. You’re your mother’s child through and through. It was a shame she was taken so young. If anyone could have softened up your dad it was her.’ She stared at the mixing bowl for a second, deep in thought. Sam’s father might have lost his wife but Gran had buried her own child. Then, falsely brightly, ‘And how’s your little friend Michelle?’ She began to beat some eggs into the sugar and butter.
‘She’s not little. She huge, almost six foot.’
‘She’ll always be little to me.’ Which was rich as Sam’s gran wasn’t more than five two at the most. ‘I haven’t seen her for…’ Gran did the sum. ‘Ooh, it must be over ten years. She was a cheeky little madam.’
‘She hasn’t changed much. She’s still thin, she’s still got big brown eyes and amazingly thick dark hair, only now she’s not all gangly, now she’s more like a super-model. She is so pretty. If I didn’t love her so much I’d hate her.’
Gran began to pour the cake mixture into the loaf tin. ‘She always had the makings of a beauty, that one. Is she getting on any better with her step-mum? You know, I never thought there was much wrong with her father’s second wife. Why Michelle took against her I never really understood. Of course, I never knew her birth mother so maybe I’m talking out of turn.’ Gran scraped the very last of the mixture into the tins and then gave the bowl to Sam. ‘I suppose you’ll want to lick this out.’
Sam took the bowl and ran her finger around then sucked off the goo while she wondered if maybe she wasn’t in agreement with her gran about Michelle’s antipathy to her step-mother. She remembered the first time she’d gone to stay with Michelle, back when she’d been about eight. Michelle had filled her head with stories about the WSM – the wicked step-mother – and Sam was honestly expecting to meet some fairy-tale horror like Cinders’s or Snow White’s awful ones. Instead she found a perfectly pleasant woman who seemed to want to make Sam’s stay as nice as possible.
‘She’s not so bad,’ she’d remarked to Michelle after the first day.
‘You are joking,’ Michelle had screeched. ‘Can’t you see it’s an act? She’s only being nice to you because you’re an outsider. You don’t know anything about her. It’s all because of her that Dad keeps having a go at me. She puts him up to it, I know.’
Sam had been a bit shocked at Michelle’s reaction and hadn’t dared say anything again since. But she’s always had a niggling feeling that maybe Michelle had made up her mind from the get-go that the second Mrs Flowers was the Bitch-Queen from Hell and, having done so, couldn’t ever be seen to change her mind.
Maybe, just maybe, it was Michelle who was so unreasonable and her father’s exasperation at the situation was the reason he got so irritated by Michelle. But then, thought Sam, no one really knew what went on in other people’s families so she might have completely misjudged the situation. Anyway, it was none of her business.
After their leave the two women had to attend special-to-arm training courses before finding out where their first postings as commissioned officers would be.
‘Where are you off to?’ said Michelle over the telephone the evening after she’d been informed of the army’s plans.
‘The Light Aid Detachment of 1 Herts – it’s the repair centre in the battalion for all their vehicles and kit.’
‘And aren’t they based somewhere in Kent?’
‘They were. Apparently they’re being arms-plotted to Salisbury Plain. Warminster, to be precise.’
‘You happy about that?’
‘Very. I’ll have command of my own little unit. It’ll be bloody brilliant. How about you?’
‘Remember what I said my worst posting could be?’
‘What, training recruits?’
‘Exactly. So guess where I’m being sent?’
‘No.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m going to the training regiment at Pirbright. I’m going to be a platoon commander.’
‘Get away.’
‘It’s going to be awful. You have to be perfect all of the time – always setting an example, always toeing the line. It’s a punishment posting.’
‘I’m sure it isn’t.’
‘Huh,’ said Michelle, gloomily.
‘You’ll be fine,’ said Sam, stoutly. ‘You’ll be a great example to the recruits. Honest.’ But in her heart she knew that maybe Michelle was right; maybe she had been sent there as a punishment, to a place where she would have to shape up and where there were lots more senior officers to keep an eye on her, to stop her careering off course.
4
It wasn’t just Michelle and Sam who were on the move. The whole of 1 Herts was packing up to go, lock, stock and a whole armoury full of barrels. There was, of course, a certain amount of grumbling, especially from the soldiers. Infantry soldiers’ default setting is griping and bitching, and anything which annoys them sets them off; being uprooted and sent across the country to a new barracks for no apparent reason was more than enough to start them ticking like clocks. And it wasn’t only the soldiers who were belly-aching; the wives were pissed off too. They
had thought they were going to be in Kent for the duration, well, the foreseeable future anyway, and so the news that they were having to up-sticks and traipse across the country to Wiltshire hadn’t been greeted with enthusiasm. And as it wasn’t just the families moving quarters but every office, every department, every scrap of military kit too, the planning was eye-watering and had involved hours of overtime for all the military, leaving their spouses to sort out the domestic arrangements single-handedly. For days the married patches had been full of removal vans as the families had, one after the other, been marched out of their quarters and then trailed westwards like some modern-day wagon train of settlers – or refugees.
Maddy Fanshaw had been one of the first wives to go and now she was in her new quarter. In, but not unpacked. Once again she surveyed the mountain of boxes, tried to raise the energy to make a start on getting straight, failed and sighed. She thought she’d got her life back on track, and now the army had thrown a spanner in the works. Actually, not a spanner – the whole sodding tool box. She’d managed to get herself back in full-time employment after having a baby when, only weeks later, Seb, her infantry captain husband, had come home one evening and told her about the move.
‘What? Everyone?’ said Maddy, sitting down on the sofa.
Seb nodded. ‘Yup, every last man-jack of us.’
‘When?’
‘Four months’ time.’
Maddy had stared out the window, willing herself not to cry. After months of dealing with the boredom of being unemployed, sleepless nights and a colicky baby, everything in her life had seemed to be almost perfect, and then, wham! Thanks very much.
So here she was again surrounded by packing cases, waiting to be emptied. At least, she thought, trying desperately to look on the bright side, this move wasn’t as ghastly as the last one; Seb was around to help, Nate wasn’t too badly behaved for a one-year-old and this house, on first impressions, was nicer than the previous one. But moving still meant upheaval and that she was, yet again, unemployed.