Chapter 2~Meeings
As the jeep rolled casually over the vast sands of the desert, Lou laughed to himself as he watched Becker. He was going to enjoy this, he decided, and thought he would give the poor sod a heads up to the peril that awaited him, in the form of an angry Maria Holland.
"Oh, by the way, mate," Becker's watchful eyes faced the young assistant smirking behind the wheel
"Yes?"
"She really doesn't like you,"
By the time they had covered the half mile of desolate yellow nothingness, Becker was all too aware of the doctor's opinion of him, and was led into the tented construction to a slightly amusing scene; Holland's office was a cosy little room, furnished with a desk, a few chairs, a filing cabinet and a fridge/freezer. The doctor herself had her back to Becker as he walked in, stooping so as not to walk into the flap that resembled a doorway. He could see, behind the high, leather chair back, a pair of purple boot Converse All Stars lazily draped on the desk. Lou swerved past Becker and made straight for the fridge, only to be stopped, hand-on-door, by Holland.
"All alcohol in there is for medicinal purposes only, go get your own. Sorry, Colonel, you were saying?" Becker sniggered as Lou pulled a face at her as she resumed her phone conversation, and he edged past Becker into the room across the corridor.
"Yes, sir, I do... No, sir, I'm not entirely sure, sir, but I am rummaging through my filing cabinet as we speak, sir... Yes, sir, I'll see you in five minutes... No, I'm currently having a chat with Captain Becker, sir... Alright then, Sir." She dropped the phone down into the cradle and sighed, turning around to face Becker in the doorway, pulling her feet off the desk as she did so.
"What did he want?" came Lou's voice through the door, just as Holland was about to say something. She pulled a face at the beer bottle he was carrying, and indicated to Becker to sit down.
"The report on the med stocks from six months ago. He's lost it," Lou laughed.
"You haven't got a spare, have you?"
"Not on me, no,"
"I thought you kept a spare for everything,"
"I do, only this one's gone walkabout,"
"Oh dear God, what did you do with it?"
"Hey, don't drag my mother into this. I might've accidentally sent it to Seb," Lou banged his head on the filing cabinet. Becker sat in his chair, looking completely bemused. Lou explained the situation to him in simpler terms.
"She sent the most important document in the entire medical stretch of the military to her brother." Becker laughed despite himself, before Lou had an inspirational moment.
"Ooh! The mail came this morning! You'd better hope to heck that brother of yours has more brains than you do," He dashed out the canvas flap towards the mail room.
"So, then, the great Captain Becker, we meet at last. Sorry, I don't mean to sound horribly menacing, it runs in the family," I leaned back in my chair and watched Becker take in his surroundings. He looked like the normal soldier, short cropped, brown hair combed back off his face and a pretty passive expression on his face. I knew that he had a silenced pistol hidden in one of the hundreds of pockets his trousers held.
"You've set this stuff up quick, Doctor Holland," he said, leaning back in his own chair. I shrugged.
"Needs must, I guess. I figured that I'd do a much better job if I moved closer to the guy getting most of the men killed around here. And its Maria, by the way," My words stung him a bit, but I'd decided that I didn't like this man a long time ago, and I was going to hint that to him as much as possible.
"Yeah, I know. I don't suppose it had occurred to you that I don't exactly enjoy getting dozens of the best troops in our pathetic military slaughtered a day, did it?" he sounded so innocent, so nonplussed that I wanted to hit him.
"Ouch. No, I didn't, but writing death certificates isn't exactly my favourite of hobbies, so, you know," Becker shrugged,
"Apparently, I'm not supposed to care," I blinked at him. What? This is the sort of attitude that stuck up men like Colonel Richards like to have floating around? I was even more shocked at Becker's statement than I had been when Seb had dyed his hair orange for his seventeenth birthday. (And I don't mean ginger, I mean orange.) An apologetic smile threatened to break the unemotional features of the suddenly human Captain sitting opposite me.
"Yeah, I figured from Richards that I'm not supposed to give a crap about how many lives are lost. He didn't tell me that outright, of course, but I got the general idea." I was about to say something very rude about Richards taking that opinion and shoving it further up his arse than his head already was, when the very Hellhole came through the tent flap, Stick of Doom and Arse-Rape in hand. Becker jumped up out of his seat and threw a salute up, standing as straight as a barge pole as the pompous Colonel swaggered in. I, on the other hand, sighed and pushed myself up in my chair, looking reasonably respectful.
Richards was every inch the stuffy, up-his-own-ass Officer; he had the wide, fluffy moustache that reminded me of General Melchett from Blackadder, he walked with the swagger that was meant to make people intimidated when in fact he looked like he needed to use the bathroom desperately, and he carried the wooden stick that had no purpose other than giving him the general appearance of someone who was about to double over and use it as a walking cane. He stood in the doorway for longer than necessary, "evaluating" the room. Eventually, he barked in his very over-enthusiastic baritone,
"At ease, Captain," and Becker dropped back into the chair.
"Doctor Holland, the report I asked for on the phone?" he held out his hand and looked expectantly at me, while I attempted to stall for time.
"Uh... My assistant is, as we speak, fetching it, Sir; I think it's still in the transport van..." Richards peered around for another few moments, and was undoubtedly about to say something that would have caused me to get up and slap him, when Lou came charging in through the flap, almost barrelling into Richards.
"Sorry, Ri, the darned mail guy had put it in my pigeon hole! It's here," he handed me a letter written in Seb's spider-scrawl, and I found the report inside it. Handing it to Richards with a look of defiant smugness on my face, I watched him read through it and then stuff it inside his breast pocket.
"Right, very good work you're doing here, keep at it, wot?" striding out, he nearly stepped on Lou who had bent over to tie his shoelace.
"Get up off the floor, young rip! If you were under my command I'd have you doing thirty press-ups for insolence!" he strode off down the corridor and Lou gave him the finger as he turned the corner.
"Arrogant son of a bitch," I looked in surprise at Becker who was sitting in his chair with a look of plain disgust on his face.
"Well, I would prefer to use the phrases Bastard, Ass-Hole or maybe even Motherfucker, but son of a bitch works too," Becker's face practically doubled in size as the hugest grin I've ever seen spread across his face and he exploded with loud peals of bass laughter. It only lasted seconds before he stood up.
"I probably should get back, I've got to plan another suicide mission for tomorrow morning," I shook his hand.
"I'll be seeing you soon, then,"
"Hope not," he chuckled quietly and ducked back under the flap, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
Becker jumped out of the jeep as it rolled back to his camp, before Lou turned it around and wheeled off in the other direction. Sgt Williams strode up to him, eyebrows raised.
"Anything like what you imagined?"
"Better," was all Becker said on the matter. He strode into his tent with Williams musing to himself over his ideas of what happened over there. Becker unfolded the map of the terrain, frowning at it as he thought to himself the best way to "infiltrate the enemy lines," as Richards had put it. Williams leaned casually on the table.
"So go on then, what's she like?" Becker didn't look up as he replied
"Well, she's, you know, a pretty standard gal." His Sergeant laughed
"Ok, that's it, you're in love with her," he punched Becker on the shoulder playfully
"Am not! Besides, she hates me, she made that clear,"
"Yeah? How?"
"Oh, you know, the old "I-don't-like-you-getting-so-many-people-killed" approach,"
"Fine, I guess that's fair. Are you going to tell me what she looks like, my love-crazed captain, or am I going to have to go over there and find out for myself?" Becker raised his eyes heavenwards at his Sergeant. He knew he wasn't going to stop pestering him, so seated himself on a cluttered desk.
"Well, she's got long strawberry blonde hair and green eyes, sense of humour my sister would awe at and a vicious hatred of Colonel Richards,"
"Just your type, then?"
"If you don't shut up about it, I'm going to have you on night watch, with no relief!" Williams laughed his way out of his Captain's tent, knowing that he would be hearing a lot about this Holland, if Becker would admit it or not. Neither of them thought twice about the plane circling just out of earshot above them.
Lou almost fell over laughing as Maria read out her brother's latest letter.
"'So when the angry parents of all these young men turn up, you'll need to lend me your pistol, and I know you have one so don't pretend otherwise.' Huh, that brother of mine really does have a mouth on him." Maria put the letter down and began chewing on the top of the biro in her hand.
"So what did you think of Becker?" She asked the somewhat hysterical Lou, but whether that was from the letter or the amount of beer he had drank that morning was against her.
"Uhh, I thought he was decent. He didn't seem to suit his job, though, with a laugh like that. I think he likes you!" he poked her in the ribs, and received a swift slap across the nose.
"Go drink some coffee, you drunken sod," Maria busied herself with looking for something in the filing cabinet, attempting to hide the blush spreading across her cheeks. This, however, only brought Lou's giggling fit higher.
"Haaaaaaaaa! He likes you and you like him, I can tell by the look on your face when you shook his hand! Tee Hee!" Maria turned from the filing cabinet to face Lou, attempting to hide a smile on her lips.
"Lou, do you want to have kids later in life?"
"That would be nice, yeah."
"Shut up then!"
The banter and jokes ceased rapidly as an explosion went off about half a mile away. Maria and Lou raced outside, smiles and laughter history as they took in the scene in front of them:
Becker's camp had been reduced to a fire-ridden dust cloud!