Soldiers' Wives Part 16

Chrissie stared at him, trying to make sense of what was happening. Was this someone's idea of a sick joke? She had volunteered for Bastion to get away from complications like Lee and here he was. All the same, she felt a kick of happiness: his friendly face meant she might still be scared, but at least she wasn't alone any more.

'But...' Her mind and feelings were in such a muddle, she could barely string a sentence together. She stopped, then a thought struck her. 'What do you mean, what the f.u.c.k am I doing here? More to the point, what the f.u.c.k are you doing here?'

'I'm going to Bastion BCR.'

Chrissie's jaw slackened. This was a sick joke. 'Battlefield casualty replacement? Bastion? But you can't be.'

Lee tugged at the sleeve of one of his comrades. 'Hey, Mac, where are we going?'

Lee's mate Mac looked at him as if he were bonkers. 'Afghan, you t.w.a.t.'

Lee grinned at Chrissie. 'Now do you believe me?'

She nodded. 'So am I.'

'You?'

She nodded again.

'Why?' he asked, his brow creased in incredulity.

'Because I volunteered.'

'But why?'

'Because I wanted to.'

'You coming, Perkins?' Mac interrupted.

'Yeah, right with you.' Lee looked from Chrissie to Mac and back again, as if wondering who had priority for his attention. 'Here, hang on,' he said, apparently arriving at a decision. He stopped Mac from moving on, hauled Chrissie's stuff off her trolley as if it was a couple of feather pillows, and split it between his own and Mac's trolleys. 'Don't say squaddies don't know how to behave like gents,' he said. Then he gave Mac a nod and they moved off, Chrissie with them.

Together, the three of them made their way across the car park and up the ramp to the terminal. Inside the doors there was a small waiting area, with a few chairs and tables for people meeting any arrivals, a little coffee shop, a couple of vending machines, and then to the right was a corridor that led to the ma.s.sive hall which was the check-in area. In many ways it was very like a normal civvy airport, except here everyone was dressed in multicam combats. They joined the queue of other soldiers waiting to be processed.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l, Perkins,' said another soldier. 'Have you pulled already?'

'f.u.c.k off,' said Lee amiably. 'This is Chrissie. She's a combat medic.'

'Cool.' The guy stuck his hand out. 'Nice to meet you, Chrissie, I'm Tim. And if Lee doesn't want to pull you, can I?'

Everyone laughed, except Chrissie. She was still reeling from the shock of seeing Lee.

The soldiers shuffled forwards, yard by yard, while the RAF movements staff checked names and doc.u.mentation against the manifest. When they finally made it through, they were herded towards the big departure lounge with floor to ceiling windows which looked out towards the runways and taxi areas and the ma.s.sive grey C17 aircraft, lit by huge floodlights, which sat nearby waiting to take them all to the war. They weren't due to take off for a very long time, not until the small hours of the morning, but, this being the military, everyone had to be there and accounted for, way ahead of time.

Their Bergens had been checked through to be loaded onto the aircraft, leaving them with their day sacks, helmets and body armour. They joined the rest of the troops in the hall, who were doing what soldiers always do, given the opportunity: making themselves as comfortable as possible, using their day sacks as pillows and grabbing a kip. Lee, Mac and Tim were no exception, and wasted no time in getting their heads down. Chrissie sat on one of the seats and watched the slumbering shapes on the seats and the floors.

How could they be so relaxed? she wondered. She herself was taut with apprehension and, unless things went horribly wrong, no one was going to shoot at her. But for these boys, being shot at was part of their job description, along with risking your life and being blown up. She wondered which of these guys, about to fly out with her, would be coming back injured, or worse. As she looked at their young faces, she felt tears form and the back of her nose start to p.r.i.c.kle. Hurriedly she blinked and looked out of the window. She mustn't think like that. Strong and professional that was what was expected of her. She'd managed it in the pre-ops training, and she'd coped with the countless gruesome injuries she'd had to deal with. So given that she was now officially 'tough', it wasn't going to do anyone any good if other emotions turned her into a snivelling waste of s.p.a.ce. Brace up, she told herself.

The time for take-off drew nearer. Chrissie, unlike her male counterparts, unable to sleep, watched what was going on outside. The tailgate had been lowered off the huge Globemaster aircraft, a vast jumbo jet-sized aircraft, with high wings and four monster engine pods suspended underneath, and lights glowed from inside its enormous maw. It was a warehouse with wings, she thought idly, and wondered how on earth such an enormous structure could be held up by air. She vaguely knew about aerodynamics and the theory of lift, but it still didn't seem possible. She watched the dozens of pallets of kit and supplies get pushed up the rollers on the ramp and lashed into place in the cavernous body of the plane by RAF loadmasters. A couple of vehicles had also been driven on, and Chrissie was starting to wonder how the h.e.l.l they were going to fit on all these people as well.

Despite her own anxiety about the journey, Chrissie was just beginning to feel her own eyes droop with tiredness when there was a tannoy announcement ordering the a.s.sembled troops to prepare for embarkation. Around her, the slumbering shapes began to stir, collecting their stuff, yawning, stretching, cracking jokes as if they were about to board a cross-channel ferry. Once again, Chrissie felt her heart jump. This was it.

The doors from the departure hall were thrown open, and the soldiers shuffled forward, once again, to pa.s.s through them, out onto the concrete, and head towards the giant plane. No air-bridge for boarding here, at Brize Norton. The straggling lines of troops walked up the ramp, into the enormous tube that was the body of the C17. Two corridors were left either side of the cargo, to allow pa.s.sage to the front of the aircraft, which was kitted out a bit like a civvy plane, only with some significant differences. There were seats ranged down the sides in line and also rows of seats in the middle. If you focused on the seats in the middle, you might just be able to kid yourself this was a holiday flight. But the instant you took your eyes off those, there was no way this could be an ordinary airliner: there was a cavernous s.p.a.ce above the seats, but no overhead lockers, no neat plastic panels to cover up the bleak metal skin, no portholes with twee curtains or blinds, no TVs in the seat backs, no tray tables, no carpet, no galley, no smiling stewards to welcome you aboard. Not that Chrissie had ever flown before, but she'd watched enough episodes of Airport and Come Fly With Me to know what was what. This might be her first ever flight, but vicariously she'd been around the world. And no way had any airline she'd got to know through the TV had green lighting in the cabins. Green was weird. Green was wrong. It was all quite surreal, Chrissie decided as she followed Lee to a free row of seats in the centre.

She took her cue from the others and shoved her helmet, day sack and body armour under her seat, before sitting down and buckling up. Somehow, she thought, as she looked about her, she didn't think she was going to be pestered by cabin crew trying to flog her overpriced sandwiches or duty free.

'You OK?' asked Lee.

Chrissie was agonisingly aware of his presence next to her. For f.u.c.k's sake she'd volunteered for Bastion to get away from him, and now here he was, closer than ever. How ironic was that?

'Fine,' was all she said. She was going out to Afghanistan to do a job, not to be mates with guys on the ground. She didn't want to be worrying about anyone but herself while she was out there, least of all Lee, and she was going to try not to get any more friendly than was absolutely necessary, before he deployed to work with his multiple and she did some proper nursing.

She jumped at the sound of some clunks and thumps, but realised it was nothing to be worried about when she heard the low whine of a jet engine being fired up. The noises were repeated three more times, until all engines were running, and then there were a few rattles and shakes, and suddenly she realised that the plane was moving. They were off and taxiing towards the runway.

'We're off,' said Lee.

'No s.h.i.+t, Sherlock,' said Chrissie with feigned calm. She felt her muscles get more and more tense as the huge plane lumbered along the taxiway towards the end of the runway, bouncing gently as the wings flexed when it pa.s.sed over the slightest b.u.mp. She felt it turn through ninety degrees, pause, then move forward, and as it turned again, the whine from the engine increased to a bone-shaking, mind-numbing roar and then the plane began to hurtle forwards. Chrissie felt herself being thrust back in her seat as the acceleration increased and then zoom, the bouncing stopped as the plane took to the sky and its natural element.

'Next stop, Afghan,' said Lee. 'In the meantime, I think I'll get my head down.'

Chrissie knew what he was suggesting was wise, but she reckoned she was far too wound up to follow suit. Even so, with nothing to look at and precious little to do, she shut her eyes and, like all the soldiers around her, she was soon dozing too.

17.

The aircraft intercom bing-bonging woke Chrissie. She glanced at her watch which glowed weirdly in the green cabin lights. Nearly twelve. No, that couldn't be right because she hadn't changed her watch to Afghan time. Oh well, whatever, it was the middle of the night, she thought, only with no portholes to provide a clue, it could have been midday. It was odd not to be able to see out. Not that she had any idea what it would be like to see out from a height of thirty thousand feet, but it had to be better than what she was experiencing right now. She promised herself a nice holiday to somewhere exotic when she got back if she got back. She put that thought out of her mind: of course she'd get back. Maybe Cyprus would be nice. They'd had a stopover in Cyprus and had been allowed off the plane. The air had been warm, the sky blue, and she'd spotted real oranges growing on trees. But, although they'd stopped for ages, they hadn't been allowed out of the terminal at the RAF base before they'd finally re-embarked for the last leg. She'd had no chance to see anything other than the terminal itself, a glimpse of a lagoon and those oranges. Yes, she thought, sun, sand and sea would be a treat to look forward to a.s.suming she hadn't had enough of sun and sand by the time her tour was over.

Anyway, they must be almost about to arrive. It had been explained to them during the in-flight briefing that for security reasons they would be arriving in the middle of the night.

'So we can't see how s.h.i.+t-scared the pilot is,' quipped the squaddie who had cast himself as the in-flight entertainment.

Never mind the pilot, thought Chrissie to herself. She reckoned she wasn't going to be too cool about landing in a war-zone herself.

Bing-bong went the tannoy again, just to make sure everyone was awake. Then: 'Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disturb your sleep, but this is to tell you that in a few minutes we will be approaching Camp Bastion. Please don your body armour and helmets. When you have done that and are safely strapped back in your seats, we will black out the aircraft and begin our descent. For those of you who have flown this route before, you know what to expect. For those of you who haven't, please be a.s.sured that neither I, Squadron Leader Foulkes, nor my co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant Gurney, have a death wish. The manoeuvres we will be taking are well within the airframe tolerances and designed to minimise any possibility of a surface-to-air enemy attack. If you think you might be p.r.o.ne to motion sickness and even if you don't it might be wise to have a sickbag on standby. I hope you enjoy the ride.'

Chrissie's eyes met Lee's and she was almost grateful to see a flicker of worry in his. 'What manoeuvres, what tolerances?' she asked him. 'What the f.u.c.k did he mean?'

'Haven't a clue, but we'll be finding out shortly. But I think he was trying to tell us the wings aren't going to fall off.'

Chrissie gazed at him, open mouthed. 'Wings? Fall off?' she squeaked. 'Thanks, Lee.'

They got their body armour on and fastened the straps of their combat helmets. A couple of minutes later, they were plunged into darkness. Chrissie held her hand in front of her face. Nothing. She touched her nose with her fingers. Not a sausage. When they said blackout, they meant it. Her heart rate began to increase. She had a feeling this was going to be scary and was glad she was clutching a sickbag in her other hand.

Then the plane tipped forward. This hadn't happened when they went into RAF Akrotiri. That had been a gentle glide and her ears had popped intermittently. This was something else entirely; this wasn't a descent, this was a nosedive. s.h.i.+t, she thought as they plunged, planes weren't meant to fall out of the sky like this. OK, little nippy fighters might do this sort of thing she'd watched Top Gun, she'd seen them strut their stuff but a huge, f.u.c.k-off transport job, a block of flats with wings attached? No way!

The noise of the engines seemed to block out all other sound but, even so, she clenched her teeth to stop herself from screaming as the plummet continued. Then the plane banked violently to the right, followed by a roll to the left. So far in her life Chrissie had experienced just two take-offs and one landing, but even she knew this was way beyond normal. And she didn't care what the pilot had said about tolerances, the wings were about to fall off, or maybe they already had. Maybe this was how it had felt on the 747 that had crashed on Lockerbie. S-h-i-i-i-t.

A sour whiff of vomit made Chrissie's stomach churn even more. She clutched her bag and the plane jolted and jounced and continued to dive. At this rate they'd hit the deck any second now. Surely. They'd been plunging earthwards for what seemed like hours. The pilot had lied; he was a kamikaze terrorist and they were all doomed. The jinks and jerks seemed to get worse, if anything, as did the smell of sick, and someone was screaming. The engines didn't block out all sound as she'd thought they might, and Chrissie was thankful she'd managed to keep herself under control. But just as she thought that, her resolve crumbled, fear got the better of her and she began to cry. She didn't want to die, but still the nightmare continued, and now it had got to a pitch where she didn't care if it ended in oblivion. Live, die, what the h.e.l.l: she just wanted peace and an end to this mind-numbing terror.

Then, with an extraordinary change, the aircraft suddenly levelled out, the ducking and weaving stopped and about thirty seconds later, she felt the thump of the undercarriage hitting the ground. They'd landed, she thought. They hadn't piled in nose first. They'd survived. Her sobs changed to a near-hysterical giggle of relief and, just as the lights came back on again, the build-up of adrenalin in her system got the better of her and she hurled.

'Nice one,' said Lee.

But Chrissie didn't care, she felt too weak, too wrung-out and too shaky to give a flying f.u.c.k. She fell silent, as the tannoy boomed again.

'Welcome to Afghanistan.'

'And you are welcome to it,' said the duty comedian in response.

Chrissie raised a wan smile and folded down the top of her bag. She wiped her mouth.

'At least you didn't do it all over me this time,' said Lee, giving her arm a squeeze. 'And you weren't alone, trust me on that. There were big strong men squealing like five-year-olds.'

Chrissie was sure this was a lie, but it made her feel less of a wuss.

'Please remain in your seats, with your seatbelts fastened, until the aircraft has come to a complete stop. You have arrived in Camp Bastion, where it is three o'clock local time.'

She'd made it to Afghanistan. Relief, coupled with grat.i.tude that Lee had been so kind and understanding, all became too much for Chrissie and she burst into tears again.

As Lee's flight was touching down in Afghanistan, Jenna was standing in the middle of her almost-complete bathroom and surveying it with undiluted pleasure. The plumber she'd given the work to had done a grand job. She ran her fingers over the black, sparkling counter surrounding the backwash unit, which was now positioned where the bath used to be. There was a s.p.a.ce behind it for her to stand. On the wall above it were some contemporary stainless steel shelves, which sparkled in the light of the inset spots on the ceiling. The gla.s.s and stainless steel shower stall in one corner gleamed, and the toilet was discreetly placed in the other, so as not to be visible to her clients while they were being shampooed. She could disguise the fact that this was actually a bathroom, not a pukka salon, up to a point, but even Jenna had understood that it would not be possible, given the design of the house, to put the loo anywhere else.

The bill had been horrendous, but she reckoned that by the time Lee was due back from his tour, she ought to have earned almost enough to repay the money she'd taken from his deposit account. Well, more fool him, for leaving his pa.s.sword and key information kicking around. Besides, when she'd managed to pay the cost of this conversion off and save up a bit more, she was going to invest in a proper salon, with a tanning studio and a nail bar, maybe on the High Street in the town. She didn't want just army wives; she wanted everyone one to come to Jenna's. She'd show Zo how to run a business; she'd coin it in. Marky Markham move over Jenna Perkins is coming through. And when she'd made it she and Lee would be able to move out of this poxy box the army called a house and into something much nicer.

Moving away from the counter, she ran her fingers down the piles of black fluffy towels stacked on the s.h.i.+ny shelves. They hadn't been cheap either, she mused, but she wasn't going to make do with the thin, cheap c.r.a.p that Zo inflicted on her clients. Honestly, some of them were so rough it was like trying to dry the ladies' hair with sandpaper.

On the opposite wall, on another set of gleaming shelves, were the salon products she'd 'liberated' from Zo's over the past several months. She'd been careful to collect the colours and products she used on her existing clients clients she was relying on to remain loyal to her. She knew she'd have to invest in more stock, but this ought to improve her profit margin for a month or two. Or a thought struck her allow her to undercut Zo significantly. It might be better to do that; after all, no one could resist a bargain, could they?

She went downstairs to her sitting room, now transformed by a huge cream rug which almost completely covered the hideous orange carpet. Once Lee's pay had filled up the bank account again, she'd invest in some new furniture, too, so her ladies had somewhere nice to wait for their appointments. But even she knew she couldn't afford such an extravagance just yet. Cream leather, she thought, would be perfect in due course. And a flat screen TV. Lee would love it when he saw it. He'd be so proud of her, getting a business up and running and making the house nice. Fancy making a fuss over some silly rules and regulations; he'd change his tune, when he saw the money she was making. Now all she had to do was print some leaflets and tell everyone in the garrison that she was up and running.

She got her laptop out. As she cut and pasted pictures into the template she'd already designed, she wondered if she ought to tell Zo she was leaving, or leaflet all the quarters first. Or maybe she ought to give Zo a week's notice and get the leaflets out while she was working her notice period. That way she could slide from her job to her new venture. Yes, that was the way to do it.

18.

'You f.u.c.king little underhanded cow,' shrieked Zo.

Jenna stood her ground. 'Don't you talk to me like that,' she hissed right back.

'I can talk to you however I b.l.o.o.d.y like. This is my salon.'

The two faced each other like warring cats, claws ready to strike, eyes blazing; if they'd had tails, they'd have been all fluffed up like bottle-brushes. Around them, by the basins, in front of the mirrors, the other customers and stylists watched the row, agog.

'Call this a salon?' sneered Jenna. 'I've seen better appointed public toilets.'

'I've no doubt you have it's where sewer rats like you hang out.'

'b.i.t.c.h,' screeched Jenna.

Across the salon, Immi, waiting to have her roots done, was trying not to laugh. She couldn't wait to get on Facebook and relay the details to Chrissie. Poor Chrissie had sounded quite down when they'd managed to Skype the previous evening.

When she told Chrissie that she'd heard that Lee was out in Afghanistan too, Chrissie had just said, 'Really.'

'You search him out, Chrissie.'

There had been a deep sigh. 'Immi, Bastion is a place the size of Reading.'

'But it'd be nice to see a friendly face.'

'Maybe.'

Immi had ended the call worrying about her friend. Anyone else would have jumped at the chance of meeting up with an old friend in a new posting. Maybe it was long hours and a grim job that had made Chrissie sound so down. Anyway, a blow-by-blow account of what was happening in the hairdresser's was bound to give Chrissie a good laugh. She switched her attention back to the fight.

Jenna, incensed by another insult from Zo, picked up a hairbrush and hurled it at her adversary. Zo had the good sense to duck, as the Mason and Pearson whistled past her head. It missed Zo, but connected with the mirror directly behind her. The gla.s.s shattered into a spider's web of crazed fragments.

'Get out,' screamed Zo, whipping round to take in the damage. 'Get out!'

'Like I'd want to stay in this dump, anyhow.'

Jenna marched to the staffroom, gathered her coat and bag and stormed out, slamming the gla.s.s door behind her with such force that Immi wondered for a second if that mightn't shatter, too.

The silence following Jenna's departure lasted a full thirty seconds before the stylists turned their hairdryers back on and a low hubbub of chatter resumed.

And it all might have been quite entertaining, thought Immi, except that her roots had been booked in with Jenna. No hairdo for her today, then.

'Sorry about that,' said Zo, sweeping across to Immi as if she'd just dealt with a spilt drink, not a very public falling-out. 'I think we might have to rebook you, if that's OK.'

'It'll have to be,' said Immi, grateful that at least Jenna hadn't actually started on her hair. With all the other stylists busy, goodness knew what would have happened if one half of her roots had been dyed and the other half hadn't. She followed Zo over to the desk by the door. She wondered when, with a member of staff gone, Zo would be able to fit her in again. Her roots were really on the limit. If Zo couldn't fit her in soon, she'd have to have a go at doing them herself. On the other hand, maybe she could still get Jenna to do her hair this morning. Presumably she'd gone home and wouldn't have anything else to do. Maybe she'd be glad of the business: her first customer.

Immi made an excuse. 'I'll ring. I need my diary.' That way, if Jenna couldn't fit her in this morning or over the next couple of days, she hadn't burned her boats with Zo.

Still chuckling about the scene she'd just witnessed, Immi set off for the soldier's patch and Jenna's quarter.

'Hiya,' said Jenna, when she opened the door. 'Come to gloat?' She might have been full of bravado at Zo's, but she looked pretty deflated now.

'No! I have not. I want you to do my hair.'