Chapter 33

It was after eight by the time he arrived at Renton, the roads icy from the frost. After phoning her to let her know he had arrived safely, he went to bed.

Over the next month Robert was kept busy, they had finally chosen the four new pilots: Flying Officer’s Peter Hynes, Steve Inns, and Keith Osmond and Pilot Officer Eric Green. All four were in their early twenties and had hours in Harriers in their log books.

He had been impressed with their keenness when they joined the squadron, he had left it to Tim to introduce them to the other members of the squadron and they soon began to fit in. Taff had been showing them over the A10’s that had now arrived, and you could see they were itching to get them into the air. They left for Fort Call in the second week of February, to the envy of the other pilots who would gladly exchange the cold of England for the heat of the Arizona desert.

Alan had been called away to a meeting in London, on his return he summoned Robert and Tim to his office. “The brass,” he began, “have decided that they want to keep A10’s in service throughout the year. The plan is to keep four at Camp Bastion on ready alert constantly. To do that we will have to break the squadron into three flights of four, Red, Blue and Green Flights. The tours will be reduced to eighteen weeks, which allows for a week hand over period. You will decide who makes up those flights. As you both know the January to April period is the quiet period out there whilst May to August is the main active one, and then activity tapers down from September through December. The plan is to take effect this coming September, so I’d like you both to sort out the flights.”

They took their leave of Alan and returned to Robert’s office. After two hours of discussion it was decided that Robert’s Red flight would include Bill, Peter Hynes and Eric Green. Tim’s Blue flight would be Tom, Steve Inns and Keith Osmond, Dave Sales would head up Green Flight with Dick, Bob and Jim. The idea was to introduce the new pilots who had no combat experience gradually into the war zone.

Robert would take the September tour and Tim the January, as Dave had the most experienced flight he would have May period, the first year. That only left Robert with the task of sorting out the logistics of ground crews, spares and munitions, for which he knew he would have to bring Taff into the planning of the new mission directive.

He had managed to keep in touch with Terry on the laptop, at the moment she was in Berlin. The show was doing very well, selling out to packed audiences. From Berlin the show moved to Zurich and ended at Paris, at the end of the month.

The squadron was scheduled to fly out midweek of the second week of March; they would have seven days together before hand. He’d explained this to her and asked her to decide how she wanted to spend it, as yet she had not decided.

He’d mentioned this to Tim and was surprised that Sue was stalling too; also Tim said, Bill and Tom were in the same boat. They’re up to something Robert thought, he was determined to find out that night when he contacted her.

When Terry’s face appeared on the screen that evening he wasted no time in asking her what she wanted to do about his leave.

“I’m sorry to have taken so long darling,” she began, “but I was torn between spending it alone with you or us making up a party with the others. In the end we decided that we couldn’t spend a week just making love to each other, and we wanted to make the week fun for you all. So we decided to use the hotel again, if that’s all right with you.”

“In the first place I could easily spend a week doing nothing but make love to you, morning noon and night. In the second place the three hooligans could probably do the same.”

She grinned, “It’s a nice thought, but your bodies couldn’t keep up the pace. Anyway you would get bored doing the same thing. And our plan does give us girls a chance to wear clothes, dance and swim plus the other,” giving a sexy chuckle, “so what do you think?”

“Well thanks for your vote of confidence, in my abilities,” he said, “but if that’s what you want, I’ll go along with it.”

“Oh thank you darling, because we’ve already booked the rooms.”

He was shown to their room by a porter, the girls had not yet arrived so he unpacked and had a shower. He was emerging from the bathroom in a bathrobe when she came in to the room, her case on the bed where the porter had left it. She had just removed her leather coat when she saw him, and then she was in his arms. His lips pressing against hers, their tongues probing. She could feel his hands on her bottom squeezing pulling her into him. Then his hands were lifting the polo shirt over her head and releasing her breasts from the bra as his lips enclosed them. She groaned as he rekindled the fire in her body, which had lain dormant for so long, too long. He had unfastened her jeans, his hands pushing them down urgently as she pulled the tie of the bathrobe grasping him. He gasped as her hand moved, then she gave a silent scream as his fingers found her. She was already moist, her body aching with desire. She wanted him inside her now, she could hold out no longer. She hooked her leg over his waist releasing the ties of her thong as she guided him.