The Waiting Time Read Free Page A

Captain. They’ve put you on a crash Serbo-Croat course, means you’re booked for Bosnia. Mrs Christie’ll be well excited, eh? I mean, she’ll have to look after the dog.’
    ‘Bloody hell.’
    ‘It’s on your desk.’
    They reached the mess block outer door. He forgot himself. He opened the heavy door for her to go through first.
    She stayed put. He flushed. Bloody officer and bloody noncommissioned junior rank. He went through and she followed. Coats dumped on a chair in the corridor. They hit the noise.
    Perry Johnson boomed, ‘Thanks, Ben. They’re dying of thirst and restless — Corporal, the order is three Glenlivets, ice and lemonade for our guests, seven gin tonics, two orange juice, one with ice, five beers. You’ll need a tray.’
    A wry smile on her face, at the edge of impertinence. ‘Whose tab, Major? On yours?’
    She was gone. Ben watched her. He thought she kicked Captain Wilson’s shin. Definite, she elbowed Captain Dawson. He saw her reach past Major Donoghue’s back and rap his right shoulder and when he turned right she’d wriggled past his left hip. She was at the front, arms on the bar and stretching.
    She caught the steward’s arm, held it. Ben could have clapped her. No mucking, she was brilliant. He blinked. An officer and a corporal, a married officer and a single corporal, it would ruin him and ruin her. . . Yugoslavia. The guys who went there said it was seriously awful, said Belfast was a cake-run compared to a year in Sarajevo, Vitez, Tuzia . . . Shit. He’d ring Trish that night
    Shit. . . She was tiny behind the bulk of the tray. He thought that if he tried to help her he’d just get in the way . . . There’d be all the usual tears with Trish . . . Must have been her shoe, but Major Donoghue was backing off, and the shoe again because Captain Wilson was giving her space . . . and Irish would be screaming when he started up about her having to look after the bloody dog.. . She headed for Perry.
    The Colonel and a civil servant flanked the German. The German had his back to them. Hands groped to snatch the glasses off her tray. She was only a corporal so she wasn’t thanked, and they wouldn’t need her again. Major Walsh’s ‘happy hour’ would be finished in ten minutes, and his bar tab closed, be space then. He saw the two minders take their drinks, and then the Colonel. Only one drink on the tray, the last Glenlivet, ice and lemon. The Colonel touched the German’s arm. Tracy was dwarfed behind the German’s back. He turned, mid-conversation, smiling.
    Ben saw them both, the German and Corporal Tracy Barnes.
    Her face frozen, her eyes narrowed.
    The German reached for the glass, smiling with graciousness.
    And the ice of her face cracked, hatred. Her eyes blazed, loathing.
    The glass came up into his face and the tray with it.
    The German reeled.
    The Colonel, the minders and the civil servants were statue still.
    Corporal Tracy Barnes launched herself at the German, and he went down onto the mess-bar carpet.
    Her body, on top of his, was a blur of kicking and kneeing, elbowing, punching and scratching.
    Hissed, a she-cat’s venom, ‘You bloody bastard murderer!’
    Ben Christie watched. Her skirt had ridden up as she swung her knee, again and again, into his privates. She had the hair of his beard in her fingers and smashed his head, again and again, down onto the carpet floor.
    Shrieked, a woman’s cry for retribution, ‘Bloody killed him, you bastard!’
    Blood on her hands, blood in her nails, and the German screamed and was defenceless. Her thumb and forefinger stabbed at his closed eyes.
    Howled, the triumph of revenge, ‘How’d you like it? Bloody bastard murderer! What’s it like?’
    Only her voice, her voice alone in the silence. The minders reacted first.
    A chopping blow to the back of her neck, a kick in her ribs. The minders dragged her clear, threw her aside.
    The German was bleeding, gasping, cringing in shock.
    · He heard Johnson’s shout,