Chapter 5

Between the three of them, their enquiries revealed the man they had to see. It turned out to be a middle-aged woman!

They asked to speak to Mrs Turnbull, and were directed to a desk to wait for her. She was dealing with another matter but would be back shortly. She was.

Catherine had asked John if she could do the asking. “If I seem like a young girl needing her parents to be here, perhaps we will get a better response,” she told him. John smiled at the subterfuge, and gave his assent. Catherine took over.

“Mrs Turnbull, we have been told that you are the person to see. The three of us – me, John and Elizabeth, are due to be married here, and we wondered if it was possible for our parents to be brought here for the ceremony?”

“I don’t see why not, young lady. Where are they resident?”

“They are all in England, ma’am.”

“Within easy reach of Brize Norton air base?”

“I expect so. John, can your folks reach Brize Norton without difficulty?”

John was assuring. “They can manage to get down to the nearest train station, I expect.”

Mrs Turnbull informed them, “The nearest rail station is Oxford. It is a fair distance away. There is a bus service, but it takes nearly an hour for the trip.”

John asked, “Do the RAF not provide a direct bus? I think they do sometimes.”

She explained, “There is a non-scheduled bus, but it is one-way, from the terminal to Oxford, for military personnel and families only.”

John blinked, frowned, and responded, “Surely the bus has to return from Oxford to Brize Norton?”

Mrs Turnbull looked embarrassed. “Perhaps, but this is the information I have on the local facilities. I can only go with what I have.”

“Well, I suppose we could hire a minibus to take our relatives to Brize Norton, if they are coming by train. Catherine, I expect your folks would come by car to the terminal from London? Elizabeth, what about your family?”

Elizabeth reminded him that her family were in Yorkshire, so would probably find it easiest to come down by train to Oxford.

John nodded. “Yes, I remember now. If we can get both families on the one train down to Oxford, we can fix it for a minibus to take them on to Brize Norton.”

Mrs Turnbull interposed, “Can I remind you that you need approval from on high, first of all?”

“Who?” asked John.

“Officially, Governor Kempe, if he is not too busy; otherwise, Mrs Diane Kempe might give you the go-ahead.”

“Oh, the Colonel? My boss?”

Mrs Turnbull’s eyes lifted. “Your boss?”

“Yes, she made me a Major on her staff.”

“In that case, I doubt you will have much difficulty getting approval, sir.”

John noticed his sudden upgrading to ‘sir’, and he didn’t think it was because he was a Major. Mrs Kempe was clearly regarded with some awe by certain people in this colony.

He responded, “I had best ask her, anyway. I don’t want to make any assumptions that may not be warranted, ma’am.” He was making certain Mrs Turnbull was given an honourable position, and offer her some reassurance as to his attitude.

“Quite right, sir.” she agreed. She was acknowledging his taking the right approach.

“Thank you for your kind assistance, Mrs Turnbull. My ladies and I are grateful. We shall take ourselves off and do what is necessary.”

A quick call to Colonel Kempe procured approval for parental attendance at the wedding, with a warning for the parents not to talk about it afterwards; and ten minutes later John got a call from The Personalia.

“Major Freeman? Mrs Kempe has authorised transport for the parents of you and your spouses for the wedding. Once you have the wedding details settled, please arrange for your relatives to be at Brize Norton at least twelve hours beforehand, and when their aircraft arrives at Ascension a Landership will be ready to transport them to Home Colony. We maintain oversight of the wedding schedules database here, and they will be here for whenever time your particular wedding is fixed.”

“Thank you. We shall do as you suggest. Goodbye.”

It did not take long to discover the wedding schedule, for there were few weddings in the colony so far, the population being mainly already married couples from Earth. They were able to fix a date and time within the week, giving them the basis for organising all the necessary details.

They found their accommodation and slept well together, John with a lovely lady on either side. They were getting used to occasionally sleeping as a threesome, even with the intricacies of lovemaking. Next morning, they each went their separate ways to pursue their plans, with a target time for lunch.

John reported to the Security Department for duty. Mrs Kempe was already present, to his surprise; then realised that he should not have been surprised at all.

“Major Freeman reporting for duty, Colonel.”

“Ah, yes, Major Freeman: our new Training Officer. In half an hour, I want you to address all the staff who are present and tell them your plans for them; some are off on other duties and we can see to them later.”

The staff had been assembled outside the offices, and were standing in a semicircle in front as John stood to attention on the office steps. This placed him a little higher, so that he could see them all. His guess was right, by the looks of them, so he began as he meant to go on. His voice boomed as he adopted his parade ground manner.

“Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Major John Freeman, and I am your new Training Officer. My background is military, so I am qualified for this post.

Let me first state my initial observation: Most of you are unfit. Not unfit for your employment; simply unhealthy in your fitness level. That is an unacceptable situation.” John glared at them as he said this, as if challenging them to contradict him. No-one did.

He went on, “This tells me that before I work on techniques for you dealing with malcontents in the population, I need to bring your own fitness levels up to a higher standard. I anticipated this might be the case, so I consulted with Colonel Kempe and we have produced a plan to find out exactly what your current physical strength is, and your stamina.

The testing will start tomorrow, and everyone has to go through this test, unless you are at least six months pregnant, when there may be some leeway. No man need apply for that leeway, even if he looks it; ESPECIALLY if he looks it!”

There was a smattering of laughter at this joke.

“The test will first require you to do some digging at a chosen excavation site, much as soldiers in the past had to dig foxholes for protection, so wear old clothes. You will each dig strenuously until you are exhausted – that will be timed – and at that point you will move over to our temporary shooting range, where you will fire five shots from a rifle at a target. This should show your usefulness under pressure.

Once you have fired your five shots and our observers have confirmed a score for you, you will jog to the temporary showers – male or female as directed by signs. There you will shower and dress in clean clothes. For that purpose you will bring a set of clean clothes, including underwear, in a plastic sack with your name on it. Your used clothes will go into the sack after your shower.

You will be observed throughout this exercise, and we will be grading your fitness accordingly. That score will determine which fitness regime will follow over the next few weeks, as we bring you to an acceptable standard. Colonel Kempe originally wanted you to assess yourselves, and be forced to repeat the test if it was considered you were not being accurate, but I decided you might be too harsh on yourselves; thus the impartial observers.

I conclude by stating that this department WILL BE an organisation you are proud to be part of, so healthy and fit staff is only part of the training you will receive from me. Be sure of it.

The schedules for the testing will be given to you later today.

Thank you for listening so attentively. That will be all.”

As John expected, a few of the staff drifted over to him later with excuses for getting off the testing. His reply was always the same.

“Certainly, but that will simply be a postponement of the testing. Those who put off their test will have an automatic deduction from their score, to indicate that lack of commitment, so it is up to yourself whether you want a good score or not. A poor score will mean much more fitness training as a result.

Just make up your mind as to what is important to you.”

As soon as he was free, John organised a squad to set up the test course. Je had already decided where the digging would be performed. The biggest job was setting up the firing range to make it safe. This meant berms round the back of the targets and partway back towards the shooting point. The showers he delegated to another squad, to allow them to show how good a job they could do by themselves.

He reckoned their most difficult task would be getting a water supply for the showers, but when he checked later, he discovered that they had run a pipeline to the river, using a local type of bamboo with an almost hollow stem that they cleared out. Each section was flexible enough that tapering an end slightly allowed the one section to be connected to the next, enough to be watertight.

This gave them a hosepipe that could be extended far enough to do the job. They had selected sites for the showers that were as near to the river as possible, making the pipeline a manageable length. The used water was disposed of by a trench from the showers, running down to the river at the downstream side of the intake.

Some clever dick had obtained a couple of electric wall showers to provide warm showers for both sexes, using the river water. The electricity came from a small diesel generator. The one generator supplied power to both the male and female shower units, which were separated by only a few metres.

John was impressed when they demonstrated their showers to him, and said so.

“Squad, if you can do as well with your fitness testing, you will do well indeed. Making that pipeline and digging the trench must have meant a fair bit of effort in itself. It is good practice in preparation for the test.”

Elizabeth’s day was very different. She made her official application to join the Security Department’s service and was handed aptitude tests to establish what abilities she had that would be relevant to the department. This annoyed her, as she had with her a number of certificates covering all her police training in England.

She made her feelings known.

“Look, what is the point of this? I was led to believe that this colony was based on minimal rules and regulations, yet you want me to go through a bureaucratic routine that merely confirms what my certificates say!”

The man who was dealing with her application claimed, “This is not a rule or regulation; merely a test of your abilities.”

“That is exactly the point. Your demand for a test implies that you do not trust my official police records. I want to know whether you think my records are inaccurate, or lies? Which is it?”

“Miss, your official records will be acceptable. We just need to clarify them a bit further.”

“No, you don’t. You are just making work for the sake of bureaucracy. I refuse to do this, and will get my husband, the Major, to speak with Diane about this stupidity.”

“Diane? Who do you mean?”

“The Colonel – Mrs Diane Kempe; who else?”

There was a gasp of indrawn breath, then a complete change of attitude.

“I am sure we don’t need to have undue complications over this matter. How about I transfer your data from your police records into our own database, instead of getting another form filled in?”

“That is what I expected to find from the beginning, sir.”

“Very well, let’s do that. Do you have your certificates with you?”

“I do. They are in my purse. I expected to hand them over and that would be it. It seems you don’t work that way.”

“Miz, I am simply going through the procedures that I am expected to apply to new entrants. It seems you are a lot more than just a new entrant. You are a professional, ready to be slotted into our staff structure.”

“Can we can get on with it, then? I am getting a bit tired of all this runaround.”

She dug out her package of certificates, and handed them over, expecting to have them scanned into the database. Instead, the official looked at them, one by one, muttering to himself, “Ah, yes ... good, this is fine. This is a useful talent to have...”