Tall Poppies Read Online Free PDF Page B

friendly and pleasant man.’
    â€˜Sometimes you forget that you’re nothing but a servant.’
    â€˜Hark who’s talking,’ Connie said, and sniffing as she walked back towards the kitchen, she threw over her shoulder as a last word, ‘You’ll be expecting us to call you Madam one of these days.’

Three
    Richard Sangster dreamed he was asleep and safely snuggled in his own bed at Foxglove House. Wind-driven rain lashed against the window, the firelight threw dancing shadows upon the walls, and the flames spit and crackled. Cozy and safe in his warm flannel pyjamas and nest of blankets, he toasted his feet on the stone hot-water bottle. He was reluctant to abandon the bed, and the boy he used to be, but he badly needed to take a piss.
    Someone gently shook him. ‘Are you awake, Sir. I’ve brought you a mug of tea.’
    â€˜Tea? My mother doesn’t allow me to drink it.’
    For a moment his dream seemed real, then he thought: How silly to be standing outside your own dream looking in on it. Still, he stole another moment of comfort until the damp and cold intruded.
    â€˜Give me a few seconds, would you, Sergeant Beamish.’ He turned his back, unbuttoned his trousers and urinated into the mud. A wisp of steam escaped from his body with the trickling stream. His kidneys ached. Everything damned well ached. He twitched and juddered as well. He should go to the field hospital and get something to help calm him. His shaking hands fumbled with the buttons, and he turned back when he was done.
    â€˜Here you are, Sir. Don’t let it get cold.’
    â€˜Thank you, Sergeant.’ His palms closed around the tin mug to warm them, but inside Richard’s smile his teeth began to chatter, so he felt like a mechanical clown being jerked around. Funny how you could feel warm in a dream, but as soon as you woke from it and moved, you were cold to the core. No wonder people died from hypothermia, when sleeping was such a pleasant state of oblivion to indulge in.
    â€˜Are you all right, Sir?’
    â€˜Are any of us all right? I’ll be glad when this damnable war is over.’ When it was over he was going to stay snuggled in his bed, until he grew cobwebs and died. ‘Do you ever dream that you’re back home sleeping in your own bed, Sergeant?’
    â€˜I wouldn’t mind having my woman here to snuggle up to sometimes.’
    â€˜What’s your wife like?’
    â€˜Doreen? She’s not what you’d call a beauty, but she’s a good cook and is comfortable where she should be, so she gives a man a good ride. Don’t tell her I said that, though. Not that it matters here. The same urges don’t seem to trouble me, thank goodness.’
    There were rumours about bromide, and Richard wondered now if they were true. It was so long ago that he couldn’t remember the last woman he’d been with  . . . or even experienced the last urge. The sergeant was correct. They had other bodily irritants to contend with, most of which had no easy relief: body lice, crabs, lack of sleep, and fungal infections that drove a man mad with itching.
    Richard was hardly likely to meet the sergeant’s wife, anyway. ‘Do you have children?’
    â€˜None  . . . and we’ve been married for fifteen years, so I don’t suppose we’ll have any now. A pity, since we’d have liked some. You, Sir?’
    â€˜I’m not married.’ Richard couldn’t imagine being married, though he supposed he’d have to take a suitable wife to bed sooner or later, if the Sinclair legacy was to stay in the family. He’d been displayed with pride by his father and spoiled by his mother, so he’d probably make some unfortunate woman a lousy husband, since he’d expect her to be at his beck and call.
    â€˜What’s the time?’
    â€˜We have five minutes before dawn, when we go over the top. We’ll have