The Sleeping Army Awakes

Part 55 Something in the oven

Katka was looking forward to cooking everyone a nice big meal, in the nice big kitchen that she had found. She had discovered the canteen suite, which comprised, a well stocked kitchen, with a full range of cookers and microwave ovens, with cupboards full of crockery and drawers and drawers full of cutlery. There was even a funny little cupboard, with a funny little drawer inside where you could drain the dishes after washing them.

Samuel heard her thought and explained that the little draining cupboard in the kitchen was actually a functional dishwasher... but this was far too good an opportunity to miss. Katka didn't pass the information on to the boys so that she could watch Pawel, Michal and basil doing the washing up manually with a smile of satisfaction on her face. She would educate them about the dishwasher later.

"Look Michal you strumpet you missed bit!" Pawel pointed out passing the mess tin back for a second trip into the soapy hot water.

Despite all the banter between the two of them they seemed to work together well, which is more than could be said of Basil. It was lucky that most of the washing up was made of metal because he kept on dropping things.

When they were finished Katka found another set of cupboards where there were tins of tea, coffee and sugar. Katka decided to reward the boys for their efforts and made them a mug of coffee each. Admittedly they would have to have dried milk but that would be good enough for her unless someone was imminently going to deliver her a dairy cow that was in milk.

Katka's favourite find of all, in the kitchen, was an electric can opener. No more ragged edges to tear lips with. She happily opened several cans of fruit with it just for the sake of it.

Katka found herself singing happily to herself. She had food, she had clean clothes, she had company and a new sense of purpose.

"It's such a romantic song!" She said aloud despite herself.

"Our mother used to sing it!" Pawel remarked, "Although ending is very sad!"

"What ever it was. You sing it beautifully." Samuel said, giving Katka a start. Unknown to Katka, he had heard the singing from the corridor and had stood spell bound, listening to Katka's slightly husky but pitch perfect voice and its echoes. He had watched her preparing the meal and was thinking how much she had changed already. When they had met she had moved awkwardly and spoken in short bursts. Now she seemed more confident and though there were tears in her eyes, because of a pathos ridden excuse for a song, he could sense that she was happier, and there was growing anticipation of something that she sought to conceal from him.

"Oh!" she said, "You were listening. Do you have time to have that talk yet?"

"I haven't fully thought out what I want to say to you yet." Samuel said reflectively. He sensed a mixture of apprehension and excitement, as if she felt the situation was full of great promise but she also was obviously experiencing great trepidation so he added, "I'm sure that when I do say whatever it is I finally say that it it won't be any thing that you don't want to hear."

Katka wondered about Samuel, he seemed so preoccupied. Moreover she wondered what would have happened had he let her scrub his back. She sensed that Samuel had been worried where it would lead them. It seemed ironic that for all Samuel's fine speech about trust, he couldn't trust her to perform a simple act of kindness? She would never understand men. Yes, perhaps it was more likely that he couldn't trust himself to keep his hands off her. What had ever possessed her to be so stand offish at first, like some born again virgin. Men were funny! Samuel did not want his back washed for him, whilst Pawel would have pounced if she had given him a gram of encouragement. It was also strange that though Michal looked very much like Pawel, he seemed to have totally different temperament to his brother.

As she prepared the meal and laid a table with plates and knives forks and spoons, she begun to wonder what the sleeping arrangements would be. She didn't even want to sleep in the same room as the two brothers or Basil. She felt that there was something deeply untrustworthy about Pawel.

Yes finding somewhere that they could have a comfortable sleep would have to be her next priority. If there was this wonderful kitchen and canteen then there must be comfortable accommodation somewhere nearby. 

Unlike the girl in the song Katka was not quite ready to surrender herself completely to anyone, but she surprised herself that she suddenly thought how nice it would be to feel Samuel close to her at night. The warmth of his body next to hers would be comforting even though she didn't want anything else from him. 

Katka had spent far too many cold nights shivering in the dark with no-one beside her and no blankets to cover her. Even on quite warm summer nights it could get really cold if the sky was cloudless and even if it wasn't then it was usually pelting down with rain. He hadn't even let her wash his back for him he would hardly agree to sharing her bed no matter how innocent her intentions were.She stopped abruptly and abstrusely mid thought, and looked up to find that Samuel had gone. 

"Thank Fred for that!" she said aloud, relieved that he had left before she had let her thoughts become quite so confusing.

Samuel wondered about Katka. Surely she must have noticed that she was pregnant. Perhaps she had just thought, that her period just had stopped because of her poor diet. He would let her come to terms with her pregnancy first before he suggested any arrangement with her. 

It was ironic that the old wolf Adolphus had been correct about the chance of him being cuckolded. Perhaps wolves detected a difference in the smell of a child bearing female, but Adolphus had left it too late if it was meant to be a warning, and he had not guessed the potential father correctly. The foetus was a boy, and despite his lack of nutrition, for some reason the embryo had survived. Samuel thought that the baby would be very important one day but he just didn't know why yet.