The Perfect Soldier by Graham Hurley Page A

of his, and in this respect he was a bit like Giles: solid, cheerful, thick-skinned to the point of arrogance. Like father like son, she thought ruefully, turning another page. Whether it waspollution risks in New Jersey or land mines in Angola, there simply wouldn’t be a problem.
    A phrase caught her eye, making her smile. James’s first task in Muengo involved laying on a water supply from the river. To do this he’d had to build something called an infiltration gallery. Molly hadn’t a clue what this might be but James had penned a detailed description, complete with diagrams. First he dug a hole near the river. Then he half-filled it with fragments of stone. Then he waited while the river found its way through the soil and into the hole. Once the hole was full, wrote James, it was dead simple to get the stuff away to a storage tank. All you’d need was a pump and a length of pipe and a tank at the other end. She looked at the phrase again, ‘dead simple’, hearing him saying it, picturing the expression on his face as he did so, impatient, even slightly amused. The world of practical challenges – of nuts and bolts and flanges and grommets – had never held any fears for James. On the contrary, it had made him the person he’d become. Life, he’d recently told her, was a bit like his first motor bike. Stick the bits together in the right order, and it’ll probably work.
    She reached for another letter, a week or so later, looking for a particular photo. True to form, James’s hole by the river had been a triumph. Nearby, on a little mound of spoil, he’d installed a pump and the photo had recorded the moment when the pump had first spluttered into action. She found the photo at last, the kids crowding around the spout of water, their faces twisted up towards the camera, their sleek black bodies already soaking wet. The closest child was a little girl. The bright red shirt she was wearing was at least three sizes too big, hanging comically around her ankles, but the huge grin on her face told Molly everything she needed to know about what her son was doing in Africa. She turnedthe photo over. On the back, in careful capitals, James had written ‘MARIA’S FIRST SHOWER – FRIENDS FOR LIFE!!’
    Molly read through the letters, still not bothering to sort them into any kind of order, happy to dip into this new life James had led. There’d been moments of special achievement, duly recorded and passed on. To dig the trench for the water pipes, he’d managed to locate an excavator, a big yellow digger that featured in at least four photos. The digger and the driver had cost Terra Sancta $400 a day but he’d saved weeks of manual labour and got the water to the distribution point in record time. This had won James what he called ‘a herogram’ from Terra Sancta’s regional office, and in the letter he’d reproduced the text in full. ‘Terrific news about Stage One. Expect your pipeline in Luanda soonest. Press on with the good work.’
    This pat on the back had obviously pleased James no end but there’d been bleaker moments, too. James, typically, hadn’t made much of these but there’d clearly been friction in Muengo with someone on the military side. This person, whoever he was, seemed to have responsibility for clearing the minefields. One of his jobs was to brief newcomers on what to look out for, where not to go, and James had evidently been less than receptive. ‘Bloke’s got a problem,’ he’d written, ‘I think he thinks we’re all cretins. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t do the other. I told him he ought to try local government. Right up his street!’ Molly pondered the likely exchange. Mines had never meant anything to her but for the last forty-eight hours she’d thought of little else. Big mines. Small mines. Green mines. Blue mines. Even mines with little cartoon faces that rose from the soil and ghosted through her dreams. In reality, she hadn’t a clue what they did,