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Sergeant Martin Jones was not a happy bunny, six hours earlier he had received the advance notice of deployment to Kosovo. Since then he had been either travelling from home, or on the phone trying to get sense out of anyone who could give him some real updates on the situation. Add to that the fact that more than half of the men and women under his command seemed to be either on holiday or not answering the phone made his task more and more unenviable as the day wore on. There was only one fact staring him in the face, the shit had most definatly hit the fan, and guess whose turn it was to clean it up. He took a hestitant gulp of the rapidly cooling coffee in his stained mug, and wished he hadn�t bothered - deciding to leave the rest he replaced it amongst the miriad of coffee ring stains on his desk. There was a respectful knock at the door, it opened and Gary�s face appeared round the edge.
�Come in mate � , he gestured towards a chair. �Take the crap off there and sit down, it�s the last chance you�ll get for a while !�
�Oh I don�t know , if its anything like the exercise�s we�ll be sitting around for months.� Gary laughed ,half to himself. �Do you think the boss�ll get here without a map ?� It was a fact that every troop commander had managed to lose their way on more than one occasion, a fact that had been blown out of proportion whenever the opportunity arose.
Martin sighed, �That�s the least of my worries right now, look at these faxes !� He pushed a ream of curled up fax paper across the desk. �Half a dozen signals and those are just the unrestricted ones,� he snorted, pursing his lips so his thick mustache brushed his nose. �The answer machine was full of messages from the local newsroom, as if I are�nt busy enough !�
Gary stood, pushing the chair backwards with his legs. �I�d better crack on and sort my wagon out ,I guess,� he sensed his boss wasn�t coping too well. �I�ll be down the garages when you need me.� Picking up the garage keys from the key press, Gary made his way from the office pulling the door closed behind him. Right now the last thing he needed was a ballistic SNCO at thirty thousand feet and climbing, and if that happened the best place to be would be out of the way.
The Terratorial Army centre was and still is an imposing pre war building standing on a plot of land about half a mile square. It was easy to miss, standing back from the road behind heavy security gates and brick walls, next door to the co-op and funeral directors. No one could have missed it today however, the local press and television station were having a field day and anyone trying to gain entry to the centre had to rely on an attendant policeman to clear the way. Not that many people had made an appearance yet, just the few dribs and drabs who had caught the post before setting off to work, mostly guys who lived around the town centre. Those who had arrived made their way through the melee and in the centre itself, under the fake marble portico and through the heavily varnished double doors with the polished brass slam plates. Once inside it was like stepping back in time, to a period in the mid fiftys, a long corridor with adjoining doors, occasional tables and pigeon holes for mail lined the walls. Add to that the tired tone green paint and the high ceilings and you could have been on National Service in any camp in the British Isles, for some reason Norwich had always escaped the modernisation program of clearing the old away and replacing with the new. Some were thankful for that.

Gary enjoyed the comfort and offers of stability that the old buildings presented, he had never been too excited by modern architecture, preferring the solidity of the heavy woodern doors compared to the compressed card ones that seemed to go up in new houses. His footsteps echoed down behind him as he made his way to garages, passing the drill hall and technical workshop. Swinging the bunches of keys in his hand he made his way out of the fire escape and between the two long wheel base landrovers parked there, continuing right in front of the shuttered triffid garage. Pushing the key into the lock of the access door he gave it a turn, before pausing.
�You�ve waited years for this,� he said to himself. �Didn�t ever think it would happen again after the last scrap, but here we are!� Pausing he glanced around, too be sure no one was watching him talk to himself.
�Fighting for another country we�ve never been too.�
Pushing open the now unlocked door he made his way inside, light filtered through the skylight to the floor below, picking out motes of dust which caught the draught as if gliding on forgotten thermals. The whole space of the garage was taken up by the four triffids parked in there, imposing monsters of trucks carrying the radio shack on its flat bed. Unlike the tardis of Dr Who fame the triffid was actually smaller on the inside than it looked, an operator of less than average height would still have to stoop to carry out any kind of work. But the operators loved it, and so did the people who relied on the communcations it provided on the battlefield, new equipments could come and go but it was always the triffids that delivered.
Gary released the chain that locked the shutters and pressed the button marked �up�. The gap between the floor and the shutter increased to the accompaniant of the roller banging against its mechanism. Opening the garage doors was a neccesity for two reasons, one was that it let more light in. The other was that Gary needed to pull his wagon out if he wanted to get in the back.
The garage had�nt been designed for four vehicles when it had been built so long ago, and the only way all the trucks fitted was if they were parked end to end. Army drivers are taught always to carry out what is known as a �First works� on any vehicle if they are the first to drive it that day. Today was going to be no exception decided Gary, no way was he going to be sat in a layby waiting for the LAD to turn up and take the mick. The Bedford 4 tonner or GS truck had been in service for decades and needed keeping an eye on, they had been for the most part replaced by DAF�s in the late �80�s but some still existed, hanging on to the bitter end. Carefully each system was inspected by Gary, engine oil, coolant in the expansion tank, water in the windscreen wash . Ducking down he checked that there was�nt too much oil in the drip tray and finally he climbed up into the cab to test the lights.
The lights worked, they generally did, he turned the isolator on below the drivers seat and turned the ignition on. The silence of the garage was broken by the roar of the engine, clouds of fumes spewed from the exhaust filling the building with lethel carbon monoxide. In the cab Gary sat patiently waiting for the high pitched buzz of the brakes low air pressure warning to go off, looking around he took in the contents of the cab - mars bar wrappers stuffed down the back of the passenger seat, an old yellowing daily paper from the last exersise and the musty smell of a forgotton service station sausage roll. Making a mental note to find a dustpan Gary noticed the alarm had ceased its noise and engaged the gears, releasing the handbrake and easing his way into the daylight.