by Stuart Slade
Field Exploration Camp, Penguin River, South Georgia
For a brief moment, Georgina Harcourt thought that the island itself was wailing in protest at having to wake up. The glow from the sun was just lighting the horizon. The disk itself wasn’t even visible yet but already the light was enough to bring the first signs of life to the island. Or, more significantly, the harbor across the bay. “Can you see anything Tiny?”
Her whisper was almost drowned out by the cacophonous noise of the penguins down nearer the sea. Marine “Tiny” Stroud caught the whisper though and nodded his head. “Down there, on the airstrip. The Argies are warming their Puma up. It looks like they’re going to be moving some troops with it.” His voice was frustrated. This was the bad time for an observation post; too much light for using night vision equipment but not enough to make visual observation effective.
“You think they plan to come up here?” Georgina didn’t like that idea at all.
“To early to tell but we’d better let Dusty know.” He started to shuffle back and then froze. Two brilliant white streaks, tinged orange-yellow with the light from the rising sun flashed quickly across the sky, so fast that he never got a chance to remark upon them. A split second later they impacted on the ground near the radar station, masking its position with rolling red-laced black clouds. It seemed as if the explosions remained silent for an eternity. The ground shook first, then the shattering crack of the missile impacts rang off the rocks. Beneath the observers, the penguins went into a flat panic, waddling round in almost comical desperation. In their eyes, the situation was anything but comical. First some of the number had started mysteriously disappearing. Now there was this terrible new event for them to worry about. The entire flock went into collective hysterics.
“Tiny, what was that?”
“Anti-radar missiles at a guess. I think the radar station must have spotted them and turned off just in time. That means the Andrew has arrived, or its aircraft have at any rate. Look out!” Two more missiles tore across the sky and crashed into the rocks. They missed by more than the first pair. “The pilots are firing them to make sure that radar stays off. Georgy, get back to the hut fast and tell everybody to get down. If the Andrew has gone Septic, this place is going to get a nuke tossed at it within seconds.”
Stroud looked again at the radar station again. It had survived the four missiles that had arrived so far. The next pair were even further off target. He guessed that wouldn’t matter though. The purpose of the missiles was just to keep the radars turned off so they couldn’t give the base any specific warning of what was coming. Of course, the missiles themselves told the Argies something was on the way. As long as the radars remained down, they didn’t know what. Or from where. Stroud found himself admiring the warship crews down there though. It had been less than twenty seconds since the first pair of missiles had exploded and already their ships were blasting the alert on their sirens. The sound carried clearly across the water in the still air of dawn.
So did something else; the scream of jet engines pushed to their maximum and beyond. Stroud saw four shapes skimming only a few feet above the sea; the shock-wave of their passing threw a huge rooster tail high into the sky behind them. The jets lifted slightly, then howled directly over the radar station. The explosions that followed in their wake dwarfed those of the missiles. The radar set and the prefabricated buildings around it vanished in the mass of bomb blasts and secondary explosions. Stroud tried to count them but couldn’t. He had to give up at twenty. Too many, too fast, too big. One thing he was sure of. The radar station was history.
The four Buccaneers turned away. They’d managed to get in and out clean; a perfect air defense suppression mission. Stroud felt something beside him and glanced quickly sideways. Sergeant Miller had just appeared. “What’s going on, Tiny?”
“I could be wrong, Sarge, but I think the Navy is here.”
Blackburn Buccaneer S4H XT-279, Approaching Grytviken, South Georgia.
XT-279 shuddered from the thumps caused by fast, low-altitude flight and shook from Spey engines that were being pushed well beyond the manufacturer’s warning notices. This was it, this was the real thing. Lieutenant-Commander Ernest Mullback couldn’t help feeling the sheer exhilaration of the flight. It had been carefully planned. The twelve Buccaneers had come in from exactly due west, using the 1,200 foot mountains behind Godthul Anchorage as a screen. It had made for a round-about flight, but the sheer element of surprise had been worth it. Three formations of four aircraft had crested the ridge, clearing it by barely a hundred feet, leaving them only seven miles from their targets. The rippling salvoes of anti-radar missiles had silenced the enemy radar as effectively as direct hits would have done. Then the four Buccaneers plastered the site with retarded bombs. It vanished in a hail of primary and secondary explosions that spoke of a job well done.
Mullback knew he was just 45 seconds out from his target. He could see the ships ahead of him in the gloomy light of the dawn nautical twilight, their positions ingrained in his mind. The three ships formed a equilateral triangle. Its point was the transport in the middle of the bay closest to him; the destroyer and frigate at the dockside forming the baseline. He was very consciously, very deliberately slowing his breathing down to a steady, regular rhythm, as his the bomb bay door rotated opened. He watched the green lines on the head-up display already edging in towards his target’s hull. Now was the time for patience. The years of practice paid off as the Highball installation spun its two bombs up to speed.
The movements needed were very precise; very delicate ones that shifted the big destroyer to the center of the display panel. As soon as the green lines touched the bow and stern of the Argie warship Mullback thumbed the release. Beneath his aircraft, the two spherical Highballs dropped clear, skipping in the long flat arc that ended with another impact and another skip that took them closer still to their prey.
To some extent, now that they were on their way, Mullback had lost interest in them. They were launched. They would either hit or miss and nothing he could do would change that. He was much more concerned about the black blots of smoke that had started to erupt around him just before XT-279 streaked over the destroyer. He felt the thuds as something, presumably fragments from the 47mm shells, struck his aircraft. Whatever they were, they’d done nothing serious. The Buccaneer slashed over Grytviken, then soared skywards as he pulled the stick back. Shoulder-fired missiles were only effective up to around 8,000 feet and he needed to get out of that range bracket as fast as possible.
“Look at that, Jerry! Have you ever seen anything like it?” In the back seat, Alex Peters had lost control of his voice, letting it rise into an astonished squeak.
Mullback glanced over his shoulder. The two Highballs he had dropped had full charges, of course. That gave them each more than twice the explosive power of a World War Two torpedo. Both had exploded between the keel of the destroyer and the seabed no more than ten feet underneath it. As a result, the explosive force of the Highballs had been directed straight up. The disintegrating destroyer was perched on top of two seething balls of water. For a brief second, Mullback actually saw the seabed underneath the ship where the water had been blown clear. Then, the wrecked destroyer crashed back down into the rocks and the water towers collapsed on to her, burying her from sight in a mass of white foam.
The freighter anchored in the middle of the bay was the last to be hit. Mullback saw two great white circles of white foam surrounding her as the Highballs exploded underneath her. She was in deeper water so the effects weren’t immediately so spectacular as those that had blown the destroyer literally out of the water. The circles of water boiled up, joining to form a white figure-of-eight in the black sea of the bay. The center of the freighter was lifted with them. Her back snapped as her bow and stern sagged downwards. Then, suddenly, the lifted center was sucked viciously downwards as the underwater bubbles formed by the explosions collapsed. For a moment, the stricken ship was poised, h
er bow and stern pointing upwards. Then, the collapse of the gas bubbles under her keel formed a great water jet that tore upwards through her hull. Mullback saw her bridge and superstructure ripped away from the hull and tossed into the air. Then, the sight was gone as his Buccaneer skimmed over King Edward Point and headed back out to sea.
Mullback felt drained as he reached for the transmit button on his mask. “Highball, highball, highball. Say again. Highball, highball, highball.”
Field Exploration Camp, Penguin River, South Georgia
“You’re right, Tiny; the Navy has arrived.” Miller shifted slightly to get a better view as four more Buccaneers made their attack runs. Three miles away, the missile battery they’d reported two days earlier vanished under a hail of bombs. “Well, if the Argies don’t realize we’re up here and tipped the Andrew off now, they never will.”
“Might not matter Sarge.” Stroud pointed at the pyre of black smoke rising from the helicopter pad south of Grytviken. In the distance, two Mirage F2s were climbing away. One trailed a thin stream of black and white smoke as it did so. “I think one of the Argies got him with a spiral. Hope he makes it back.”
“Yeah. Hell’s teeth, the Bananas made a mess down there. Didn’t just hit the three ships, they blew them to hell and back. They’re gone.”
He took another look at the harbor. The freighter had already sunk; just the twisted wreckage of her capsized bows pointing upwards. The dockside was chaos. The blast from the exploding Highballs had done far more damage that just wrecking the two warships. The wash from the explosions had swept ashore and destroyed the clusters of derelict huts that had made up most of the harbor installation. The water was still surging backwards and forwards, eddying round the wrecked hulks that littered the Grytviken waterfront. Now there were two more. It was as certain as anything could be that the destroyer and the frigate would never leave the quayside again. As Miller had so grimly said, they were blown to hell.
“That clears us anyway. Without their helicopter, it’ll take more than a day for the Argies to send troops around here. By then, the navy will be here and it’ll all be over.”
“You really think so, Sarge?” Take a look over there.” Stroud pointed over at a rockpile inland. There were a dozen or so figures clustered around it, watching the aftermath of the sudden strike that had devastated the naval force in Grytviken.
Miller swept his binoculars around and looked at the men. There was enough light now to make them out clearly. They were Argentine swimmer-commandos. He watched them for a few seconds as they took in the scene down in the harbor, then they started to clamber through the field of ice-covered rocks on the way to the promontory that housed the Field Exploration Camp. About eight hundred yards away, he thought. At least two hours, maybe three. He slid out of his position and led the way back to the concealed hut. Once inside, he looked around at the team gathered there.
“We got company coming. At least a dozen swimmer-commandos. Georgie, Cynthia, you two head up into the rocks behind this place. You’re the last line of defense here.”
“We want to stay with you.”
“Don’t recommend that. It’s five of us against twelve of them. We need to know you two are here guarding our backs. We’ll give you a grenade each. It’s up to you how you use them if you have to, but those swimmer-commando characters are not nice people. If you can bug out, do. Look, as far as we know, we’re the only Brits left on South Georgia. As long as you two are outside, this place is still British. Above all of that, I wasn’t joking when I said you’d be guarding our backs. As long as they’re in front of us, we can pin them down for hours. If they get behind us, it’s all over.”
“All right.” The two women had accepted the inevitable, just barely.
“They must have been moving up during the night. So, we’ll have to make sure they regret that, won’t we?”
Blackburn Buccaneer S4H XT-279, Approaching HMS Furious, Off South Georgia
Two Buccaneers and a Mirage F2 were circling the carrier, waiting for the rest of the aircraft to land. Mullback’s Buccaneer had damage to its flaps and would be coming in faster than normal. XT-287 still had its two Highballs on board and would also be coming in fast. One of the Mirage F2 escorts had taken a spiral hit in one engine and was coming in on the other. She would be landing last. It was a cruel decision, but a logical one. The aircraft were being landed so that the intact aircraft were safe. That way, of one of the damaged birds cracked up and blocked the deck, no serviceable aircraft would be lost.
“XT-287, make your landing approach now.” The carrier-controlled approach message came over the earphones. Loaded landings weren’t pleasant, but they weren’t that difficult either and the Buccaneers were low on fuel. Mullback watched while Canfield dropped into the “groove,” the mythical path through the air that would lead his Buccaneer safely back to the carrier deck. The gray-painted Buccaneer seemed to be heading in very fast. When it hit the deck, Mullback could swear he saw puffs of smoke from the tires. Then, the aircraft caught a wire and swung to a halt. Much further forward than usual, but a safe halt none the less.
“XT-279, make your approach now.”
“Roger Control. XT-287 make it?”
“Blew her nosewheel tires, but otherwise Canfield’s fine. Out.”
So he had seen puffs of black smoke from the tires. Mullback swung XT-279 around and started his approach run. He could see the angled deck stretching before him, the carrier island off to his right, the brilliant lights of the mirror landing sight lined up properly. Not quite properly though, the bars showed he was a little too high. He dropped slightly, bringing the bars into alignment, but the reduction in speed caused his Buccaneer to start shaking. He reached down to give increased flaps. The cure was worse than the disease. What had been shaking turned into a serious flutter problem. He hastily pulled the flaps up again.
“Control. Hot landing, no flaps.”
“Understood XT-279.” The voice was unemotional.
Ahead of him the flight deck grew terrifyingly fast. Mullback was aware that he was sweating with sheer stress as he concentrated on the sweet spot between the stern round-down and the first wire of the arrester array. At the last second, he realized he was slightly too high and too fast but it was too late to abort and go around. He cut power and felt his Banana drop onto the flight deck, throwing him against his straps. For all the unconventionality of the landing, the sturdy Blackburn structure took the impact although the bounce caused him to miss the first wire. He hooked the second and that brought him to a halt, a few feet from the end of the angled deck. Behind him, he heard the squee noise as the wire was pulled back to its proper position.
The tractor was already hooking up and Mullback felt his aircraft being towed clear of the deck. “XT-279, confirm you have fragment damage to your flaps. Good landing, all things considered.”
CCA shut off and Mullback knew he had been forgotten. They were concentrating on the damaged Mirage. It was crabbing badly, the black smoke from its wrecked engine increasing in volume as the pilot neared safely. Mullback watched the wing on that side of the aircraft start to drop. The pilot didn’t seem to catch it but a few feet from the fantail, he surged power on his remaining good engine. The added speed straightened the damaged aircraft up and lifted the drooping wing. The speed bled away again almost instantly but by then the Sea Mirage was on the deck and catching the first wire. Incredibly, it had been a near-perfect landing.
Once towed off the angled deck, the cockpit on the Sea Mirage opened up and Mullback saw the pilot, Lieutenant Adams start to climb out. As he did, a burst of applause rang out from the Goofers Gallery. That caused him to stop and he made a theatrical bow from the steps to his cockpit.
The deck crews were already at work, striking the damaged aircraft down to the hangar for repair while undamaged birds were kept on deck. The maintenance crew would be working hard to repair the three aircraft that had serious damage to them.
Something caugh
t Mullback’s eye. Over to his left he could see a signal lamp flickering from HMS Griffin. Instinctively, he read the message. “… . core? Query are all safe.”
The bridge replied quickly. “Clean Sweep. All aircraft safe. We counted them all out, and we counted them all back.”
Casa Rosada Presidential Palace, Buenos Aires, Argentina
“Are you completely incompetent or simply in league with the British?” President Leopoldo Galtieri read the report in from South Georgia with near-disbelief. Two warships and a civilian auxiliary sunk by British air attack and the defensive positions on the Island bombed. To make it worse, there were still British troops loose on South Georgia. That threw the whole plan off-balance.
“We needed those ships to support the next phase of the operation, extending our grip southwards into the South Sandwich Islands.” Admiral Jorge Anaya wattled furiously at Galtieri’s gibes. “Need I remind you that we were to leave a garrison in place on South Georgia and establish another on Thule Island?”
“I know that. Do you think I forget details of these plans?”
“Then you must also understand that our troops cannot walk on water. They needed ships to take them south. Warships might be able to carry the men, but equipment to set up a permanent base needed a freighter. We were told there were a handful of civilians on South Georgia. Unarmed civilians we could round up and dispose of. Instead there were dozens of heavily-armed troops in the town. Their presence has meant that our troops have been hard-put to secure Grytviken and Leith Harbor. Only in the last few days have they started to get on top of the problems the British troops there are causing. So the ships were stuck in harbor waiting. It didn’t matter, so we thought. After all, you were the one who was so sure the British could do nothing while the Americans would do nothing. No resistance, you told us. We could execute the plans at our leisure.”