afford to be rude to his sister because in thirteen months he would be moving from bachelor quarters at Ashford to her cottage. Ambleside, the Lake District, would become his retirement home. Nowhere else to go but his sister’s cottage and seasonal work with the National Trust if he was lucky… What a goddamn waste.
‘Morning, Barnes.’
‘Morning, Major.’
She hadn’t looked up at him, looked instead at the big clock on the wall across her cubbyhole space, above the filing cabinets.
‘Well, you know, running a bit late… Telephone call just when I was about to leave… Rotten morning.’
He’d barked his excuse. He was fifty-three years old, a primary expert on the old Soviet Army and now on the new Russian Federation Army. He briefed the chief of staff on one to one, and the chief of defence intelligence, and the secretary of state. He as fluent in German, Russian, the Pushtu language of the Afghan tribesmen, and he always felt the need to make an excuse to Corporal Tracy Barnes when he was late to work.
Her eyes had been on her screen. ‘Careful where you stand, Major, ceiling’s leaking again. I’ve been on to Maintenance and bollocked them. They’re sending someone over – won’t make any difference unless he comes with a bulldozer.
‘Of course, excellent – what’s my day?’
‘On your desk, waiting for you. Oh, the Captain rang on his mobile, took the dog walking off camp, lost it – his story…’
He’d unlocked his door.
‘Don’t take your coat in there, Major, get wet all over your carpet. I’ll take it outside and shake it.’
‘Would you? Thank you.’
‘Dogs are as bright as their masters, if you ask me – give us the coat.’
She’d been beside him, reaching up and helping him off with it, tutting criticism because it dripped a stain on the carpet, and she was gone.. Other than his sister, Corporal Barnes was the only woman he knew. Only went to his sister, the cottage near the water at Ambleside, for his three weeks’ leave a year, but he was with Corporal Barnes for the other forty-nine. Four years she’d been with him – didn’t know where she went for her leave, never asked, assumed she went back to her mother. No one could say it was against her wishes, but he’d quietly put the cap on any question of her promotion to sergeant and he’d blocked any proposal for her transfer. He gazed around his room. Not much that was personal to him, other than the pictures. Leave charts for the section, night-duty rosters, photographs of their new armoured personnel carriers and new mortars and their new minister of defence. The pictures were his own. He was not a happy man, and less happy now that the certain days of the Cold War were consigned to the rubbish bin, and certainly not happy that a working lifetime of deep knowledge was about to be ditched into the same bin.
The pictures represented the happiest time of his life. The Last Stand of the 44th Regiment at Gundamuck was his favourite, the little knot of men gathered round their officer who had tied the colours around his chest, their ammunition exhausted and bayonets their only defence, the tribesmen circling them in the winter snow of the Khyber Pass – good stuff – and The Remnants of an Army, Lady Butler’s portrayal of the surgeon’s arrival at Jalalabad a couple of days after the Gundamuck massacre, only chap to get through. The happiest time in his life had been in Peshawar, debriefing tribesmen, training them to kill Soviet helicopters with the Blowpipe air-to-ground system. Living in Peshawar, just across the Afghan/Pakistan border, watching from a safe distance the Soviets catch a packet, just as the 44th Regiment had 141 years earlier, at the heart of real intelligence gathering. Happy times, useful times… She had been hanging his coat on the hook.
‘You haven’t read your day, Major.’
She nagged at him. It was almost domestic. His sister nagged at him, not unpleasantly but just nagged away until he’d done his chores. Not a great deal of difference between his sister and Corporal Barnes.
‘It’s the German thing, isn’t it?’
‘On your desk – it’s all day, buffet lunch. Colonel’s hosting. There’s a load coming down from London. In lecture room B/19. Guests is the German with two spooks to hold his hand. Coffee at ten, kick-off half an hour after that. The background brief’s on your desk as well.’
‘Have you enough to amuse yourself?’
She had snorted. There were those in the mess who told him that he permitted her to walk to the bounds of insolence, but he wouldn’t have that talk, not in the mess or anywhere else. He had picked up the brief, two sheets, scanned it, and she was gazing at him, rolling her eyes.
‘Don’t know about amusement. There’s the expenses from your Catterick trip. There’s your leave application. I’ve got your paper for Infantry Training School to type up. Have to confirm your dentist. Got to get your car over to Motor Pool for valeting. The stuff you wanted from Library…’
He had seen the two cars go by, black and unmarked, glistening from the rain, heading towards the B-block complex.
‘Morning, Perry… Morning, Corporal.’
He quite liked to be called Perry. It gave him a sort of warmth. The use of his name made him feel wanted. In the mess he always introduced himself with that name, encouraged visitors to use it. He had a need for friends that was seldom gratified. He’d turned towards the door.
‘Morning, Ben, bit off schedule, aren’t we?’
‘Morning, Captain,’ she’d intoned, as if he was out of order.
He was young. His hair was a mess. He was red-flushed in the face. The Labrador, black, was soaked wet, on a tight lead and choke chain, close to his heels, the tail curled under the stomach and mourning eyes.
‘Went after the rabbits – took a bloody age to catch him. Christ, we’re up against it, aren’t we? Should be moving, should we? Corporal, be an angel, Nelson’s food’s in the car. Half a tin, three handfuls of meal, warm water not boiling to mix in, lunch-time, OK? Oh, those biographies, 49th Mechanized Infantry at… God, where is it?’
‘At Voronezh, Captain Christie. The 49th Mechanized Infantry is currently at garrison camp at Voronezh.’
‘It’s updated, in the safe. Needs retyping – hope you can read the writing. Look, I’m short of petrol vouchers. You’ll give Nelson a walk. No titbits for him, nothing extra, supposed to be dieting
· · Be an angel.’
‘Time we made a move,’ the Major had said.
He walked under the lights, and away ahead of him were the high lamps over the wire. There was no one within the wall of wire around Templer Barracks in whom he could confide, so damned unfair, no one to comfort him.
It would be across the barracks within an hour. The whispering, giggling, gossiping and tittering would be sieved through the officers’ mess, the officers’ married quarters, the sergeants’ mess, their married quarters, junior ranks’ canteen, junior ranks’ quarters. The Colonel had said that it was Perry Johnson’s responsibility, and every bastard out there would have a little story, grist fed to the mill, about the liberties taken by Corporal Tracy Barnes towards her commanding officer. He had not the merest idea why she had attacked the German with such animal savagery.
The guardhouse sergeant snapped from his chair, stood to attention, but he was sure the damn man had smirked. On the table was a plastic bag holding a tie, a belt and a pair of shoelaces.
‘Where is she?’
‘Cell block, number four, sir.’
He went to the steel-barred door, and the dull-lit corridor stretched into shadows in front of him.
‘Well, hurry up, Sergeant.’
‘Yes, sir. Captain Christie’s with her, sir, but I’ve kept an eye out just in case she thumps him.’ The sergeant’s face was impassive.
He smeared his eyes with his coat sleeve. Should have done it before entering the guardhouse. The wet would have been noted. He was admitted to the corridor of the cell block. Good material for the mill of gossip and more bloody tittering.
He went into the cell. Christie was standing inside the open door, white in the face. A central light shone down, protected by a close-mesh wire. The walls, tiled to waist height and whitewashed above, were covered in graffiti scrawls and line drawings of genitalia that were quite disgusting. He had only ever been in the cells once before, to escort a civilian solicitor when one of his corporals, Russian-language translator, had confessed to selling off hire-purchase video-recorders. A foul smell, urine and vomit. There was a window above her, reinforced opaque
