Soldier's Daughters Read Online Free PDF

have to work,’ she said tentatively.
    The two girls were sitting side by side on Sam’s stripped bed in her now-empty bedroom. The walls, which had been covered with posters and pictures, were bare, the ironing board had gone, folded flat and stowed in the boot of her dad’s car, along with suitcases, bulging with the rest of her civvy and army kit, and her uniforms, in their suit carriers, laid carefully on top. Her father and Henry Flowers had gone on a tour of Sandhurst, a trip down memory lane for both of them, leaving their daughters to say their farewells and gather their last bits and pieces together.
    ‘I am so going to miss this,’ said Sam.
    ‘Bet you never thought you’d be saying that last September,’ said Michelle.
    ‘Shit, no. That first month was so awful.’ The pair lapsed into silence as they considered it.
    ‘God, I got some bollockings,’ said Michelle.
    Yes, you did, thought Sam. But then they all did.
    ‘Do you remember the time I had that negligent discharge?’ said Michelle.
    ‘How could I forget?’ said Sam. Firing a gun by accident was about the worst thing a soldier could do. ‘Shit, if the sergeant major had twigged you really had had an ND can you imagine the bawling out?’
    ‘I’d have been on a charge, for sure. I still don’t know how I had the presence of mind to loose off a whole magazine and yell for everyone to “stand to”.’
    ‘Listen,’ said Sam, ‘doing that covered it up. Not that the sergeant major was convinced. He didn’t half give you a hard stare but he couldn’t prove otherwise.’
    ‘No, he couldn’t,’ said Michelle, with a giggle. ‘Sandhurst has taught me a zillion things but thinking on my feet is the main one.’
    ‘Except in this instance you were lying on your stomach in a puddle.’
    ‘With my elbow in cow poo.’
    ‘And people think army officers are glamorous.’
    ‘They do? Bonkers,’ said Michelle, giggling more.
    Sam’s father stuck his head into the room. ‘You girls aren’t still gassing, are you? I don’t want to get stuck on the M25.’
    ‘Yeah,’ said Sam. She gazed about her room. ‘Time to go, I suppose. End of an era.’
    ‘Nah,’ said Michelle. ‘Start of a journey.’
    Sam’s faint hope that her father’s slight unbuttoning might be the start of a change in their relationship faded almost instantly. When she’d suggested it would be nice if he came with her to her grandparents’ place in Devon he’d insisted it would be impossible to get leave. Sam supposed she ought to be grateful he’d taken time off to see her get her commission. Not that she minded about spending time with her grandparents; as always, as soon as she’d stepped through the door, she’d been almost swamped by a virtual comfort-blanket of love, spoiling and home-made scones and jam. From the instant she’d arrived, her granny and grandpa had wanted to know everything about the course and her plans, so she’d given them the expurgated version of life at Sandhurst, omitting the awfulness of some of the exercises and having to shit in the woods like a bear, and the new words and phrases she’d learned from the NCOs who had been less than impressed with her performance with a bayonet. On the positive side she’d been able to tell them all about the parties, the commissioning ball and about the new focus in her life, the REME, and what working for them would entail.
    ‘Your dad must be so proud,’ said her gran. She looked up from the saffron cake she was making for their tea.
    Sam nodded. Well, he had been, for a minute or two, but she didn’t want to tell her gran that, even after twenty-three years, life with her father could still be pretty bleak. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, I think he is.’
    Her gran wasn’t a fool and picked up on the momentary hesitation. ‘I know you never got to meet your dad’s folks but they were much the same; not a family to show emotions. You’d think they imagined the world would end if anyone