Poppy Day by Amanda Prowse Page A

without an obstruction in quite a few hours; his voice sounded strange to his ears.
    His relief was instantly replaced by fearful questions. Why had they taken the sacking off? What came next? Were they going to hurt him? What should he do? Say? Did Poppy know he was missing?
    His face was raw, eyes watering. The guards and their captive studied each other with equal interest. The men had beards and wore traditional Afghan hats. One was significantly older, toothless, and looked as if life had got the better of him on more than one occasion. Scars and ingrained dirt indicated an existence with little comfort. The other was better groomed with brushed hair and a neatly trimmed beard. He gave Martin some water and treated his charge with indifference, both aspects for which Martin was extremely grateful.
    He removed the ties from Martin’s wrists. After the initial agony of the blood rushing back down to his limbs from their vertical position, it was wonderful to be able to run his hands through his hair, to scratch his face and rub his eyes. His hands were numb bundles of flesh on the end of clumsy arms.
    Martin shifted his weight until he was in a sitting position, propped against the wall. He pulled at the material of his combat trousers, unsticking it from his skin. He was a mess. Instinct told him not to make a request, but simply to be thankful for the small freedom that he had been given.
    The guards ignored him, retaking their places either side of the door, continuing their conversation in the guttural Arabic that excluded him.
    Martin closed his eyes, relishing the change of position. He had never believed that he would find himself in this predicament ; aware that it was one of Poppy’s biggest fears, he used to laugh at her as the odds were so much against it. He’d spent a large part of his leave over the last year trying to convince her that the chances of him being taken were practically non-existent . He had to concede that maybe it was him and not her that had been naive.
    His life in the military was very different from what he thought he was signing up for. Until the night before he joined up he had never thought about the army, army life or what being a soldier might mean. He had never met anyone that had been in the army, apart from the old men that had done their bit and, quite frankly, he found their recollections a bit boring.
    There was only one reason that he even considered joining up; he thought it was a way that he could do better for him and Poppy. He hated the flat they lived in, the noise from the traffic, the graffiti and the junkies in the corridors. He disliked the fact that her job was in the precinct, a stinky lift ride away from home, where she stood for eight hours a day washing and placing rollers in old ladies’ hair.
    Martin worried that the life that she had, the life that he had given her, might not be enough, that maybe he wouldn’t be enough. She was worth so much more than standing in a grotty salon every day, working for a daft tart, and he wanted to give her more.
    He had seen adverts on the telly and in the papers, might even have read some literature, but if you asked him why he actually joined up, his first answer would be that he didn’t know. The truth was, he did know, but avoided thinking about the reasons why.
    When he first left school Martin took a job in his local garage. He had visions of becoming a mechanic and in more fanciful moments could picture himself running the place. His was not a conscious career plan, but rather a path that offered the least resistance, an opportunity that had presented itself when alternatives were sparse. He eventually realised after a couple of years of making the tea, running back and forth to the bookies for the owner, answering the telephone and sweeping up the crap at the end of the day that he wasn’t going anywhere.
    Martin worked hard, really hard, in the way that a shire horse does, blinkered and no matter what the