A Soldier's Tale Read Online Free Page B

sert de moi comme pot-de-chambre. Je m’emmerde de tout ça .
    And then she began to sob, sitting on her arse on the bare floor, propping herself with one hand and with the other fumbling at her face to try and brush away the tears. He sat hunched in the middle of the big bed, hugging his knees under the old patchwork quilt and the worn sheet.
    You shouldn’t of done that, he said, I don’t like tarts’ tricks. I’ve never held with tarts.
    The angry sobbing went on.
    Look, he said, I don’t want no tricks, all I want is a bit of loving kindness with it.
    I cannot love you, she said, you are just a man who takes me because I cannot run away. You should leave me. Let them take me.
    What would they do to you? he asked. They’d give you a bad time, wouldn’t they, before they killed you?
    With one hand to her mouth, she moaned with fear, and there was a silence, then, Oh, what must I do? she said.
    He moved across and sat on the edge of the bed, near to her.
    First of all, he said, stop crying and come back into bed and forget about those bastards out there. I’m sorry I done that, he said, and I’d like to make it up to you if you let me.
    He reached out his hand to her. She held back for a moment, then took his hand and he helped her back into the bed beside him.
    Now, he said, be a good girl and I’m going to love you and then we’ll sleep. Forget all the rest. We’ll talk about it in the morning.
    He had big clever hands that could coax a squirrel out of a tree or break the neck of an unwary German sentry, master any dog, set delicate snares for bird or rabbit, turn a rod of beech into an intricately carvedwalking stick. He began patiently to handle her, holding back his raw need for her until she was ready. Steadily and gently he stroked her long thighs and her breasts which were full and soft in the darkness, and her belly and the silky fur of her crotch. She began to respond to him, kissing and touching him, but timidly, afraid to provoke that strange masculine rage again. He began to want her very much, and when he became demanding and pressed her back on the bed she drew him into her. He took her quickly, more savagely than he had meant to, and she seemed to understand and forgive his need. So great was his pleasure that he gave little thought to her, only she said softly some words he didn’t understand.
    When they rolled apart, he lay beside her staring up into the dark. He wanted to say something to her but forgot. All he could think of was that it had been a long time since he’d lain in a big soft bed, and even longer since he’d been there with a woman warm beside him. There had been claspings under trees and in dark doorways and on sitting-room sofas, but not for a long time this ease and joy. He felt grateful and reached out to touch her. A wind was coming up outside, moving trees somewhere nearby, bringing a flurry of gunfire that sounded almost lazy, followed by a rattle of rain on the window. His hand touchedher belly, the darkness spread out above him and he fell asleep.
    Sometime early in the morning he awoke, curled up close to her and with his arm still across her. A small sound and a movement of her body had disturbed him; she sighed heavily in the darkness. The window was a square of faint paleness in the dark. Far off an early rooster crowed, a country sound. No guns spoke.
    In the quietness his earliest memories came back to him. Of the darkness before dawn, and cockcrow, and the sound of his mother sighing in the dark in the little airless bedroom. Of creeping out fearfully in the dark across the eyeless bogey terrors of the blackness and the cold floor. Of standing by the bed at last and reaching out to touch the hot wet cheek. Mum, I love you, Mum. Get back to your bed, you little bastard. And creeping back through the desert of the dark to huddle under his old blanket, waiting for daybreak and all the other bitterness of the