Wendy Jones - The Songbird and the Soldier

“Oh you have to have seen that coming? Not the disappearance of Dean, I mean, but Andy.”

Sam and Chloe looked puzzled.

Kate sighed and leaned forward on the table.

“Why did I say I walked out of the date we had a few months back?”

Sam wracked her brains. “It was something to do with your mum, wasn’t it? No, wait, you thought he liked me more than you, didn’t you? But-”

Kate was shaking her head impatiently. “He couldn’t take his eyes off you. I told you. Andy, that is. I might as well have turned up butt-naked with ‘shag me witless’ tattooed across my arse. He wouldn’t have noticed.”

Sam was stunned. Her mouth fell open. “Do you think I should stop writing to him?”

“Hell no! He’s a hot guy who’s actually paying some attention to you, instead of leading you a merry dance. Don’t you dare stop writing to him.”

“But what about Dean? He is still my boyfriend, technically. And what if he is stuck out somewhere where he can’t write to me?”

“He may not be able to get online, but I seriously doubt he can’t do anything.”

“What’s he like then, this new chap?” Chloe asked.

Sam’s heart fluttered and her eyes lit up. “I don’t know. But I get this feeling about him that I can’t explain. He’s nice.” She smiled despite herself.

“Nice is good. It makes a change for you.”

Sam gave Chloe an offended look. “Yeah, all right. I know. I’m rubbish when it comes to men.”

The girls nodded. “But this one is nice?” Chloe asked, “and hot?”

Kate nodded. “Oh yeah.”

“So? What else?”

Sam told them most of what she knew about Andy from the two letters she had received and the girls did their best to allay the guilt she was harbouring about the way she was feeling about him.

“My mum said that in other wars, girls wrote to soldiers on the front line as a sort of morale thing” Sam said.

Kate grinned. “You don’t want to ask your fella to get me a hunky soldier to write to, do you, Sam?”

“And me,” said Chloe. “Ooh, you could be the forces matchmaker.”

“Tell you what Chlo’, let’s go back to my place and take some fab pictures of us and then Sam can send them out to her fella and get us a couple of gorgeous guys to write to.” She turned to Sam. “We don’t have to actually physically write to them, do we?”

“No. I think you can do it online. I looked into it when Dean first went out there.”

“What do you think, Chlo? Are you up for it?”

“Absolutely! Right, I think that’s enough exercise for me for one week.”

The girls clambered their way down to the boot kiosk and released their aching feet. With their faces rosy from exercise and their eyes bright with excitement, the girls laughed and joked as they walked back to the car and, picking up a burger on the way, they hurried home to get the ball rolling.

Sam sat on Kate’s bed while the other two got ready. She wondered how their plan was going to work. “You know he may not know any single guys for you to write to,” she warned them.

“Course he will,” Kate said. “Who wouldn’t want a bit of this?” She pulled a sexy pose. Sam rolled her eyes. “Just tell him to get me one with big muscles, all right? And preferably, this time, someone who’s not madly in love with you .”

“He is not!” Sam protested.

“Yeah? Well, we’ll see. Muscles, remember.”

“I’m not guaranteeing anything,” Sam said, amused at the silly way her two friends were acting that night. “Smile.” Sam took some shots. “You’re both barking mad. You’re loons.”

A couple of days later the welcome blue post dropped onto the mat again after Sam had arrived home from a stressful day at school. Parents’ evening was coming up and there was a lot of paperwork to see to before she was ready. She had spent half the afternoon trying to get the classroom in order, but what with Jimmy’s gluing calamity and Rochelle, the new girl in class, in a state over wetting herself on her first day in school it was a bit of an uphill struggle. It was almost five o’clock before she got home. As soon as she took off her bike helmet she saw it there. It was lying on the dresser, just inside the kitchen door. Sam smiled. She hurried inside and grabbed the letter, calling out a greeting to her mum as she swept in and out again and off up to her room. She ignored the whimpering of Humphrey at the bottom of the stairs, wanting to be carried up, and raced up the stairs to open the letter. It was long.

Dear Sam,

Happy Birthday!

I hope you have a wonderful day. It was so good to hear from you. Life here is pretty basic. I seem to spend half my time out and about getting covered in mud and dirt and the other half trying to wash it off again. Why is there never a Hotpoint around when you need one? I tell you, you wouldn’t want to sing in our showers – you wouldn’t reach the end of the first chorus and the water would have run out. Although I have no objection to you trying if you should feel so inclined.

What do we do out here? Well much of our task these days is diplomacy. We still have to patrol contentious areas like schools and clinics and keep roads clear for safe access, but more and more there is a limit on what we can actually do and more emphasis on assisting the local forces. Which I guess is how it will have to be if we are ever going to get out of here, but it’s a little frustrating for the men. There has been far less contact with the Taliban than the last time I was out here, which has its pros and cons. At least in a face-to-face fight you know who your enemy is.

Try not to worry; we don’t have it too bad out here. We have a laugh when we can. Anyway, enough seriousness. Back to those peculiar foibles of yours!!! I’m shocked. I thought you were a normal girl!?!

I promise never ever to mention the middle name (although I fail to see why it’s so bad?) and in compensation for this spectacular show of faith I will also admit to one thing the guys must never, EVER find out about me: I am a big fan of bird watching. There, I’ve said it, I’m a twitcher, but if you speak a word of this to anyone else, I will have to shoot you!

So, bagpipes, huh? We’ll get back to that one later.

Sam turned over the page.

Okay… the Sellotape… I was badly traumatised as a child by a mother who wrapped every exciting present I ever had with rolls and rolls of Sellotape, leaving not a single edge to help me in my quest to get to the prize beneath. I’m still having counselling about that one. As for middle names? No. Not one that can be mentioned.

Write soon, with photos.

Andy

Sam picked up the photos that had dropped out of the letter. She looked at them. The first one was of Andy with the lads standing in T-shirts and combats, posing in front of a mud wall and the other was of Andy by himself. Sam gazed at the photo. Yes, that’s what he looked like. He was gorgeous. Why hadn’t she noticed before? He was lean, his arms were well muscled, his hair was dark, almost black and his eyes were…she couldn’t tell what colour, and he had a kind smile. She gently stroked the picture and bit her bottom lip. He reminded her a little of someone, but she couldn’t think who.

Sam placed the photo at the back of her desk, facing her and looked at the other. She flipped it over. ‘The lads,’ it said. Underneath, in small writing, Andy had written the names of all the soldiers in the picture. ‘Spike, Miller, Harding, Lofty, Zippo, Baker, Evans and Me. And the one in the background unaware he was being photographed is Lt Durbin’. Sam looked closely and noticed the tiny figure at the back that looked like he was picking his nose. She laughed and placed the second picture alongside the first.