Officers and Men Ch. 03

And it was about to get much worse.

We arrived in the camp in a lorry and we were all bundled in the back. There was the usual collection of colourful boards at the entrance to the camp announcing which regiments were there. I took only a cursory glance at them as we drove in.

There was a Scottish infantry regiment, a Scottish armoured regiment, some logistics and a detachment of Royal Military Police, plus a couple of squadrons of armoured regiments detached from their home bases as part of this battle group.

The exercise went well and Andy was sent out into the plains, sometimes in a personnel carrier, and once from a helicopter. We just did our jobs, no mobile text messages of course, and I saw him just twice.

He ran through the tented headquarters that had been set up and reported to Mick and I.

"Mam!" he said jumping to attention, and seeing another Captain next to me, "Sir!" he flung up a salute just as the Guards had taught him.

"Corporal Sargeant!" said Mick, "How's things out there?"

He replied with the age old army response, "All going to plan sir!" he snapped, "just not sure which plan."

"All good then," I said, "There is someone around here that knows which version we are on, and when I see him I'll be sure to let him know."

Andy reported on what he had to report on, and Mick told him to grab himself a quick meal in the HQ canteen that seemed to run 24 hours a day.

"Thank you sir," he said, "I'll do that, not had a meal cooked by someone else since got off the plane."

"I'll join you Andy," I said, and we walked across the tent camp to the largest one from which steam and the occasional clatter came. We round a corner, "Put your beret on," I whispered. He did so taking off his helmet.

This meant, quite simply, that everyone would see that he was Int Corps and so was I and there would be less discussion of why a Captain and a Corporal were sat quietly chatting to each other in the same mess tent and not officers/men as it might be expected to be.

The cooks had somehow managed to produce a quite reasonable cottage pie and we took a plate each along with a superb apple crumble. Comfort food, and that was what we both needed.

We sat opposite each other on one of the large form tables with benches each side and began to eat. A couple of tired looking squaddies approached our tables, saw our conversation about to start and our 'green slime' berets and headed to the next table just in case.

"Hi Andy," I whispered.

"Hey Linnie," he said not smiling, but still making eye contact.

"Andy, I've missed you so much," I said taking a forkful of mashed potatoes.

"Me too," he said staring at his plate in that 'operations haze' that takes over after a few days, "I love being in love with you, but," he took the chance and looked at me and smiled, "when did this shit become so hard? When did I stop wanting to go out and do my job that takes me away from you?"

I struggled not to smile, instead taking a long slug of my tea. We were less than four days into a three week exercise and to try and find some light at the end of the tunnel, I asked him what we would do with the week leave we would have after we flew back to the UK.

"I know what I want to do," he said.

"After that," I said taking another fork of cottage pie, "I'd quite like a few days away, anywhere you fancy going?" He looked at me across his mug of tea and grinned, and I barely stopped myself from laughing at him. "I've no problem with you going there Andy," I whispered, "But I don't mean..."

"Lin!" It was Mick, clasping his own mug of coffee with a couple of slices of bread spread thick with jam, one of Mick's staples on operations, "and Andy!" he said with his usual ebullience.

Mick was about three years behind me, a boy from a council estate, with parents both on sick benefit that had left school with no qualifications, a bad attitude, and several warnings from the police and the biggest chip on his shoulder.

The only job he could get was a night shelf stacker in a huge supermarket on the outskirts of town; he hated every moment of it and when he grumbled, the store manager pointed to where the door was and said the choice was his. Shelf stacking at four in the morning he saw some old friends from school, now boyfriend and girlfriend.

It wasn't that they ignored him on purpose, in his store uniform with all his colleagues he was invisible and faded into the background. Once they passed him for a third time, he spoke to them. They both seemed pleased to see him.

They were both about to finish their A levels with a view to University, and they asked what about him.

"Oh, I'm just doing this to fill in time and earn some cash." He made up on the spot. The obviously didn't know that height of his qualifications was a D in Design Technology.

"You taking a year out?" said the girl.

"Errr, yeah," he fabricated, it had been almost two.

"That's so cool, we aren't travelling until after Uni. What are you doing when you get back?"

"Not sure yet," he said, "Several options I got on the boil, you know."

His options at that time were whether he was going to find another job that would employ someone with no qualifications and almost a criminal record. In fact the first supermarket he applied to, not far from his house, recognised him as part of a group of little shits that used to hang around in their mall and cause trouble so sent him on his way pretty quick hence his massive walk each morning to get to this store.

The girl hugged him and boy shook his hand,

"We'll see you around Michael, yeah!"

"Yeah," he said with a hard pressed grin. He wouldn't see them again that was for sure, not unless they became doctors, dentists, police officers or social workers; that was the only way people like him would meet people like them.

He walked home at half past six that morning watching all the commuters in the expensive suits driving their expensive cars and finally had the epiphany that his teachers had been trying to drum into him since he went through puberty and his problems began. Perhaps it hadn't all been easy for them. Perhaps you had to do it for yourself. The two old school friends both came from the same background he did, perhaps...

He kept on walking, feet sore from the cheap safety shoes the firm made him wear, and came to the local college just unlocking the doors and he went in and sat down in the refectory with a coffee from the machine pulling his jacket around his shoulders with some small amount of shame to cover up his corporate clothing. He saw a few more people he recognised in passing and they all nodded to him and smiled.

As his head started to nod there was the clatter he'd been waiting for and the advice and guidance office opened and he walked in, he still insists it's the point that he turned his life around. The advisor took one look at his uniform still with the dust on the knees of his black trousers.

"Resits?" she said. He nodded, "Take a seat, let's get you signed up and educated."

So he went back to college 6 weeks later, retook his exams the following summer and got excellent results. The college put him straight into a foundation course and he blasted through that, so much so that the college applied for a scholarship to a Russell Group University for him where he was accepted. He studied psychology and despite his apparent poor start he graduated with a first.

Over a beer one night he admitted to me the real reason he applied to Sandhurst; his father had been in the army, and his bullying older brother had joined up as well, and they had trained him to be mechanic.

His brother and both parents threw it in his face at every opportunity about how successful he was, he had a career, he was a going to be a corporal in a few years, he had travelled the world; blah blah blah.

As he progressed and got qualifications over and above his brother and was the first person in the family to go to University, they all had to change their tone slightly so now it became his brother didn't have a huge loan, his brother had done it all himself, his brother had worked hard to get what he had. He hadn't of course; his brother had signed his life away the way we all did.

He asked if they felt that he hadn't worked hard.

Mick's hands were clean, not like his brothers, and his brother would always have a trade.

"And dirty hands..." said Mick who swore that he never would.

So he decided that he would go to Sandhurst, get a commission and he would make a point of having his brother salute him not once but twice a year, whether it meant flying to the other side of the world he would do it, just to piss off that smart-arsed grease monkey and let him know that even with his trade he would always be second best. He knew his former infantryman father would respect his commission.

At least one occasion I know that his bi-annual revenge fest took place as we were both just happened to be in the Logistics Corps Centre he was based at and, as Mick had described, his brother was so army mad he saluted Mick and I as we walked into the workshop he was working in.

Despite his desire to get a commission he was the least rank conscious soldier I ever met and he just had the ability to get one with everyone and could keep the respect of all he worked with. Mick was a mate, and probably the nicest soldier (after Andy) I ever met and technically Andy reported to him while he reported to me, so when he bounced into the seat next to me to chat with Andy I couldn't really complain.

The three of us had a chat and some banter until Andy looked at his watch and said he had to go and meet up with the patrol he was assigned to go back out to the war, albeit a pretend one, and all too soon we'd finished our meals.

"Until later Mam," he said with a smile, "Until later young sir." He said to Mick, Mick grinned, it was an 'In joke' they shared.

"Fuck off Corporal Sargeant, there's a good lad." He grinned, slapping Andy a resounding blow on the back and making out he'd hurt his hand on the body armour.

Andy walked away with only one look back at me and what I took to be the hint of a wink.

"I like him," said Mick.

"Yeah," I said sipping the last of my tea, "I met his family, they're all really nice as well."

"That all passed off OK?"

"Yeah, I went down and apologised and they couldn't have been nicer. Turned out it was his ex-girlfriend, mad bitch accused him of rape a few weeks ago."

"It's alright for you, I had to deal with the girlfriend and the girlfriend's mother. Cried all kinds of infamy against me, virtually blamed me for ruining the entire day. Bitch."

"Sorry Mick," I said I grinned.

"No problem," he said, "Did you meet his Mum and Dad?"

"Yes," I said.

"Old Bill," he said using the popular slang for police, "I bet the girlfriend isn't going to come out of that little charade so well."

"I doubt it."

"He told me his brother in law is former RMP and has joined the police locally, so that's three cross coppers after her."

"Oh yeah," I said, "And I wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of his sister either."

"You've met her?" said Mick.

"Yes," I said, conscious that I'd let my guard down a bit quick, I recovered quickly, "She was at his house when I went to apologise. His twin."

"Cool," he said finishing his tea, "I'm glad all that got sorted, he's too nice to be wrapped up in all that kind of shit."

"Yeah," I said and finished mine.

Mick grinned at me and taking our mugs headed back to war. I didn't see Andy for another seven days as his part of the battle moved on without us. I had all but gotten him out of my mind until one dark night at a shade after three in the morning. I walked across a vehicle park to clear my head of the incessant buzz of radio traffic from the headquarters I had spent the best part of a fortnight in.

I was looking up at the stars, just taking in that beauty that we all take for granted so often, when I heard a voice, "Captain Major Mam."

I turned, the shape was unmistakable. "Corporal Sargeant?"

"Yes Mam," he said and walked across to me. It was pitch black and he took me in his arms and kissed me. He needed a shave and did smell the worse for ten days on exercise but it was one of the sweetest kisses ever.

"Until later baby," he whispered, and walked away. I wasn't to see him for another three days, but his absence was useful.

The absence was useful, for it kept him out of harm's way for what came next. The pitch black wasn't quite as pitch as I thought it was. As my part of the exercise came to an end, the Headquarters element was stood down and we made our way back to the huge camp that the British Army had there.

I showered and washed my hair, dressed in clean clothes and packed and sorted my gear for the return flight to the UK. I was dog tired but didn't want to sleep as my body clock was all over the place.

So I went to the Officers Mess for a meal and a drink to round off the proceedings. I stepped into the bar, just in jeans and sweater with a fleece over the top to keep off the Canadian chill.

Just as I started to relax I saw a Cavalry Officer in his combat uniform slightly the worse for the beers he'd been putting away. It turned out that while I had never met him he had certainly seen a picture of me before.

The passing years had made him bold and he came and found me in the small anteroom I had gone and sat in with a collection of newspapers, stood in front of me and looked at my tits as if remembering what they looked like from the picture that had been on the 60" plasma TV in his mess not six years before. I didn't recognise him of course, I only knew of the names on the long circulation list.

He pulled his beret from his pocket and held it so I could see the colour and the badge. "Hi Strumpet, long time no see."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

"You're gonna be" he grinned.

"If you're from Roger's Regi..."

"Oh don't kid yourself Strumpet Major, you can sit back and pretend you're sweet Miss Perfect to everyone else but I know the real Strumpet."

"Fuck you," I said reverting back to the girl I'd been some years ago.

"I suppose you think you got away with that shit don't you, well I'll have you know that Roger Turnball and David Traynor-Davis were both close personal friends of mine."

"Like I said Major, Fuck you." I said.

"Roger Turnball ended his career as a Major in The Logistics Corps you Bitch!" he snarled and he made to raise a hand but his cry had a steward walk past. He calmed just fractionally once the private had gone, "He transferred out of his family Regiment just because you ruined his career. And TD? Ended up as a staff officer for a bloody reserve unit!" He snarled, "You wrecked both of their careers!"

"How the fuck did I ruin their careers, Roger sent all the emails, or did your forget that bit?"

"But you will be sorry you ever crossed the Dragoons," he whispered, "The perfect Captain Major has finally fucked up and I was there to see it!"

"What?"

"Kissing a fucking grunt at three in the morning? What kind of slut are you?" I took a deep breath and stood. "Oh remember it now do you? All coming back to you, you whore!" He folded his arms, "The secret is out Captain Strumpet, you should never have intimate liaisons with the common soldiery in front of a Scorpion Tank with its night vision equipment turned on." I felt dizzy, "It's just a shame I don't have photographs, because they'd go straight to the Daily Mail, along with a bit of a story on who you personally destroyed two fine men just because they upset your delicate female sensibilities." He sniffed in triumph, "And then I'll have your fucking corporal;" his foul breath right in my face, "You'll just be cashiered and sent on your way with the tabloid press hot on your heals; but your pretty corporal? I'll have him locked up in Colchester -- a few months there will teach him not to fuck around with officers above his station. Mind you, you'd fuck anybody. Strumpet..."

I tried to run away but he grabbed my arm.

"Let go of me!"

"No way," he said, "Tell you what strumpet, you come to my room tomorrow night and I'll think about forgetting what I saw."

"I'd rather go to Colchester," I said.

"Your choice bitch, but remember your Corporal will back in tomorrow afternoon from the war and ready to shag the strumpet... you'd better make your mind up."

I turned and stormed out of the room and out of the mess. I thought I had left all of that behind me, and having had such a wonderful few months it dragged me right back down again.

I went to my room, sat on my bed and hugged my pillow, wanting desperately to talk to someone and feel better. I couldn't and didn't want to talk to Andy, my chief worry there being that he would take revenge on that particular arsehole and get himself into all kinds of trouble.

In desperation I emailed Katy, telling her the story of what had happened those long years ago and what they had done to me. She replied and told me to get out my laptop and we started to chat via Skype and I stopped crying, it was so nice to see that friendly face, along with Laura sat on her lap.

"You were right not to tell Andy," she consoled me, "Leave him out of it, can I tell Lee?"

"Yes," I said, thinking that while Lee was a police officer he was the other side of the Atlantic and couldn't interfere with anything or make things worse.

As had already been pointed out that Lee, like his Father in Law Dave, had joined Avon and Somerset Police from the Army, specifically the much-maligned Royal Military Police and unknown to me he telephoned some old friends of his, one of them being the Special Investigation Branch Sergeant Major at that same camp that Andy and I were in.

The next morning I headed from my accommodation across to the mess for breakfast and felt better for getting the problem off of my chest and I had started to work on a response should the comedian in question try to bother me again.

He was waiting for me in hallway of the officers' mess, and I made to walk past him but he stepped in front of me, not bothering with the two other men in the area sat in large leather high backed chairs.

"Ah, The Strumpet," he said with glee. Then suddenly the two men that had been sat in the large leather chairs were stood either side of him.

"Major Carmody?" said the first showing him a black leather wallet with a shiny badge in it, "My name is Staff Sergeant Logan of the Special Investigation Branch, Royal Military Police, this is Sergeant Price; can we have a word please?"

They put both put a gentle but insistent hand on each of his elbows. He looked only slightly more shocked than I did.

"Get your hands off of me, how dare you!" he snarled.

"Now then Major, let's not make this unpleasant shall we?"

I had my breakfast, and when I came out of the mess to head for my office we were using prior to our departure, he was still stood under a distant tree being spoken to by the MP's. Back in my office, I had a phone call asking me to wander across to the MP's office at my convenience. I did so.

When I got there, Staff Sergeant Logan was stood in the foyer waiting for me, and asked me to take a walk with him.

"Just to let you know that the joker shouldn't be bothering you anymore. If he does, just ring me." He handed me a business card. I wanted to thank him but my voice wouldn't let me. He smiled and shook my hand, "not having fuck-ups like him dragging down my army, no way." He said, "You do actually have the emails with his name on don't you, because we've told him that we have."

"Yes," I said, "yes I have."

"Good," he said, "Put the fear of Christ into him. He's under the impression that the army destroyed it all and he can use the memory of it against you. He started on some shit about you and some Corporal." I flinched, "Well we told him that this was the Army of the 21st Century and there was no crime in that. However, threatening a female Captain would see him out of the army and in prison.