Soldiers' Wives (6 page)

The insistent beeping of the crossing brought her back to the real world.

‘Come on,' she said, not wanting to miss the brief opportunity the little green man offered them to get across. They jogged over, strides matching, and continued along the pavement towards the town.

‘You run really well,' said Lee.

‘For a girl?'

Lee laughed. ‘No, for anyone.'

‘Thanks.' Chrissie accepted the compliment and felt herself lighten up. ‘I ran for the battalion in the five thousand metres in the inter-unit cup.'

‘Impressive.'

‘I don't think there were any other female contenders from 1 Herts,' she answered truthfully.

They ran on some more in silence.

‘Jenna doesn't run, then?' asked Chrissie.

Lee guffawed. ‘Jenna? You must be joking. Her idea of a workout is turning the pages of a fashion mag. Don't get me wrong, she looks after herself…'

‘But not in this sort of way.'

‘No. And she couldn't do the stuff you do.'

‘I couldn't dye hair,' Chrissie countered. No, she thought, working in a hairdresser's would be like being buried alive.

‘You could if you were trained.'

‘Maybe.'

‘It takes a lot to cope with blood and guts.'

Chrissie slid a sideways look at him at the word
guts
. Had it been deliberate? She caught Lee staring back at her, one eyebrow lifted. Yes, it bloody was.

‘It was a rotten trick, that,' he said.

‘So you've known all along who I am.'

He nodded.

‘You won't tell anyone else, will you? I mean, I think it's just you, me and Phil who are in the picture. I am so embarrassed at making a fool of myself like that.'

‘Hey.' Lee looked at her as they ran side by side. ‘You had a funny turn, that's all. You got over it, carried on, did your job. There's nothing to be embarrassed about there. The whole incident was designed to test the medics to the max.'

‘Maybe. But being sick over a casualty isn't in the Patient Treatment Handbook.' As she said it, she was aware that he'd remembered her from that incident, had deliberately caught up with her today, and was being really kind about how she'd made such a prat of herself. Nice guy, she thought.
Jenna's
nice guy, she reminded herself again. Anyway, even if he wasn't spoken for she didn't want a relationship, did she. Right? Right!

They'd reached the edge of the local town. ‘Where now?' asked Lee.

‘Around the dual carriageway and then back over Brandon Hill.'

Lee's eyes widened. ‘The long way?'

‘Why not? Race you.' And with that she shot off. She was several hundred yards on before Lee caught up with her.

‘Jeez, Chrissie,' he panted. ‘
You
might be able to run like Paula Radcliffe, but I'm no Mo Farah. Slow down a bit.'

Chrissie slackened the pace a little. ‘I like to delude myself I'm like Jess Ennis.'

Lee glanced at her. ‘Good shout.'

‘Don't be daft.'

‘Jess is well fit.'

‘Yes,
she
is.'

‘So are you.'

‘Thanks.' For a second she hoped he was referring to her looks, rather than to her athleticism, but then reality kicked in. Of course he didn't think she was fit in the ‘good-looking' sense, not when he was married to the luscious Jenna. She changed the subject. ‘Immi says you've been away on a load of courses.'

‘The old platoon commander thought I had potential, so I've been away a lot, getting some education and stuff that I'll need, if I get promoted. Got to hope this new guy, Captain Fanshaw, thinks the same.'

‘I'm sure he will.'

‘And then, just before the exercise, I tried SAS selection.'

‘No!' Chrissie was hugely impressed. ‘Really? How did you do?'

‘Failed. I went down with flu. One minute I was doing well, tabbing up the Brecon Beacons, the next I was being stretchered off with a temperature of 104.'

‘No way. But you must have felt shite long before then.'

‘I did a bit, but I thought they'd just put me down as some sort of malingering loser.'

‘So it was a
genuine
case of man flu.'

Lee nodded. ‘And if I ever get a head cold, I will
never
say I've got flu. Flu is evil.'

‘And you're running already? Shit, you're well hard.'

‘I'm not running
well
though, am I? My fitness took a real knock. And that's why I wasn't much cop on the exercise and got to lie down and play almost dead.'

They ran in silence for some time, till they reached the base of Brandon Hill. The path up it was narrow, so they ran in single file to the top. There Chrissie stopped.

‘I'm not,' she said, panting heavily, ‘quite as fit as I thought I was, either. No chance for fitness training on exercise.'

‘Well, if you want a running buddy…?' offered Lee. ‘I mean, I need to get myself back in shape again too.'

‘Really?'

He nodded. ‘I'd like it. Most of the lads in my platoon want to lie in their pits at weekends. It's nice to find someone who wants to do running other than in a squad being beasted by a PTI. And I like to run on sports afternoons too.'

‘Brilliant. When we get back to the barracks we can swap mobile numbers. Jenna won't mind, though, will she?' asked Chrissie. Running was hardly like dating but, even so, she mightn't be overly happy about her husband spending time with another woman, no matter how innocently.

‘Jenna? God, she doesn't even surface till lunchtime when she isn't working.'

Which didn't exactly answer Chrissie's question, but was a good enough response to shut her conscience up. But not before she noticed that the prospect of running with Lee gave her a real buzz.

Sunday segued into Monday and the rude awakening which came with reveille and the early morning run. Immi rolled out of bed, groaning and moaning about the unfairness of being expected to do PT at six thirty in the morning, long after Keelie and Gillie, who had both returned to barracks the night before, had already got dressed and left. It had taken five solid minutes of Chrissie haranguing her before she'd finally emerged, still complaining, from under the covers.

‘I don't know why you always bitch about this, it's part of the job description,' countered Chrissie, as she threw on her tracksuit and stepped into her trainers.

Immi glowered as she hauled on her sports kit. ‘It doesn't mean I have to like it. Anyway, not all units are like this one – why did I have to be posted to one where the CO is a fitness fanatic?'

Chrissie shook her head and glanced at her watch. ‘Hurry up, Immi. We're going to be late.'

Reluctantly, and still muttering, Immi followed Chrissie out onto the parade square where the troops were all gathered, lined up in their platoons and by company. Most were jogging on the spot, in an effort to keep warm, as the October morning was distinctly nippy. Just as Chrissie and Immi fell in, the RSM and the CO appeared.

‘Shit, we cut that fine,' whispered Chrissie. Arriving after either of these two equalled ‘late' and would result in extra duties being awarded on the spot.

The RSM bawled out the commands to bring the parade to attention before he handed over to the PTIs who were to lead each company on a squadded, three-mile run. HQ Company, Immi and Chrissie's one, and which also included the CO and the RSM in its number, was the first to lead off.

‘At least we won't die of hypothermia, now,' said Chrissie, slapping her arms against her sides as she ran, to get her circulation moving.

‘No, I'm going to die of a combo of stitch and exhaustion,' gasped Immi.

‘You can't be tired yet – we've only run a few hundred yards.'

But Immi was already panting too hard to answer. By the time they got to the mile point, Immi was stumbling with fatigue and she and Chrissie, who was trying to urge her mate to keep going, had fallen almost to the rear of the squad.

‘Keep up,' screamed a rasping voice.

Chrissie looked behind her. Sergeant Wilkes was pounding after them. ‘Come on, Immi,' encouraged Chrissie once again, but she could see it was hopeless. There was no way Immi was going to be able to complete the three miles. Obviously with most of the regiment away on exercise the previous two weeks, there had been no formal PT and Immi had taken advantage of that to bother even less than usual with her fitness levels: fitness levels which had always been borderline and which were now completely below par.

‘I can't,' sobbed Immi, as she finally gave up. ‘I've got to stop. You carry on.'

Chrissie nodded and ran on while Immi gave up and took the instant bawling out from Sergeant Wilkes. The words ‘extra duties' floated after Chrissie, as she raced forward to catch up with the rest of the squad. Putting on a spurt she not only caught up with the squad but eased her way to the front, passing the CO and the RSM as she did so.

Maybe the RSM was in a foul mood (and when wasn't he? It was as if it was in the job description of RSMs always to be in a foul mood) or maybe it was the sight of a woman – a
woman
– passing him, but he halted the entire squad and made them start performing press-ups. Once they'd all, including Chrissie, given him fifty, he then found a steep side-track, and made everyone run up and down that a few times; naturally he and the CO were observers rather than participants. By the time he'd finished with HQ Company, a number of soldiers were being sick in the gutters and the rest were either red, or ashen with exhaustion. Even Chrissie had her hands on her hips, her legs apart and was bent at the waist as she gulped in lungfuls of air.

While she was doing this, the other soldiers loped past, Lee amongst them. He shot Chrissie a look of sympathy – having the RSM give you a hard time was no fun.

A couple of minutes later the RSM ordered HQ Company to start running again.

‘And if no one beats me back the entire company will be confined to barracks for the next week and you can forget the long weekend,' he shouted, fresh as a daisy, to the still-gasping troops. ‘Understood?'

‘Sir,' came a ragged and lacklustre response.

‘
Understood?
'

‘Sir!' roared back the sixty or so soldiers.

The RSM, not having performed press-ups or having been beasted up and down the hill, set off at a punishing pace. Soon most of the soldiers were lagging behind. Every now and again, Warrant Officer Class One Jenks would run on the spot and harangue the lagging soldiers ‘to get a grip and put some effort into it'
but most of his troops were too shattered to respond. There were only a few soldiers, Chrissie included, who were able to keep up with him. It wasn't any sort of spectacular fitness that gave her the impetus, but the certain knowledge that he wanted her to fail – and she wasn't going to give him the satisfaction. In her limited experience of the army, she had found that there were some male soldiers who still didn't accept that women might have equal skills and fitness, and she was pretty sure the RSM was one of them. Her determination to prove him wrong was giving her a boost better than steroids or blood doping.

With about half a mile to go, and with the several hundred soldiers who had just been allowed to get on with their training run without any intervention from the RSM in sight, Chrissie kicked for home, in a move Jess Ennis or Paula Radcliffe would have been proud of. The RSM responded and managed to catch up with Chrissie, shooting her a look of smug triumph as he passed her. Chrissie kicked again and drew level with him. By now they were starting to pass the other soldiers, the ones still running in something resembling squads.

‘Go, Chrissie,' cheered a voice from the ranks. Lee.

The RSM gritted his teeth and made another effort to beat Chrissie, but she was spurred on by her lone supporter.

Other soldiers picked up on Lee's support and began to cheer Chrissie on. It wasn't that they wanted Chrissie herself to win, they wanted the RSM to lose. Even if he'd been racing Osama bin Laden, Stalin and Hitler, they still wouldn't have cheered Mr Jenks. The cheering reached the ears of the soldiers who had already completed their three-mile run and were starting to drift to their barrack blocks or homes for a shower, and they stopped to watch the spectacle of Chrissie and the RSM, pounding, neck and neck, along the road to the regimental guardroom.

The cheers, coupled with the knowledge that, if she lost, HQ Company would forfeit their long weekend, gave Chrissie the impetus she needed, and with a final, superlative effort she made it back, through the barrack gate and onto the parade square twenty yards ahead of Mr Jenks. The soldiers erupted.

She wanted to lie down she was so knackered, but pride kept her on her feet while she gulped air.

‘You may have beaten me this time,' gasped the RSM, as he stopped beside her and shot a vitriolic look at the cheering troops. ‘It won't happen again.'

Chrissie wasn't sure if it was a threat or a promise, but she didn't care; she was too exhausted to care about anything, except not throwing up or passing out.

Lee, who had seen her cream past, was lost in admiration, as were most of the soldiers from Chrissie's company who pounded onto the parade square over the next few minutes, amongst them the CO, who was stunned to discover that the RSM had met his match.

Colonel Notley came to a halt next to his RSM. ‘Don't tell me you were beaten, Mr Jenks.'

‘I was, sir.' A lesser man than the CO might have quailed at the tone of the RSM's voice.

‘And by a slip of a girl.'

The RSM glowered.

The CO turned to Chrissie whose chest was still heaving. ‘Well done… er…'

‘Summers, sir.'

‘Yes, well done, Summers. Good effort.'

‘Thank you, sir.'

‘I think your efforts inspired the troops. HQ Company came home in a cracking time.'