Soldier's Daughters (2 page)

On the other hand, Sam was stunned that Michelle had joined up. She had always been so madcap and impulsive. Maybe she’d calmed down now she was older.

‘Which is your room?’ asked Michelle.

Sam pointed down the corridor. ‘That one.’

Michelle looked at the piece of paper in her hand. ‘I’m twenty-six F.’

The pair scanned the corridor.

‘There,’ said Sam. ‘Almost opposite. Perfect.’ Then she added, ‘Oh, this is so fantastic. I know that everyone says the first five weeks are hell on earth but anything’s bearable with a buddy.’

Michelle nodded. ‘Oh, God. And I thought getting here was fucking brilliant, but now you’re here too…’

Sam suppressed a grin at the look on both fathers’ faces caused by Michelle’s swearing. Maybe she hadn’t changed. Sam wondered how the hell her old friend was going to manage, here at the RMAS, given her past, uneasy relationship with authority.

The beginning of that first day was wonderfully civilised. After all the cars had been unloaded everyone made their way to the memorial chapel, which was across the square at the back of the college, behind Sam’s and Michelle’s rooms. There, surrounded by the names of officers who had trained at Sandhurst and then made the ultimate sacrifice in the mud and blood of the Flanders trenches, the cadets’ parents were assured by the Commandant that the Royal Military Academy would mould their offspring to be leaders, give them an unswerving moral compass to distinguish between right and wrong, just and unjust, how their pastoral care would always be a priority and how they would become valuable members of society. It was sobering and uplifting in equal measure.

Then it was tea and cake in the officers’ mess while their company commanders and the civilian teaching staff, collectively known as the directing staff (or the DS, Sam’s father told her), circulated, making polite chit-chat. But once the parents were off the premises there was a distinct shift in mood and tempo.

The cadets returned to their rooms where they took off their smart suits and donned their issue, one-size-fits-all, green coveralls, which actually fitted no one but would be their everyday garb until they could be issued with everything else they’d need, from PE kit to parade uniforms. Now dressed uniformly, they were directed to stand outside their respective bedroom doors.

And that was when the shouting started. Suddenly they weren’t civilians but the lowest of the low as far as the army was concerned. Pond life ranked higher than they did and, it seemed, was certainly considered more intelligent and was held in higher esteem by the entire army. They
knew
nothing, they
were
nothing and if they knew what was good for them they would
do
nothing but obey orders from their superiors, and it seemed that everyone else at Sandhurst – probably including the stable-yard cat, thought Sam – was superior. Talk about being at the bottom of the food chain.

It was over supper that Michelle and Sam finally got to catch up on what had happened in the intervening years since they’d been sent off to different boarding schools when they were eleven.

‘So you did electrical engineering at uni?’ said Michelle. ‘Bloody hell. You’re a bit of a clever clogs, then, aren’t you? Mind you, your dad always gave you weird presents for birthdays and everything, didn’t he? You must have been the only girl at St Martin’s with a Meccano set and a model railway. At least my step-mum made sure Dad’s presents were more appropriate. She might be a cow and I still hate her but at least she made Dad choose girlie pressies,’ said Michelle.

And your family life probably explains why you’re a bit bonkers, thought Sam, fondly. But, then, she wasn’t in much of a position to cast aspersions on Michelle’s family hang-ups when she had her own to contend with. It suddenly seemed obvious to her that she and Michelle were both desperate for their fathers’ attention, only they tried to get it in different ways: Michelle through her outrageous behaviour and shock tactics, and she by being good and trying only to please.

‘So what about you? What did you read at uni?’

Michelle snorted. ‘Sore subject. I did English but failed my first-year exams. It didn’t help that I had a bit of a fling with my tutor before it all turned sour.’ She sighed. ‘Mind you, he didn’t have to threaten to get a restraining order slapped on me.’

Sam’s eyes widened. ‘What?’

‘He was a total drama queen, if you ask me,’ said Michelle, shrugging off the enormity of what she’d disclosed. ‘I only wanted to get him to see my side of the argument, but he said I was harassing him. If he’d only stopped and listened to me…’ She sighed again. ‘Anyway, Dad went off on one so, what with one thing and another, I fucked off to Aus.’

‘Really?’ Sam barely knew what to say. Restraining order? Although Michelle said he’d only threatened her with one so maybe it had been a scare tactic, nothing more. Even so… sheesh. But she’d made it through selection so what the heck.

‘Yeah. And I had a great time in Aus,’ continued Michelle, unaware of how stunned her old friend was. ‘It’s such a blinding place. So laid back and friendly. At least the people are; their government is a bunch of bastards.’

So she’d managed to cross the Australian authorities as well as her uni tutor? ‘What did you do?’ said Sam.

‘I over-stayed my visa by a few weeks and they got really arsey.’

‘Michelle! Of course they would. There are rules. And how long was a few weeks?’

‘Nine months.’ Sam gasped and Michelle shrugged. ‘Anyway, I was up shit creek because my open return air ticket had run out and I couldn’t work because of my visa – which they refused to renew – so I couldn’t earn enough to buy another ticket…’ She gave Sam a look as if to suggest it had all been a conspiracy against her rather than a total cock-up on her part.

‘Bloody hell. What did you do?’

‘I had to get Dad to bail me out. And of course as soon as I got back he went off on one again. Honestly, Sam, it was only a few hundred quid for the ticket – well, maybe five, but he could afford it.’

Sam didn’t think that was the point but kept quiet.

‘Anyway, as he was being a pain to live with, I decided I’d better get a job that came with living accommodation. So here I am. From making the decision to getting here it’s all been a bit of a roller-coaster, so if I find it’s complete pants I can easily get out. All I need to do is tell them I’m back on the dope and that’ll be me home free. Not that I really want to do that because I really, really do think, for once in my life, I’ve made the right decision. But it’s nice to know I’ve got an exit strategy handy, you know, just in case…’

Sam grinned. Michelle really hadn’t changed. Still nuts, still incorrigible.

‘Dad is utterly convinced,’ continued Michelle, ‘I won’t make it through to Sovereign’s Parade and I really want to prove him wrong. Honestly, if anything is going to keep me going his lack of faith in me will.’

Once again it seemed that she and Michelle had a lot in common – they were army brats, they’d both been sent to boarding school and neither of them had their birth mother around, but now it seemed both of them wanted to prove to their fathers they had what it took to get a commission.

Sam might have thought she was fit, she thought she knew how to look after her kit, she thought she knew how to bull her drill shoes and she thought she knew how to march because she’d been in the Officer Training Corps at uni. How wrong she was. In a matter of hours she discovered that she knew nothing. Zero. Zilch. Not a single thing that she did was remotely up to the standard deemed acceptable by the colour sergeant in charge of her platoon of thirty women. But if she thought she was faring badly, it was even worse for Michelle. Michelle might also be the daughter of an officer but she hadn’t a clue about the army or what was expected. Maybe backpacking round Aus hadn’t been the greatest preparation.

After a few days Michelle really began to struggle. She took almost twice as long as Sam to get her kit up to scratch or arrange all of her issue kit ready for inspection, or any damn task they were set, but her worst failing was her total inability to bring her drill shoes up to snuff. Bulling boots was a skill she couldn’t master. Luckily Sam could and had, so as soon as she’d sorted out her own stuff she rocked across the corridor to sit on Michelle’s bed with a duster, the boot polish and Michelle’s drill shoes. And while Sam’s duster-encased finger traced minute circles all over Michelle’s toecaps, her friend got on with ironing her shirts, or de-fluffing her beret with sticky tape, or cleaning the skirting board of her room with a toothbrush.

‘You don’t need to do this,’ protested Michelle as it approached midnight and Sam was still working on her mate’s boots.

‘I do, I owe you. You got me through the first weeks of prep school. What goes around comes around.’

When they’d first run into each other, back when they were both seven-going-on-eight, her initial impression of Michelle had been far from favourable. Sam had been sitting on her bed in her two-bed dorm at boarding school on the first day, feeling abandoned and bereft after her father’s perfunctory departure, when a tall, skinny and noisy girl had thundered in.

‘But I wanted that bed,’ she said by way of greeting, glaring at Sam.

Sam felt irked. She’d got here first, this was her bed and she wasn’t going to be pushed about. But even though she made her mind up to stay put she also felt intimidated.

Then the girl’s father arrived. ‘Now, now, Michelle, I’m sure the other bed is as nice.’

‘But it’s not by the window.’

‘Honestly, Michelle,’ said her mother, who entered the room a second after her father, ‘does it really matter?’

To Sam’s amazement Michelle turned, gave her mother a vile look and then said, ‘Of course it matters,’ in such a withering tone that Sam felt a surge of embarrassment at having witnessed the scene. She pushed herself further up her bed and as far into the corner as she could, clutching her teddy like a shield in front of her. How could this girl treat her mother like that? thought Sam, who, not having a mum, longed for one more than anything in the world.

After this they barely spoke to each other for a couple of days; Sam thinking Michelle over-confident, brash and annoying, and Michelle categorising Sam as wet, shy and a waste of oxygen. But then, when Michelle caught Sam crying with homesickness even her, rather stony, heart softened and tentatively she gave her room-mate a hug.

‘Listen,’ she said, ‘I’m sure you’re the normal one here, missing your folks and everything, unlike me. Isn’t that a good thing?’

‘I suppose.’ Sam sniffed and tried to dry her eyes. ‘Don’t you like yours, then?’

‘Dad’s all right.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘She’s not my mum. My mum ran away a few years ago and left me with Dad.’

Sam didn’t know what to say. She wondered if being left behind – not wanted – was worse than having a mum who’d died.

‘But even so, don’t you mind being away from home?’ Sam sniffed.

‘Nah,’ Michelle said robustly. ‘Can’t stand my step-mother so I’m thankful I don’t have to see her, the mean cow.’

The idea that Michelle had a step-mother, and one who seemed to be wicked to boot, was somewhat thrilling. And it explained the exchange between Michelle and Mrs Flowers that first day.

‘What about your folks?’ Michelle asked.

‘Dad’s always busy working and Mum’s dead.’

There was a short silence that followed that announcement. Then, ‘Sorry. Do you miss her?’

‘Never knew her, but I know I’d have liked to have had a mother.’

‘I miss mine. I wish I knew why she walked out.’

‘You’ve no idea why?’

Michelle shook her head. ‘Dad won’t talk about it but maybe, if he hadn’t married Janine, Mum might have come back.’

‘Do you see her?’

‘Who, my real mum?’

‘Yes.’

‘No.’

‘That’s sad.’ Sam reckoned that was really sad; sadder than having a dead mum. Poor Michelle.

From then on loud, brash, brave Michelle took Sam into her protective care and stuck with her through prep school; making her laugh, making her face her fears and frequently making her late. Oh, and getting them both into trouble when Michelle’s pranks went a bit too far, but Sam also knew that without Michelle her experience at prep school might have been very different and a lot less happy. Now it was pay-back time and just as Michelle had kept her head above water at St Martin’s, at Sandhurst it was Sam’s turn to be Michelle’s life-saver.

Despite their best efforts, despite the fact that they always thought they had brought their rooms and uniforms to a state of perfection, they still got shouted at. They got shouted at for being scruffy, shouted at for being late, shouted at for breathing loudly and yet, because everyone was always getting shouted at for the same things, it was, bizarrely, almost funny.

After the first few weeks they were all so exhausted neither Sam nor Michelle knew how they managed to function at all, but function they did. Everyone in their intake at Sandhurst had been turned into zombies by the relentless pressure. And it wasn’t just the endless inspections – there were route marches, PT sessions, lectures to listen to, essays to write, and the transition between any of these activities invariably involved a change of clothes and sometimes yet another snap room inspection to check that, having changed uniforms at lightning speed, your room was still a showpiece. Sleep was a luxury and, like every other cadet, Sam got used to managing with five hours a night, often less, so staying awake in lectures, which took place in warm, cosy classrooms, was a complete mission.

‘Whatthehelldoyouthinkyou’redoingLewis?’

Sam was so startled her bum actually left the hard plastic seat she was sitting on.

‘Sir?’ she gasped, her heart hammering with horror at being caught sound asleep in a lecture on military law. A dry subject and a warm room had proved a fatal combination. She stared at the angry face of the instructor, inches from her own. She could smell mint on his breath and a bubble of crazy hysterical laugher threatened to escape.

‘You were sleeping, Lewis,’ he snapped.