Soldiers' Wives by Fiona Field

Author:Fiona Field [Fiona Field]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2014-01-18T05:00:00+00:00

17

The aircraft intercom bing-bonging woke Chrissie. She glanced at her watch which glowed weirdly in the green cabin lights. Nearly twelve. No, that couldn’t be right because she hadn’t changed her watch to Afghan time. Oh well, whatever, it was the middle of the night, she thought, only with no portholes to provide a clue, it could have been midday. It was odd not to be able to see out. Not that she had any idea what it would be like to see out from a height of thirty thousand feet, but it had to be better than what she was experiencing right now. She promised herself a nice holiday to somewhere exotic when she got back – if she got back. She put that thought out of her mind: of course she’d get back. Maybe Cyprus would be nice. They’d had a stopover in Cyprus and had been allowed off the plane. The air had been warm, the sky blue, and she’d spotted real oranges growing on trees. But, although they’d stopped for ages, they hadn’t been allowed out of the terminal at the RAF base before they’d finally re-embarked for the last leg. She’d had no chance to see anything other than the terminal itself, a glimpse of a lagoon and those oranges. Yes, she thought, sun, sand and sea would be a treat to look forward to – assuming she hadn’t had enough of sun and sand by the time her tour was over.

Anyway, they must be almost about to arrive. It had been explained to them during the in-flight briefing that for security reasons they would be arriving in the middle of the night.

‘So we can’t see how shit-scared the pilot is,’ quipped the squaddie who had cast himself as the in-flight entertainment.

Never mind the pilot, thought Chrissie to herself. She reckoned she wasn’t going to be too cool about landing in a war-zone herself.

Bing-bong went the tannoy again, just to make sure everyone was awake. Then: ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I am sorry to disturb your sleep, but this is to tell you that in a few minutes we will be approaching Camp Bastion. Please don your body armour and helmets. When you have done that and are safely strapped back in your seats, we will black out the aircraft and begin our descent. For those of you who have flown this route before, you know what to expect. For those of you who haven’t, please be assured that neither I, Squadron Leader Foulkes, nor my co-pilot, Flight Lieutenant Gurney, have a death wish. The manoeuvres we will be taking are well within the airframe tolerances and designed to minimise any possibility of a surface-to-air enemy attack. If you think you might be prone to motion sickness – and even if you don’t – it might be wise to have a sickbag on standby. I hope you enjoy the ride.’

Chrissie’s eyes met Lee’s and she was almost grateful to see a flicker of worry in his. ‘What manoeuvres, what tolerances?’ she asked him.

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