The well of lost plots by Jasper Fforde Read Free Book Online

returning to treasured moments that we could share, albeit only fleetingly.
    Landen had lost a leg to a land mine and his best friend to a military blunder. The friend had been my brother Anton — and Landen had testified against him at the hearing that followed the disastrous “Charge of the Light Armored Brigade” in 1973. My brother was blamed for the debacle, Landen was honorably discharged and I was awarded the Crimea Star for gallantry. We didn’t speak for ten years, and we were married two months ago. Some people say it was an unorthodox romance — but I never noticed myself.
    THURSDAY NEXT,
The Jurisfiction Chronicles
     
     
    THAT NIGHT, I went to the Crimea again. Not, you might think, the most obvious port of call in my sleep. The peninsula had been a constant source of anguish in my waking hours: a time of stress, of pain, and violent death. But the Crimea was where I’d met Landen, and where we’d fallen in love. The memories were more dear to me now because they had never happened, and for this reason the Crimea’s sometimes painful recollections came back to me. I relaxed and was transported in the arms of Morpheus to the Black Sea peninsula, twelve years before.
    No shots had been fired for ten years when I arrived on the peninsula in the May of 1973, although the conflict had been going for 120 years. I was attached to the Third Wessex Tank Light Armored Brigade as a driver — I was twenty-three years old and drove thirteen tons of armored vehicle under the command of Major Phelps, who was later to lose his lower arm and his mind during a badly timed charge into the massed Russian artillery. In my youthful naïveté, I had thought the Crimea was fun — a notion that was soon to change.
    “Report to the vehicle pool at fourteen hundred hours,” I was told one morning by our sergeant, a kindly yet brusque man by the name of Tozer. He would survive the charge but be lost in a training accident eight years later. I was at his funeral. He was a good man.
    “Any idea what I’ll be doing, Sarge?” I asked.
    Sergeant Tozer shrugged. “Special duties. I was told to allocate someone intelligent — but they weren’t available, so you’ll have to do.”
    I laughed. “Thanks, Sarge.”
    I dreamed this scene more often these days and the reason was clear — it was the first time Landen and I spent any time together. My brother Anton was also serving out here and he had introduced us a few weeks before — but Anton did that a lot. Today I was to drive Landen in an armored scout car to an observation post overlooking a valley in which a buildup of Imperial Russian artillery had been reported. We referred to the incident as “our first date.”
    I arrived for duty and was told to sign for a Dingo scout car, a small, two-person armored vehicle with enough power to get out of trouble quickly — or into it, depending on one’s level of competency. I duly picked up the scout car and waited for nearly an hour, standing in a tent with a lot of other drivers, talking and laughing, drinking tea and telling unlikely stories. It was a chilly day but I was glad I was doing this instead of daily orders, which generally meant cleaning up the camp and other tedious tasks.
    “Corporal Next?” said an officer who poked his head into the tent. “Drop the tea — we’re off!”
    He wasn’t handsome but he was
intriguing
, and unlike many of the officers, he seemed to have a certain relaxed manner about him.
    I jumped to my feet. “Good morning, sir,” I said, unsure of whether he remembered me. I needn’t have worried. I didn’t know it yet, but he had specifically asked Sergeant Tozer for me. He was intrigued, too, but fraternizing on active duty was a subtle art. The penalties could be severe.
    I led him to where the Dingo was parked and climbed in. I pressed the starter and the engine rumbled to life. Landen lowered himself into the commander’s seat.
    “Seen Anton recently?” he asked.
    “He’s up the