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English?”
    The remainder of the lesson was only slightly less chaotic. Sam returned after having been spoken to by Middleton and sat solemnly at the front refusing to work and doodled, Danny and Dale were quiet because they were listening to their iPods. In fact the only pupils working were the six on the front two rows. At ten fifty the bell sounded and there was a sudden mass exodus. Chairs were left upturned and books lying on tables. Arnaud sighed heavily and made a note on Sam’s report. She looked at it and then him with a face full of hate before she too left. This was not what teaching was meant to be like. He bent down to pick up a sweet wrapper and got a hand full of sticky chocolate for his trouble. He wiped his hand on a piece of A4 paper and collected up the French textbooks.
    Twenty minutes for break then another two hours until lunch and finally a free period for lesson five. Unless they gave him another cover! Two more year nine classes and then a bottom set year ten. Now he knew why the government had paid him to train as a teacher! Still he was nearly at the end of his NQT year and would be a fully qualified respected teacher in September.
    He shut the door and locked it behind him. Instantly he was banged into as pupils pushed past in an attempt to get to the canteen and gorge themselves on junk food as soon as humanly possible.
    He had now grown immune to the knocks. Arnaud had been at Horley Community College now for almost two years. Firstly as a student, when he was given easier classes and then as an NQT – newly qualified teacher. The school had offered him a job and he, as a fool, accepted it. “Best to work in a difficult school, a baptism of fire as it were,” his mentor had told him. Yeah, right. At least it was a nice day outside, probably why the kids were so fidgety? He couldn’t blame them, who would want to be inside concentrating on French grammar or asking how much for a kilo of ‘ pommes ’ when just through the window the summer had truly arrived?
    One more week, he kept telling himself, and then the summer holidays and unemployment. Well, not quite. Having given a term’s notice his contract would finish at the end of August and the school had said that there would be supply work for him if he still hadn’t found anything. Supply work, in Horley? He laughed to himself as he entered the staffroom; Beirut sounded safer.
    Arnaud sat wearily in the worn easy chair that occupied the corner of the room. Around him teachers scurried to get as much coffee as their break would allow. He spotted the sexy blonde student teacher he’d seen on the train and wished her into the vacant seat next to him. It didn’t happen. She sat in between two fit looking men in shorts. P.E. teachers! Puh! He sipped his hot coffee and burnt his tongue. Bugger.
    “Heard any more about that job you applied for?” the Head of Foreign Languages, Richard Middleton, asked as he sat down heavily.
    “Not yet.”
    “Kyiv wasn’t it?”
    “Yes.” He moved his tongue inside his mouth feeling the burn.
    “Ah, did you know that Kyiv is the birthplace of modern Russia?”
    “No.” Arnaud turned in his seat.
    “Kyiv-Rus was the original capital of Russia almost a thousand years ago, long, long before Tzars, the Bolsheviks and the Communists popped up. Back then it was populated by Nomadic tribes.”
    Arnaud was impressed. “Did you study Russian History at uni?”
    Middleton smiled. “No. I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”
    *
    Odessa Oblast , Ukraine , near the Transdniester border
     
    Bull looked through the kite sight. Nothing yet. He and his Brigada were watching and waiting. If all went to plan this would be the first step. He shivered in the cold of the pre-dawn. It brought back memories of a lifetime ago. But this time it would be much easier to conduct business.
    The chill of the Afghan night had all but disappeared, to be replaced by the weak warmth of dawn. In the half-light the poppy field