Chapters (25)
‘I thought you were here to look after the recruits,’ Max said.
‘Aye, but not mollycoddle them. If you want someone to mop your fevered brow, you should throw your hat in right now.’ She narrowed her eyes. ‘It wouldn’t be a bad thing anyway.’
Something snapped in Max. He was sick of this attitude, first from Hector and now from Martha. ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why have you brought me here if all you’re going to do is put me down?’
Martha stared at him. For the briefest moment, he thought her face might have softened. But it hardened again as she ladled out a bowlful of grey slop. ‘Eat your porridge, laddie,’ she said quietly. It was clear that the conversation was at an end. Sullenly, he took his breakfast and sat alone at one of the long tables to eat it.
The others arrived one by one: Sami first, then Abby, then Lukas. The two thickset boys from their hut had handed in their caps the previous day. The blond boy was of course no longer with them. There were two other boys who introduced themselves as Jack and Ash. Jack had a shaved head and a tattoo on the back of his left hand. He seemed kind of arrogant to Max. Ash had curly brown hair and a stud in his left ear. Abby introduced two more girls. Their names were Maddy and Els and they didn’t speak.
All the recruits looked exhausted. The previous day’s exertions had clearly taken it out of them. As Max finished his porridge in silence, he looked from one to the other. He wondered what the day held, and how many of them would be sitting here at supper time.
He was about to stand up when Angel walked in. Max hadn’t spoken to her yet. He felt slightly nervous of the tall, silent young woman with the fiery red hair. She seemed neither as aggressive as Hector nor as friendly as Woody. Somehow that made Max respect her all the more. The cool way she had manoeuvred the helicopter on the mountain suggested she was not someone to mess with. Max had the impression that the others felt the same. Even Lukas looked at her with something approaching admiration. She stood at the end of the long table where they were all eating breakfast and looked at each one of them in turn.
‘You did well yesterday,’ she said in a husky voice. ‘All of you. If any of you are thinking of handing in your berets at the end of today, you shouldn’t.’
She looked at them all in turn again. Was it Max’s imagination, or did she stare at him for just a fraction longer than the others?
‘Line up outside in ten minutes,’ she said abruptly. She turned on her heel and strode towards the door. ‘Today’s exercise: weapons.’