The Plague of Blood

Ch 1 - The Captain

Chapter 1 

The Captain

May 2013

     Captain Devyani Kapoor woke to the silence of the country. 

     The room was small and cozy, with whitewashed walls and visible ceiling beams. She was lying in a large, comfortable bed covered with a quilt. The morning sunlight was just starting to brush at the edges of the window, lightly gilding the room's contents.

     A very large Irish wolfhound was sprawled next to her, taking up most of the bed. As she turned and stretched he opened one eye and rolled it in her direction. His owners had named him Bingley, after the charming but vapid character in Pride and Prejudice, and it was not an unfair comparison. Devyani knew the breed had once been used to hunt wolves but the only hunting she'd seen Bingley do was for pieces of popcorn in between the sofa cushions.

     When it appeared that she wasn't getting up Bingley closed his eyes and rearranged himself on the quilt. Devyani petted his shaggy flank lazily, luxuriating in the completely unusual circumstance of lying in bed with nothing to do. After a lifetime spent in Her Majesty's Army, the solitude of a lonely country house was both surprise and luxury.

     Devyani became a career soldier almost by accident. As an eighteen year old she'd known what she had wanted and it wasn't an arranged marriage with the nice Punjabi boy down the street and a career as a housewife. She had wanted to be a lawyer, and when her parents refused to pay for university she had enlisted in the Army, intending to do her two years of tours and then go to school compliments of the crown. But when her tour was up, she found she didn't really want to leave. She like the Army: the organization, the structure, the orders, and the camaraderie. She found was good with a gun and had a commanding presence that her superiors told her would serve her well as an officer.

     As a young female recruit she'd had some trouble with sexual harassment. The Army had always been a boys' club, and Devyani was a triple threat: female, a minority, and rather attractive. At first she found it difficult to get commanding officers and fellow soldiers to take her seriously, but she worked hard to prove herself. She overcome obstacles with intelligence, effectiveness in a crisis and quick decision-making skills, and was promoted to captain at thirty-eight. At fifty, with twelve years of command under her belt, she was leading a small battalion of soldiers and medical personnel at a base in Iran known less for fighting and danger than for chronic mismanagement of Army resources. After Captain Kapoor took command the area was secure, organized and quite peaceful, apart from the odd skirmish with rebels. Thus it was surprising for everyone when a bomb took out half the village and most of the base.

     Three of Devyani's men were killed and several others were injured and airlifted to an Army hospital in the north. Devyani had been walking rounds at the time of the explosion. She was thrown into a brick wall by the force of the blast, sustaining two broken ribs, a broken arm, and a concussion. When she awoke in the hospital it had already been decided - with her injuries, and at her age, she was being sent home.

     It was the first time she had lived in England in over thirty years, and she spent the first month at her younger sister's home in Liverpool, recovering. It was hellish. She didn't know her nephews and nieces at all and she hadn't seen her sister in years. Unsurprisingly they had nothing in common. It was a small house, crowded and loud, with teenagers thundering up and down the stairs and one of the niece's babies crying in the kitchen and Punjabi music wailing from the radio in her sister's husband's garage. Devyani was crammed into a tiny guest room at the top of the stair, and had to share a bathroom with three girls who each needed an hour to blow dry their hair.

     She sat in bed and stared out the window, watching the children race up and down the street on their scooters. Once of her nephews (or a neighbor boy - she wasn't sure) loudly and dramatically broke up with his girlfriend on the front lawn. Most of the cars on the street were models she'd never seen. She loved England with the loyalty of a soldier, but she was a stranger in it. She felt old and tired and useless and bored. Beneath her bedroom floor the nieces and nephews texted each other furiously on expensive cellphones. Her sister cooked nonstop in the kitchen, sending smells up the stair of foods she hadn't eaten in decades.

     After two weeks Devyani began reading the classified section of the newspaper, searching for a job, an apartment, a calling - anything! When she saw an advertisement looking for a long-term house sitter for a small farm in the north she called right away. The owners were going on sabbatical to South America and needed someone to care for the animals and the property. It would be about a year, and she could use the house as her own for that time.

     "We can't pay you," the man on the phone said, apologetic.  

     "No need," Devyani answered, grateful and relieved. "I'd love to do it."

     That was how she'd ended up in a three-bedroom farmhouse on the edge of the small town of Becket Green. Her duties as house sitter were simple and enjoyable. Each morning she let the goats out of their pen to graze in the field with the horse. She fed the chickens, collected eggs, and shoveled hay and manure. Bingley followed her everywhere she went, cheerfully chasing goats and tracking mud in the house. During the day she and Bingley went on walks to the town as she familiarized herself with her new surroundings. At night she penned the goats and shut the horse in the barn. Bingley lay on the couch with her while she watched a movie or read a book. It was very quiet and peaceful, and although it was a far cry from the Army it was much better than being at her sister's.

     Despite the peace Devyani felt at the farmhouse she knew it was only temporary. She felt that she was drifting, unmoored from what had given her life meaning and purpose. This was a lovely interlude, but in a year she would have to leave, and she wanted to have a plan, something to leave to. She began researching job opportunities suitable for a retired career soldier.

     Then the virus came.