Chapter 4

NORMAL

Unfortunately, none of the Taliban stuff in here is impossible. For that terrible troupe of murderers, it was/is their normal. Same as for IS. Our heroes need to do a bit of thinking about presumptions and preconceptions in this chapter.

Again thanks to Tony Grounds and the BBC for these great characters to build a story around.

Clearly, what Molly had learned of Sohail's life before the army had affected her deeply. As Charles carried her upstairs, she sobbed against his shoulder till his shirt was sodden with her tears. Gently he lowered her onto the bed, then lay down beside her, gathering her into his arms once again. He found himself comforting her, patting her back and murmuring soothing words into her ear. Molly clung to him, burrowing her forehead into the crook of his neck, her shoulders heaving in distress until, very slowly, the sobbing subsided. Patiently, he waited for her to talk when she was ready. Eventually, she lifted her head and gave him one of those smiles which always, always caused his breath to catch in his throat and his heart to turn over. Her green eyes still tearful, she spoke softly.

"I wonder wot them boys in Section 2 would make of their tough captain pattin' his medic's back and whisperin' in her ear. They might give you a proper rinsing, Boss."

"I think they'd mostly understand, Molly. Those guys really care about you, still, you know. They have a huge amount of respect for you…but I guess there's always the "tiny shorts effect" in the background. They do see you as a woman, not just as a soldier. And they'd want you treated well."

"Anyway, when are we goin' to tell them about us? Qaseem knows that we're really together, not just flirting any more and I guess them Army bigwigs know now that you've handed back your commission."

"Don't think any of that's important now, Molly. I really didn't understand how distressed you still were about the Sohail stuff. I think we both need to sort that out first in our heads."

Molly's story had had a strange effect on him, he realised. As he had listened, flashbacks of events in the FOB and on patrol outside of it had come to him. Snippets of conversations he had had and fragments overheard between others were at the edge of his memory. He strained to recall details: when he could not easily do so, he left them to surface in their own time. Charles had learned at University that he did best at recall when he trusted his own mind and did not worry at his memories like a dog digging up a bone. In their own good time those memories would resurface in their entirety, if they were important enough for whatever was happening in his life.

And, he realised, what had happened around Sohail was not only important in his growing relationship with Molly, but in his own understanding of the war in Afghanistan and his own participation in it. On several occasions on tour he had said that he didn't get emotionally involved and that he followed the orders given by those further up the chain of command. Well, his medic on his last tour had no compunction in flouting orders, especially his, if she didn't see the point in them. And the big Afghani soldier had so succinctly summed up the inevitable outcome of the British Army's involvement in Hellmand Province. After all, there were huge discrepancies between the Afghan and British understanding of normal. Once the British soldiers withdrew, Sohail said, everything would revert to the Afghani "Normal".

"What have you achieved?" he had asked Charles and Molly. In all truth, Charles had not been able to reply. With that, Charles understood how Sohail's responses to him in the FOB had gotten under his skin. Already, the captain had been asking silent questions of himself about the purpose and efficacy of the British involvement in Afghanistan. The big, scarred soldier had served to remind him of those unanswered but very important questions.

Charles noticed that he felt very tired, not something he usually experienced in the middle of an autumn day in Bath. Molly, he noticed, was breathing rhythmically and was sound asleep. Wryly, he asked himself whether this tiredness was a result of getting emotionally involved. Pulling up the light duvet over them both, he wrapped his arms around Molly's waist and drifted away to sleep.

He had not felt her get out of bed. As he slowly came back to the room Charles moved his hand inadvertently from her waist to cup her breast. The damp summer dress was gone, all her clothes were gone. She was naked. Skin warm, breathing just slightly faster than usual, green eyes glittering in the half light of late afternoon, Molly waited for him to wake fully. She stroked his shoulder gently and kissed him lightly on that sweet spot on his neck, just under his chin. God, she knew what that did to him, every time.

"When I came to, "she admitted, "I wanted you right then. I wanted to tear all your clothes off. I wanted to kiss you all over. I wanted to…" He interrupted her with a deep, searching kiss, all the while rolling her nipple in his long beautiful, sensitive fingers as she strained towards him, asking him wordlessly to caress the other.

"Why didn't you?" he murmured lazily. "I like it when you play Boss Lady sometimes. Conserves my energy." He grinned wickedly. Her breathing was now fast and shallow and he knew she was ready for him right then. Easily he lifted her onto him, so that they were skin to skin and he sighed with the delight he always felt at this very moment when they merged their bodies and spirits. It felt so goddam right. It was so goddam right. And he knew it always would be.

"That's it!" She was clinging to him, her nails raking his shoulders. "That's exactly it!" Molly wailed, a high keening call. "I always want you, Charles. Just you!" And they were both gone, together.

This time, when they woke almost at the same time, it was night. Molly stretched luxuriously, kissed him and was out of bed at once. Alert almost immediately, a response learned from her army training, she ran to the bathroom and was soon under the stinging needles of a very hot shower.

"I'm mingin'," she called. "And you are too. You get in after me, not at the same time, Charles James. Enough of the fun and games…for now. I'm hungry. I'll order us pizza while you're in the shower. We can do some more talking while we eat it."

"Bossy madam," he commented as they changed places in the shower, "I've a good mind to pull you back in here and…"

"No, Charles." She was serious again and spoke quietly. "We talked about a lot of the Sohail stuff already. There is some more and I want to get it over with. OK?" He nodded, and heaved a big sigh of pretend resignation.

"Guess I'll have to wait, then."

Within half an hour they were sitting at the kitchen table, pizza boxes in front of them with a glass each of chilled white wine. Right now, there was a companionable comfort between them. Charles thought about the easy way they related to one another. For two people who had come from such different backgrounds and in spite of the big age difference between them, he never failed to appreciate the friendliness they felt for one another, the mutual respect and consideration in addition to the physical passion that was always just one kiss, one accidental touch away. And there was the shared experience of Army life with its banter which could smooth over the rough edges of both military and everyday life.

His capacity for jealousy, his possessiveness were his biggest stumbling blocks to having the perfect relationship with Molly. He knew he was responsible for dealing with these very unattractive parts of his personality. Molly's biggest drawback as far as he was concerned was her sense of inferiority compared with him. She tended to dismiss her home and family and her life experience as less important than his. To this day she still could not totally believe that Charles had chosen her, that he loved her. This she had to deal with, he recognised. He could not fix it for her.

"I think this is really important stuff, Charles." She folded away the empty pizza boxes, topped up their wine and continued. "Let's go on with Sohail's story, OK?"

Qaseem had told her of Sohail's unspoken stature among the youngest of the ANA soldiers in the FOB. Those with any interest in weightlifting, wrestling or the Buzkashi knew that he came from an area and family renowned for their prowess in these physical pursuits. The Buzkashi was far, far more than a mere sport, it was a way of life, an obsession with stars who were revered and emulated wherever possible. The nearest comparison she could make was the world of British football, in particular her beloved West Ham and its star players Diafra Sakho and Winston Reid. Charles might, she thought, understand a comparison with the All Blacks from New Zealand, where the national game and its stars like Dan Carter and Richie McCaw were the stuff of legend.

Sohail's father had carried the same hero status in Afghanistan, in his time, as these current stars of their sports. Sohail had been the heir apparent, until the terrible events which had brought him from Kabul University to this place in Helmand Province, far from his home. The ANA had persuaded Sohail to not seek officer training but to remain an enlisted man because of his capacity to become a role model and "go to" person for the younger and younger recruits who were signing up to fight. He was allocated a slightly larger tent so that he could talk with the young soldiers, sometimes just boys, and make them traditional chai in an attempt to ease them into their duties. Captain Azizi had made this decision, as it turned out in consultation with Qaseem. Both saw the wisdom of having an older man as a mentor. As well, Sohail could keep watch over his wingman, his nephew, without obvious favouritism.

As Molly passed on what Qaseem had told her, Charles recalled young Afghani men such as Rolex Boy, who had lied about his age and whom they had found ambushed and dead on the mountain pass. Next, he remembered being back in the FOB handing out mail to 2 Section. Sohail was outside his tent and spat in seeming contempt for the British soldiers. Some young Afghani servicemen had arrived, enthusiastically shaking Sohail's hand and he had welcomed them warmly. Molly and Charles had observed these events before deciding to pay a visit to the tent.

What was the spitting about? They had not been sure what was happening. Molly wondered now whether Sohail was showing his contempt for a system where English boys got parcels from home and Afghani boys, many of them orphaned by the Taliban, became easy targets. Who could be sure? Both of them, with the benefit of hindsight, recalled their own deep seated suspicion at that time that Sohail was Taliban. No wonder the Afghani had become angry. Charles decided that he needed to do some more thinking about his visit to that tent.

Charles often thought since he had been home about his own inflexibility for much of his Afghan service. It had taken Molly to be persistent in choosing to do what was right rather than what was easiest and to model that behaviour for him to begin to entertain other ways of acting on tour.

There was an important piece missing still, Charles realised.

"Molly, what aren't you telling me? Did something else happen? Sohail always struck me as being really sad behind those ferocious eyes."

"There's quite a bit more, Charles. Some is too hard for me to say, too embarrassing .Qaseem said you could Skype him at the University and talk to him about it. You need to text him and make a time 'cos it's hard to get a link a lot of the time. Can you do that?"

"What's this about?" he wondered. "What could possibly be embarrassing?" A thought began forming, an impossible, crazy, ludicrous thought. The only way he could dispel it was to talk it through with the Afghani expert, Qaseem. He would do so as soon as possible. Still, there was something Molly was holding back.

"Tell me, Molly. What happened to Sohail when he was in Kabul at Uni?"

"Not to him, to his family. All of them, except him and his nephew, the one with him at the FOB. He were away at boarding school in the USA. Bright spark he is. Sohail's father refused to stop the Buzkashi. Said he weren't giving into blackmailers. They turned up the day after the next match and they blew the whole place up. Killed everybody, Sohails' parents, his sisters and their husbands and all the kids were there 'cos it were a holiday. Everybody blown up, red misted, even the babies. No witnesses, just bits of bodies and a whole stable of horses wot had their tendons cut. It were their noise, their crying out wot brought the neighbours. "

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