Harry Flashman and the Invasion of Iraq Read Online Free

Roddy Woodstock’s rather attractive younger sister, Charlotte, who asked why I was looking so glum. I must admit that I hammed up the answer somewhat such that it had the desired effect and, a couple of stiff drinks later, she insisted on taking me to bed for the afternoon, which was something of a tonic I don’t mind telling you. Nevertheless, the two weeks of Christmas leave was over soon enough and on January 3rd I found myself disconsolately packing my bags and preparing myself for life in the desert. This was bad enough in itself and made substantially worse by the Royal Marines’ insistence that I bring only one large kitbag in addition to my bergen and webbing. I had always found several bags and my old Wellington school trunk insufficient to hold all my belongings when moving from place to place with the regiment, yet now I was expected to achieve the same result with less than a third of the space. It was absurd and my mood blackened further as I was forced to abandon a perfectly good case of scotch and also, would you credit it, my duvet. (After numerous uncomfortable exercises spent shivering on the Barossa training area I had vowed not to spend any unnecessary nights in a sleeping bag and yet here I was preparing, for the second time in a year, to spend months sleeping in the wretched thing.) In the interim there would be just a couple of nights in the officers’ mess down in Plymouth before we set off for the Gulf and I had no intention whatsoever of leaving a room full of clobber for the light-fingered Royal Marines rear party to pilfer while I was gone. Come to that, I had no intention of returning to Plymouth at all and, assuming I made it unscathed through the adventure ahead, I planned to bid farewell to the Marines the minute we returned to English soil. With this in mind it felt a little easier to leave most of my trappings in my room in the regimental mess in the hope that they would be the first possessions to welcome me home, so to speak.
    A sharp hoot on a car horn alerted me to the presence of the duty driver outside my window and it was with heavy heart that I heard the latch on my room door click shut behind me as I staggered down the corridor with my bag, bergen and webbing. The staff car - a ridiculously over-pompous term for a car unbecoming of a second-rate sales rep - was right outside the back door of the mess and the driver, lance corporal someone-or-other, was all smiles and good wishes as he loaded my clobber into the boot.
    “The duty sergeant tells me you’re off back to the Marines, to go to the Gulf, Sir,” he beamed at me. “I bet you can’t wait. A bit more exciting with the Marines, I suppose, than with the Regiment.” Then, realising his perceived disloyalty, he caught himself and quickly added, “Not that there’s anything wrong with the QRH of course but, you know, tours of the Balkans can get a bit repetitive for the lads.”
    I had spoken about almost nothing else for the whole of Christmas Leave so, as you might imagine, I was royally aggrieved that after enduring a fortnight of answering inane questions about the Middle East I should have to face more of the same from an idiot driver. I flew into a rage, told him what I thought of him and, if memory serves me, I think I even threatened to charge him with insubordination if he didn’t shut up. Fortunately the obsequious little toad got the message and we drove the route to Warminster railway station in complete silence which, considering the alternative, was absolute bliss. He even unloaded my bags onto a luggage trolley and wheeled it to my platform without uttering a sound, then hovered around, presumably waiting for my train to arrive so that he could load the baggage on-board for me. It was a distraction I could do without, so I shooed him away and spent an enjoyable ten minutes waiting for the train sending Charlotte Woodstock solicitous text messages from my mobile phone.
    Once on-board, I found an empty