The Boys in Blue Ch. 14

Chapter 14. The boys in blue

They exited the flight office, after going over their flight plan again and noting the weather for the route, moving towards the waiting aircraft the long range fuel tanks hanging below the wings. He noted that the three moved with a determined walk, gone was the banter, their bearing being that of a professional, a professional pilot, in the RAF.

The A10s reached there designated height according to their flight plan, and they formed up on Robert, he eased the thrust back to economical cruising speed, their long flight beginning.

He glanced down at the Sierra Nevada's, noticing the snow on top of them, with the city off Granada laying down at their base, the Andalusian coastal strip beginning to come into view below the foothills. He changed course, the flight following him.

They were over the Mediterranean, 200 miles from Malta when Robert changed the radio frequency to that of the tanker aircraft. They climbed to the height he received over the COM link, spotting the dot ahead that rapidly took the form of a VC 10. He could see the hose with the basket at the end of it slowly unwinding from the Mk 32 pods on each wing.

Receiving confirmation, he eased the A10 towards the port basket aligning it with the probe; the basket waved slightly as the probe entered. He nursed the thrust forward a little watching the hose bend slightly as he achieved the pressure necessary for the clips to lock and the valve to open, then watched has his fuel gage rose. Once full, after receiving the confirmation from the flight engineer on board the VC 10, he reduced thrust allowing the probe and basket to separate, taking up station on the VC10s port wing where Tim joined him from the starboard pod. They waited until Bill and Tom had replenished their tanks before thanking the pilot of the VC 10. Then lost altitude back to their original height and speed of 350 knots.

Robbie ran his eyes over the displays checking every thing was in order before relaxing back in his seat, glancing through the windscreen it was hard to know where the sea and sky separated at this altitude. He glanced down at the photograph off Terry stuck to the bulkhead. It was a three quarter view of her in jeans and polo shirt with her hair in a ponytail, taken at Sandbanks.

He remembered the day, as they had run across the sand to paddle in the sea. Thinking off her formed a lump in his throat, has he remembered the things they had done together. For the millionth time, he wondered how he had been so lucky to have found her, and that she had found room in her heart, to love him.

They picked up the Cyprus radio beacon 150 miles from the Island vectoring in on it.

At 80 miles Robert changed the frequency again to the Cyprus ground control and radioed in.

An hour later they were climbing out of their cockpits stiff and tired. After handing the aircraft over to the ground crew, and reporting in, they were conducted to a room's for the night. After a shower and a meal, Robert tried to contact Terry on his laptop. That he'd carried in a small storage bay along with his overnight bag and her photograph case in the A10. But he couldn't receive a signal, finally giving up, and went to bed where he was soon asleep.

After take off and forming up, Robert led them north, avoiding Syrian and Iranian airspace, making the long loop, to approach Afghanistan, from the north. They refuelled again, before crossing the Afghan border heading south for Kandahar, picking up its radio beacon an hour later.

A quad bike with a sign 'Follow Me' on the back led him to his dispersal point. He waited in a Land Rover for the other three before they all roared off to the operation office to report in, after which the were shown their rooms.

They were standing in the communal shower letting the water remove the aches from their bodies when Bill spoke.

"Tom look at my arse I'm sure I have blisters on it."

"If you have blisters, they certainly won't be on your arse you randy sod," Tim said laughing.

Robert returned to his room, wondering what Terry would be doing, looking at his watch and doing a swift calculation he realised it would be turned eight in the morning back in the UK. He picked up his laptop and made his way to the small RAF Officers Mess finding the annex with the WI FI connection on the wall. Within minutes, he had connected it and clicked Terry's name on the Skype list.

He waited resigning himself to the fact that she could be out, or the signal was too weak, then suddenly her face was before him

Her face seemed flushed, and she was breathing heavily.

"Are you all right darling?" Concern in his voice.

She smiled the dimples pronounced at her cheeks.

"Yes Bobby, I was in the kitchen, I was taking the stairs three at a time to reach the laptop, hold on a second," he saw her reach out with her arm to the laptop, "there that's better, I keep it switched onto Skype turned up to full volume in case you can get through day or night."

"I tried from Cyprus last night, but I couldn't get a signal."

"So you're there now, how was the flight?"

"Long and bloody boring, how was your drive back to London?"

'You know I can't remember, I think I was on automatic; Sue was with me she was sobbing all the way back. I really think she cares for Tim, but doesn't know it, her self yet. She's always been a bit of a wild card with men, but I've never known her to be this up set, over any man before."

"Well I know Tim cares for her a great deal; even Bill and Tom seem struck on July and Carol and I don't think it's just the sex."

"I think you could be right," she murmured.

"So, enough about them, how do you feel?"

"Lonely and missing my Bobby," she whispered.

"So, you've not blown his Nibbs out then," he said chuckling.

She looked into his eyes "I'd do any thing to blow him right now," she whispered again.

"You hussy," his voice soft, "remember the water isn't cold over here."

Her face brightened, and she laughed.

"Talking of hussies I've ordered a new vibrator from a catalogue Sue loaned me. The only thing is that the only one that looks like his Nibbs is black, but you don't mind that do you?"

"What if you wind up preferring that to his Nibbs?"

"Never happen, it doesn't have hands," she pursed, "or fingers."

"Terry talk about some thing else, you're making me horny."

"Oh, I'm sorry darling," then changed the subject to her upcoming trip to Barbados. After half an hour, the signal failed.

The following day, Robert and Bill flew to Camp Bastion. They were guided to the two aircraft bays that had ten-foot high walls encasing each bay, for protection from enemy fire.

Taff was there to welcome them. He had flown up from Kandahar with half the ground crew in Chinooks two days before.

After reporting in to the base operations office, he was shown to the portacabin that would be his home and office for most of his stay in the country.

The cabin was split into two halves, the front being his office comprising of a small desk with a telephone on it and two chairs a filing cabinet and a detailed map of Helmand Province.

A thin plasterboard partition separated the office from his bedroom, a service cot for a bed, hanging plastic wardrobe and a small chest of drawers that doubled as a bedside table with a small bedside light.

His valise was on the bed, after looking around his new home he began to unpack.

He met up with Bill and went to eat, Later going to draw side arms a requirement in the war zone, although Robert would be the first to admit that he was hopeless with a 9mm automatic pistol. He along with the others would be flying with them strapped to their leg, in the event they looked like they would be captured, they would use it on themselves. The Taliban's reputation for torture was well known.

Also even inside Camp Bastion insurgents had been known to infiltrate the camp security.

They returned to the mess for a coke, because of their flying status alcohol even if it had been available was off limits. Talking to some of the officers present, it appeared that the Taliban had been keeping a low profile. Mainly due it was thought, to gathering in the poppy harvest, but no one was under the illusion that the quite state of affairs would last much longer.

Early the next day the two A10s took of heading east to the coordinates on their flight maps.

A firing range had been set up fifty miles into the desert for them.

Robert spotted the vehicles of the support team first, then as the range shortened the target, a 45-gallon oil drum.

It was in the centre off two black circles each two meters apart. After recognising the target, he banked preparing for his firing run having been given the all clear from the support team's radioman.

Selecting a twenty found burst from the weapons display screen, he began his run. Lowering his flaps to reduce speed to 125 knots and adopting the 30-degree optimum gun attack angle, at 1000 metres, he flicked off the safety for the 30mm canon. At 700 meters, he opened fire.

Dust erupted from the force of the solid 30mm practice rounds which struck the desert floor a meter in front of the barrel and two meters to the left hand side. He repeated the attack later with a similar result, knowing his gun camera would have recorded it.

After Bill had made his runs they flew back to Bastion where Taff's ground crew would be waiting.

Back in their dispersal shelters Taff's team lost no time in removing the gun camera disc and inserting it into a laptop that Taff studied for a few minutes before giving commands to his men who scurried to make adjustments to the 30mm canon. Robert and Bill had stayed in there cockpits whilst the work was quickly done.

Receiving thumbs up from Taff they moved back to the end of the runway to carry out the exercise again.

By the third time, they made their runs Robert and Bill had the satisfaction of seeing the barrels disintegrating under the force of the canon shells.

The canons were zeroed in.

Tomorrow they would start on the rocket pods.

At the end of the third day Robert and Bill's aircraft were all zeroed in. He radioed through to Kandahar to let Tim know he could come up tomorrow with Tom to begin their conversion and that he and Bill would leave for Kandahar at ten-am. Tim ended by saying there was mail waiting for him, knowing he would be returning to Kandahar he'd saved it for him.

After dinner, he returned to the cabin to pack a bag for the time he was likely to be at Kandahar, and then had an early night.

Once the engines had shut down at Kandahar air base Robert ordered the ground crew to arm the two aircraft with live munitions. Then reported in to the operations office, he was told to report back at 1500 hundred hours for a situation briefing.

After unpacking in Tim's room, he grabbed his wash bag and headed for the showers.

Later settling on the bed he began to read the letters, all from Terry.

The first two had been written in London, but the last had a Barbados stamp on it.

The letters from London, written in her neat, precise hand talked about the things she and the girls were doing. Sue and Carol were starting a two month tour of the provinces with the London Philharmonic; July was busy preparing for a show involving a top American female pop singer, and then going as Stage Manager when the show did a six city tour.

She was involved in choosing the numbers of her next album; an Italian male opera singer was going to do two duets with her on it.

The third letter from Barbados was full of excitement of how the building of their home was progressing. The land had been cleared, and footings had been put in, they had begun excavating the ground for the swimming pool, it was going to be a large swimming pool she explained. Her excitement was infectious he realised, she and Pearl were spending hours discussing materials, colours and furniture.

Jeremy, Pearl and little Tommy were fine, and little Tommy was now calling her Aunty Terry; she was helping him improve his swimming in the pool.

For the first time in years, he realised that he was feeling a little home sick; he had never felt that since the death of his parents.

He pulled out the laptop and began to reply to her, his handwriting being a scrawl compared to hers. He kept it light saying every thing was quite over here and that it was boring with nothing to do much, how much he missed her, and to give the Free's his best wishes.

When he had finished he copied the letter to his memory stick, taking it to the communication annex of the Officers Mess were he had it printed out on the communal printer, finally placing the envelope in the mail out box.

At three he reported to the Operations Room; he was conducted to Wing Commander Steve Gorman's office.

He knew Steve from his last tour and got on with him quite well. When he opened the door he found an Army Major with Steve; Steve introduced him as Major Mike Conway, head of Helmand Province Intelligence.

Robert could see by the Majors medal ribbons that he had served in Bosnia, Iraq and here in Afghanistan, he also had Paratrooper wings on his sleeve.

After introductions Steve got down to business, he began by saying.

"At the moment Robbie things have been quite in Helmand, in fact, compared with past years it's been a quite year. We have still had the odd suicide bomber in the market places killing more of their own people than coalition forces. Also the Taliban have only deployed half the IED's that they have used in the past."

Mike took over from Steve saying.

"It's our belief that their lack of aggression is down to funding. Your incident at the wadi had a major effect on their ability to prosecute armed aggression. Losing that opium severely affected their cash flow. With out cash they have had to cut back on weapons and ammunition as well as losing the paid Pakistani members.

This year they have gone all out to redress that effect, inducing the farmers to grow even more poppies, they have even supplied the seed and labour to grow it, and even helping with the harvest".

Steve took over from Mike at this point.

"Mike's special forces have been observing what they have been up too and gathering intelligence. Now the easy thing would be to destroy the poppy fields, but if we did that, then all we would be really be hurting in the long run would be the farmers and the local economy. The very people we are trying to win over to our side. You can't really blame the farmers for growing them; it's the only cash crop that brings in enough to see them through. And until the Afghan Government pays them to grow something else, that's the way things, will stay."

Mike continued, "The hard part is trying to secure information, the farmers won't say anything; they won't jeopardise their source of income, and you can't blame them for that. So we can only rely on information we receive from special service observer teams that we have in country, problem is we have too few teams, and Afghanistan is a big country. What we need is a little luck like you had at the wadi. If we could find out where they're holding the opium resin and take it out, then it would have a dramatic effect on the war."

Steve began, "that's not your worry but ours Robbie, but if, and when, we locate the store it will be your A10s that will take it out, with a clean clinical strike.

We are in the process of building two more aircraft bays at Bastion, when they are complete; you will be able to bring your other two aircraft up. The idea is for two aircraft to be armed and ready to move should we locate their storage depot at any time."

They chattered for a few more minutes before Robert took his leave.

He had returned to Tim's room when there was a knock and Bill walked in to say both aircraft were now armed and refuelled.

They chatted about the facilities here at Kandahar as opposed to those at Bastion, when Bill asked if he had heard from Terry; he had one letter from July, but it was five days old. Robert explained about July's new job has Stage Manager on tour, which Bill had been unaware of.

"Well that should keep her busy," Bill said, '"I hear that Yank bird is a bit of a diva."

"I think they all will be busy, what with Sue and Carol on tour too, and Terry rebuilding Barbados." Robert said chuckling.

Bill spotted the red photo case on the desk.

"You got one too Robbie?"

"I think we all got one, July is a first rate photographer."

"I've seller taped mine to gather, I'd go nuts looking at her," Bill replied quietly.

"You think a lot about her Bill?"

"At first I thought she was just a good lay, but some how she's got under my skin, so yes I do think a lot about her now Robbie."

Robert brought Bill up to speed regarding his meeting in Operations, and the fact that Tim and Tom would soon be joining them at Camp Bastion.

"You know Robbie I think I'll take a walk over to the American Storage Depot and see if they have any air conditioner units going begging, if I can do a deal on a couple we could have them flown up on the Chinook re-supply flight."

"I don't want to know," chuckled Robert "but the best of luck anyway."

After Bill had gone, he picked up his wash bag and made his way to the bathrooms.

Once he was cleaned up he went down to the A10 dispersal area to see the ground crew and how they were coping. Warning the Staff Sergeant in charge that they would be all moving to Bastion in the near future, knowing that the men would take the opportunity to stock up on items that would be hard to find at Bastion.

He had ruefully regarded the meal he'd eaten with that of the food in the hotel as he made his way to the communication annex the laptop case over his arm. It was a little after ten pm, by his calculation it would be about eight am in Barbados.

One moment the screen was blank and then her face was there, a wide smile, with her cute dimples forming at the corners of her lips, water droplets, reflecting the Barbadian sunlight, running down her face and body.

"Hello darling," was all she had time to say before little Tommy's head appeared.

"Uncle Bob, Auntie Terry is showing me how to crawl, have you shot any planes down yet?" all said without his drawing a breath.

He heard Pearl telling him to come over to her, as Auntie Terry had to talk to Uncle Bob, reluctantly his head disappeared, and Terry was back.

For several seconds they just looked at each other, he noticing her hair was piled up on top of her head and wet; she looked to be wearing her floral bikini, her skin already turning gold.

She noticing his RAF shirt with his rank tabs on his shoulders; his face looked lean; he's lost some weight she realised, his skin a deep red from the harsh Afghan sunlight.

"Like what you see mister?" said in her cheeky voice.

"You don't look half bad, for a half drowned rat," he said in the same manner.

She pulled her tongue out at him.

"How are you darling?" Her voice serious now, "are you eating enough, you need to use some sun block on your face."

"Hey, I'm fine, don't worry, and my face is red due to blood pressure brought on by seeing my girl in her bikini," he replied.

"Oh, you poor darling, never mind," she said chuckling "how are the boys?"

He explained about Tim and Tom being out of touch, and about Bill missing July and not having heard from her for days.

"Doesn't he have a laptop, July has one, and we talk on Skype every other day," she said.

"No, none of the boys do, they've never needed one."

"Well let them use yours, I'll give you July's and Carol's Skype address and they can chat to them on it."

"That's a great idea darling, Bill's mooning like a love sick cow, at the moment, of course we can only get a connection when we are in Kandahar. What would be the best time for him to contact her?"