The Red Thread of Fate by India Millar
Author:India Millar [Millar, India]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Empress Publishing
Published: 2019-02-12T06:00:00+00:00
Fourteen
It is always wise
To remember that paper
Can blunt a sharp knife
For all my brave words to Callum about fate protecting him, I worried every time he left me. It seemed to me that nothing changed here in this strange, cold place. That nothing any of us could do could change things.
I became restless and peevish.
“Why on earth are we here?” I propped myself up on my elbow and peered at Callum’s face. An icy wind slapped me and I snuggled back under the bedding at once. I had been tempted to heap Hamish’s bedding on top of ours, but I knew that neither of us would have been comfortable if I had. Instead, I offered it to Ellen, who grabbed it gratefully.
“It belonged to the man who shared my husband’s tent. He was killed,” I warned her.
She shrugged. “Scruples ain’t going to keep me warm, love. I’ll take ‘em with thanks.”
I smiled at her words. She was right, of course, but all the same I was glad it was she who would be sleeping under them, not us. I told Callum what I had done, and he nodded approvingly.
“Shame to just leave them there,” he said, and I knew he felt the same way I did.
Now, I thought he hadn’t heard my moans as he didn’t reply. I shook him to make him pay attention.
“Callum. What good are we doing here? Is the war ever going to end?”
“The short answer is, I don’t know.” He spoke with none of his usual cheerfulness, and I was shocked.
“Why don’t we just go home, then?” I knew I sounded petty and spiteful, but I couldn’t help it. I was cold and hungry. I had been cold and hungry yesterday. As nobody had been round with any rations this morning, I knew by nightfall I would be hungrier still. And just as cold.
“What? And get myself known as a meater?”
I had heard Ellen and the other women refer to soldiers—more often than not, officers—as meaters, and I had been so puzzled I had asked Ellen what it meant.
“Means a coward, love. It’s Cockney slang. Means a dog that will only eat meat, if you’re with me. The dog’s too afeared to fight and won’t bite anything that might bite back, just in the same way as a coward will run from anything that might fight back. So the coward’s a meater, see. Same as the dog.”
The phrase was so apt, I understood at once what she meant. Ruefully, I understood Callum’s indignation. He wrapped both arms around me and held me very close to him.
“It will be spring soon,” he promised. “And then at least we’ll be warm. You just see, we’ll be home for Easter.” He paused, and I understood slowly that he was making a joke out of his own oft-repeated comment that we would be home for Hogmanay. “Anyway, even if we could get out of here, I couldn’t leave my men. You know that.”
I sighed. Of course he couldn’t. If there was an injustice in the world and Callum could do something to right it, then he would do so.
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