Soldier's Daughters

by Fiona Field

  Alan took off his beret and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘OK, you obviously know a lot more about Luke than me, maybe you could fill me in.’

  ‘Of course – as soon as you tell me why you’re here.’

  ‘Sure.’

  Peter moved towards the kitchenette that led off the living room. ‘Brew?’

  ‘Please. Milk and two.’ He watched Peter fill the kettle before he said, ‘Luke is on exercise in Kenya and he’s gone missing. He’s been gone for about thirty-six hours now and the guys on the ground are getting really concerned.’

  Peter switched the kettle on and turned to face Milward. He seemed to think about the news for a second or two. ‘So, it sounds pretty serious.’

  Milward nodded. ‘It is – potentially. It might be very serious.’

  ‘Then I think it’s his dad you ought to be telling. I mean, of course I’m worried about my mate but it isn’t really any of my business. It isn’t that I don’t care – I do – but I’m not family, am I?’

  ‘Except you’re his designated next of kin.’

  ‘Yeah, well, his dad mightn’t see it like that. And what’s more his dad might make a whole heap of trouble for you if he finds out later he wasn’t put in the picture.’

  ‘Really?’ Milward was perplexed. How? Why?

  Peter nodded. ‘You have no idea who Luke’s dad is, have you?’

  Milward felt faintly exasperated. Of course he didn’t – otherwise he wouldn’t be breaking the news to this spotty youth.

  ‘Luke’s old man is General Pemberton-Blake.’ Milward felt himself reel. ‘Or is it General Sir Pemberton-Blake now? I seem to remember he got a gong recently,’ continued Peter, unaware of the effect his words had had on his visitor. ‘Anyway, he’s a big cheese. That’s why Luke joined as a squaddie. He always wanted to be in the army but he knew if he became an officer, his path would cross his father’s. They had a falling out and he told me he never wanted to see his dad again. He thought if he was in the ranks he’d be safe.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  The kettle boiled and clicked off.

  ‘So are you going to visit Luke’s father?’

  ‘I think I better had.’

  Andy Bailey barged into the CO’s tent.

  ‘Sorry, sir, but you’ve got to hear this.’

  The CO looked up from a map of the ranges he was studying. ‘What?’

  ‘Blake’s father.’

  I thought you told me earlier he didn’t have one; that his next of kin was a friend.’

  ‘Well, that’s not the case. Long story but it turns out that it’s only General Sir William Pemberton-Blake.’

  The CO sank into a camping chair. Then he looked up sharply at his adjutant. ‘Don’t be so ridiculous, Andy. Just because they share a name doesn’t make them related.’

  ‘It does, Colonel. Alan Milward’s been to see him.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  ‘And he’s on his way out here.’

  ‘Jesus, that’s all we need.’

  ‘He and Sam Lewis’s dad are on the airtrooping flight that gets in tomorrow.’

  The CO rolled his eyes. ‘I’d better go and pick them up myself. We can’t send a clerk like Corporal Cooper to meet that pair. How is she, by the way?’

  ‘On the mend. Once the medics pumped her full of antibiotics she began to rally in no time.’

  ‘And her charge – that hack?’

  ‘You mean Raven?’

  ‘I do indeed.’

  ‘Presumably, now that Blake and Sam’s next of kin have been informed he’s been allowed to file his story to the BBC,’ said Andy.

  ‘We could hardly stop him – anyway, MOD PR gave him the go-ahead. Does he know about Blake’s father?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  The CO looked glum. ‘He will, though. He’s a reporter, he’ll find out.’

  ‘Would it be better if we tell him?’

  The CO considered it and then nodded. ‘But not tonight. We’ve got to hope Blake and Lewis get found before their folks get here.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Actually, we’ve got to hope they get found before then, full stop.’ His shoulders drooped. ‘They can’t have much water and I am getting seriously worried now. Seriously worried.’

  You and me both, thought Andy.

  Maddy was exhausted. The contractions were coming regularly now – every twenty minutes – but nothing else seemed to be happening. The gas and air might be taking the edge off the pain but her labour had been going on properly for well over twelve hours and so far, apart from being strapped to a monitor, there was nothing to show for it.

  ‘Nathan wasn’t this slow,’ she said to her mother, who was sitting on the chair beside the bed in the delivery suite.

  Her mother glanced up from her magazine. ‘All babies are different, darling.’

  Maddy stared at her mother. What did she know? She’d only ever had the one. She didn’t have the strength to argue, besides which, if she did, she’d lose. Her mother liked to have the final word and Maddy had long since learned not to take her on.

  Her mother put her magazine to one side. ‘When do you think Seb is going to get here?’

  ‘No idea.’ Maddy shifted to try and ease the ache in her back. ‘Look, Mum, why don’t you go back to mine and take over looking after Nathan? I’m sure Jenna would like to get back home and if anything happens I promise I’ll ring.’

  ‘I don’t like the idea of you being here on your own.’

  ‘Mum, I’ve got a call button and half a dozen nurses who will come running if I suddenly need urgent care.’

  Her mother looked at her and sighed. ‘But it isn’t right.’

  ‘I’m a big girl, I can cope. Besides, there doesn’t seem much point in both of us losing out on a night’s sleep.’

  ‘But Seb should be here.’ Her mother tutted. ‘It’s not right that he’s abandoned you.’

  ‘He’s got to come back from Kenya. It’s not as if he’s rowing or something.’

  ‘I always knew that picking a husband who was a soldier was a bad idea.’

  ‘Don’t start, Mum.’

  Her mother hurrumphed. ‘You could have done so much better.’

  Maddy didn’t want to hear this. Her hormones were all over the place, the incident the previous day with Michelle was still playing on her mind, she was worried about imposing Nathan on Jenna, and the last thing she needed was to have to listen to her mother’s views on her husband.

  ‘Not now, Mum.’

  ‘You went to Oxford.’

  ‘So did Seb,’ she said wearily.

  ‘Only because he was a rower – I don’t think they’d have taken him on his academic results alone.’

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘And even then he never really made it at rowing, did he?’

  Something in Maddy got pulled too hard and it snapped. ‘Mum, shut up about Seb.’

  Her mother stared at her. Her mouth opened and then shut. ‘Really!’ She said with an audible sniff.

  Maddy could feel tears welling up. ‘Mum, you’re not helping, you know that, don’t you? Now is not the moment to tell me you don’t like Seb. You don’t have to, you know. He’s my husband, not yours.’ She banged her head against the pillow in frustration. Shit, if her mother ever found out about Michelle…

  Her mother picked up her magazine and then grabbed her handbag off the floor. ‘I know when I’m not wanted.’

  Maddy dashed the tears away with the palms of her hands. ‘Mum, you are. But you’d be more use looking after Nathan rather than telling me again that you think my husband is crap. He’s not, and I love him and if you can’t take that on board then I’m sorry because I’m not going to leave him.’ She gave her mother a defiant look as she wondered, momentarily, about the possibility of Seb leaving her for Michelle. No, she wasn’t going to think about that and she certainly wasn’t going to let Seb go without an almighty fight. At least she’d got that much clear in her head.

>   The door to the delivery suite opened and a midwife entered. ‘How are we getting along?’ she asked breezily, before she clocked the tense atmosphere. She looked from Maddy to her mother and back.

  ‘You carry on,’ said Mrs Peters with a sniff. ‘I am leaving.’ She gave her daughter a cold stare. ‘Ring if you need me.’ She swept out.

  After the door shut there was a moment’s silence. ‘Oops,’ said the midwife. ‘I hope I didn’t make things worse.’

  Maddy wondered about telling her how bad things really were and that to make things worse she’d have to go some, but instead shook her head. ‘No, nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  The kind words tipped Maddy, in her fragile state, right over the emotional edge she’d been teetering on and a sob bubbled up. Then another. The midwife sat beside her and patted her hand.

  ‘I could tell you it’s hormones, that lots of mums get weepy at this point, but my instincts tell me it’s more than that. And I expect you’re missing your husband.’

  Maddy nodded, wetly. ‘And Mum thinks he’s doing this deliberately.’

  ‘He had this all planned, did he? He knew the baby would decide to come well over a month early?’ The midwife sighed in understanding.

  Maddy nodded. ‘Except at the rate this labour is going it’s not going to get here till the due date.’

  The midwife patted her hand again. ‘Not on my watch. If it doesn’t get a move on soon we’ll crack out the dynamite and hurry things along.’

  Maddy, feeling another contraction start to build, grabbed the gas and air mouthpiece and sucked on it. She puffed and panted and tried not to moan as she felt the waves of pain intensify.

  ‘That’s good,’ murmured the midwife, stroking her forehead. ‘You’re doing so well.’

  The contraction faded and Maddy began to relax again. She shut her eyes as tiredness overtook the agony. When was it all going to be over? She wasn’t sure if she had the energy to see the process through.

  As Michelle returned to the mess she knew that being suddenly confined to barracks would take some explaining. She also knew that if there was going to be any disciplinary action taken her father would, inevitably, hear about it. This time, she knew, she’d have to come clean. Own up to everything and not just about the fight. If, later, he found out what had precipitated it she couldn’t bear to think what the consequences might be. Anyway, her situation, right now, was so dire, what on earth could make it worse?

  ‘You did what?’ Major Flowers sank onto the bed in his room and stared at his daughter. ‘Why?’ he said after a long pause.

  Michelle shrugged. ‘I… I can’t explain.’

  ‘Dear God, you’ve made some mistakes in your life but this one really takes the biscuit.’

  Michelle hung her head. Except, even in this abject state, there was a part of her that refused to accept this was all her fault. As always, she looked about for a reason for her actions – for someone else who could share the blame. ‘It’s not my fault I’m such a mess. If you and Mum had stuck together, I wouldn’t have ended up screwing up all the time. It’s not my fault I’ve messed up, it’s because you left Mum for Janine.’

  Her father snorted. ‘That’s right – it’s never your fault, is it? And as for what happened between your mum and me, it wasn’t about Janine.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No. You are making judgements on a situation you know nothing about.’

  ‘And you aren’t? You know what my relationship with Seb was like?’

  ‘No, but I didn’t go stalking third parties to try and get my own way – Janine’s marriage was as dead in the water as mine. I don’t care what you surmised about your mother, but it takes two to make a marriage go sour, and your mother was, and very possibly still is, neat vinegar. Let’s face it, Michelle, she hasn’t even had the good grace to ask to see you in nearly twenty years so don’t you go blaming Janine for what happened when you were barely out of nappies.’

  Michelle wasn’t convinced but she’d never heard any side of the story except her father’s so she didn’t have much of a counter-argument.

  ‘I wanted Seb’s wife to know the truth. I felt he wasn’t going to tell her what had been going on and that Maddy had a right to be put in the picture. She had to know her husband was being unfaithful. I was doing her a favour.’

  Henry Flowers stared at his daughter and then shook his head. ‘A favour? Dear God, I wouldn’t want to be around when you decide to do someone a disservice. A favour?’ he repeated. ‘That’s bollocks and you know it. You wanted your own way and you didn’t care who got hurt as you bulldozed your way through to your objective. You’ve never had any regard for the feelings of other people, have you?’

  Michelle felt her eyes pricking. ‘Of course I have.’ She blinked.

  ‘Really? You’ve never given a damn about how much you’ve hurt Janine over the years. She’s done her best to provide a home for you—’

  ‘She got me packed off to boarding school.’

  ‘I packed you off to boarding school to spare her from you. Besides, I thought you would get a better education if you didn’t keep changing schools. Have you any idea the sacrifices Janine and I made to find the money for the fees?’ He stared at Michelle.

  ‘But the army pays.’

  ‘They make a contribution – and not a very big one. I really hoped boarding school would give you a brilliant start in life. But do you know what I really hoped? I really hoped that if you went away you might appreciate things when you came home, but I was so wrong.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘Every time you came back from school you were even more difficult, even more horrible to Janine. We used to dread the holidays. We tried not to show it, we tried to make you welcome, but whatever we did you seemed to hate and despise us all the more.’

  Michelle felt the tears roll down her face. This was so unfair. She hadn’t been like that in the holidays. Well, maybe a bit but that was because her father never paid her the least attention; Janine was always around, getting in the way, being the perfect bloody housewife, simpering and smiling… Gah, the thought of it made Michelle want to gag. At least when she was naughty her father noticed her.

  Her father looked at her without sympathy. ‘You know you can kiss goodbye to your career, don’t you? I would think at the very least you’ll be expected to resign your commission.’

  ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘It won’t come to that, surely?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. Conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline would be the least of the things they could charge you with. And on top of that they could add a charge of fighting. That friend of Maddy’s would be well within her rights to press charges.’

  ‘But she attacked me!’

  ‘You’re hardly in a position to take the moral high ground, are you? Barging into someone’s home and then telling her you’ve been screwing her husband. If Maddy says her friend acted in self-defence do you think anyone is going to believe a word you say?’ Her father shook her head, hardly believing the situation. ‘You know, once you got to Sandhurst I thought I could stop worrying about you. I thought they’d sort you out, teach you how to be a decent citizen. How wrong I was.’

  ‘You’ve never, ever worried about me. You’ve never given me a second thought. You’ve spent every living, breathing moment of the past twenty-three years trying to blot out the fact that I even exist.’

  Henry Flowers stared at her – stunned. ‘You really are quite stupid for someone with your intelligence and qualifications. Contrary to what you think, since you arrived on the planet I have spent every minute of every day worrying about you. There isn’t day that goes by when I don’t wonder what you’re getting up to, what you’ll tell me in your next phone call, what scrape you’ve got into now and wondering how I can bail you out or even if I can bail you out.’

  ‘Don’t lie,’ said Michelle. ‘You can barely bring yourself to speak to me. You’ve neve
r loved me. Tolerated me would about sum up how you felt and half the time, not even that. That’s why you were so glad when I joined the army. You must have thought I’d be out of your hair for ever when I did that.’

  Henry looked sad and bewildered. ‘No, I’ve always loved you. Even when you made it nigh on impossible, I loved you. Janine does too – although sometimes I wonder how she can bring herself to, considering the way you treat her.’

  Michelle was crying properly now. ‘No, no that’s not true, you never have, either of you.’

  ‘But of course we do.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you ever tell me?’

  ‘I thought you knew. I’m your father – of course I love you. That’s what fathers do. There are times when I don’t like you very much, I’ll admit that, but I loved you just the same.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘I didn’t think a father had to tell his daughter stuff like that.’

  Michelle sniffed. ‘Then we’ve both been mistaken. I always thought you hated me. I thought I reminded you of Mum – that’s why you couldn’t stand me.’

  ‘Dear God, child, no.’ Henry shook his head. ‘Maybe this is something I ought to take the blame for. I’m not good at that sort of stuff – expressing myself. Boarding school and the army probably knocked it all out of me.’

  Michelle gave him a wan smile. ‘No hope for me, then. Second generation and all that.’

  Henry shook his head again. ‘Indeed.’ He gave his daughter a wry grin. ‘Seeing how you can’t leave the barracks, how about I go and find us a take-away and a bottle or two of wine and we try and make up some lost time over supper in my room.’

  Michelle sniffed and then blew her nose. ‘Sounds like a plan.’ As Henry walked away she knew things between her and her father were about to change for ever and for the better. Maybe things wouldn’t ever be perfect but at least they’d got off the skids. She knew that allowing Janine into her life was going to take a bit longer.

  32

  Luke and Sam walked holding hands, stumbling along in the dark, exhausted, drained, hungry and thirsty.

  ‘Time for another break,’ said Luke.