Chapter 10

MY KENYAN DIARY: CHARLES JAMES

I FOUND THIS WHOLE SERIES DISAPPOINTING. It felt a bit like Mills and Boon romance to me, written to a formula and about that old classic, the love triangle. Not a great deal about the Army really, apart from one or two episodes. I wish TG could talk LT into coming back. This second series lacked, from my perspective the chemistry, style and unique storylines of Series 1. And I did NOT like CJ in Dad mode . I have enjoyed keeping him and Molly in the forefront of our memories in this series. Please read after comments about a homecoming chapter. Otherwise, I am done with the diary now.

COMPLETE

Haven't found time to write over the past few days. Actually that's bullshit, if I'm honest. Someone needs to be honest about this whole crazy male driven series of events. For me it started back when I allowed myself to be manipulated into telling Georgie she was going to be stood up at the altar. Possibly even earlier, if I'm brutally honest with myself and recognise that there was a kind of vicarious excitement in being a mate of someone like Elvis. From the time we both entered Sandhurst, did I have a yen for a streak of "mad bastard-itis' but for someone else to do the streaking? There's a very entrenched part of me that could very well turn into a boring old fart, as Molly so bluntly predicts, as I get older. It comes to the fore when I get the chance to do exciting things in my personal life, but then step back when I think I might make an arse of myself.

This is, of course, not the more accepted use of the word "arse" which is the part of me that Molly seems most fixated on, bless her very suggestive, no, straight out dirty mind. So here I am again, avoiding the issue, which is basically that I am not an Elvis, nor a Doctor Dull nor even an Abu, the crazy converso. I am rather afraid that these last weeks in Africa and back here again have set me up to be kind of Dad figure to two of these three tossers, plus the lads in 2 Section, above and beyond the normal expectations laid on a commanding officer. Why do I feel a bit like someone out of "Dad's Army" sometimes? Rather more a Sergeant Wilson than a Captain Mainwaring, I hope, though Wilson can be a real ditherer . Possibly because the other soldiers around me could easily be characters in that great old series…Fingers, Dangleberries, Mansfield Mike who reminds me so much of the Ian Primrose character with his clingy mum.

Anyhow, I need to get the last bits of this diary finished before I get home for my very short leave before the lads and I head off to Syria. I would have been happy to take Lane along as medic, but I think she has unfinished business in Kenya. Her need to go back reminds me of Molly's struggle to work out why she needed to return to Afghanistan. I could sense the fear in her when we talked about what the near future might hold for both of us.

I won't ever forget the lunch date we had at Bailbrook House in Bath where, for the first time really, I could tell her that I love her. She could not believe that I had such a clear idea of my feelings for her.

"You don't know me," she had replied, almost as if I would not love her at all once I did get to know her better, away from our life in the army. During my weeks of recovery, I had time to reflect on all that had gone on between us in Afghanistan and since coming home. What I kept coming back to time and again was her youth compared to my age, a difference which she now uses frequently and mercilessly to tease me. The almost decade between us meant that I had had plenty of time to develop a career, to work out what I wanted from the army AND what I was prepared to invest of myself. I knew I had become a competent officer, but somewhat rigid in my views and unbending in the way I applied them with the soldiers under my command. My saving grace, I think, was a sense of humour, which I really needed once I fell desperately in love with this cheeky, brave, beautiful , tiny girl with the East London accent and completely undecipherable Cockney vocabulary. In many ways, Molly saved me from myself. I am so grateful she turned up in my life, cleaning up my often imaginary blisters, trying to understand my fucking terrible jealous streak and waiting out with me to get back to Britain before we could be open with our feelings for one another.

At that lunch date, when I told her I thought she should go back to Afghan to take up a short term assignment mentoring local medics, it was very hard to carry through. Then she asked me

"Don't you want me to stay with you?" I could see the hurt in her green eyes, which are always so expressive in her lovely face. Tears were close to the surface, so I tried again to tell her exactly what I felt.

"I want you to be brilliant." If she was going to make a future with me in it, then I wanted her to have every chance to challenge herself, to grow and learn and to experiment so that she always had a career separate from me. From then on in, Molly and I would need to be apart in our overseas postings. Our relationship would preclude us serving together and It was going to be tricky managing the story about our meeting and being together for the top brasses' satisfaction. Being brilliant, for herself, could mean a very exciting future for my Molly and I did not want to hold her back in any way. That's not to say I found it easy encouraging her to contact her new commanding officer. It was fucking difficult to let her go when I had just found the courage to tell her I am so much in love with her. The last thing I wanted to see was her shouldering her Bergen once again and getting on to a troop carrier to fly thousands of miles away from me.

So when I talked to Lane about what her military future might hold, I recognised in her that same potential for brilliance that Molly had. Even though I would have taken her with us to Syria in a heartbeat, I knew that was not where her growth and her healing were, for the time being. Lane absolutely needed to shake off the demands of three men, each of them wanting to control, own or manipulate her. She needed to be her own person, away from her family in Manchester as well. I think her father understood that need.

That mad bastard Elvis is only just beginning to realise how profoundly he hurt Georgie on the day of their wedding. He was so focussed on dealing with the personal crisis he had to face so suddenly that he gave not one thought, I believe, to the humiliation and pain he dealt to her. I am still ashamed that I didn't tell him "No!" when he asked me to tell her. I should have stepped back and made him front up. I've become aware of just how much he has gotten away with over the years because of his good looks and charm. Lane telling him that she doesn't want him in her life for now is a much needed blow to his ego and will, I think, make him grow up, even if belatedly and just a little bit.

Doctor Dull and Boring would stifle her spirit and bury her in an avalanche of shitty nappies, given that he told her they'd "…better start banging them out." Lane told Molly that Jamie had already put in his order for seven children. Molly's comment to me when she Skyped me to tell me this little gem was to the point.

"Don't you go gettin' any ideas about kids, Bossman, let alone seven little bleeders. Might happen sometime, not yet though. Mind you, I might have to think about it a bit sooner seein' as if we leave it too long, you're gonna be getting' the pension. You know, the old fellas' one." All delivered with one of her cheekiest grins.

What enraged Molly most of all was not the behaviour of either Elvis, who she could see straight through and disliked intensely, or Dr Dull, who she thought was a boring plonker. Abu, the British Uni student drew her special contempt. That he had been prepared to carry out killings in Kenya particularly of innocent women and children in order to get "street cred" in as a radicalised Muslim made us all very angry. When Molly, like all the rest of us, discovered that this was all elaborate head games and manipulation to justify his plotting to kill a Muslim girl who rebuffed his advances, she was enraged.

"It's bad enough looking after the Afghan people what have been hurt by their own home folks. When it's a bloody British fella joining up and doin' 'stuff like this out of spite an' because some girl told him 'No' I get really mad, Bossman. 'Specially when my man and one of my best mates are in the firing line."

I must admit I like her describing me as her man. And that's the reason why I'm bloody glad this terrible bloody African tour and the time spent mopping up back in Britain are fast coming to an end. It's been the least tolerable of all my overseas missions to date and it has been good these past few days to focus on getting ready to deploy to Syria. That place sounds like a real basket case, particularly what is happening in Aleppo right now.

So it's important that we all get some breathing space before we assemble at Brize Norton in two weeks' time. I keep reading the letters Molly and I wrote to one another before she went off to her volunteer stint in Greece. Of course she has had her leave cut and has been sent back to Afghan, given the worsening insurgent action in Kabul. She told Beck she was not happy at being called away from her work in the camps, but from what she said they had managed to get around all the kids at the camp where she is stationed with their vaccines. She also stood up to Beck and said she absolutely needed time with me before I left again, so she has ten days leave, getting home a day or so before me. I think Beck is pretty much up to speed about Molly and me by now.

Just in time to get to the shops and deal with the list I left her. So we won't need to go out for a whole week and can devote ourselves to our favourite personal activities. I'm putting this diary in the mail tonight and it should be put through our post slot just as she gets in from Afghan in a couple of days' time. She can have a bit of a read before I get there and we won't need to waste time talking about it. She's been better than me at emailing, except this last Afghan bit which is classified, so talking that out should be a breeze., knowing what we will both want to be doing with ourselves and one another. And it won't be the current state of military affairs in Helmand Province or Kabul.

I cannot wait to hold her again and I hope she remembers to leave that bloody front door lock on the snip. Can almost hear the noise my bags and boots will make as I drop them in the hallway.

v

So Charles is content to finish off his diary, popit into a post bag and send it off for Molly to have aread if she wants to I am thinking they are both preferring to read the list of instructions that Charles sent to her some time ago. Molly will, of course be making strategic plans to carry out those instructions, to the letter. I am sure she'll be waiting just how and where he told her he wants her. Sometimes a modicum of control can be really exciting. One just has to pick the time and place and get agreement first.

I am going back to complete my earlier story about the lost and found Afghani women and Molly's reunion with Qaseem and Bashira. THE LETTERS I REFER TO CAN BE FOUND IN THAT STORY. I intend to bring both stories together with a monumental reunion which will need to go onto THE DARK SIDE, the M listings. I will be ready for that in a couple of weeks and it will have a new title, something about Homecoming. Not sure yet.

I have appreciated your support and reviews right throughout the writing of this diary. Please let me know what you think of this last offering.