UNIT UK 11: A Clean Sweep

Not everything we did at UNIT consisted of violent displays of armed action. Perhaps the following will illustrate.

The word was out at Aylesbury – all officers to report to the gym, soonest. Those on detached duty would be contacted by telephone by the Duty Officer, who happened to be Nick Munroe. He had to start ringing half an hour before the meeting commenced, collating replies on a clipboard.

I was almost late, having been detained in the vehicle-park by the fitters, who were going over a Scorpion light tank acquired from the Blues and Royals. It had twelve thousand miles on the clock and needed a complete overhaul before I'd even think of signing the raft of paperwork that went with it.

So, I slunk into the gym at the back, alongside Nick, now without his clipboard. The Brig stood at the front, Captain Yates at his side, and gave us all the beady eye.

'Munroe, Walmsley, you're both excused. Fall out.'

Eh?

'Not sure what all that was about,' complained Nick, in his room a few minutes later. 'Dash of malt?'

'No thank you, I need my wits about me this afternoon. The MOD are trying it on with a clapped-out tank, and the fitters are trying it on by not working quickly enough.'

Nick took a healthy swill of his whisky and looked musingly at me.

'The phone calls I made were all about volunteering for undercover work. Why d'you think you and I aren't acceptable? In your case it might be the fetchingly bucolic accent you have, but I speak the Queen's English impeccable, like.'

Pause for thought. I looked around Nick's room, full of boxes and crates and packets of cigarettes. The –

'Undercover work? Ah, the mist begins to lift.'

He set-to on a large taped cardboard box, which clinked in an interesting fashion. Probably brandy or whisky.

'Does it now. Come on, you overweight Lancashire pudding, tell me.'

'Join the dots, you intellectual sloth. Do you really think I can blend into the background in undercover work?'

I speak the truth. Standing six feet six and weighing eighteen stone, I'm hard to miss.

'What about me!' replied Nick. He looks like a seedier version of Leslie Phillips, with freckles. 'Lithe as a ferret.'

'And scented the same. Where do you have relatives who might recognise you and blow your cover?'

'Oho. Beautiful Belfast. Ah! Undercover work – in Ulster?' he finished, puzzled.

That probably explained the absence of Captain March, our resident chameleon. I'd once threatened him with a tyre lever, when he'd been in disguise as a tramp. We'd not seen him for a couple of weeks.

Not that I knew anything more. The only official mention of Ulster and UNIT had occurred at my induction, where Major Hunter looked horrified when he mistakenly believed I knew more than I did.

I silently thanked not getting sent back to Ulster, having done a tour there with the Queen's Lancs. Nick looked cross and relieved simultaneously. I knew he was desperate to get into action and prove himself, and he secretly envied me my various experiences with UNIT – at Maiden's Point, at Leek Wootton and of course most recently in Russia. Sorry, the Soviet Union.

'Look, why did you volunteer for UNIT if you wanted to do deeds of derring-do? You could be pounding the streets of Belfast. Gun battles at the Divis Flats, patrolling at Crossmaglen. All adrenaline-inducing stuff.'

A silent sneer and sip of whisky was my response.

'There's no glamour in the Short Strand, and there are simply no amenities for a well-heeled young officer in the countryside.'

I left him to fulminate, or more properly marinate, and went back to the well-used Scorpion, convinced that the fitters would have had a half-hour fag break whilst I was gone.

After an intensive chivvying session to explain to the UNIT fitters that my time was precious, delivered at short range and high volume, I retired to the Battalion Transport office and began to check and complete the paperwork for the Scorpion.

En route to the mess, Corporal Higgins stopped me.

'Just thought you might like to know, sir, Captain Yates might be after you.'

This worried me. Mike Yates never looked at me without seeming to have dark thoughts amind.

'After me? Battalion transport issues?'

Higgins looked at me shrewdly.

'Not sure about that, sir. He happened to spot that Scorpion out on the tarmac and was looking at it. Then he said "Of course! Walmsley!" and left in a hurry.'

Whoops.

The jigsaw pieces fell together, and the pattern they made didn't look too charming. Mike Yates, ex-King's Dragoon Guards, who were a reconaissance formation that drove Scorpion light tanks. Tanks like the one out on the tarmac, which had jogged his memory, and mine.

Luck was with me. The Brig sent a summons, get to his office soonest. I did so, and discovered an opportunity to avoid Captain Yates for a while.

'Take a seat, John. We have a slight problem. As you're aware, we have an urgent request for officer volunteers cleared to high level to undertake covert work. One of the volunteers is from Project Broom. That leaves Project Broom one officer short, while we have a surplus here at Aylesbury of two. Yourself and Nick Munroe.'

'I'm off to Project Broom?'

'Only on attachment. This flap in Ulster is a short-tem thing, it'll blow over in a few weeks, at the most. Whilst it's on, I'd like you and Munroe to cover the absent officer.'

Fair enough. There was the matter of my company and the Battalion Transport Officer post.

'Captain Yates can substitute for you in both capacities, John. Besides, your senior NCO is Tom Horrigan, correct? Officer-candidate material. A shame we'll lose him on rotation once his time here's up. Captain Yates won't have much extra to do.'

Smart salute from me, depart to room quick smart, pack bag. Nick rang and offered to drive, if I'd read the briefing documents provided for us en route.

'Deal,' I replied. 'Where is Project Broom based, anyway?'

'Hathern Wood, off the M1. In the middle of a triangle formed of Leicester, Nottingham and Derby.'

I learned later that the placing was deliberate, right next to the M1 for rapid access to the motorway network, and near the East Midlands Airport if travel further afield were needed.

Nick swanned us north onto the M1 in his dad's Bentley whilst I looked at the set of documents given under seal.

' "Project Broom Familiarisation Set 3' " I read, ripping open the cover and breaking the seal ' "FAO Officers and Other Ranks on permanent assignment or detatched duty to Project Broom". That's us, then. Page one. Once upon a time – okay, okay,' I said, feeling Nick's gaze shift from road to passenger. ' "Primary Objective: to remove any physical artefacts that remain after conclusion of an action. Secondary Objective: to present UNIT-vetted information to the media and track dispersion of information post-event. Third Objective: to pro-actively intercept, prevent, censor and otherwise prevent the proliferation of non UNIT-vetted information." So we act as bin-men and censors. Not much glamour in that.'

Nick harumphed in reply. We'd been ordered not to take small-arms with us, which hinted that the job would be pushing pens and shuffling paper. Oh dear, no chance for Nick to shine.

'It'll take about an hour to get there,' he informed me, putting the radio on and selecting the dismal daytime warblings of Radio One. 'Keep on reading. So far I've done all the work today.'

Scanning the closely-typed print, I tried to paraphrase.

'Well, the unit is based at Hathern Wood. They have a set of covert lorries and other vehicles used to get to and from the scene of an action, all air-portable. A computer that is linked in to the one at Kensington, blah blah blah, gets them the latest information. Hot line to the Home Secretary and the Brig and one to Geneva. Draws occasionally on the services of external civilian experts also accredited at high level clearance – oh, they mean people like Liz Shaw.'

'And Marie Valdupont,' added Nick, slyly, referring to the lady currently the light of my life.

'Moving swiftly along, Driver Munroe, they can issue D-notices on spec, pull stories from the BBC or ITV at a moments notice and have ready-prepared cover stories for prospective actions. For examples, see the Appendix, - let's see, what's here – ah! stories like the LSD attack on London that required a large-scale evacuation, because people claimed to be seeing killer shop window dummies.'

'The Autons.'

'Too right. So Project Broom got rid of the bits and made up a story about terrorists poisoning the water supply, it says here. Press told to co-operate, editors threatened, third estate knuckles under.'

'What about all the dead people?'

I flipped back and forwards.

'Dunno. Nothing about them in here. "Death by misadventure", maybe, or "Murdered by person or persons unknown." There's something here about the Big Freeze, too.'

'Boring. We know what really happened. Any gen about that do in Wales?'

No there wasn't. Probably too recent for any inclusion in the document. I read on.

A set of procedures and policy instructions followed in the body of the text. Deadly dull stuff that Nick warded off with a wave of the hand.

'Forsooth, let us repair to that service station which looms on the horizon, brother Walmsley. I missed breakfast this morning and can suffer even a motorway meal.'

We got questioning glances, walking into the café area in full uniform. Perhaps it was a good thing we didn't have any weapons or people would have been even nosier. Discretion meant we sat over in a corner, away from other customers and Nick ate two trays of breakfast.

'Foul but filling,' he declared, lighting up an imported hand-rolled Turkish cigarette for show. 'I meant to say, Mike Yates was looking for you at Aylesbury. Had a particularly hard gleam in his eye.'

He was fishing. I stirred three sugar lumps into my tea and sighed.

'Yes, well, he would. His hard gleam will only soften when he gets me into deep hot water with the Brig.'

'He may find that harder than normal. Rumour has it that his name is pretty muddy at the moment. Let the side down in Wales. Court martial pending.'

Not for months did I discover that Captain Yates, stalwart UNIT officer, had held the Brig and the Doctor at gunpoint, programmed by a mad computer to kill them both until the Doctor pulled a rabbit out of his hat. In reality a blue crystal from outer space, but the effect was the same.

'I always saw him as a bit of a milksop. What's he got against you?'

'I blew up his tank.'

Nick's eyes got big as saucers.

'Wow, no wonder he's ticked-off with you.'

'While he was in it.'

Nick leaned back in his seat and looked at me through narrowed eyes.

'That trip to Soviet Russia didn't addle your bourgeios wits, did it?'

'I also destroyed his crate of twenty-year old malts and wines.'

'Bloody hell! You don't do things by halves, do you, young Walmsley!'

'It was before either of us were in UNIT, and it was an accident.'

'You should tell the MoD. "I can brew-up tanks by accident, imagine what I can do with a bit of deliberate hostile intent." Good God, back home a man who destroys bottles of malt – well, the verdict's not murder, it's justifiable homicide.'

The meal came to a sullen end and we made our way back North again, for the shorter leg of the journey.

'I am going to get the truth of this out of you,' commented Nick when we turned off the motorway and down the leafy track to Project Broom HQ.

The track, on closer inspection, only seemed leafy, with lots of overhead cover from trees. The road itself was well-laid tarmac, with a camber and culverts and drains, built only recently by the look of it. Able to stand up to heavy-duty usage. The further along we drove, the bigger the trees became, until the road stood completely hidden under foliage. The Project Broom buildings, pre-fabs one and all, stacked up like Lego, lay behind a modest fence. There was only one sentry at the gate, lurking behind a sign proclaiming "UNIT Hathern". In accordance with the low-profile publicity policy of UNIT, you could have covered the sign with one hand.

Our sentry looked the Bentley over, perhaps thinking VIP's had arrived, only to find two junior officers inside. He checked the passes, rang elsewhere in the base and let us through.

'Head for the car park, sir, then go into the Reception Block.'

Nick's mobile family heirloom was easily the most impressive vehicle in the car park, which had a considerable array of civilian saloon cars, trucks, tankers, dump trucks and construction plant.

Reception Block was merely another pre-fab, all alpined exterior and scuffed lino flooring inside. Bright flourescent lights showed off the bargain-basement MoD furniture in unflattering contrast.

Behind the big desk, a bright young thing in uniform with blonde hair in a bob and nice white teeth gave us a cool professional smile. I could almost hear Nick's libido cranking into action.

'Lieutenant's Munroe and Walmsley reporting in as substitutes for your officer on detachment,' said Nick, saluting smartly. 'I am Lieutenant Munroe, whilst this inelegant sack of potatoes is Lieutenant Walmsley.'

The bright young thing snickered quietly. I disliked her at once.

'Corporal Jones!' came a female voice that rolled effortlessly around the pre-fab like a drum roll or an artillery salvo. Bright young thing immediately became busy with typing work. 'Are those carbons ready yet?' asked the female the voice was attached to, entering from a door in the office rear.

'Not yet Sergeant Windsor,' squeaked the bright young thing, hammering away at the keys. 'They are now,' she finished, passing the sheets to Sergeant Windsor.

Sergeant Windsor presented a formidable appearance. Six feet tall, a massive bust, dark hair scraped back into a bun, immaculate skirt, stockings, blouse, tie and piercing blue eyes. She had a large face that expressed no interest in either of us minor specimens of the military male. Nick, predictable coward that he is, froze in fear, leaving yours truly to carry on.

'Sergeant Windsor. Lieutenant Walmsley, UNIT HQ Aylesbury.' We exchanged stern salutes. 'Here as temporary replacement for your officer on detachment. Also present is Lieutenant Munroe, to the same purpose.'

Similar exchange of stern salutes. I wanted to get off on the right foot with Sergeant Windsor, so the next idea came as an unforeseen inspiration.

'Do we have quarters assigned for the duration?'

'Yes, Lieutenant Walmsley. I can have Corporal Jones show you there,' replied Sergeant Windsor in completely emotion-free response.

'Thank you. Just Lieutenant Munroe, for the moment. I'd like a familiarisation briefing first.'

Nick darted looks of death-ray intensity at me whilst he got his kit together. Tough. I outrank him thanks to seniority, and he got the chance to try it on with the blonde receptionist – Corporal Jones.

Sergeant Windsor led the way into her office, and indicated a wall-chart calendar, which had a single spike in the past month. I glanced around the room, which had lots of kit arranged in it, but which remained tidy. Very tidy.

'That's the only thing happened recently, the disappearing scientists. Now they've reappeared, we only have to maintain the cover story, that they were called away at short notice for important MoD work.'

'Nothing physical to deal with?'

'No, Lieutenant. Over here, in the secure filing, are the details of past clean-up operations. To read them you sign out the file in the log book, here.'

'How do you decide what and who to send out to an action?'

She pursed her lips.

'Discretionary, Lieutenant. Some of the covert vehicles in the park are specially converted to deal with particular threats, but otherwise we use our experience and the information sent through from UNIT at the scene.'

Recent memories rolled round my mind.

'What about Leek Wootton? Operation Athlete?'

She blinked in recognition at the official name given to the action.

'There was only one intact Auton left from that, sir. Not much to deal with. The RAF blew the whole mine to bits, so we didn't have to recover anything physical. The cover story needed more work.'

'What about the Auton fox-replica?'

For the first time since meeting Sergeant Windsor she showed emotion, even if it was only a slight frown.

'Oh yes, I'd forgotten about that. Encased in resin and sent to Swafham.'

That was Swafham Prior, the UNIT "black museum" of various bits and pieces and bad guys left on Planet Earth.

'Are your cover stories discretionary, too?'

'No, Lieutenant. Not completely. We have to co-ordinate with the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence, just to make sure our stories agree with their stories. There is also an outline of what suggestions might be applicable in certain circumstances.'

'Fine. Do you have a floorplan and staff roster?'

She did. The floorplan consisted of two A3 blueprints, which she said would be photocopied and delivered to my office. The staff roster was on her desk, a single sheet of typed names, and she promised to deliver that to my office also.

Despite her chilly exterior and lack of acknowledgement, there was no doubt in my mind that Sergeant Windsor managed her role here very competently. I've seen enough establishments that look fine but feel wrong to know.

'Okay. One other thing, Sergeant Windsor.'

She stopped and looked at me, once more emotionless.

'Lieutenant Munroe and I are here for a few weeks at most. To observe. Not to interfere.'

An expressionless Sergeant Windsor conducted me to my office, another pre-fab with nasty lighting and scuffed chairs.

Nick showed up five minutes later, looking bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

'Well, I've got a date. How did you fare with Sergeant Raving Lesbian?'

I threw the pencil sharpener at him.

For all his faults, which are many, Nick does have contacts throughout the armed forces, relatives, friends and ex-girlfriends. Whilst we were arranging our miscellania around the office of Captain Keane, I pondered the meat-and-potato issues of Project Broom, staring at the outlay of the site delivered by Corporal Jones.

'You hold the fort here. I am going on a personal reconaissance,' I told Nick. 'And while I'm gone, perhaps you could pull a few strings with your contacts in Whitehall and –'

'Already in motion, Oh Mighty Leader,' replied Nick, prising open a locked drawer with a screwdriver. 'I've got Major Hunter on the case. It'll cost me a bottle of the family's finest next we meet, mind.'

'Bill me. See you in half an hour.'

The air outside had a spring freshness to it that was invigorating after the dingy office. From here there were trees in all directions, a spreading green canopy with trilling birds, clicking insects and sticky buds. A hell of a lot nicer than the vehicle park and garages at Aylesbury. I clattered down the stairs from the upper cabin, looking in at the uniformed staff doing clerical work in the lower office, the one with "UNIT Vetted Information Dispersal" on the door.

They all looked up with a degree of alarm when I abruptly appeared in the doorway.

'As you were! Lieutenant Walmsley on detached duty, covering for Captain Keane,' I explained, looking around. 'Carry on.'

They did, not bothering much when I went noseying around the pre-fab, which is the sign of a clear conscience.

Next on the visit list was the Computer Block, which consisted of three OR's sitting writing out esoteric programming language. I gave them a knowing look and nod, then carried on elsewhere. Elsewhere led to the Secure Bulk Storage pre-fab. This had files on everything Project Broom had ever worked on, in considerably more detail than the precis to be found in Sergeant Windsor's office, and composed of various different formats.

There were other pre-fabs to check but I concentrated on Blocks 7 and 8. "Officers on Advisory Duty" and "Civilian Advisory HLC".

A tall, sandy-haired officer in RAF blue with lots of freckles but little hair was intently staring at a television monitor in the communal area of Block 7.

'You're not another artefact, are you?' he asked me with distracting directness.

'What makes an artefact?' I replied.

'Oh, if you can ask that then you aren't one. No self-awareness, you see.'

I didn't see, not at all. Years of training enabled me to project an air of knowing everything whilst being completely in the dark.

''From the time-shift effect, you know. The recent case, the missing scientists.'

Sergeant Windsor mentioned that. Grim affirmative nod from Lieutentant Walmsley.

'I'm Lieutenant Walmsley, on attachment whilst Captain Keane is out of the way.'

He looked up at me as if for the first time.

'Oh. Oh, yes, Sergeant Windsor did tell me there'd be a replacement coming in. I'm Farrell, Wing Commander Farrell. Specialisms rocketry and ballistics.'

Not to mention behaving like a complete loon. It would be churlish of me to mention that the RAF's inauguration date is April the First? Farrell was right at home in Hathern.

'Very good, Flight Commander. I shall be moving on right now.'

He waved me out, whilst I cast a weather eye over my shoulder. Block 8 was empty, unlit and locked – no civilians at Proj Broom for the moment. Guess we'd have to do with Farrell as Loon in Residence. The UNIT quarters were a pre-fab for Other Ranks and one for Officers, where Nick had stowed his kit already.

By the time I got back to the office after completing a stroll around the perimeter fence and exchanging words with the sentry, Nick had done his phoning round, and had a smug expression on his face.

'I have the information you require, Oh mighty leader. I rang Cousin Hunter and he came up with the goods.'

'Which are?'

'Not so fast! A little trading of information can now take place.'

With a little bad grace, the trading of information did indeed take place. I explained about the live-fire exercise on the Suffield Ranges in Canada.

My platoon had been plodding alongside a muddy track, wet, tired, filthy and looking forward to a wet and a wad. Hey presto, a troop of Scorpions came bowling along the track, captain's all sticking their heads out of the turrets. They drove at speed past us into a thirty yard mud puddle that sprayed sideways and swamped the entire platoon. Three times, and laughing at us. The platoon's language was, predictably, pretty colourful. Sergeant Roke remained silent, before taking me aside and mentioning that the troop was from the King's Dragoon Guards, and he'd got their registration numbers.

Quick-thinking chap, Sergeant Roke. Next day we were practicing armour-infantry co-operation and surprise surprise, those same bloody Scorpions were deployed a couple of hundred yards to our front. I waited until the firing flag went up, then ordered the Jimpy section to put down fifty rounds suppressing fire, right on top of the tanks. The crews were all buttoned-up inside, but the storage bins on the rear were nice and vulnerable.

Sadly for him, Captain Michael Yates, commanding "Tetrarch", didn't like leaving his fine wines and whiskies where thieving squaddies might lay their hands upon them. So he put them in the storage bin at the rear of "Tetrarch", where they were hit by half a dozen machine gun rounds and smashed into splinters. The whisky, pints and pints of it, drained out onto the engine deck and into the engine, set alight by a tracer round. The engine caught fire. The captain, livid with rage, had to watch his tank brew-up after he and his crew abandoned it. All he knew was that an infantry section with a large officer in charge had done-in his booze and his chariot. Presumably after seeing the Scorpion at Aylesbury he'd made the connection.

By the time I finished this sorry tale, Nick was speechless with laughter. I scowled back at him for his lack of sympathy for a brother officer.

'Okay, now my side,' he finally managed, reading from a sheet in front of him. "Elaine Patricia Windsor, Sergeant, Queen Alexander's Royal Army Nursing Corps. Awarded Queen's Gallantry Medal for performing emergency tracheotomy on a private of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, wounded in a bomb attack in Ulster witter witter. Despite being attacked by nail and petrol bombs and being injured herself, Sergeant Windsor remained with the patient until he reached hospital. The receiving surgeon stated that the injured man would have died long before, blah blah. Mentioned in Despatches for rescuing two Catholic children from a burning house under attack from a Loyalist mob. Sergeant Windsor suffered third degree burns and the effects of smoke inhalation but continued to defend the children until a foot patrol arrived, etcetera, etcetera." The Cousin told me she defended her nippers by decking the ringleader and breaking his jaw.'

My respect for the formidable-looking Sergeant increased. She didn't wear the ribbon award, which is a sign of modesty. She appeared to punch as efficiently as she ran Proj Broom. And she put her life on the line for patients.

'Breaking his jaw,' I muttered. 'He got off lightly.'

Nick heard me mumbling.

'Yes, John, if it were you then you'd have stamped on his head a few times for good measure. You have a bit of a temper, you know.'

He had a point. In my little Soviet excursion I'd flown into a killing rage when Russian children were threatened. Just one of the things I'd discovered about myself that took getting used to.

'After having a thorough snoop around Proj Broom, Lieutenant Munroe, I don't see us having much to do here. Sergeant Windsor seems to run things behind the scenes pretty effectively.'

'You don't fancy her, do you? Because I can guarantee she's a raving lesbian, you know.'

That Nick Munroe. No sense of tact or subtlety.

For a whole day afterwards Nick and I dealt with endless sheets of paper, which required signing, reading, approving, forwarding or censoring. I quite enjoyed killing a story in the Sunday Express about "Evil Alien Invaders – From Mars!", and then censoring most of the sense out of an article by John Pilger on "UN Spy Satellites"; so censored in fact that the New Statesman decided not to run it at all. None of this intellectual chess-playing impressed Nick, who visibly fretted over the paper-pushing we did in lieu of dashing around with guns.

As an officer with intelligence, tact and subtlety, I explained to Nick why I'd checked up so diligently on Sergeant Windsor. She, given her undoubtedly ability and experience, would be checking up on us. Nick did not take this well. There must be a whole cemetery's-worth of skeletons in his closet.

Part of that was proved when we were summoned to a Case Conference in the specially constructed Meeting Room, two pre-fabs joined side-to-side. Half a dozen of the Proj Broom staff were there, plus Major Hunter, who is Nick's cousin and the closest thing UNIT has to an official archivist and historian.

The meeting was fairly dull: a list of past operations UNIT had been involved in, with any potentially outstanding issues associated with them. The most recent one, that of the missing scientists, had been resolved quickly, without any media attention and without any physical remains to clear up, categorise or destroy. I was slightly surprised to hear that Operations Resolve and Merlin, involving the Great Intelligence and the Cybermen respectively, still had live-file status. I asked the Major about that.

'Ah. Good question. Operation Resolve, we still have occasional queries about – that happens when you evacuate a major city, Lieutenant. I dread the time we next have to do it, because it's an unbelievable pain in the arse.

'As for Operation Merlin, the Big Freeze affected half the Northern Hemisphere. I believe there are still insurance claims going through court about that. Anyway, it affected far too many people to not have repercussions later. Thanks to Project Broom, most media speculation about it is just that – idle speculation.'

That only left a look ahead through the Radio Times and the TV Times to see what might crop up in the next week. Net result – nothing.

Once the meeting had formally finished and the others had departed, with Sergeant Windsor slated to write up the minutes, Major Hunter directed a knowing glance at her.

'These two rascals aren't making trouble for you, are they, Sergeant?'

'Not at all, sir. In fact Lieutenant Munroe has exerted considerable energy alongside the office staff.'

I bit my cheek to avoid smiling. That would be Nick romancing Corporal Jones. The Sergeant didn't miss much.

'Indeed? How unlike him. All the same, these two bear watching. Do you know their nicknames at Aylesbury?'

Shake of head from an interested Sergeant Windsor, and both Nick and I paid verrrry close attention. We had nicknames, of course. Every squaddie who ever served has a nickname for his ruperts, but I didn't know what mine was.

' "Batterman and Robbing",' grinned the Major, clearly enjoying himself hugely. 'Walmsley here has a habit of pounding the punchbags in the gym until they split, to work off his vile temper. I think we're on the third one since you joined, hmm? And my younger relative here can get anything for you, guns, explosives, ammunition, or a twenty millimetre anti-aircraft gun, no questions asked.'

The sergeant nodded mutely, casting a knowing glance over her new superior officers.

'I had heard that they were something of a comedy duo, sir,' she riposted.

'Oh, they are that. Good job you two are only here for the short term, eh?'

'You know we're thirsting to get back into armed action, sir,' I said with staggering ingenuousness.

'Thirsting!' added Nick. Always egging the pudding, that lad.

After a few days I began to see the purpose and procedure behind Proj Broom. Nick, on the other hand, chafed visibly at having to shuffle paper instead of cards or seven six two's. I tried to explain that UNIT might send the Assault Platoon out to blam the bad guys into little bits, in an action lasting an hour, but Project Broom had to deal with the consequences for potentially years afterwards. The long game. Strategic overview.

'You sound like my cricket captain,' he said crossly, savagely signing his name in biro and ripping into the paper. 'And I never could stand the bugger. I always got bowled out early thanks to him.'

I narrowed my eyes, the better to look wise and perceptive, and waved my own biro at him.

'You ought to transfer, you know. The Paras or the Marines, they get sent in first to wherever there's a ruck. Or that other outfit, the SAS. Plenty of opportunity to end up glamourously dead with a posthumous VC.'

He wrinkled his nose.

'The Old Man wouldn't approve of them. No regimental history. Or not enough. For him, it has to date back to the Civil War or they're just upstart oiks.'

This was interesting. Nick never talked about his family, whom I nevertheless knew about. There was his father: The Old Man, a.k.a. Colonel Munroe (ret), Black Watch, Military Medal and Bar, who owned a distillery and exported malt to the grateful around the world. There was a younger sister and another couple of brothers, who were usually dismissed as "the clerk and the jerk".

Things might have developed further, with a bit more of the Munroe family background coming out, had a telephone call not come through to us. Nick pounced on the phone, desperate to avoid further mention of family or just desperate to see action.

'Yes? Yes, speaking. A what? Hang on, hang on – okay, repeat that. Yes. Location? Okay. Casualties? Yes I want details! Yes. Yes. Go on. Je – ahem, okay, right. Understood.'

Having finished scribbling, he looked up at me with glee.

'The game is afoot! That was Beresford, calling from the East coast. An Eden Incident, he said, with bodies galore, all rendered ghastly by the evil invader, which they have incidentally blasted to bits. Proj Broom needed there soonest.'

"Eden Incident" equated to an action involving – think Walmsley think – plants.

'Plants? People killed by plants?' My incredulity couldn't be masked.

Nick merely nodded, busy tidying up his yard-square mess of desk space.

'Too right, entirely parasitised by the growth, according to Captain Well-Spoken.'

My mind struggled with the picture of people standing still long enough to be killed by a rhododendron. I rang Sergeant Windsor, who hissed through her teeth at the news, and told me to – actually "requested" but it sounded like "told" – report to the vehicle park and Sections 27a and 27b.

Several hours later saw a team from Proj Broom arrive on the east coast, to the south-east of Grimsby. Flat country, with sand dunes. Our transport, being four-wheel drive and with skilled drivers, made it to the coast without trouble. The way there lay along progressively worse roads, from A to B to unmetalled tracks and then simply between sand-dunes.

I was a passenger in the lead transport, which appeared to the uninitiated to be a grubby petrol tanker from Vital Petroleum. I rode behind the driver, alongside a wild-haired young man reading a brick-thick book entitled "Titus Groan", the perv. The perv hadn't been introduced to me, so we both ignored each other in best polite English fashion.

The other vehicle, from rectangle 27b on the Hathern car park, appeared to be a flat-bed truck. Nick currently sat next to the driver, peering out of the window with all the enthusiasm of a child going to the seaside, which he was in a way.

Once we reached the taped-off section of the sands, both vehicles stopped and everyone dismounted. A khaki-clad figure atop the dunes beckoned us onward, to the Main Event.

Which turned out to be a sprawl of seaweed on the damp sands, at first glance. Pretty scorched seaweed, stinking to high heaven. Another pile of burnt green wrack lay a hundred yards further on, being watched by a couple of squaddies with flamethrowers.

Captain Beresford shouted a warning and what seemed like the whole Assault Platoon assembled to the rear of the flat bed truck. The driver started to mess around in the cab and the flat bed slowly tilted upwards on hydraulic rams, until it was vertical, then pivoted around by several feet and pointed to the first collection of seaweed. My driver handed me a pair of earplugs and waved to the other truck when I'd put them in.

Despite being well behind and to the left of the not-flat bed truck, my ears were assaulted by a sustained high-pitched screech. The lump of seaweed quivered and twitched, bladders popped, it oozed a slimey trickle of foam and then sat still. A similar treatment was meted out to the other seaweed clump. Captain Beresford gave our cab a wave.

The perv from my tanker opened up a locker and took out a noddy suit, which he carefully donned, then picked up a metal suitcase and walked over to the first sprawl of seaweed.

Why do you need an NBC protective suit to look at kelp?

When the man with the expensive suit rolled the seaweed over, it didn't move the way a clump of seaweed ought to. In fact there was an unpleasant suggestion that the stuff lay over a human being. "Entirely parasitised", Nick had said.

Ah. Hence the suit. Mister Perv poked around the seaweed, moved on to the second clump and checked that over, then came back to the truck and removed the suit. His face was dead-white, and his hands shook a little putting the case back in it's locker.

'Both certified dead,' he told Captain Beresford, before climbing back into the cab and taking a good pull at a hip-flask.

'What's going on here, sir?' I asked, nosey as usual. The Captain did a double-take.

'Oh, hello John, didn't realise you'd be out here. Two divers from one of the rigs in the Ekofisk field. Well, they were two divers, before the weed got into them.'

'Before – you mean that seaweed took them over!'

He nodded and sighed.

'Yes, the poor buggers. It's a parasite, you see. Normally it sits on the bottom of the North Sea not doing anything, but if a big storm blows up it can rise to the surface. The divers are all warned to keep well clear of it but something went wrong here. The rig notified us of two men missing, and weed seen in the area, so we plotted their likely landfall.'

Then tackled them with flamethrowers. Made sense, you can't shoot a clump of weed very effectively.

'And that banshee device – does that kill them?'

The Captain nodded.

'It's something the Doctor gimmicked up for us. He seems to know plenty about this parasitical weed. You might care to ask him about it, he seems on good terms with you.'

The wild-haired perv climbed down from the cab, giving off a gentle whiff of brandy.

'Sorry. I needed that. It's not easy doing a post mortem on the body when there's not much body left. Bloody awful stuff.'

I take it he meant the weed, not the brandy. "Post mortem" and his activity implied he was a doctor.

'I would have thought a marine botanist would be more suited to the job,' I began.

He glared at me.

'Yes, they would, but they're in short supply at short notice, so I have to make do.'

Beresford wagged a finger.

'Keep your hair on, Doctor. You may not be here because you want to, but you ought to make the best of it.'

'Sorry. Bloody hell, what a way to get my licence back!' Several deep breaths later, he rolled his eyes and spoke in a more formal manner. 'Right, Captain. All vital signs are extinct. You may destroy the remains.'

The destruction devolved upon Nick and his driver, who piped fuel from the Vital Petroleum tanker onto the seaweed piles, a good hundred gallons of the stuff. The UNIT squaddies with back-pack flamethrowers set the weed alight and the whole lot went up like miniature suns.

'Jet fuel,' commented the doctor. 'Burns like merry hell.'

That it did. After fifteen minutes there were some ashy remnants on the sands.

'And now your work can begin, John,' said Beresford cheerily.

'What – oh, I get it. A cover story about what happened to the divers. Great. Literary licence required, I take it.' The Captain indicated the doctor with his eyes.

I later found out that "Titus Groan" is a respectable piece of literature. Oh well, books, covers, etcetera.

Everyone climbed back aboard their transport and we set off back to Hathern. The doctor took up his reading again until I disturbed him.

'What does the weed do to a victim? And why isn't it a threat whilst it's in the sea, you know, hitching a ride on schools of cod and so on.'

Rolling his eyes again, he marked his page.

'It utilises the intelligence and mobility of it's host. Except that it needs to have a host of at least fifty kilos to allow enough weed into it for controlling and parasitisation. Humans make great victims, thanks to having a brain and mobility. Fish are low on the list of good hosts. And before you ask, no it can't be cured or removed. It infests the body tissues of the host completely. Bloody awful stuff.'

The cover story was quite simple, which is a good way to keep your lies. There had indeed been a recent storm in the North Sea, and the two divers were declared as Missing Presumed Dead, with no bodies ever found. Hard on their families, I suppose, yet nothing like as horrid as the truth. The troops who burned objects on the shores south of Grimsby were merely dealing with barrels of toxic waste, presumably swept overboard from a vessel during the storm.

That was that. Captain Keane came back from whatever skullduggery he'd been practicing in Ulster, and didn't mention what it was, which meant Nick and I collected our kit smartish, the better to leave. He was wittering on about the weird staff at Proj Broom, then moved on to Sergeant Windsor, just as she arrived outside the open door, with some unflattering comments about her sexuality.

A quick knock later, and the Sergeant herself appeared, looking at Nick as if he were a sample on a slide. Silence prevailed for a second until I leapt in.

'Ah, Lieutenant Munroe! I think a quick final check of the perimeter fence is in order. Off you go now.'

He went at speed, the craven coward.

'I just came to say goodbye, sir, and thank you for not trying to change things or stamp your mark on the organisation.'

I made a face.

'The only reason I can be here is because I have an excellent NCO running the company whilst I'm gone. Only an idiot gets on the wrong side of their senior NCO's. Oh, and Lieutenant Munroe tends to let his gonads do the thinking for him. Hence his inaccurate comments.'

'Inaccurate, sir?' she said, nearly smiling.

I pointed at her hand.

'You don't wear any jewellery on duty, so you remove your wedding ring, which is indicated by the paler skin on your finger. Hence, "inaccurate".'

That impressed her and her eyes crinkled at the corners. For Sergeant Windsor, that was almost a belly-laugh.

'Well noticed, sir.'

'Big does not necessarily imply dim, Sergeant.'

She pursed her mouth in an amused way.

'Quite true, sir. Well, goodbye.'

Smart salutes all round, and she was long gone by the time Nick returned.

'That bloody woman! She scares me,' he commented while we walked to his Bentley.

'How was Corporal Jones?'

His good humour returned, briefly.

'Ah, splendid girl!' He made a rueful face. 'Also married. Hubby came home from leave unexpectedly. Exit Nick Munroe stage left. Well, at least I did learn one thing from Proj Broom.'

I waited whilst we drove out of Hathern Wood and back onto the motorway before weakening.

'Alright, you baffoon, what did you learn? Not to mess with married women?'

'No!' and he grinned evilly. 'How not to leave incriminating traces behind. Hubby still none the wiser.'

Like I said, thinks with his gonads.