Soldier's Daughters

by Fiona Field

  ‘Guess what?’ asked Maddy. She put a china ornament she’d unwrapped on the sitting room mantelpiece.

  ‘Old Ian Abbott’s replacement is a woman. Very young, very pretty and very curvy, according to the mess gossip. That’s going to set the cat among the pigeons. I can’t see some of the old hands in the workshop taking kindly to being bossed about by a woman.’

  Maddy raised her eyebrows. ‘Then they’ll have to get used to it. It’s about time some of the army dragged itself into the twenty-first century and realised women are just as capable as men.’

  ‘It’s still bound to cause trouble.’

  ‘Why?’ Maddy couldn’t see what the problem might be.

  ‘Well, stands to reason. Apart from anything else, there’s going to be a single woman living in the mess with all those testosterone-fuelled men.’

  Maddy walked across the sitting room, scooped Nathan out of his playpen and carried him into the kitchen, where she posted him into his high chair. Deftly she handed him a breadstick to chew on while she got a glass down for Seb and mixed him a gin and tonic.

  ‘You not having one?’ he asked as she passed him his drink.

  Maddy shook her head.

  ‘Still feeling under the weather?’

  ‘Sort of. Sit down, Seb.’

  Seb’s eyes widened momentarily as he hooked out a chair from the kitchen table. ‘You’re not ill, are you?’

  ‘Not ill, Seb. Pregnant.’

  ‘Pregnant!’

  Maddy nodded.

  ‘But we weren’t trying…’

  Maddy shook her head. ‘No, sweetie, we weren’t. But if you remember I fell pregnant with Nate in a heartbeat. We’re obviously super-fertile.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Is that it? Oh?’

  ‘Sorry, sorry, Maddy.’ Seb put down his drink, jumped up and gave Maddy a hug. ‘You’re a clever girl and I love you.’

  ‘But…’ Since Maddy had done the test after Seb had gone to work she’d worried about how they’d cope financially with two tiny children, and how she’d cope, full stop. Seb hadn’t been exactly hands-on with Nate, and she didn’t think he was about to have a Damascene moment about fatherhood now. She adored him for lots of reasons, but not for his parenting skills.

  ‘No, no buts.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘I am so thrilled.’ And he really sounded it.

  Maddy put her doubts to one side and snuggled against him. ‘What do you fancy, a boy or a girl?’

  ‘I really don’t care.’ Seb kissed Maddy’s head again and then returned to his seat, looking rather pleased with himself.

  ‘At least we can be sure we won’t be moving from here for a while,’ he said, taking a slug of gin. ‘That’s a good thing, isn’t it? As things stand, by the time we have to move again, this next little one will be almost old enough to go to prep school.’

  Maddy nodded. She’d long since accepted that she’d be sending her children off to boarding school. ‘Considering this is Nate’s third house and he’s not even a year old, I think not moving for ages is a very good thing.’

  ‘So,’ said Seb, ‘I was thinking… it might be nice if we invited this new girl over for supper one evening. She might appreciate a bit of female company.’

  ‘You think?’ said Maddy. ‘Of course, it might be her idea of bliss to have all those blokes to herself.’

  ‘Maybe.’ Seb didn’t sound convinced. ‘But if she doesn’t, you and she must be about the same age and I can’t see her wanting to hang out with Mrs Notley. From a personal point of view, I don’t think I’d want to be the only bloke living with a couple of dozen women.’

  ‘So you’re not thinking of indulging in a bit of polygamy and having your own personal harem?’

  ‘Never. You’re the only woman for me, Mads.’

  Maddy smiled at him and blew a kiss towards him. ‘Love you too, hon.’ And she did. Seb might have his faults but she was still besotted by him and couldn’t believe her luck that she was Mrs Seb Fanshaw and had been for almost two years.

  5

  Artificer Sergeant Major Williams, Sam’s number two in her little unit, stood in front of her desk. He didn’t look happy.

  ‘Look,’ said Sam, in what she hoped was a conciliatory tone, ‘Captain Abbott might have had his way of doing things, but I have mine.’

  ‘With all due respect, ma’am, there was nothing wrong with Captain Abbott’s methods.’

  Sam counted to three. ‘Probably. But I am in charge now.’

  The ASM stared at her, obviously wishing she wasn’t. ‘I just don’t see how making the men down tools and listen to a speech from you is going to help anyone.’

  Sam could feel her shoulders rising up from the tension in her neck. Honestly, he couldn’t be more difficult about her request if she’d told him she expected all of the soldiers to donate a kidney. She forced herself to relax. ‘It’s only going to take five minutes, if that. I want to have a word with them, I want to introduce myself to them, I want to start to get to know them.’ She stared back at him. Why was he being so bloody unreasonable about this? All she wanted to do was have the men under her command gathered together so she could make a short introductory speech just to break the ice. She knew that having a woman as the boss might not sit well with some of the older soldiers, but she hadn’t imagined her right-hand man to take against the concept quite so obviously from the get-go.

  The ASM sighed heavily. ‘If you say so, ma’am.’

  ‘I do.’

  He turned and left her office and Sam exhaled slowly. What was his problem? She gathered her notes together and made her way out of her office in the corner of the workshop to where her troops were being gathered together in a rough semi-circle by a bad-tempered Mr Williams.

  ‘Hello,’ said Sam to the group once they’d all settled down. ‘You all know who I am – that’s the advantage of being the old hands here – but I want to say how much I am looking forward to working with you over the coming months. Mr Williams has spent this morning telling me about the standards you’ve set and the glowing reports achieved in the last few annual inspections. You ought to be justifiably proud of yourselves.’ As she said this she saw a few backs straighten, a few chins lift, and she knew she’d said the right thing. So suck on that, Mr Williams. ‘That tells me that my predecessor, Captain Abbott, ran a really sound operation, and I’ve got my work cut out if things aren’t going to slide. I’d like to think all of you will do your best to help me maintain that benchmark of excellence.’ There were a few nods of assent from her soldiers. She hoped she was making a favourable impression. If Mr Williams was going to continue to make life tricky she didn’t want the rest of the troops automatically siding with him and not her. Sam wasn’t planning on altering anything for some while, or indeed ever, if it wasn’t necessary. None of that new-broom malarkey to make a point that this was her workshop, tempting though it was given Mr Williams’ attitude. No, she had every intention of watching to see how her team of soldiers meshed together and then tweak, if necessary, in due course – assuming the ASM didn’t stop her.

  ‘So,’ she finished off, ‘over the next couple of weeks I’d like to have a quick chat with each of you in turn, so I get to know who you all are and so I can put names to faces, but until then I’ll try and leave you in peace to get on with your job. Of course, if any of you want to have a word with me then my office door is always open. Thanks for listening.’

  The ASM brought all her soldiers to attention, and Sam nodded her acknowledgement of the courtesy as she returned to her office. After the ASM had dismissed the troops back to their posts he followed her.

  ‘So,’ said Sam, as she sat down in her office chair, ‘I told you I’d be brief.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He was obviously still sore about her getting her way.

  ‘Take a seat. I’d like you to give me the low-down on the men.’ The ASM looked quizzical as he drew up a chair and sat down. ‘Have we got any troublemakers, any problem cases?’ she eluci
dated.

  ‘Not problem soldiers as such,’ said Mr Williams.

  Sam raised her eyebrows. ‘There’s a but coming, isn’t there?’

  Mr Williams nodded. ‘Sergeant Armstrong.’

  ‘Ye-e-es. Want to tell me about him?’

  Mr Williams sucked his teeth. ‘His partner, Jenna, is a bit of a minx by all accounts. She was married to a soldier – another one – who picked up an injury in Afghan but when the authorities came to give her the bad news they found Sergeant Armstrong in her bed. So he got posted here to Warminster at the speed of light, but she left her husband and followed.’

  Sam managed to keep a straight face at the story, which seemed to come straight out of a soap opera or a French farce. Then she said, ‘Well, no one died and I don’t suppose her ex was too keen to keep her after that.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Mr Williams, ‘but her ex-husband was with 1 Herts. And now they’re here too.’

  ‘Oops.’

  ‘Oops indeed, ma’am.’

  ‘Does her ex know she’s here?’

  ‘I have no idea. I’ve checked out who he is and it turns out he’s currently posted to the Catterick training regiment, but a lot of his old mates are still with the regiment and, of course, their wives, who will remember her from the patch. I thought you should be aware of the situation.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Do we know what Armstrong thinks of 1 Herts pitching up?’

  ‘He told me it isn’t a problem. He and his partner don’t live in quarters – they’ve got a flat in town.’

  ‘Well, if he thinks it’ll be OK, I probably needn’t worry.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘But thanks for the heads-up. Is that it?’ There was a pause. ‘That’s a “no”, then.’

  ‘Corporal Blake.’

  Sam nodded encouragingly. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘That’s the odd thing, ma’am. He’s a model soldier, perfect.’

  Sam cocked her head.

  ‘He’s not like any soldier I’ve worked with before. He’s got a stack of GCSEs, he should have A levels to go with them but he hasn’t.’

  ‘So? Maybe he wanted to join up because he hated his school.’

  ‘So why didn’t he join at sixteen? He could have gone to the apprentice college.’

  ‘Have you asked him why he didn’t?’

  ‘Oh, yes, ma’am.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s like talking to a brick wall. He’s perfectly polite but… I don’t know, he clams up or gives evasive answers that tell you nothing. And none of the other soldiers get close to him. He’s an oddball. A real loner. Not unpopular or anything, utterly trustworthy, a hard worker, but odd.’ Then the ASM added, ‘He reads.’

  Sam had to suppress a giggle. ‘Well, there’s nothing in Queen’s Regs that says a soldier can’t be odd – or read.’

  ‘Indeed there isn’t, ma’am. All the same…’

  Sam began to put some files back in the cabinet by her desk.

  ‘One other thing about him,’ said the ASM.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘His next of kin is a friend – a male friend, not a relation.’

  ‘So he’s an orphan? Or he’s gay? That’s not against Queen’s Regs either.’

  ‘No, I know.’ There was another pause. ‘I don’t know, ma’am, you wait till you meet him, you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Williams.’

  After he’d returned to the workshop and Sam was taking a break from reading the stack of files on her desk and trying to get her head around her new job, she glanced through the office window to where her men were working. Mr Williams was surrounded by a group of soldiers. He was, she judged from his gestures and body language, regaling them with some sort of story; obviously a funny one because everyone was laughing. And then Mr Williams glanced in her direction and saw she was watching him. Even at this distance she could see the look of guilt on his face. Was he feeling guilty at being caught slacking? Or had he been taking the piss out of her? She looked away again.

  The truth was, being the only female officer was a tougher call than she’d expected. OK, she hadn’t for a moment imagined that she would be welcomed with open arms, that everyone in an almost exclusively all-male regiment would think she was the best thing to happen to 1 Herts in the battalion’s history, but she hadn’t expected such awkwardness. It was almost as if no one had the least idea how to treat her. Didn’t the blokes, her fellow officers, have girlfriends or mothers or sisters? Did they behave with such stand-offishness with other female companions? Their girlfriends?

  Her first night in the mess had been a case in point. Although her fellow mess-mates had been perfectly polite and gentlemanly, she’d felt a bit like an act in a freak show. The conversation had been predictable – where had she been to uni, who had been her company commander at Sandhurst, did she know this officer or that? She’d answered and the conversational ball had been batted around the table, but it had all been fairly dull and banal. For some reason Sam had got the definite impression that everyone was on their best behaviour. She had wanted to tell them that they weren’t to stand on ceremony because of her but she decided against it. It was best, she reckoned, to let them get used to her. Once the novelty of having a woman in the place wore off, things would revert to normal; no point in trying to force the issue. In the meantime, maybe she should give them some space, let them get used to her by degrees. She’d excused herself from the table as soon as she’d finished her meal, telling the other livers-in she had to finish her unpacking, and was halfway up the stairs when a huge gust of raucous laughter billowed out of the dining room. Was it in response to a general joke or was she the butt of it?

  A week later Maddy was wheeling a sleeping Nathan in his buggy through the main street in Warminster when the sight of a familiar face stopped her dead in her tracks. Even though the person she recognised was on the other side of the road there was no mistaking the silvery blonde hair or the endlessly long legs. Jenna. Jenna, who had been her hairdresser back in the old barracks. Jenna, who had been married to Private Perkins, who had been injured while on duty in Afghanistan. Jenna, who Seb, when he’d called round to break the bad news about her husband, had pretty much caught in flagrante delecto with a REME sergeant. Jenna, who had buggered off with her new man, right away from 1 Herts and the mess she’d created. So what the hell was she doing here?

  Well, thought Maddy, everyone had to be somewhere. And, of course, Jenna’s new man had been another soldier, and this was a garrison town so it wasn’t so completely unreasonable that she should be here too. But it was going to be Jenna’s bad luck that the battalion she’d tried to escape from had now moved into her new back yard.

  Maddy was about to call hello to her when a bus thundered past, and when her line of sight was clear again Jenna had gone. Had she imagined it? She blinked and stared at the spot where Jenna had been standing. Pregnancy might be turning her brain to mush again but her eyesight was still twenty-twenty.

  Seeing her made Maddy remember the wonderful haircuts Jenna had given her in the past. And, dear God, didn’t her hair need doing now? It had been months since she’d had it done. In fact, no one had gone near it since Jenna had so precipitously crashed out. For some time Maddy had been scraping it back into a tatty ponytail each morning to have done with it – out of sight, out of mind. She looked at her reflection in the shop window beside her – and saw someone who might be mistaken for Rosa Klebb. But without the fun-loving personality and fashion sense, she thought. Shit, she looked rough.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and spun the list of contacts, her thumb hovering over the names as they whizzed past. J. She pressed down. Jack, James… Jenna. Then she pressed the telephone symbol.

  ‘Maddy?’ There was no mistaking the stunned surprise in Jenna’s voice.

  ‘Er… hello, Jenna.’ There was a silence. ‘Jenna, you still there?’

  ‘Yes, yes, I am. What do you want?’

  No
t the most gracious start to a conversation. ‘Jenna, are you in Warminster?’

  ‘Why d’you want to know?’

  ‘Because I’m in Warminster and I think I’ve just seen you.’

  There was another silence. ‘Really?’ Jenna sounded mightily unimpressed.

  ‘So… did I?’

  ‘Yeah. You did.’

  ‘Fancy a coffee?’

  There was a sigh, then, ‘Why not?’

  Maddy looked about her. ‘What about Costa? Five minutes.’

  ‘See you there.’

  Maddy disconnected and turned the buggy towards the coffee shop in the marketplace. She was queuing for a cappuccino when she heard her name being called. She spun around.

  ‘Jenna. Lovely to see you,’ she said brightly. ‘You bag a table, I’ll get the drinks. What would you like? Here,’ and she pushed the buggy towards Jenna. ‘Park Nathan up for me so I can carry the coffees.’

  ‘OK, thanks. Skinny latte, please.’

  A couple of minutes later Maddy made her way through the other customers over to the sofa Jenna had bagged.

  ‘So,’ said Maddy, as she deposited the two cups and saucers. ‘What have you been up to?’

  ‘What? Apart from getting a divorce, you mean?’

  ‘Well…’ Maddy shrugged.

  ‘’S’all right. Water under the bridge. Or it was until you lot rocked up. I mean, I never thought that 1 Herts would turn up here. I couldn’t believe it when Dan – he’s my partner now – told me what was going on because he’s REME and works in the LAD. I mean, what are the chances that I get away from 1 Herts only to find that they come chasing after me.’

  ‘That’s going to be tricky,’ said Maddy.

  ‘Tell me about it. I thought I’d put all that baggage well behind me. Although my spies tell me my ex is up in Catterick so that’s something to be grateful for. Can you imagine how tricky it would’ve been if him and his new missus had been here too?’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Maddy noncommittally.

  ‘But I don’t think I’ll be going to any more sergeants’ mess dos. Don’t want to show my face there only to have some of the old biddies spit in it. And they would.’ Jenna shrugged. ‘Not that I care because, in my limited experience, those army dos are usually pretty shit, so no great loss.’