Sharpe's Sergeant

Chapter 11 Dancing with a Cobra

Sean woke to the intruding noise of the bedside telephone. Without opening his eyes, he answered only to find that it was just his 6:00 AM wakeup call. Reaching across the bed, he expected to meet warm, sweet flesh; even his stiffening cock expected it. When all he found was cold sheets and empty space he jolted up to check the room for Camden's presence. The room was cold and empty, leaving him cursing himself for letting her get away again. Awright, lass, if its a game ye want, 'tis a game ye'll be gettin'. Quickly hitting the quick dial number for Smitty's mobile phone, he had just one short sentence for Smitty the moment he answered: “Time for plan B, Smitty.”

With only seven days left until shooting was to start and when Sean’s days of leisure would end, he knew there was no time to waste. He had to keep assaulting Camden's senses without a break if he hoped to breech the wall she had built around herself. He hadn't yet figured out why he felt so obsessed with her. It wasn't that he had any doubts that he could find female companionship whenever he wanted it. He had never had a problem in that area, even on the most remote location shoots. He had the fleeting thought that he had built Camden up into some fantasy woman and that perhaps she was just simply unattainable. Batting it away, he knew better than that. No, she was much more, yet she was still just a woman. Her layers of complexity seemed to be getting deeper with every encounter and he found he just couldn’t resist the gnawing need for her growing ever stronger deep inside.

After listening to Smitty’s description of Camden, the thought ran through Sean’s mind that Camden was more or less a modern version of Richard Sharpe in female form. Her origins were deep in the coal-mining mountains of eastern Kentucky. Born out of wedlock to an alcoholic, drugged-out stripper, she had been saddled with the name ‘Trixie Belle Camden Cantrell’. She didn’t know who her father was. She endured a childhood of neglect and occasional abuse and a series of alcoholic, drugged-out, deadbeat stepfathers. Too ambitious and naturally intelligent to stay trapped by poverty and circumstances, as soon as she turned eighteen she legally dropped the ‘Trixie Belle’ and enlisted in the Army. Her mother died shortly after at the hands of her last stepfather during an alcohol-fueled domestic dispute.

Camden had no other family but found a real home in the Army and never looked back. She had volunteered for duty with the highly-specialized Explosive Ordnance Disposal program right after Basic Training and was immediately accepted by the program’s Command Sergeant Major who was wise enough to spot her potential and admired her ability to deal with the rampant sex discrimination in the predominantly male environment of EOD all on her own. She was fearless. She found herself one of the first three women to be accepted into the program. Like Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe, she had her own ‘chosen men’, a small group of hand-picked soldiers who had become loyal followers of the high-spirited hard-ass. Her expertise and dedication earned her the respect of her superiors, peers and subordinates and she moved up quickly in rank. As the first woman to ever be awarded the Master EOD Badge and achieve the position of Detachment Operations Sergeant, Group Headquarters allowed her to pick and choose her missions and her people. Group saw early on that she had a knack for getting things done in spite of useless officers and could turn under-performing units into crack teams. Solitary, private, driven, demanding, shrewd and cunning, often a tyrant, yet a born leader who was dedicated to the Army and her troops; she was considered the perfect soldier and a real EOD star.

Camden had plucked Smitty out of a dead-end job as a grease-monkey in a diesel engine repair shop after he had miraculously fixed her generator during a South Korean blizzard on his own time, convincing him he really needed to volunteer for EOD; he had been with her ever since. He knew pretty much every detail of her life during the fifteen years he had been with her. As for the five years before that his knowledge was pretty vague. But, he did know that something had happened during a deployment to a little hotspot called Somalia that had a profound effect on her, resulting in her inability to maintain relationships for very long. The only person who knew the whole story was the only person who had been with her longer than Smitty; Chris Orry, the other team leader who had been with them in London had been in Somalia, also.

Every detail that he had gathered about Camden kept running through his mind until Smitty arrived to pick Sean up at his hotel a mere half hour after he had called him.

“Change of plans, Sean,” Smitty announced quickly, “I just got a mission alert. Hope you don’t mind going for a little ‘chopper ride?”

“Meaning helicopter? I hate fuckin’ helicopters!” Sean declared, the blood draining from his face at the thought, “Hate flyin’, period!”

“Well, it’s a golden opportunity for quality time with Camden, more than you would get by going out to the production site for the day with the whole crew,” Smitty explained, “and it would impress her that you’re interested in going the extra mile to learn all about her world. I’ve already cleared it with Orry at Control, so she can’t say no.”

“Smitty, whatever it is yer gettin’ me into ‘ere…,” Sean warned, “Well, I just hope ye’ know what yer doin’.”