UNIT UK

by ComsatAngel

An inquisitive British Army officer, manning a security cordon after the Autons battle UNIT, notices strange things about the bodies of the supposed terrorists. He investigates further, and gets unwillingly recruited into UNIT. 3rd Doctor.

9. Chapter 9

Part Nine: Operation ATHLETE

Leek Wootton

RAF Group 42 MFU

Staffordshire

9th August 1945

Barney trudged into the dimness of the tunnel, not really bothering to look where he was going; years of working in the mine put eyes in his feet. He arrived at the foreman's post, nodded politely to the man and clocked on.

'They want you down on the Third Level, Barney,' said the foreman. 'You're first of the shift to arrive. Wake up early?'

'No, no, Mister Baker. I just like to get to work early. I like to show I can do the job. I'm a good worker, me.'

The foreman nodded kindly. Barney, at six feet six, and weighing in at twenty stone, had the intellect of a small child, which explained why he hadn't been conscripted. On the plus side, his prodigious strength came in extremely useful in the confined tunnel system at Leek Wootton, where space was at a premium because of the immense number of bombs and shells stored there.

'Go on, then. Watch your hands in the cage.'

Barney rode the clanking, shuddering cage from the First Level down to the Third, where the special machinery was stored. He took a good look around at the blank stone walls, the concrete reinforcements and the boxes and drums piled up there, the end product of the experiments carried out there.

From the lift cage to the foreman's office on the Third Level meant a walk of five minutes, none of which Barney enjoyed. He didn't often come down here, being mostly used to heft shells and bombs on the First and Second Levels. Down here was darker, damper and scarier than the better-lit higher levels.

From afar, he spotted the foreman's office, set in the cavity between two reinforced pillars way over in the west of the site. Mister Lidell would be there, waiting for the shift workers.

In fact Mister Lidell wasn't alone in the wooden shack. Another man, whom Barney recognised as one of the RAF Ordnance Officers, was in the shack too. Not only that, both men were drinking from big enamel mugs, pouring from what had to be –

'Oh! That's wicked!' muttered Barney to himself. 'That's spirits they're drinking.'

Maintaining the procedures of respect, he still knocked loudly on the shack door.

'Come in!' bellowed Mister Lidell cheerfully, actually coming forward and opening the door.

Barney entered the shack in confusion, looking at Mister Lidell for guidance. The RAF officer, instantly recognisable by the eyepatch over his left eye, raised a mug in toast to the new arrival.

'Ah, Barney, my boy, I bet you're confused. Eh?' asked Mister Lidell. Barney nodded. Mister Lidell's breath carried fumes of rum on it.

'Confused not the word for it,' commented the RAF officer. 'Befuddled. That's the word.'

'Well, what do you think is going on?' asked Mister Lidell, winking conspiratorially at Barney.

'I do know that drinking spirits is against the rules, Mister Lidell. Against them. Against the rules,' blurted Barney, unhappy but honest.

'Absolutely right!' beamed the foreman. 'This rum, now. My brother in law got me this in 1941, from the Caribbean. He's in the Royal Navy, you know. Anyway, he got me this rum, and I made myself a promise. Not to drink it, you see. No. I promised myself I would only ever open the bottle when the war was over.'

Barney nodded, not following the conversational twists and turns.

'Don't you see, Barney? The war is over. The Japs surrendered yesterday. The Yanks have come up with a super-bomb that destroys whole cities at a time, so they packed up and gave in. This isn't just like VE Day, this is the whole war over.'

Still it didn't sink in for Barney. He had grown up with the war, as part of the background to his life. After six years of experience, how could it suddenly end overnight?

'So we're having a celebration, the Captain and I. Now, I know you don't drink, Barney, but this is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion. Have a nip.'

Barney took a cautious sip of the rum, and nearly choked. It felt like drinking hot lead!

'No thank you, Mister Liddell. I don't like that stuff.'

'Top hole,' said the Captain, saluting the teenager with his own enamelled mug. His one remaining eye shut slowly in a theatrical wink.

'Okay, Barney, just sit down on that chair. You can wait here until the rest of the shift arrives. You're early, you know.'

'I'm sorry, Mister Liddell,' mumbled Barney, embarassed.

The foreman gave Barney a friendly clap on the back.

'Sorry? For what! Barney, you may not be the brightest person who works here but if more of them had your attitude to work, I'd be a happy man. Sorry! Don't you be sorry.'

The foreman sat down behind his small, rickety wooden desk.

'I do know who'll be sorry,' commented the RAF officer, jerking his thumb to indicate over his shoulder. 'The War Office. They spend thousands getting the plant down here, do a trial run - ' and he indicated a large, brown box on the foreman's table ' – and then the war ends before they can even start Abelard.'

They ruminated on this for a minute or two before Barney spoke up.

'If the war's over, what will they do with all these bombs and shells, Mister Liddell?'

The foreman pushed back his cap and scratched his thinning hair.

'Good question, Barney. It might stay here in storage for a few years yet.'

At this, the RAF officer commented.

'Not the most recent ordnance, they won't. Those 250 pounders are full of mustard gas. Nasty stuff – corrodes the metal from the inside.'

'Ah, then they'll be shifting them to the depot at Twick Vale,' nodded Liddell wisely. 'Must be full at the moment for the bombs to get stored here. If the weaponry above doesn't get used, Barney, why, I think it might get blown up somewhere desolate.'

The huge teenager wrinkled his brow in puzzlement at "desolate", so the pilot explained: far away from people.

Two more shift workers appeared out of the darkness, both grinning from ear to ear, to stand in the doorway.

'Hello lads!' greeted Liddell. 'Tot of rum?' The workers, both Irishmen from Birmingham, agreed to this unorthodox welcome with hearty assent.

'Have ye heard? That the war is over?' asked the first to take a drink.

'That's good news, isn't it?' asked Barney eagerly. The second Irishman nodded emphatically.

'An end to war, grand. Sliante!'

AARUNIT UK PROJECT BROOM

UKIREP 406SENIOR OC LYLE MJR.

REF. 10072

LOC:ALDERLEY EDGE

CHESHIRE

UK

ITEM:ONE: After warning, as per standing orders, from Fylingdales BMEWS and HMS Inskip, RAF Phantom interceptors of Strike Command operating from RAF Leeming carried out MLI over mainland UK.

TWO: Target vector successfully intercepted. Of estimated 20+ targets, only 5 made landfall.

THREE: Of initial 5 impact points, 4 Nestene drone units were acquired by BLUBOTTLE and subsequently destroyed by Assault Platoon.

FOUR: No trace of missing unit in area, despite exhaustive search. BLUEBOTTLE will continue to monitor.

23:05

UNIT HQ

AYLESBURY

It had not been a good day. The morning mail had brought my fiancee's – ex-fiancee's – engagement ring in the post. Whilst being accustomed to my career in the Regular Army, she simply could not and would not tolerate the secrecy that went with my new role in UNIT, which I couldn't discuss with her.

Solo again. My expression for hours afterwards meant people kept clear of me, especially after I went to the gym at lunchtime and knocked the stuffing out of a punchbag.

Then the Duty Officer for the evening shift called in sick; appendicitis. Being still unassigned, I got the job, six in the evening to six in the morning.

People stayed out of my way until I actually started duty. First to come by the whitewashed guardroom was Lieutenant Nick Munroe, full of false cheer, bearing bad tidings.

'Ah, noble Walmsley! Hey, I have both good and bad news. Go on, ask!'

I oiled the slide on my .45 pistol, looking at him coolly.

'Er, okay - the bad news is that – Liz Shaw doesn't fancy you!'

Given that I'd never expected her to do so, this news came as no great surprise, except to Nick, who seemed rather put out.

'Because she's agreed to go out with me, on one condition.'

I waited for the other shoe to drop, not speaking, just letting Nick dangle uncomfortably on the heavy silence.

'And that is that you escort her friend. A double date, if you like.'

Big scowl from me.

'What escapade have you gotten me involved in, you Celtic half-wit?'

'Oh, don't be so ungrateful. You'll get on splendidly. At the weekend, anyway, and I'll tell you later about the details.'

Then I got a call from the QMS, asking if I knew anything about a punch-bag in the gym that had suffered split seams and needed replacing …

Adding insult to injury, the Queen's Lancs rugby team had lost to those unspeakable swine from KOYLI, a disgrace that hadn't happened whilst I had been in the team. Fortunately nothing breakable or small was within reach when I read that in "Lancashire Lad", or I would have been paying monies to the mess fund for years to come.

Time dragged by on leaden feet from six until ten o'clock. The switchboard put through a call to me, directly, sitting at my duty desk looking at charts of fuel consumption versus mileage, ready for my other identity as Battalion Transport Officer.

'Aylesbury Duty Officer,' I began.

'Sir, this is Switch. I have Bluebottle on the line, quoting Hostile Powers from the OSAEPP. Can I proceed?'

OSAEPP: Official Secrets Act, Emergency Powers Provision. Whoever was calling knew which buttons to press. Hastily, I located my pen and a blank sheet of paper.

'Hello Switch, proceed.'

'Hello? Hello, can you hear me?' asked a voice in a Midlands twang.

'Confirm, Bluebottle, this is UNIT Aylesbury, Duty Officer. Please proceed.'

'Oh, right. This is Sergeant Dunstaple of the West Midlands Police.'

S-e-r-g-e-a-n-t D-u-n-s-t-a-p-l-e, I scribbled.

'I'm calling about a couple of suspects we have in custody. Actually it isn't so much about them as the third suspect in custody. The first two suspects loudly declare that our third suspect isn't who he seems to be, that he's a copy of the original.'

Alarm bells began to ring loudly in my mind.

'And I have to agree myself. I've been in the police force for twenty years and this bloke isn't what he seems to be.'

The alarm bells got louder.

'So, since we have to notify you lot of things going wrong or being unusual, I took this first step.'

'Bluebottle, please identify your location.'

'Oh, yes, right. Chace Avenue Police Station, Coventry. We had –'

'Bluebottle, please identify yourself.'

'Sergeant Dunstaple, West Midlands Police, Uniform Division.'

'Thank you Bluebottle. Your contact number please.'

He gave the phone number.

'Bluebottle, we will check and confirm. Please await return call.'

I looked at the notes taken. " 3rd sus. not 10 copy"

Alright, I'd been bored before, that was no reason to add an excess of excitement now. Who was the senior officer available at the moment? Captain Crichton. When I tried his number nobody answered. Okay, try the Brig. In contrast, Lethbridge-Stewart's number got answered within two seconds, and by a lady.

'Er – hello?' I responded, tactfully dim.

'Walmsley!' exclaimed the Brigadier, taking the phone. 'What is it?' "It had better be good" echoed unspoken in the background of his greeting, and I had to agree with that; interfering with a general's entertainment didn't bode good for minor subalterns promotion prospects.

'Potential Hostile activity, sir,' I said, heavy on the gravitas. 'I have Bluebottle, West Midlands, reporting a simulacrum.'

For the space of several heartbeats there was silence at the other end.

'Then get out there and investigate, Lieutenant. Use your initiative, for heaven's sake! Allocate a deputy and rendezvous with Bluebottle. Any results, notify HQ, not here. Good night.'

And goodnight to you too, sir.

Okay, the Brig had given – no, ordered – me to investigate this.

'Guard Room! This is DO Walmsley here. Locate –' and who had earned my enmity recently – ' – locate Captain March and instruct him to RV at Aylesbury HQ as replacement DO, as per Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart's orders. Action immediate.'

I laid my hands on the Emergency Response Kit lying under the desk, and ran into Corporal Horrigan en route to the car park.

'You look like a man with a mission, sir,' he commented, wryly, standing back and looking at me with care.

'Too damn true, Corporal. What are you doing now that's unmissable?' I asked, knowing the right question to ask. He blinked a few times, begged my pardon and opened his mouth –

'Nothing, suspected as much, right, come with me.'

Driving a Landrover to Coventry from Aylesbury took almost an hour, during which I filled-in Corporal Horrigan on the situation. It also left plenty of time for question and answer, which is not something I discourage as an officer – it helps the other ranks arrive at a correct solution.

'A simulacrum? What's one of those when it's at home, sir?' asked Horrigan.

'Simply a posh word for a duplicate. A copy. And who do we know who does copies like nobody else?'

He was on the ball.

'Those buggers the Autons, sir! I remember that from their first scheme at the start, way back when. All those people they copied. Bloody hell, sir, we've got a right one if it's them.'

Yes, we did indeed. Except that there was precious little to be going on with at present, bar the feeling of a police sergeant. And my own feelings, if it came to that. Alright, I hadn't been with UNIT for long, but I still knew when things weren't right. Tonight they weren't right.

Chace Avenue station was a brand-new, large, square brick building, far from my idea of a police station, more like the site of a business enterprise. We marched into the lobby and up to the reception desk, where a startled sergeant blinked in surprise at the sudden appearance of two soldiers in uniform.

'Er – yes? Can I help?' he asked.

I produced my ID card. Not a flattering photo, since it makes me look like a demented murderer.

'Lieutenant Walmsley and Corporal Horrigan of UNIT. We're here to see Sergeant Dunstaple.'

A balding, middle-aged man in uniform with a large limp moustache, on the other side of the desk looked up when he heard that surname. He came over to us.

'I'm Sergeant Dunstaple. Let them past, Tony, they're here about that wierdo we detained.'

The sergeant on duty lifted the leaf of his desk and we squeezed past, into the office area itself. Sergeant Dunstaple led us off to a quiet corner.

'I didn't realise you'd come out all this way to check up on us.'

'Here we are,' I began. 'You started alarm bells ringing when you mentioned "copy". At UNIT we equate "copy" with "High function Auton".'

'Yes. I remember them. We got off lightly when they invaded the first time, there were none nearer than Rugby. This lad, though, he got me thinking about them. So that's why I called you. I'm still not sure if it was the right thing to do.'

'If you're wrong then we've had a wasted journey. If you're right then we may have caught another invasion attempt in mid-try.'

'What happened?' asked Corporal Horrigan, more aware of the material aspects of the case.

'Three teenagers got caught trespassing at Leek Wootton. You've not heard of it? I thought you might have. An old MoD site, fenced-off. Local kids try to get in for a dare, like these three, except most of them are long gone by the time a patrol car gets there. This time they were seen getting under the perimeter fence, and we laid hands on them coming out again. The first two, a lad and a girl, were trying to get away like nothing on earth. Really frantic, they were. They admitted trespassing on the site, then said they were trying to get away from the third suspect.'

Horrigan cocked his head to one side.

'Why was that, Sergeant?'

Dunstaple scratched his head.

'It seemed daft at the time. They claimed that their friend wasn't who he seemed to be. It looked like him, and sounded like him, except it wasn't him.'

'So why give credence to a silly story dreamt up by kids wanting to get off the hook?' I asked.

The sergeant took his time answering.

'I've seen endless teenagers, sir, any number of teenaged criminals. Twenty years a policeman, I thought I'd seen it all. But these kids – these kids were scared witless. And why make up such a stupid story if you wanted to try and avoid being prosecuted? No, there was more to this than met the eye. So I interviewed this supposed "copy" of Ian Briggs and – he didn't act right.'

By this time Horrigan and I were anticipating the next statement like an eager audience.

'He didn't behave as if this was a serious situation, sayed cool as an ice cube. Didn't even sweat. Something wasn't right so I decided to call you lot.'

'This Ian Briggs. Has he been in trouble with the police before?'

Dunstaple shook his head.

'Never. None of them were. If you ask me, they did this for a dare and lived to regret it. Their parents are going to be here soon, none too happy with their little darlings.'

'What do you think, Corporal?'

'Autons don't sweat, sir. I think we need to have a chat with our friend Ian.'

Firstly, I worked out a scenario in which the corporal and I were characters. Sergeant Dunstaple showed us to the cells, where a slate outside gave basic details of the prisoners.

"Paula Jones 19/3/67" read the grimy slate. At a nod, Dunstaple opened the door. In the harsh and unflattering fluorescent lighting within, a teenaged girl with a dirty face framed by a curly perm sat up on the bench.

'Yes?' she asked, fearfully. Tears had cleaned a horizontal path down her face, which was a good sign. Autons don't excrete any fluids, you see.

'Miss Jones? My name is Lieutenant Walmsley, and I come from the Ministry of Defence Police. This is Corporal Horrigan, my assistant. I understand you were caught breaking into MoD property this afternoon?'

She nodded.

'Yes but it's only an old –' and she stopped when I held up my hand.

'Are you aware that it is illegal to trespass on MoD land?'

A sniffle and nod from Paula.

'You had no exceptional reason to be on that property?'

'No. It was just a dare.'

'What other criminal convictions do you have?'

None, it transpired. Paula was as clean as you can get, a student taking A levels. She and Fergus and Ian had been dared by other teens at college to get onto the MoD site, get proof that they'd been there and return.

'But there's nothing you can take as proof unless you go into the mine. I wouldn't have done it on my own, it's really scary there, nobody around with lots of derelict machinery. Ian managed to squeeze through a gap in the fence at the mine entrance, then Fergus got in. I just waited and waited until Fergus came back with a big piece of metal. Ian was gone for ages. I got worried, that he might have had an accident in the dark, so Fergus wanted to go in and search for him – he'd brought a torch. Then Ian came back.'

Paula stopped for a moment, a lump in her throat.

'We – Fergus and me – told him to hurry up and get a move on, the light had started to go. Once he got past the fence we asked what had kept him, and he wouldn't tell us, but he kept asking us questions about what we'd seen and been. It was horrible – it sounded like Ian and looked like him, yet it wasn't him. His skin was weird and he didn't behave like he did before.'

'Did you say anything to him about that?' asked Horrigan.

Paula nodded.

'Fergus told him to stop being a prat, and tell us what he'd been doing. I think by this time I'd gotten scared of Ian – the Ian-thing – and I just tried to get away from him really quickly.'

'What did Ian do?' I asked.

'He tried to keep up with us whilst we were running. He didn't stop asking about what we'd seen until the police caught us.'

Horrigan and I exchanged glances before leaving Paula, with a guarantee of no charges being laid against her.

'Oh – I forgot to mention,' added Paula when we were ready to leave the room. 'Whenever the Ian-thing asked a question, it pointed at us.'

Whilst that may not have meant anything to Joe Public, it meant a great deal to us.

'Left or right hand?' asked Horrigan. Right, replied Paula.

We stopped to compare notes outside the cell.

No emotion, strange skin texture, no sweating, no weeping, threatened use of hidden weapon in right hand. Ian Briggs sounded like an Auton copy.

'Should we ask Fergus Nuneally about what happened? Or just go in full steam?' asked my corporal.

'Ask, every time,' I replied. 'Most especially if there are extenuating circumstances.'

Fergus hadn't spent his time in the cell crying, though his face was pale and his expression was drawn. His story confirmed Paula's; that he'd gotten into the mine and noseyed around the entrance shaft, before coming across some metal fragments. Then had come the long wait for Ian, or whatever had replaced Ian. From the first second the Ian-thing spoke, Fergus had got crawling skin.

'It behaved like an Ian-shaped robot,' he summarised. 'And it wouldn't stop asking us what we'd seen and why we'd gone into the mine.'

He was close enough with his guessing. Why had the Auton's copied Ian Briggs?

'Is he important, or are his parents VIP's?'

Fergus shook his head, puzzled.

'Do they work in politics or the defence industry? No?'

Then there was no reason for the Auton's to copy him. Corporal Horrigan cocked his head to one side.

'What's in the mine at Leek Wootton, then?'

Fergus shrugged.

'Dunno. Used to store bombs in the war, I think. Course there's nothing left in there now, nothing big anyway, but I had to get in there to find proof of a visit.'

'Okay, Fergus, thank you. That's all for the moment. I may be back shortly for you to sign a statement.'

We stood outside the cell with Sergeant Dunstaple in attendance.

'They've got no reason to copy Ian Briggs,' stated Horrigan. 'Except they have.'

'Could they have done it in the mine, perhaps?' asked Dunstaple.

I shook my head.

'No. They need plastics to create Auton shells for the Nestene to animate.'

'Then they must have something in the mine that Ian Briggs saw, sir. They copied him, sent the copy out to see who else was noseying around and why. Then out of the blue all three get arrested.'

For a working theory it had merit.

'None of them will be here for long,' cautioned Dunstaple. 'Once the parents get here they'll be out.'

I took him aside and explained why the parents we were expecting would be a bad thing, a very bad thing indeed.

For a minute Corporal Horrigan and I worked out our approach before getting the cell-door opened. Ian Briggs stood in the centre of the grubby little room, which smelt just like cells everywhere – of disinfectant, urine and stale food.

'Ian Briggs?' I snapped, glaring hard at him. He nodded back, entirely unconcerned.

'I am Lieutenant Cooper of the Ministry of Defence Police,' I lied, having already taken my beret off, thus removing a give-away from the UNIT badge. My shoulder flash was obscured by the strap of the Emergency Response Kit, which I unslung to put on the bunk in the cell.

'You are charged with trespass on MoD property, together with two other plaintiffs. Do you have anything to say?' I carried on, harshly.

'Yes,' he replied, in a perfectly normal conversational tone.

'What?' I asked just as harshly as before.

'When can I see Fergus and Paula, my friends. I would like to see them,' he said.

'I'll bet you do, laddie. We'll decide when and where you meet your friends again,' said Horrigan, standing slightly to one side, behind me.

'You are not obliged to make a statement but doing so may expedite the legal process,' I continued, unlocking the Emergency Response Kit, open side facing me. Removing the Auton-zapping device, I carried on with my speech.

'For the record, I am required to take a statement from the plaintiffs for later transcription.'

Things went wrong immediately. An unkown police constable knocked on the cell door, opened it without waiting to be invited and stuck his head in.

'The parents are here,' he complacently called, nodding at Ian Briggs.

'Sir!' shouted Horrigan.

Briggs, still looking totally unconcerned, had swung to point his right hand at me. The whole of his hand, hinged at the wrist, dropped down, revealing a slender probe inside.

Throwing the switch, I stuck the emitter disguised as a microphone at the Auton's face. Briggs instantly crumpled to the floor.

'What's going on!' asked the bewildered police constable, standing in the doorway, watching the lethal pantomime.

'Shut up and get in here,' snapped Horrigan, hauling the hapless officer in, and closing the door. Meanwhile, I edged round the table.

The Briggs-copy lay inert on the floor, no longer showing a human face. Instead a bland, poorly-defined plastic mask existed where seconds before we had seen Brigg's face.

'Creepy,' I said. Horrigan nodded, looking crossly at the intruding policeman. When Sergeant Dunstaple burst in seconds later he directed an equally cross look at the constable.

'Pillock!' was his comment. 'I go to the loo and what do you do? Put lives at risk.' His comments on seeing the plastic replica lying inert on the floor were unprintable.

'I need a phone,' I told him, not debating or asking.

'I'll stay here with matey,' said Horrigan, nodding at the scared police constable.

Dunstaple escorted me to an empty room. I noticed his hand shook slightly when he opened the door. Fair enough; mine wasn't wobbling because the event hadn't sunk in properly yet.

'Duty Officer,' came the tones of Captain March at Aylesbury over the handset.

'Hello this is Trap Two, Chace Avenue Police Station, Coventry. I have to report an Airfix incident.'

Inwardly I cringed at the codename dreamt up by a civil servant.

'Walmsley?' he answered, not sounding very pleased. Nor would I have been, dragged from whatever he'd been doing when the Brig ordered me to Coventry. A cocktail party in the mess, he told me later. 'Airfix? Confirm that.'

'Confirmed. Single unit Airfix.'

'Right! I'll notify the Brigadier. Stand by your phone for any further instructions.'

That meant standing around in the room, literally. The Landrover did have a radio but that wasn't portable so I was forced to stay with the phone. The time wasn't wasted, since I used it to think over what we'd found.

Ian Briggs, alone in the mine, had been duplicated by the Autons. The real Ian Briggs might very well be dead by now as they had no reason to keep him alive once their duplicate was walking around. Why duplicate a teenaged college student with no tactical or strategic or intelligence interest or influence? Not copied for his own worth. Copied because, as Corporal Horrigan shrewdly put it, he'd witnessed Event X or Article Y in the mine. Being suspicious characters, the Autons might wonder if he'd been sent in deliberately as a spy. I suppose the concept of a student initiation rite was completely beyond the Auton's grasp; mine in the QLR had involved swimming the Ribble naked, hard enough for other humans to understand. Anyway, their duplicate left the mine to interrogate Fergus and Paula, who might have witnessed Event X or Article Y too. If the Briggs-copy found out they had, both would have been killed on the spot. Since they hadn't confirmed or denied anything, it refrained from acting hastily.

Now, if the Auton's truly did have a mutual telepathic link, the rest of the plastic buggers would know their Briggs-copy had been blasted into inanimate polystyrene slag. What they wouldn't know was my status as a UNIT officer; they'd be expecting the MoD police, who might be valiant chaps in a pinch but who didn't have a clue about how to tackle evil alien invaders.

The phone rang, breaking my train of thought.

'Trap Two? This is Trap One. We are proceeding westwards. Should be with you in less than an hour. Keep all Bluebottle away from Airfix, out.'

Walking back to the cell, I told Dunstaple he'd need to remain inside it, with his idiot constable for company.

'You'll need to sign the Official Secrets Act, and the extension to it. I think the Brigadier will bring that with him. Oh, we'll need a carpet or similar to wrap that thing up in, to stop other folk seeing it.'

'What about the parents?' asked the constable. I shrugged.

'That's a bit beyond me. I expect they'll all be asked to sign the OSA for themselves and on behalf of their kids. Ian Brigg's parents – well, I don't know about them.'

I never did find out what pressure UNIT exerted on the parents to prevent them talking out of turn. "My teen son's police hell" never appeared in the Sunday papers, so we must have done something right.

The Brig turned up after forty five minutes, towing the Assault Platoon, who were bristling with guns, enthusiasm and nosiness. The inert Auton, concealed in the folds of a tarpaulin, was carried out and unceremoniously dumped in the back of my Landrover. Corporal Horrigan stood guard over it. The idiot constable in the cell, along with Sergeant Dunstaple, signed sheet after sheet of statement, OSA, legal disclaimer and affidavits. Their stories never turned up in the yellow press either.

My turn in the spotlight came with a hastily handwritten account for the Brigadier, given to him for information the moment he stopped ordering police and soldiers around. For privacy, we were outside Chace Avenue station, keeping a discreet distance from potential eavesdroppers.

'Leek Wootton mine,' he mused afterwards. 'What do you suppose they have in there we aren't supposed to see?'

'Worth risking discovery for,' I added. 'A headquarters or an arsenal, perhaps?'

The Brig shook his head.

'I've been up against these Nestenes before. No. Direct action isn't their way, Walmsley. They try to infiltrate, sabotage, work covertly, so they don't have great stockpiles of secret weapons hidden in arms bunkers.'

The Assault Platoon's transport included a Bedford radio vehicle, which had been in touch with Aylesbury. The corporal in charge of signals came clatteing down the steps, out to the Brigadier.

'Confirmation from Aylesbury HQ, sir. No, repeat no, reports of unusual activity from any plastics factories across mainland UK. All UKIREP 406's from the past eighteen months have been checked and re-checked.' He saluted and returned to the vehicle.

'Well, that wipes out another option, Walmsley. No plastic factory, no Autons, no headquarters. Where the devil have they sprung from!' and he smacked his swagger-stick into the palm of his left hand.

Captain Yates appeared from nowhere. He shouldn't have been present, not being part of Assault Platoon. Things at Aylesbury must have been quiet if he was out here with the Brig.

'Ah, Captain Yates. Listen, Mike, get onto Aylesbury. I want a complete check across the UK for all reported Nestene landings or attempted landings, particularly any that have been reported in the Midlands. Corporal Miller!' he shouted. Out came the signals NCO from the radio truck, wearing a quizzical frown.

'Sir?'

'Find out what this Look Weetton – '

' "Leek Wootton", sir,' I helpfully interrupted.

' – yes, thank you Lieutenant. Leek Wootton, corporal. Find out what it is, how large, layout, building plans, that sort of thing. Walmsley!'

'Yes sir!' replied Walmsley with plenty of vim. What now for me?

'Take a section and a Landrover and get over to this place. I want you to keep your distance, observation only. On no account move in until I get there, is that clear?'

'Yes, sir. Why only a section?'

Lethbridge-Stewart cocked an eyebrow at me.

'Because, Lieutenant, dozens of heavily-armed men waltzing over the West Midlands would undoubtedly bring unwelcome attention! Now, if you've quite finished clarifying your orders …'

The Landrover I chose carried one of Nick's buckshee Browning fifty-calibre's, which was fortunate for me later on. The section from Assault Platoon actually numbered only eight men, one standing up in the rear hanging onto the machine-gun, which lurked a couple of feet over my head. Corporal Horrigan came with me in the passenger seat, using a small torch and a map to navigate.

'Don't fire that thing whilst I'm driving,' I warned the gunner. He gave me a knowing grin and a thumbs-up.

The approach road to Leek Wootton didn't possess any lighting, since it was a track running off a B-road. Only a four-wheel drive vehicle like the Landrover could have made it across the ruts and bumps. Eventually we came to a chain fence hung with "MoD Property Keep Out" "Gas Contamination" and "Danger Unexploded Ordnance" signs. The sole entrance gateway was chained and padlocked shut, preventing us from entering.

We were still at least a mile from the mine entrance, and needed to get nearer. One of the soldiers in the back ferreted around in the vehicle toolbox, then came out with a pair of bolt-cutters.

'Instant gate makers,' he commented. Nevertheless I made sure the chain went back around the uprights, making it look untampered with.

Our drive across the scrubby, sandy wasteground was accompanied by the arrival of dawn, which seemed a good thing; observing in daylight is far easier than night-time, unless you have a Starlite scope, and we didn't. The only observation aid we possessed were my Zeiss binocs, privately purchased of course as the Regular Army didn't run to anything that high-quality, let alone UNIT.

Another fence, this one ancient and rusty, yet still upright and preventing any progress, blocked our way any closer to the mine. Using officer's initiative I decided this was the debussing point and shooed the men out.

'Any crowbars in there?' I asked the man who'd produced the bolt-cutters. He rooted noisily in the collection of implements and came out with one. Taking and applying it to the fence, I levered off a couple of uprights, creating a gap big enough for us to squeeze past.

Before we left the Landrover I gave the troops a quick chat.

'Stay low, stay quiet. We're here to observe, not attack. You - ' and I pointed to the man on the Browning ' – are to cover us while we move forward and remain in position. If the plastic plant-pot men do move to attack us, the whole squad will concentrate fire on the lead oppo, until it goes down, then switch to the next target. Who's got the Jimpy? That doesn't apply to you. It takes about two dozen rounds to put an Auton down, and that's what you'll be doing. Right, move out, twenty yards separation.'

The nine of us crept forward in a low crouch. One trooper carried a manpack radio, so I gestured him closer to me; if the Brig called us or we needed to call him the radio had better be close.

Using silent hand gestures, I indicated "stop" and "get down". Our picket line ran across the entrance of what must have been a quarry in decades long past. The ground swept up steeply on either side into ridges that became steep cliff sides, curving round to meet in the middle distance. A good six hundred yards away, directly opposite the site entrance, loomed the mine entrance, three arched brick openings let into the quarry side, with any access blocked by more fencing. If you looked carefully it was possible to make out the remains of railway tracks in the mine's mouth, leading back across the quarry floor and to where we lay. The whole area sported small, unhealthy-looking shrubs, clumps of grass and an air of dereliction.

Nothing happened. Getting bored, I got the troopers to increase their separation. Still nothing happened. One man crawled back to the Landrover and came back with a pair of entrenching tools, which went along the line in turn, allowing us to dig ourselves shallow scrapes, keeping turf on the side facing the quarry to prevent the turned earth from showing up.

One thing seemed apparent from our viewpoint; no traffic had been in or out of the quarry in a long, long time. There were no tracks or paths worn in the grass, between the shrubs or in the sandy ground. Inevitably, given a lack of action or anything to sustain interest, my thoughts turned to the prison cell at Chace Avenue and the Briggs-copy. A second later with that electronic ray gun of mine and the Queen's Lancs would be burying one of their own, not to mention whichever regiment Horrigan hailed from, plus our idiotic interfering police constable.

Corporal Horrigan crawled over to confer with me.

'Nothing moving sir, not now and not for a long time. See how the grass isn't marked? No sign of disturbed soil either. I think we're wasting our time, sir.'

'Maybe you're right, Corporal, but our orders still stand. We watch. Sparks, call the Brig on that thing.'

I got Captain Yates instead – Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart was busy elsewhere.

'No sign of any Airfix activity, sir. No sign of any activity at all, in fact. No vehicle tracks, no footprints, no obvious signs of anyone being here.'

'Well, remain as you are. The Brig's gone to try and dig up any more information he can find about that mine, to see what might be down there. Keep your distance.'

Wheels within wheels were rolling whilst I lay on my stomach in the weeds. I got the details later on, from Nick and Captain March. Lethbridge-Stewart decided that the Leek Wootton mine constituted an Immediate Alert situation, and having decided that, he got on to the Home Secretary, who was very grumpy at being gotten out of bed in the small hours. This grumpiness and desire to crawl back between the sheets led to a short sharp call to the Chief Constable of the West Midlands Police. In turn the Chief rang the Chief Superintendent at Chace Avenue, and told him to offer the Brigadier every assistance, at once, if not sooner.

Having got police co-operation, the Brig asked them to look up any past contacts with, or details of, Leek Wootton.

Meanwhile, back at Aylesbury, Captain March was digging back into reports made out for the past two years on Hostile Activity in mainland UK, thousands of the things. Fuelled by black coffee, endless cigarettes and slightly stale sandwiches, he came across details of a form UKIREP 406, number 9347, just after dawn, whilst my section gallantly fought to keep from dozing off by digging deeper foxholes. The report in question detailed a landing in Cheshire of a handful of Nestene energy containers, the things that would activate any Autons already created. These hostile little swine were the survivors of a squadron destroyed by the flyboys in mid-air, and in turn they were collected up by Assault Platoon and given the swift radio-zap of sudden death. Except for one sphere, which wasn't in the impact crater it had made in the damp ground of Alderley Edge. Nor was it in the vicinity. In fact – and Captain March went back and forwards in the sheaf of reports for weeks on either side of the landing – it never turned up, at Alderley Edge, in Cheshire or anywhere else in the UK.

A missing Nestene sphere is a serious matter. The Master, with the aid of one and only one, managed to create the Autons that took part in the Battle of Beacon Hill, plus the killer daffodils and his mini-assassin. Yet nothing untoward had been reported from any plastics factory in Britain. Which again begged the question of where that wretched Briggs-copy came from.

Back to our ennui-laden vigil at the mine, where we occupied ourselves by enlarging our shallow dug-outs. I gave permission for five of the men to "gonk" for two hours whilst the others, including me, kept watch. By this time my own lack of sleep made itself felt and my eyes felt gritty, whilst my stomach reminded me that breakfast was about due. Finding a stick of gum in a pocket, I chewed that to kid my digestive system it was getting food.

To prevent the shades of night falling upon my eyelids I took up the radio and called the Brig.

'Hello Greyhound, this is Trap Two, over.'

'Trap Two, anything to report?'

'Negative, sir. I don't think our Airfix friends use this entrance at all. Permission to recce round the perimeter, over?' I added, more in the pious hope than in expectation of approval.

'Granted,' said the Brig, quickly and firmly. 'Be careful not to get seen, Trap Two. I am advised that the mine is constructed on several levels, with alternate exits and emergency escape routes, so you may come across them. I say again, do not get seen.'

'Confirm that, Greyhound. Over and out.' I looked to Private Holmes, awake and bored to my left.

'Sst! I'm going on a recce, clockwise round the perimeter. Those shop-window dummies must be using a different entrance, not this one.'

Holmes blinked in mild surprise.

'Er – is that a good idea, Boss?'

'Good or bad, I'm doing it. We'd look pretty sick if they caught us on the flank and we only expected them from twelve o'clock.' Besides, I am just so nosey.

Off I went, crouching low, at first working back towards the fence. Travelling discreetly isn't easy for a person of my size and I wanted to be far distant from any Autons on sentry stag. Every thirty yards meant a stop to scope the land ahead with the binoculars. More scrubby bushes, gradually getting closer together, with small trees interspersed amongst them. The further on I travelled the more trees grew, until my steps were muffled by the accumulation underfoot of mossy mould, with lots of thick undergrowth. No dry or brittle branches, luckily, or my progress would have been embarassingly detectable. The lessons about moving covertly in the fields and hedges of Ulster were coming back to me.

Then, out of nowhere, a path appeared in front of me. I'd hit it sideways on, and it ran off to either side of me, vanishing into the undergrowth.

Animal track, I told myself. Then a sudden absence imposed itself on me: no sounds of animals. Most especially, no birdsong. The dawn had come and gone without a single bird singing.

My skin suddenly went gooseflesh. This land was virgin wood, uninhabited by man, surely prime territory for birds. One of the Army instructors for the fieldcraft course in Ulster warned us that an ambush might give itself away if it disturbed the local wildlife.

Did an emotionless plastic robot have me in it's sights right now? From being totally gooseflesh my skin went to a cold sweat. My ears became hyper-sensitive, ready to pick up the slightest hint of movement, as I swivelled my head slowly from side to side.

Nothing suspicious.

I reflected on the absence of birdsong. A universal absence, not simply in this section of the mine grounds. Okay, so the Autons weren't waiting in ambush just to get me, their presence here had scared away all the wildlife already. Feeling a tad less vulnerable, I moved parallel to the path, heading towards the mine. Very slowly and carefully.

My reward was to witness the path broadening, bearing the imprints of booted feet, then slanting downwards to a dark, narrow opening in the sloping hillside that backed the quarry on the other side. A rusted motorbike with flat tyres, weeds growing enthusiastically over it, lay to one side of the path near the entrance. Using the binoculars, I might have noticed a slight movement within the gloomy confines of the entrance, but couldn't be sure whether it was real or imagined.

Discretion moved uppermost in my mind. Get out of here with skin intact, get back to picket line, pass on information. That took longer than you might suppose, travelling only thirty feet at a time, checking for any sound of pursuit, moving to avoid any potentially noisy or compromising ground.

Everybody had awoken by the time I got back to the picket line, waiting expectantly.

'Sir? Find anything?' asked Corporal Horrigan.

'Oh yes, Corporal. A nicely worn path leading to a dungeon entrance. Footprints. An abandoned motorbike.' I didn't mention the movement within – that could be weeds blown by the wind, plastic rubbish left by scavengers, anything, nothing important. 'Sparks, get the Brigadier.'

'Greyhound, this is Trap Two, over.'

'Anything to report, Trap Two?'

'Still no further movement, sir. I did discover a side-entrance to the mine, however. A path's been worn away in the undergrowth to the entrance, and I saw footprints left in it. Given the rainy weather, they must be new, and because they're under the leaf canopy they can't be seen from above or any distance away. Also, there's an abandoned motorbike by the entrance. Evidence of visitors in the past, but not very recent. Over.'

'The Devil you say, Trap Two! That chimes with the evidence the Chief Superintendent dug up at the police station. Wait one –'

Evidence. Evidence of what, I wondered.

'Aha,' explained Captain Yates several days later. 'The Chief Superintendent in Coventry remembered hearing about Leek Wootton ages ago and got his men to chase it up in the card indexes.'

Knowing how the heirarchy works, a sergeant in Coventry probably remembered hearing about Leek Wootton and the Chief Super took the credit. The card indexes brought up the case of the "Satan's Slaves" Hells Angels. These splendid upstanding examples of humanity had gotten into the mine at Leek Wootton by pulling part of the perimeter fence down, then riding their bikes into the mine via a ventilation shaft – that same dark entrance I'd witnessed. What mayhem they got up to was limited to a few hours in duration, since they were pounced upon by a whole Division's worth of police with dogs, vans and a water-cannon when they emerged above-ground. A single bike, engine seized into uselessness, remained at the mine.

So, by deduction, the Nestenes and their Auton vehicles weren't in residence when the Hell's Angels turned up, or the police would have been shovelling up a lot of dead bikers.

One of the bikers, Big Toby Smalls by name, was now serving a five year sentence in Holloway, so the Brig sent Captain Crichton and Sergeant Benton to interview him. Crichton to be Mister Nice, Benton to be Mister I'd-Love-To-Stamp-On-Your-Face, at a guess. According to them, the enormous and tattooed Toby had refused to say anything at all, despite severe threats, even when the sergeant slipped on a pair of tarnished knuckledusters whilst wearing exactly no expression.

'What got to him was an appeal to his patriotism,' explained Captain Crichton over port, musing over the foibles of his fellow man. 'That he might have information germane to the threat to UK security. Eyes got big as dinner plates at that. O and did he have a tale to tell.'

Eighteen months ago, Toby and his fellow chapter members rode their bikes into the gently sloping ventilation shaft, out of mischief and a sense of adventure. A fan, completely blocking the tunnel, and rusted into a solid piece of iron oxide, stopped their progress underground. They tied chains from it to half a dozen bikes and reversed, pulling it free and enabling their bikes to move further underground. The shaft led to the lowest level of the mine, a vast, dark, echoing collection of chambers and pillars. The chapter put their bikes into a circle, facing inwards, with headlights on, and lit a bonfire. After downing several gallons of cider, whisky and some amyl nitrate, they proceeded to have a kickabout with a weird football that Scabby brought along from Alderley Edge.

Anyone reading this after-action account will instantly realise that the mystery football was in fact the missing Nestene sphere. Alerted by strange lights and flashes in the night sky, the Angels found it after the swarm survivors landed near their campsite at Alderley Edge, picked it up and disappeared smartish. They carried it all the way to the West Midlands, then took it underground. No wonder nobody managed to find the damn thing!

They had left the strange plastic ball in the underground chamber, said Toby, when leaving to travel on again, except all the pigs in Birmingham were waiting for them outside, still it had been a good ruck and did any of this help mister?

It helped Toby – he got a transfer to an open prison and nine months knocked off his sentence.

Captain Crichton phoned the information to Aylesbury quickly, and they called it in to the Brig.

' – do you copy, Trap Two?' asked the Brig, having given me a potted account of the above. 'I'm trying to find information about the mine, but it isn't easy since the damn place closed nearly thirty years ago. Maintain your holding position.'

Just what I planned on doing. Bravely stay in our little foxholes and remain grimly determined to not fall asleep. I sent Holmes back to the Lanny to get rations, and he came back with them, looking alarmed.

'Sir, Private Cole says there's a problem with the Browning.'

My eyebrows rose and my spirits sank. That gun constituted the main weapon we had; it was the only thing here that would stop the flowerpotmen at a distance, or at least keep them far away enough not to kill us. Sporting a few curses, I got up to see what the problem was.

'Ssst!' hissed Horrigan, pointing. A small brown object in the middle distance came into view, wandering across the wasteland in a zig-zag in a rapid trot. The binoculars revealed it to be a fox.

'It's a fox,' I tersely explained, getting up again from my viewing crouch.

Corporal Horrigan knew more about foxes than I did.

'A fox, in daylight, moving towards men with guns? Not likely, sir.'

I took another look through the bins. Looking with suspicious eyes this time, remembering the lack of wildlife in the quarry and wood – until now. That zig-zag movement suddenly didn't seem at all random, in fact it would bring the creature right up to our position if allowed. The fur looked – wrong.

'Who's the best shot here? Right, Holmes, give it three rounds rapid.'

With the first shot a great hole appeared in the foxes middle, spraying white plastic for yards about. The second shot removed most of the head; the simulacrum continued on it's path for a second until the third shot knocked it over, legs still going. Gradually they stopped moving.

Great. An Auton scout. Now they knew we were here, possibly how many of us there were.

'Sparks, get onto Greyhound. They know we're here. I anticipate an attack.'

Whilst the radioman called up the Brigadier, I doubled back to Cole and the problematic machine-gun.

'I can't depress it enough to hit them if they come out of the mine, sir,' he apologised.

'Drive through the fence, then. They know we're here, it can't make things any worse.'

He shrugged apologetically.

'Already tried, sir. Battery's dead.'

I hit myself on the head, hard, with my pistol butt, calling myself several nasty names. Being the driver, I must have forgotten to turn the headlights off when we arrived, since it was getting to be daylight, and now the battery had drained.

'Okay, let's unlatch the gun. Get it down and we can take it to the picket line.'

Cole released the machine gun from it's mounting on the pintle and struggled to get it down. Getting impatient, I climbed into the Lanny, in time for Horrigan to call "Sir!" in an urgent tone. Both Cole and I looked up, over to the mine entrance. A section of the fencing fell outwards to the ground, throwing up a cloud of dust. Out of the entrance stalked three Autons, clad in blue boiler suits, plodding their way towards us.

The old and hackneyed saying is that the blood runs cold. Mine ran cold about my lower limbs. I grabbed a greasy cloth from the bed of the Lanny, draped it on my right shoulder and hefted the Browning receiver up there, grunting with the weight, holding the barrel to steady it. When I jumped off the back of the vehicle I nearly went into the ground, the damn gun was so heavy.

'Bring the ammo boxes!' I wheezed at Cole, then walked – the fastest I could go - back to the fence. Once there, I grabbed the handles, rolled it off my shoulder and dragged the thing that way, trailing the muzzle. This was pretty fast movement. My idea was to set up the gun on a tripod in the middle of the picket line, from where it could cover the whole of the quarry area with no trouble.

Cole scotched this plan when he came up with three boxes of ammunition.

'No tripod, sir. Didn't come with one, haven't got one.'

Those three plastic horrors were still coming on. I estimated their speed and distance. They'd be here in a couple of minutes, three at the outside.

'The Brig's on his way with the rest of the Assault Platoon, sir,' said Sparks, hopefully.

'Unless they get airlifted in, with heavy weapons to boot, they can't help us in time. At least there's only three of the things.'

'Er – sir,' said Horrigan, pointing to the mine entrance again. At least a dozen of the boiler-clad figures were leaving it.

'Great! Terrific! What else can go wrong!' I snarled, getting angry. Looking around, I couldn't even spot a handy rock or tree we could rest the Browning on. 'Right! That bloody well does it! I'm going to carry this gun myself and shoot from the hip!'

Brave words. The gun kicked too much for that and if I'd been less irate I'd have realised that.

'Hang on, sir, you need a harness,' said Horrigan. Yes I did but since we didn't have one - He kicked open an ammo box and pulled the belt of bullets out, pulling it over my left shoulder and under my right arm, twisting the bullets and interlocking them to make an impromptu harness. He and Cole lifted the gun up and through the harness under my right arm.

'Make it muzzle-heavy,' I said. 'The recoil will lift it. And cock it for me, I can't reach.'

Cole gave me the greasy cloth.

'For holding the barrel, sir. It'll get too hot to hold with your hands.'

Remembering that the Browning made a lot of noise, I spat my gum out, divided it into two and stuffed each half into an ear. Yes, pretty disgusting. I'm not complaining, it saved my eardrums.

'I'll –' began Horrigan, before I cut him off.

'You'll stay here, Corporal. Keep an eye on both flanks, because I'm not going to risk more than one life rectifying my mistake.'

Off went Lieutenant Walmsley, full of fire and thunder, toting his extremely heavy machine gun.

Now, I've fired a machine gun from the hip, the good old Jimpy. The tricks are to lean into the recoil, balance the gun correctly and adjust the fall of shot by watching the tracers. With the Browning I let the jury-rigged harness take the weight, which meant the bullets dug into my left side like teeth. The greasy cloth protected my hand grasping the barrel shroud.

The blue boiler-suited killers had got to about a hundred yards away. I lifted the gun muzzle and lined up the middle Auton, then fired. The bang-bang-bang was impressively loud, even with my chewing-gum ear-protectors, and the bullets went high as the barrel jumped upwards. For the next burst I deliberately aimed low, allowing the gun's natural climb to bring the tracers onto target. The Auton disintegrated into plastic chunks, to a ragged cheer from the men in their foxholes. I swung the gun round to the left hand Auton, which had now sped up into a jog. Another burst and that one flew apart from the waist up, then back to the right and the last boiler-suit, who was dodging about. He got a long burst, as by this time I'd gotten the trick of aligning the gun with my body to control the recoil. It was very hard work, and my muscles felt the strain. Only anger, I think, allowed me to manage the job.

'Ammo!' I called over my shoulder, and Cole came running up with another belt. His impressed swearing fell on pretty deaf ears. There were about thirty rounds left on the belt, so I sprayed the oncoming Autons, knocking a couple to bits and removing the head from one, which still walked on in a circle, staggering drunkenly. Cole reloaded and I played the rounds over the oncoming enemy, trying to limit the bursts to three rounds at a time. They had blue tips, meaning "Incendiary", and they set alight the Autons they hit, regardless of how much impact damage they did. By using up the whole belt and half another I got all of them, by which time the greasy protective cloth was smoking and my whole body ached as if I'd been worked over by masseurs wearing iron gloves.

Cole helped me lurch back to the picket line, where Corporal Horrigan congratulated me. Not that I could hear him properly, so he slapped me on the back. Sparks tried to give me a message, gave up and merely did a thumbs-up.

Feeling half-dead and numbed, I sat on the edge of my foxhole, looking at the stinking plastic pyres out in the quarry. Also, with a sinking feeling, to another wave of Autons, blue boilersuits and all, emerging from the mine entrance and walking at a brisk pace towards us, at least two dozen this time. Perhaps if I slung the Browning from my right shoulder, or got one of the troopers to hold –

Great bright blue tracers, big as golf balls, suddenly lanced from behind our position, heading into the Auton ranks. Plastic bodies blew apart in a storm of confetti-like fragments. Streams of more tracers, hundreds at a time, came sleeting from behind, lancing into the enemy. They were only 7.62 calibre, not the heavy Browning rounds, but they disintegrated the flowerpotmen simply because there were hundreds of them flying about. The tracers swept across the weedy terrain like a scourging fire, knocking about the plastic debris that the cannon shells left. This display of gunfire went on for a good half minute, until nothing bigger than a plastic foot in a plastic boot remained of the Auton attackers.

When it penetrated my recoil-dulled mind after the space of several heartbeats that this fire came from behind us I turned around, to see an array of trucks and Landrovers driven over and through the fence, all kitted out with Nick Munroe's ill-begotten firepower. The recoilless rifle, mounted on the ex-para lorry, fired off a round that I saw sail slowly across the quarry and into the mine entrance, detonating in a huge cloud of dust. No more Autons emerged after that. Five more rounds were fired into the rubble-strewen entrance anyway, rather than have to carry them home again. Nick himself stood behind the Oerlikon, grinning broadly. His opening salvo, according to witnesses, was accompanied by the phrase "Say hello to my magic bang-stick, you plastic -'

I stood up, Browning still hanging from the improvised harness, when Lethbridge-Stewart came striding up to see what had happened.

He didn't speak loudly enough for me to hear, until Corporal Horrigan leaned in and told him what occurred.

'Sir,' I said, probably much too loudly. 'Ian Briggs may still be in there, alive.'

The Brig nodded.

'I know. That's why I brought along a guide,' he shouted. I remembered the gum and pulled it out from my ears. 'You weren't firing that HMG on your own, were you? Good grief!' he exclaimed, at a loss for words.

The guide turned out to be a poorly-dressed man in late middle-age, as large as me, looking nervous and sweaty. Mike Yates stood at his elbow, acting as escort.

'This is Barney Williams. The police dug him out for us – I think the Chief Super knew him. Barney used to work at Leek Wootton when it was an ammunition depot, back during the war and afterwards, didn't you?'

The big man nodded shyly, not happy at being out here in the midst of a collection of soldiers with guns. Not only that, his behaviour didn't convey much of an intellect at home upstairs.

'Can you lead a team into the mine?' asked the Brig, not bothering with niceties. Barney nodded. The Brig turned back to me.

'I'm afraid the only two people who know what Ian Briggs looks like are yourself and Corporal Horrigan. Are you up to going down the mine to try to rescue him, or his body if the Autons have killed him? Just say if you're not. Frankly, you look pretty used-up, Lieutenant.'

Pique put a touch of steel into my backbone.

'I can manage, sir. Give me the section and we'll clear the mine.'

First things came first. The Emergency Response Kits from each vehicle were divested of the Auton-zapping device, giving us a close-range killer for the job. Beyond point-blank would be a problem; you can't use explosives or automatic fire in an enclosed space since the shock waves of the former will stun or kill you and the latter are likely to ricochet everywhere.

One of the squaddies came up with an answer. He brought a tennis ball up to the Brigadier, saluting smartly. To our curious looks, he drew a bayonet, sliced a neat slit in the ball and pushed the omni-directional head of the anti-Auton device into the ball. With an over-arm throw, he pitched the ball a good fifty feet. The device still worked after that, to the satisfaction and congratulations of all watching. I gave Corporal Horrigan a phosphorus grenade and kept the only other one for myself. They make a tremendous cloud of smoke and the phosphorus can chemically burn you to death whilst poisoning you simultaneously; not to be used lightly.

Nick Munroe was refused permission to accompany us underground. Sulking, he collared me and handed over a Verey signal pistol with five flares.

'Never tried this at Swafham Prior, did we? I think it'll turn them into molten polystyrene slag. Watch out, there's one in the breech.'

That constituted the only signal pistol we had. I'd better look after it.

'We need to go down the air shaft,' said Barney, beginning to look even twitchier. 'That goes right down to the third level in the mine.'

By "air shaft" he meant the ventilation duct that the Hell's Angels rode down. A nasty confined space with no cover, in other words, where the super tennis balls of doom had better work. The first problem would be getting there without being spotted. Or it would have been without the newly-arrived FV432, an armoured personnel carrier on loan from the Regular Army, and which is basically a big lightly-armoured box on tracks. The Brig gave the driver instructions and he simply drove his fifteen-ton sardine can through the undergrowth and trees, making directly for the ventilation shaft, leaving a trail of crushed weeds, shrubs and splintered trees. The section jogged along behind, me trailing in the rear with a thousand aches and pains.

Once at the shaft entrance, Barney took a look around, saw nothing suspicious and nodded approval to me. I nodded to Holmes, who pitched the filled tennis-ball down the tunnel entrance from the safety of outside, and from well back, too. A wise precaution; a blast of what must be Auton ray-gun blew chunks out of the beaten path only feet from Holme's feet. Only the once. When the device got switched on a clatter came from further inside the tunnel, as whatever did the firing collapsed.

I hoped! To be on the safe side, another filled tennis-ball got pitched down the tunnel, then dragged back and the device turned on every few yards. In this way any Autons lurking between the first zapper and the entrance would get zapped themselves. So ran the theory.

'Cole,' I ordered. 'Get that axe from the tin can.' All AFV's carry external kit like spades, cables and axes, and that axe would be useful.

We shone a flashlight down the tunnel entrance, finding it clear. At a gesture the FV432 manouevred closer and shone it's lights down the tunnel, lighting it up brilliantly for at least thirty yards. Beyond that a dim object, prone on the tunnel floor, could be made out. Holmes gave it a pummelling from twenty 7.62 rounds to make sure.

When the eleven of us quietly moved down the incline, the object showed itself to be an very battered Auton in boiler-suit, lying silent and still. The weapon in the right hand still extended, inert but threatening.

'Cole,' ordered Corporal Horrigan. 'Axe that gun thingy.' Cole did, splintering the delicate probe into pieces, almost severing the hand in two. There was a slight delay in passing the plastic body when a mystified Barney stopped to gawk at it.

Once more we carried out the tennis ball procedure, with no results this time. In fact there were no more Autons waiting in the tunnel.

'I'd have expected them to try an ambush here,' I muttered to Horrigan when clambering over the friable, rusted remains of the giant fan. Barney warned us that the fan marked the halfway point.

Long minutes later, ten at least, our little group reached the bottom of the tunnel, where I stopped for a recon of the terrain beyond. A door once blocked the entrance here, decades ago. Now it lay on the floor further inside the mine proper. Barney looked at it suspiciously.

'That weren't left like that by us.'

No, Barney, you simpleton, I thought. "Us" had left it over twenty five years ago. In the meantime there'd been the Hell's Angels and the Autons, and maybe legions of destructive teenagers out looking for spoils.

'Good spot to concentrate fire on us, sir,' commented Corporal Horrigan. We'd be easy targets stepping out of the tunnel into the underground chamber.

I risked a quick flashlit glimpse of the third level, seeing dark, massive pillars marching off into the darkness. A shadow moved behind one pillar, making me jerk hastily back into the tunnel.

"Auton," I mouthed to the others, pointing at the pillar in question. Not only was it waiting in ambush, it was behind a pillar that would block out any signals from the zappers. Impasse.

'Get ready with that pistol, sir,' warned Horrigan in a stage whisper. He turned to me and produced his WP grenade, made sure the pin remained securely in and winked hugely.

'Phosphorus grenade!' he called, throwing it underarm. The grenade bounced and rolled towards the suspect pillar, the Auton realised demise courtesy of burning phosphorus loomed large and retreated to the left. I fired the round loaded in the Verey pistol at the Auton once it cleared the pillar, only managing to hit the thing's left leg with what seemed like a glowing scarlet firework. Any worries that hitting a limb wouldn't do much damage were quashed when the Auton lit up like a petrol-fuelled bonfire, flames rippling up from the melting leg and setting the front of the creature alight. Down it went as one leg disintegrated, illuminating the whole area, and incidentally creating a vile black column of smoke. In only seconds the jerking plastic facsimile became a small, static, stinking bonfire. In the handy light cast by this I checked silhouettes against nearby pillars.

'All clear. Move to that pillar and provide cover,' I ordered. Horrigan retrieved his grenade and we moved on, Barney directing from safety in the middle of our group. I didn't want to risk a civlian life unless there was no alternative, and we needed his guidance in the vast, dark and patternless (to us) chambers of the mine.

'Do you know where you're going?' I asked him. He nodded so positively I felt apprehensive straight away. Yeah, right, Barney, you don't fill me with confidence.

Auton-zappers at the ready, we crossed an open space where ancient ashes lay – the Satan's Slaves little evening fire. More scurrying behind pillars ensued, still without the Autons putting in an appearance. Two destroyed down here, at least forty up in the quarry. Maybe they were running out of expendable soldiers? Maybe. Don't count on it, John my lad.

Barney's directions led us to a parade of chambers on either side of a concrete floorway, each chamber sporting an arched and reinforced brick roof. Several of the chamber roofs were cracked, and plaster, bricks and rubble lay on the floor underneath. Beyond the parade he stopped to turn to us and indicate silence with a finger on the lips. He beckoned me forward. By now my eyes had adjusted to the underground gloom, a gloom slightly dissipated by light from the ventilation tunnel.

A larger open area lay beyond this storage zone. Along the far walls stood a series of reinforced pillars set into the fabric of the walls, and between two such pillars a delapidated shack stood, with an Auton standing outside. Sentry duty? Could it be guarding Ian Briggs? Out in the open like that it made a vulnerable target, nor was it hiding in wait for us. It must be a sentry!

Unfortunately the sentry was beyond the range of our killer microphones. To destroy it we'd need to decoy it closer.

Barney tugged me back into the parade, pointing to the walls opposite those where the shack stood.

'Look, the machine's still there. It's still there.'

He displayed a hitherto unexpressed excitement at seeing this mysterious machine.

'What are you talking about?' I hissed at him, not sharing his childish high spirits.

'The machine! The one that made plastic boxes!' he said.

"Plastic boxes" registered with me, and also most of the troopers in the section. More specifically, "plastic" registered.

'"Plastic"? Plastic as in what the Autons are made of? Autons – the plastic people we've been fighting in the tunnels. Plastic?'

For a good thirty seconds Barney stood and pondered.

'Not plastic. Backerlight. That's what I meant. Backerlight.'

I directed an exasperated glance at Corporal Horrigan. Spare me the help of idiots!

Then it struck me. If that machine constituted a plastic-processing facility then we had a chance to decoy that sentry away from the shack it was guarding. Threaten the Auton factory line and all the nasty plastic-kit men nearby would run to rescue it.

Cue sneaky floor-hugging approach by Lieutenant Walmsley and Private Holmes. We slid and scraped by inches over the concrete floor to the machine, turning every so often to check for things creeping up on us.

The machine itself was immense. Long and high, rollers, conveyor belts, levers, presses, drums, ovens and other kit I didn't recognise, laid out along the stone walls of the mine for hundreds of metres. Far too well-maintained to have been neglected for decades down here.

Private Holmes waved a hand at me, then pointed over to the middle of the huge machine complex.

Ah. The "wierd football" that Tiny and friends kicked around lay along the side of the machine, in just such a position that it could exert an influence on the machine. Past tense. The Nestene sphere lay inert, non-glowing, dead to all intents if you didn't realise what it happened to be.

What trouble that dead plastic art-deco football had caused! From the Bestiary, it seemed obvious that the Nestene sphere had by a chain of coincidences been placed exactly where it could cause most harm, that it was able to activate the equipment down here, the machine Barney got excited about. For eighteen months it had been working away in complete isolation, untroubled by any human intervention.

'What now, sir?' asked Holmes.

I took a minute to think. We wanted that sentry decoyed away from the wooden shack, which wasn't in a direct line of sight of the machinery, so a noisy method had to be used. A Mark 36 hand grenade, which makes quite enough noise in the open and which would sound like the Last Trump in the confines of Leek Wootton. Holmes surrendered up his grenade and I moved down the machinery, finding a set of pressurised metal tanks that looked a good bet. Waving Holmes back, I put another round into the Verey pistol and handed it to him, then pulled the pin on the grenade and rolled it around the other side of the tanks, scrambling further back to get shelter from the blast. Only then did I open my mouth and shut my eyes, to prevent ear-drum rupture and dazzling.

BANG! Went the grenade, making the floor quiver and sending a cloud of vapour from the ruptured tanks spraying over the production line, a spray which caught alight and burned like a giant candle, roaring and echoing.

Given a cue like that, the resident Auton came racing over, emerging from shadows into the fitful light of the burning vapours, only to receive a flare in the chest. Within seconds it was a flaming pile of molten plastic. Seeing that the coast was clear, Corporal Horrigan and another trooper ran to the decaying wooden hut, kicked the door in and rescued a very much alive but scared witless Ian Briggs. Both parties met back at the pillars of the storage area.

'Hurry, hurry, they may come down in the lift,' warned Barney, looking fretful. That made me pause – the prospect of annoyed Autons from the upper levels catching up with us in the ventilation tunnel hadn't occurred.

'Corporal – get the prisoner and the rest of the party above ground. Barney, you and I are going to find that lift and nobble it. Don't argue, Corporal – but give me that WP grenade.'

A highly reluctant Barney and I set off across the mine galleries, me leading with the Verey pistol pointing sternly forward, Barney coming along behind, muttering to himself. The illumination provided by the burning vapours still venting from the production line allowed me to see amongst the massive pillars of the mine, throwing evil shadows in the flickering light, and revealing a complete lack of Autons. Where were they all hiding? Given that they were telepathic, they must know we'd gotten into the mine on the lower level and destroyed three of their number. If they all introduced themselves at once, I could bowl them out with the two phosphorus grenades, something not possible if they weren't around. It took the pair of us a good five minutes to get to the lift, dodging in and out between the pillars according to Barney's sense of direction. Without him I'd have been lost within thirty seconds in the maze of identical pillars and alcoves.

Barney tugged on my elbow.

'The lift, the lift,' he hissed, anxiously, pointing. The lift indeed, fifty yards ahead in the fitful gloom. A framework of girders and grillework, once again not at all rusted or corroded after all these decades of neglect. We crept closer, my eyes going in all directions at once, hearing a faint clanking and rattling coming from the upper reaches of the liftwork. Getting right up to it allowed me to see that the lift itself was stuck, wedged in the shaft at the top of the ceiling. Whoever – or whatever – was up on the second level couldn't get down to the third level, and to judge by the way they were shaking the lift cage, they definitely wanted to get down here.

Once again this called for thinking on the hoof. Using the grenades might well dislodge the lift-cage and actually help the Autons. I hastily undid my bootlaces and tied them to the WP grenade pins, working the pins carefully until they were nearly loose, then wedged the grenades into the framework of the cage on either side of the entrance. Deciding that the Autons weren't daft enough to miss such an obvious tripwire, I removed the grenades, then stuck them in the grillwork on opposite sides of the structure, with the lacing reaching across the liftshaft; hopefully when the lift itself came down – well, join the dots.

After our sabotage effort, we both left at high speed; the rattling those plastic horrors were giving the lift-cage meant they'd free it soon. Discretion took second place to speed, and here Barney led the way. By now flames from the burning production line were dying down, leaving us in a near-impenetrable darkness where I had to trust Barney to find the way out.

Speed proved to be a double-edged sword. Moving at a silent run, or the closest manageable when one person's unlaced-boots threatened to leave his feet, Barney came broadside to a pillar, from in front of which stepped an Auton, levelling it's right hand.

Barney made a loud exclamation. So did I; his body blocked the Auton from Verey flare or electronic zapper. Next second Barney hit the Auton with a piledriver right uppercut, delivered with all his weight and speed behind it, and he carried on without stopping.

The boiler-suited thing went sprawling on the floor, weapon firing at the ceiling instead of at us. A huge cloud of plaster and earth fell upon the Auton, and I gave it a flare in the chest when I ran past.

'Nice punch,' I gasped to Barney, just as a double detonation further back in the mine sent echoes rolling around the walls; the grenades at the lift-shaft. That might delay the Autons; it wouldn't stop them.

In fact, I realised, they must have been unable to get out of the mine's normal entrance. All that shelling from the recoilless probably sealed them in under hundreds of tons of rock. Maybe it dislodged the lift-cage and misaligned the shaft, too. So this would be their only way out and they'd be trying harder than ever to reach it.

By now we were retracing our steps over bonfire remnants, both the Hell's Angel's ashes and the roasted Autons of earlier. Despite the ventilation provided by the uphill shaft, the air down here still reeked of burnt plastic and a smoky haze overlay the light coming from the shaft entrance. Barney would have dashed up the tunnel without a pause if my restraining hand on his shoulder hadn't stopped him.

'Let's warn them first, hm?' I cautioned him. 'Hey there! Party of two coming up!' I bellowed up the shaft, then pushed Barney onwards. Before following I left the last grenade at the bottom of the entrance, put two flares next to it and fired the last one into the collection, then ran upwards, spurred on by the sound of clattering footsteps coming closer in the darkness, from deeper in the mine. Fear lent wings to my boots and I fairly shot up the tunnel, receiving a buffet from behind when the over-heated grenade below exploded. In no time at all I leaped from the tunnel entrance, under the watchful eyes of my section, the Brig, the APC and a couple of Landrovers pointing machine guns at me.

'Is it really you, sir?' asked Cole, moving closer with that axe, eyeing me suspiciously. Corporal Horrigan offered me a cigarette in silence.

'You don't think an Auton copy would be so tired,' I gasped, with a few well-placed adjectives, 'not to mention feeling like a Chieftan tank just drove over – what?'

Cole's face had changed in an instant from reassurance to horror, and he came at me, swinging the axe. Cringing, the blade missed me and instead hit the Auton that had just emerged from the tunnel, singed, battered, and now minus a weapon as Cole's axeblade smashed into it's right hand.

Rage gave me a burst of strength. I grabbed the plastic replica by the crotch and throat, suffering a blow to the chest whilst doing so, and hurled it in the direction of the APC, snarling a series of insults.

Seeing the Auton sit up, the APC driver gunned the engine and rolled forward six feet, crushing the animated dummy into a mess of splintered plastic three yards long and one yard wide.

'Right! Torch that tunnel!' shouted the Brig. The APC rumbled forward again. The small turret on the upper hull, which I presumed to contain a machine-gun, suddenly spouted a long tongue of fire which boiled into the tunnel entrance. A flamethrower. More than that, a vehicle-mounted flamthrower with lots of fuel, since the weapon fired several long bursts down the tunnel. When the FV432 finally pulled back the recoilless rifle put in an appearance, firing shells down the tunnel until the roof collapsed with a low thunder, sending black fumes and dust clouds gusting out from the tunnel mouth.

Yours truly felt utterly worn-out. No sleep, no food, no rest, being stunned by the Browning, choked by plastic fumes and run ragged in the dark had all taken their toll. Nick gave me a swig of his flask, then a mint to cover the smell of whisky.

'Thanks,' said a wobbly voice behind me. I turned slowly round – my back killing me as I did so – to see a pale, sooty Ian Briggs. 'Thank you,' he said again, his voice trembling. He got a feeble smile and a tired wave in acknowledgement.

Barney came to see me before being led away to sign the OSA, or, more likely with a big kid like him, a stern lecture and cream cakes.

'You're strong, you are, mister,' he mumbled. 'To throw them things around like that.'

'You're no slouch yourself, Barney,' I replied. 'That was a dynamite punch. Hey, before you go – the Chief Super at Chace Avenue said you worked here, during the war. Did you work with that machine? The one that made Bakerlight?'

He visibly straightened, and a note of pride crept into his voice.

'Yes I did, that was me, Barney Williams, Ammunition Inspectorate Division. That machine was to make floating boxes for the Japanese invasion. I didn't work with it much. Not a day off sick, you know, not a day off sick. Oh. Here comes the shouty man. Goodbye.'

"The shouty man" was Lethbridge-Stewart, who looked pleased with himself, his command and the whole operation.

'Well done, Walmsley! Not a man lost, and the hostage rescued. I understand from what Williams told me that the War Office had a plastic production line set up underground here in the early forties.'

'Yes, sir – actually, no. Barney said it was "Bakerlight" rather than plastic. Seems that there was a plan to make floating boxes – for the Japanese invasion. I suppose he might mean flotation chambers. No idea what Bakerlight is.'

His moustache bristled slightly.

'I grew up, Lieutenant, listening to Radio Luxembourg on a bakelite radio. "Bakelite". Early form of plastic. Rotten luck that Nestene sphere ended up in close proximity to a plastic-creating machine, eh? Now, get yourself into a Landrover and back to Aylesbury on the double. I want a report on this operation by twenty-two hundred hours. Oh, and Lieutenant?'

'Yes, sir?' and I paused before marching off – actually slouching off would be nearer the truth, given my aches and pains.

'Get the MO to see you straight away at HQ.'

Nosiness is my greatest sin. In a top-secret organisation such as UNIT nosiness is a disadvantage. I persevered over several months, however, worrying about all those Autons who might be loose in Leek Wootton's levels and gradually digging themselves out. On my next trip out there the entire area lay behind ten foot fences topped with barbed wire. Not that there was a mine to examine any longer. The Royal Engineers were brought in by the Brigadier, who by rumour knew exactly how to deal with enemies who lurked in tunnel systems. The Sappers blasted camouflets – sub-surface caverns created by explosives – which were filled with napalm and detonated downwards into the upper mine level, creating fires that burned for forty-eight hours. Then the RAF delivered seventy-five tons of obsolete ordnance to Leek Wootton, which the Sappers carefully placed around the perimeter of the mine and set off all at once. Leek Wootton mine is now merely a large depression where the various underground levels collapsed one on top of each other.

The MO at Aylesbury is the jolly-hockey-sticks Harry Sullivan, who actually seemed to know what he was about when he examined me, tutting to himself.

'Let's tally it up, shall we?' he told me, curling his stethoscope up into one of the pockets of his white coat. 'Take a seat. You have pulled several muscles in your back, severe contusion in the neck muscles, three fractured ribs, puncture wounds to your upper left chest and back, smoke inhalation, a perforated eardrum and a pulled tendon in your left leg. What on earth have you been up to? I would have said lifting lorries for sport.'

I explained.

'Oh yes?' he replied, not impressed in medical terms. 'A heavy machine gun. Don't do it again. Very silly.'

'I don't plan to make a habit of it,' I muttered.

'This is a prescription for painkillers, this is one for steroids and this chit is for light duties until signed-off by myself. The orderley will bind up your chest.'

Like all significant episodes, this one had repercussions. From being known as that-bloke-who-chatted-with fish-men, my nickname changed to "Big John". Nick Munroe expressed huge amusement in recounting this to me. Private Embury even apologised for calling me "fat" in the tower at Maiden's Point.

The Brigadier called me in for a formal review of the operation, dubbed ATHLETE. To my chagrin he relegated it to a footnote amongst UNIT UK operations – the security of the country wasn't threatened, let alone the world. Nor even Birmingham.

'Don't worry, John!' he laughed, seeing me out. 'We can't save the world every day.'

As usual, Nick got the last laugh in. Weeks later he rang my room, where I was typing up transport details.

'Hey, come and see what film's on – you'll love it!'

I went down to the Officers Lounge, where Nick and a bottle of claret were watching TV. The set showed some black and white film with Gary Cooper.

'"Lives of a Bengal Lancer",' explained Nick. Then he hooted with laughter. 'Look! Watch this!'

Exasperatedly I looked, then looked closer still. Our Hero, Coop, was hefting about a Vickers heavy machine gun, plus tripod, and firing it. Ridiculous –

Oh well. Real life is sometimes stranger than fiction.