Chapter 25

RAF Valley, Anglesey, North Wales. November.

Flight Lieutenant Mark Hobson ran his hand over the sleek skin of the gate guardian Harrier at RAF Valley. “This,” he told the two younger men with him, “is my favourite plane. I never got to fly a real one sadly. Those new ceremonial versions that got foisted on us, weaponless, tiny fuel tanks so they can’t do much or travel far, are a poor substitute, but at least they do fly.”

“Still feel good though,” one of his companions said. “And those knobs out there,” he indicated behind him, “wouldn’t ever know anything as exhilarating as flying a fast combat aircraft.”

Outside the barbed-wire topped chain-link fence a couple of dozen Safety Patrollers stood around, blocking anyone from getting in or out. In practice it wasn’t actually difficult to get on or off the base, and they all knew it, so it was a symbolic presence, no more than that. Provided the servicemen weren’t blatant about it, they were ignored. Oddly, here on Anglesey, most of the Safety Patrol were sympathetic to the local military. Mostly.

Hobson turned, and with his two companions following him, strolled slowly back towards the mess.

“Another drill on the toy Harriers this afternoon,” grumbled Flying Officer Barry Todd. “I’d far rather be out in a Typhoon, it’s what I was originally training on. Now that’s a real plane.”

Pilot Officer Andy Chisholm, the third, youngest and the most junior rank of the trio, nodded slowly. “To be honest I always wanted to fly a Tornado, but the last ones were retired just months before I joined up.” He shrugged. “That wasn’t that long ago either.”

Hobson frowned. “The Tornado fleet was supposed to have retired some years ago, but that got delayed and delayed because the early F35’s just weren’t up to scratch. The last I heard was that they were supposed to have been having another mid-life refit, and life extension while we waited for the F35’s to become about half as good as they were originally touted as being. That all got scrapped two years ago and we lost both the Tornados and half of the few F35’s we did get. I think that Sheard traitor arranged it for Thorn. Apparently they are all up at Leuchars, waiting to be sold or broken up.”

Chisholm shook his head vehemently. “There’s at least one Tornado on this base. I saw it in number seven hangar last week. They haven’t been transported off, nor flown off, so they must be still there. There was a really old wreck of a Buccaneer next to it that some airman was banging bits off, as well as other stuff I didn’t recognise. I thought I saw a Typhoon in there as well right at the back, but I was really looking at the Tornado. Until some jobsworth security sergeant told me to scoot. I couldn’t be bothered to pull rank, so I didn’t really see much.” The others smiled slightly: a Pilot Officer was the most junior officer rank in the RAF, and ‘pulling rank’ on a senior sergeant wouldn’t have got him anywhere, and they all knew it.

“Hmm,” muttered Todd, “I’m pretty certain there’s still a couple of squadrons of Typhoons. I think.”

Hobson shook his head. “Just one now. Number three squadron got disbanded a few months ago. I think, depending on what you define as front line, there’s just six front line squadrons. Number one on Typhoons, 617 on F35’s, number 27 on Chinooks and some other bits and bobs, the transport squadron, 47?” He paused in thought. “I’m sure it’s 47. They’ve got Airbus A400’s, C17’s and some C130’s that should have left service a few years ago. Number 10 went recently so there’s no air to air refuelling anymore, but the last I heard the Voyagers were still sitting on the apron at Brize.” He paused in thought for a moment. “Number eight squadron is still manning the two operational AEW planes we still have, along with some other stuff, but they’re all due to be merged in with 47 early next year. As is 27.” He frowned. “How many is that? Five? I’m sure there’s another.”

“Isn’t there one flying Reapers out of the USA somewhere? And what about the squadron based in Akrotiri?” Asked Todd.

Hobson’s face cleared. “The Reapers were er, 39 squadron? They got merged with, ah 5 squadron, I forgot about them. Yeah, 39 squadron got merged in with 5 this time last year. No idea where they are now. I know 5 squadron flew recon planes. What’re they called? Sentinel?”

Both the others shrugged and shook their heads.

“Hmm. If 8 and the AEW guys are merging with 47, then maybe 5 with the Sentinels and Reapers as well.” He shrugged. “I dunno.” He gave a great sigh. “I forgot about the guys in Cyprus. They were flying choppers, not sure what though. Not Merlins. Or Chinooks. If they’re still around, then there’s seven front line squadrons, shortly to be six and maybe even five.” He grumped. “And then there’s us. 9 Squadron. In theory a front line squadron on Typhoons, but in reality a waste-of-space pseudo OCU squadron on toy Harriers. I mean, what the hell’s the point in converting to planes we don’t use anymore, and even if we could, have no range anyway? If any squadron needs to be got rid of, it’s this one. What a waste of money, talent,...” he tailed off in frustration. “Bah. We should do what the Chinese still do. Execute Thorn and Evans and Sheard with a bullet to the back of the head, then charge their families for the cost of the bullet.”

There was a slight raise in noise and the three turned to watch a Hawk T1 come in to land. “25 Squadron. Initial fast jet training. They do more real work then we do,” murmured Todd. Hobson and Chisholm just nodded in agreement and the three men turned back the way they had been heading. All of them with long faces. There were five squadrons based at RAF Valley. Number 9, which was, on paper, a front line squadron but had recently been relegated to an Operational Conversion Unit, converting to, it seemed, old, out of date and useless aircraft. 25 squadron did fast jet training on Hawks, with 29 squadron as the OCU for Typhoons. Then there was an RAF Regiment squadron, along with elements of a number of RAF Police and RAF medical units, as well as aircraft engineering training units. To pilots who all believed they should have been flying Typhoons, it was a very demoralising place to be.

As the three junior officers vanished into the mess hall, a long serving and highly experienced Flight Sergeant who had been walking quietly not far from them, and had heard almost everything they had said, smiled slightly to himself. One day soon, he hoped, they would learn that things were not quite as they appeared. He wished that the Tornado and Typhoon hadn’t been seen though. That was carelessness somewhere.

Flight Sergeant Gareth Barnes turned off the path to the mess hall, and carried on towards hangar 7. As he entered, he spotted a Chief Technician in earnest conversation with the base commander, Group Captain Peter Leach.

He hesitated for a moment, then turned and approached them. Leach saw him coming and broke off his conversation as Barnes approached. Salutes exchanged, Barnes spoke.

“Sir, I think we need to be more cautious about access to this building. In particular, we need to keep the main doors closed as much as possible.” Leach just raised his eyebrows questioningly, but did not interrupt his most experienced sergeant. “One of the younger pilots has seen we have Tornados and Typhoons in here, and has mentioned it to a couple of colleagues. He saw the Bucc, as well as the others. If that news gets around, it might also get out.”

Leach nodded. “Agreed. I’ll pass the word around. Again. This and eight are out of bounds to all except specially cleared personnel. Thank you Flight.”

Barnes nodded and left, heading to the back of the hangar. Here, as Andy Chisholm had said, was indeed a very old Blackburn Buccaneer. In fact there were three, though Chisholm would not have been able to see the others. However the three aircraftmen, and one woman, around them, were not just ‘banging bits off’, they were working to take the old planes to pieces in a safe and efficient manner.

At the back of the hangar was a replicator about the size of a standard British fridge/freezer, about six foot three high, two foot wide, and three deep. Indeed it was disguised as just such a device. Each piece coming off the old Buccaneers were being fed into the replicator in turn, not to produce a copy of the Buccaneer: lovely planes though they had been in their time, they were far too outmoded for today’s world. Instead, the individual components were being converted into raw metals and plastics, and other bits and bobs which were then piled into separate bins and pallets.

Walking into the small office at the back of the hangar, he picked up a phone and pressed one of the quick-dial buttons.

“Wharton. Security,” came the response just three seconds later.

“Bill? It’s Garry.” Bill Wharton, another Flight Sergeant, and head of security for hangars 7 and 8, was an old friend of Barnes’.

“Hello mate, what can I do you for?” Garry smiled briefly at the old joke.

“We need to keep the hangar doors closed rather more than we are doing. I believe you managed to turn away a sprog of a pilot last week who was getting a bit nosy? Well he’s already passed on what he saw, not that’s it much, to his colleagues.”

“Oh bugger. Yeah, I remember that. Okay. I’ll keep one of my corporals out there whenever the main doors are not fully closed. Just to steer people clear earlier and faster.”

“Cheers mate, see you in the bar tonight?”

“You know it.”

The two men smiled and hung up.

Squadron Leader Charles Hamilton, who was in the office and frantically typing into an old and battered computer, looked up as Barnes hung up. “One of my chaps, Flight?”

“No sir, one of the Harrier boys.”

Hamilton smiled slightly. “Bitching about flying a toy?”

“Yes sir.”

Hamilton nodded. “They’ll probably find out the truth sooner than they want.” He turned back to his work.

“Yes sir.”

Hamilton was easy enough to get along with, and very competent at his job, but Barnes was irritated by the younger man’s ‘just one of the boys’ attitude. It grated on someone who had been inculcated into an RAF that did not encourage an easy familiarisation between officers and other ranks. On the other hand, with the rather furtive nature of their current work, it did make things a lot easier.

He sat at his own desk and began to look through the reports and memos that had appeared since the previous afternoon. The third or fourth one he picked up made his heart sink. “Two thousand?” he muttered in despair. “Where? How? When?”

He sat in thought for a moment, looking at the thin sheet, then grabbed a notepad and pen. Looking up some data on his own computer terminal, he began scribbling figures and calculations, eventually coming up with some totals which he stared at in disbelief.

On another sheet he began scribbling a few more calculations, but these weren’t any better than the first set. ‘Bugger,’ he thought. Putting the flimsy and his scribbled notes onto his pending tray, he picked up the next memo.

This one was a far longer document that in turns had him frowning then smiling, and finally shaking his head in wry disbelief. He read through the summary again quickly, then put the rest of his in-pile back in the in-tray and stood up. He hated just sitting anyway, so rather than pass this information on by ‘phone, he’d pass on the ‘glad’ tidings in person.

Leaving the office, he walked over to the replicator. “What’s the status on the box?” Barnes asked a Senior Aircraftman Technician who was currently slowly feeding some old integrated circuit boards into the replicator’s intake slot.

“Er. Okay at the moment.” The young technician didn’t look up for a couple of moments until he had finished his immediate task. When he did so his eyes widened for a moment as he recognised the senior NCO on base. “Oh. Sorry Sergeant.” Barnes just nodded. The boy had been working, so his distraction was perfectly acceptable. “The replicator is in fully working order. We’ve got most of the internals of the second Bucc through now, just a few more boxes to go. Should be finished by the end of the day.”

“And the upgrade?”

“We reckon that’s about eighty odd percent complete. Still best part of three weeks to go at the current rate.” The replicator was currently the smallest size available, normally used as a catering rig. However, while fully in use during the day to convert the materials in it to their constituent parts, whenever there was a down period, overnight or slow days, it was working to upgrade itself to the next size up. Once complete, it would be able to convert over twenty times as much in the same time. There was already a large box outside the hangar that four months earlier hadn’t been there.

Barnes nodded, smiling slightly. He would be so pleased when the upgrade was finished, their task would be made so much easier. “Okay. After today, the priority is on getting the upgrade finished. Make sure it has all the materials it needs for that before anything else.”

“Yes Sergeant. Er, what do we do about all the stuff coming off the Buccs then?”

“I’ll let you know in due course, just don’t slow down the work. For now just pile it up tidily and securely.”

Leaving the hangar through a rear door, Barnes walked across the small gap and into the back of hangar eight.