Dragon Fire (The Battle for the Falklands Book 2)

by Bleichert, Peter von

  “Capitán Matias,” Ledesma stuttered, “¿Estás bien?”—‘Are you okay?’—Ledesma asked, his voice betraying the deep concern of a man who held his duty to be protective, respectful, and responsible. Against the lean of the deck plates, Ledesma scampered to the captain. Despite a jarring roll from the submarine, he stayed low and made it to Captain Matias. He supported his superior’s slumped weight and cradled his bowed head.

  “Señor…”

  “Santiago…” Captain Matias coughed, hocking bloody sputum. “My son…he calls to me. He wants me to come home.”

  “Capitán...”

  “Lo siento mucho.”—‘I am sorry’—Captain Matias forced from his clogged windpipe.

  “Sir… You fought well. You have honored us all. You have honored our boat, our crewmates, all of us. I am proud to serve with you, to have served under you. You are my captain…always,” Ledesma ranted, on the verge of tears.

  “The British…” Matias forced. “These Englishmen…”

  “¿Si, señor?”

  “Do not--”

  Captain Matias succumbed to his head wound, and died in the arms of his comrade.

  Santiago Ledesma was certain that his captain had tried to say: ‘Do not hate them. Instead, respect them. For they are just like you: Of Country, of honor, and, of Determination.’ Ledesma then remembered a quote from Jorge Luis Borges.

  The Argentinian Poet and Essayist had chimed in regarding the first conflict between Argentina and the United Kingdom—two great, proud nations—over barren rocks. Borges had written: “The Falklands thing was a fight between two bald men over a comb.”

  With the blood-covered body of his dead captain nestled in his arms, Ledesma laughed like a man under stress, a man who questioned his grasp on the world, and who wondered about the bounds of his reality.

  “Eighty meters. Keel: 30 degrees off level. Stern down 22 degrees,” someone shouted from the darkness.

  “Main tanks have blown.” And then, “Machine room reports heavy flooding. Damage control team is in place.”

  Red emergency lights came on just as the growler rang. The electrician’s mate stood before Ledesma, looked to his dead captain, and reported: “Sir, emergency lighting activated.” The growler called for attention again. Ledesma gestured, the electrician’s mate answered it, and listened intently. His face fell, an expression of desperation replaced by one of hopelessness. He dropped the growler, which bounced up and down on its coiled lead. “Forward compartment reports,” he stuttered, “the torpedo in tube 5…its motor has started.”

  Ledesma bowed his head and closed his eyes, for he knew the inevitable. Less than two minutes later, the jammed torpedo’s HTP motor, with its propeller over-speeding, and unable to vent the high-pressure oxygen generated by its chemical reaction, exploded. This triggered the weapon’s high-explosive warhead, fatally bursting San Luis II’s pressure hull.

  ◊◊◊◊

  Dragon slowed and stopped. She went low at the bow, dipping her head beneath the oncoming waves. The sonar dome and a portion of the stem had been ripped away, and the ship’s forward compartments now lay open to the sea and were flooding fast. On the bridge, both Captain Fryatt and his navigator had gone unconscious.

  Fryatt had been thrown into a panel and a gash lay torn across his forehead. Angus had slammed into the wheel, fracturing his rib cage and folding him over until his temple impacted a monitor. He was thrown to the floor as Dragon yawed hard at the impact. He lay where he landed. One of the snapped ribs stabbed into his left lung, digging deeper with each shallow breath. As life slipped from the navigator, a smashed circuit box sparked and sizzled, kindling a fire.

  ◊◊◊◊

  The Merlin swept in when the bright red of a personal floatation device was spotted cresting a wave. Flying the Merlin into the wind, Seamus approached and slowed the aircraft to a hover.

  “Man floating in the water,” Rodi announced, judging him to be unconscious or dead. The Merlin’s rotor thrust air down in a 70-knot blast that formed a circle of sea foam. Soon the floating shape floated at the center of this circle. “Good position,” Rodi confirmed, and slid the helicopter’s cargo door open.

  John was shoved by salty wind, and the roar of the Merlin’s three turbines flooded the rear cabin. In his search-and-rescue capacity, John sent power to the cargo door-mounted rescue hoist just as Seamus activated the Merlin’s hover trim controller. He gave thumbs up to Rodi.

  Rodi nodded and clipped his safety harness and halyard onto a cabin floor eyelet and then leaned out to grab the hoist arm, slewing it out into a locked position. When it was deployed, the winch paid out several yards of slack cable. Rodi clipped a lift harness to the swivel hook, and then peeked out and down. He saw the man in the water.

  ◊◊◊◊

  Raton came to and looked up at the hovering helicopter. His face was blasted by wind-whipped sea spray that stung his flesh, keeping him conscious.

  I am at the surface, Raton thought. He tried to yell out, but his mouth filled with cold salt water that choked him and made him cough and spasm. He recovered a breath and spat the liquid out as the rotor-generated wind continued to smack him in the face. Raton again tumbled under, took in a mouthful of Atlantic Ocean and re-surfaced. He waved his hands and, despite his burning throat, screamed: “¡Ayuda!” Most of the cry became an indiscernible gurgle, not that those in the hovering Merlin could have heard Raton anyhow.

  ◊◊◊◊

  “Survivor in distress,” Rodi said when he saw the irregular motion of Raton’s waving arms within the surging rhythm of dark blue waves and whitecaps. Rodi shouted the announcement to John who in turn used his headset microphone to transmit the information to the helicopter’s cockpit. Seamus looked again to the sea’s surface, locked his eyes on the bright red personal floatation device that now stood out from the darker background, and dropped his hover another several meters while adjusting it to bring the relative position of the cabin hoist directly above the survivor. Rodi turned to John and gave a thumb’s up.

  “Good hover,” John conveyed to the cockpit.

  “Roger,” Seamus acknowledged, and then told John: “We’re at bingo fuel, so make it fast.”

  “Understood,” John responded. The Merlin again slid in over the sailor’s position.

  Rodi used a hand signal and John threw a switch on a panel. The hoist cable began to pay out from the winch. Rodi guided the cable down through a cylinder he formed with his gloved hand. Dangling beneath the hovering Merlin, the harness and the cable’s weighted end swung in a pendulum effect, lowering steadily toward Raton.

  A few seconds after Rodi had signaled to stop the winch, and steadied the cable, he spun his hand in the air. John reversed the winch, hauling in the cable. A moment later, Rodi signaled that the survivor was clear of the water.

  “Clear to be banking left,” John told the cockpit. Rodi slowly spun one hand in the air as he guided the cable with the other. “Uploading to aircraft at this time.” Wide-eyed, soaked and hanging by the harness, Raton appeared in the Merlin’s cabin door. “Survivor outside cabin door at this time.” Rodi pumped a fist. John stopped the winch and locked it. “Survivor coming into cabin at this time.” Rodi hauled Raton inboard and, when he was firmly on the cabin floor, unhooked the lift cable from his harness.

  “Gracias,” Raton sputtered and nodded to both his rescuers. Rodi helped Raton into a fold-down jump seat, secured the safety belt about his waist, and then wrapped him in a blanket, being careful to not further damage his swollen and obviously broken hand.

  “Survivor aboard,” John told the cockpit. As Rodi stowed the lift equipment and slid the cabin door shut, John unhooked his belt, got up from his seat, and went to the man. Raton coughed up water and John thumped his back.

  “Gracias,” Raton repeated to John and the man in the helicopter’s door who did his best to balance against the wind and stow the winch. John spotted the flag on the man’s shoulders.

  “Argent
ine? You’re Argentine?”

  “Sí, soy argentino; un submarino argentino. Mi nombre es Raton,” Raton explained he was in fact Argentine; an Argentine submariner.

  “Raton?” John asked with a puzzled look on his face, for he recognized the Spanish word for rat. Raton thought for a moment and then offered his real name; the name his mother had given him, not the nickname he had been given aboard San Luis II.

  “No, no, yo soy Gaston… Cabo Segundo Gaston Bersa.”

  “Hello, Gaston, I am Juan,” John shoved his hand out. “Leading Seaman John Mcelaney, Royal Navy.” Raton took the offered hand with his unbroken hand and weakly shook it.

  Gaston coughed one more time, expelling the last of the salt water in his lungs, and spat into a small puddle on the Merlin’s cabin floor. Rodi, done stowing the rescue winch, knelt down and patted Gaston on the back.

  “Gracias… Thank you,” Gaston offered. Rodi smiled, his mouth a wide arc beneath the helmet’s shade. Gaston collapsed against his seatbelt as the helicopter—flying on mere vapors from its tanks—banked hard and raced back to Dragon.

  ◊◊◊◊

  Black smoke billowed from vents and openings on Dragon’s superstructure as the stopped destroyer corkscrewed in the chop. She was low in the water, especially at the bow, and leaned heavily to starboard. As Seamus began his final approach, he noticed that one of Dragon’s transom closures was ajar, venting a plume of thick grey smoke.

  “Draig, Kingfisher 21, requesting clearance to land,” Seamus transmitted and waited for a response.

  With only static on Dragon’s air traffic control channel, Seamus repeated his call. He looked to his fuel and confirmed that both tank indicators had bottomed in the red.

  “Sod it,” he said, and then changed channels, stating: “Draig, Kingfisher 21, we are landing. FDO, prepare flight deck for landing.” Dragon’s flight deck officer did not answer, either. Seamus looked to the ship’s helicopter visual approach system. Its signal lights were dark. The advanced stabilized glide slope indicator was also off. However, the deck’s line-up lights were still illuminated, which meant the seemingly wrecked destroyer had some power available. Seamus used the lights to guide his machine over Dragon’s stern. Though he had done this hundreds of times before, Seamus suddenly realized that to land a moving thing on another moving thing was wholeheartedly unnatural. Despite such qualms, he skillfully manipulated the pedals and sticks and began his descent.

  Caught by a big wave that travelled down her stricken length, Dragon kicked her stern into the air. Seamus got spooked. He increased collective and power, suddenly and fully, causing the aircraft to rise quickly, wobbling. He fought the controls, struggling to come level again. Dragon’s stern slammed back down in a whoosh of white foam and spray. The Merlin had avoided being swatted from the sky by 8,500 tons of steel.

  BWUP; BWUP, an alarm sounded in the Merlin’s cockpit. It was followed by the computer’s monotone synthetic voice that warned: “Fuel.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know,” he shouted above the thump of the rotors. He manipulated the cyclic between his legs, jockeying the stick left and right and forward and back. His other hand lifted and lowered the collective, while his feet pushed and released pedals that swung the tail left and right. The Merlin drifted over the lines painted on Dragon’s flight deck. When he felt the aircraft was centered, he twisted the throttle on the collective, and feathered the blades. The Merlin dropped and slammed into the deck. Its landing gear absorbed most of the shock, but there was still plenty left for those aboard to feel it in their bones. Once certain his aircraft was safely aboard, Seamus began shut-down procedures. He ordered Rodi to secure the tie-down chains and John to check on the ship’s bridge.

  “Aye sir,” John responded and then ripped off his headset, unbuckled from his seat, and slid the cabin door open. He patted Gaston’s shoulder.

  “Sorry, mate, but we will have to put you somewhere,” he told Gaston, who looked confused until Rodi pointed to his holstered sidearm. Gaston nodded and offered a crooked smile of understanding. John jumped out onto the flight deck. It took a moment to find his sea legs. He braced against the pitch and yaw of the ship and then, looking toward the bow, took several wobbly steps in that direction.

  There was no way to get forward without going inside Dragon’s faceted hull. John opened a gastight/watertight doorway that allowed access to the hangar. He found no personnel there. Moving through another 1-Deck doorway, he entered an air lock that if memory served, after two ladders and hatchways, would allow him access to the ship’s main passageway, known informally as the ‘Main Drag.’ Just as John felt confident he was making progress, he opened a 2-Deck hatchway and a blast of heat and smoke smacked him in the face. Adding to his despair, he saw a dead sailor on the opposite side.

  The man had apparently tried to open the door and had run out of air and possibly the will to live. He had slid down the cold, hard steel and formed a lump that seemed to warn: ‘Go No Farther.’ John gently closed the man’s eyes and continued on.

  The passageway, smaller than the Main Drag, was dark and smoke-filled. In places, ventilation ducts and water pipes had cracked and fallen when the hull had flexed beyond their limits. John shimmied past them. He felt his way and the heat from the wall. Beyond the steel wall lay the funnel, which meant the space where the engines exhausted was afire or was drawing heat from deeper within the ship.

  Dragon, John thought, my poor, poor old girl. The ship was now listing hard, and feeling he was moving downhill, it was obvious the bow was heavy. He focused. I must find the captain. John persisted toward the bridge.

  He found the bridge wrecked, as was the captain, “Sir,” John shook him gently. The responsive cough was blood-spewing, but it signaled life. “Sir,” he repeated. John cradled his captain and lifted his weight, propping it against the central console. Captain Fryatt groaned and struggled to open an eye. “Easy, now, captain. Easy does it. Do not speak.” John went to the communication panel, donned a headset, and tried to contact every compartment. “Damn.”

  An expended fire extinguisher crashed to the floor from where it had been left on the central console. John watched the cylinder roll forward. He stood and peered through a cracked windscreen and out over the foredeck. It was almost awash. A wave reached up and smashed into the breakwater, dousing the deck gun. He watched white foam cascade off the sides as the bow tried to come back up. It was obvious that the A compartment was flooded, perhaps as high 2-Deck.

  “Damn.”

  In fact, a watertight door separating A and B compartments had been comprised, twisted in its frame, and water was now streaming into the area beneath the missile silos. Despite valiant efforts at both firefighting and damage control by the lads, Dragon was going down. As if to accentuate the direness of the situation, the stressed hull let out a groan.

  “We yield but to Saint George,” Fryatt muttered.

  “Yes, sir. ‘We yield but to Saint George.” John smiled for a moment, then the expression fell into a frown. “I’ll get you help, sir.” John went to the outer hatch, shoved it open, and screamed for assistance. When he re-entered, Fryatt had slumped back to the floor. John gently lifted the captain’s head and felt his jugular. The thump of blood flow was there, though weak. “Damn. Sir? Sir?” Dragon shook, interrupting John’s doubts. Air rushed from outside as it was sucked down the passageway to the source of the explosion. Then, barely a second later, the ship’s interior exhaled through the bridge, and brought its breath of heat and fire and smoke. John was thrown to the floor and Captain Fryatt’s body folded and his head smashed against the cold steel deck. John’s face hurt and he smelled singed hair.

  “Abandon ship, abandon ship,” a far-off voice screamed. John crawled to the captain, reached out to feel his neck again, and then saw the severity of Fryatt’s head wound. He concluded that the strawberry jam upon Fryatt’s cracked head was brain matter. The captain’s glazed open eyes reinforced what John already knew. As i
f to affirm the situation, Dragon lurched hard. Abandon ship…

  John grabbed a floatation device from a locker and made for the exterior hatch. The ship rolled, and John took steps to get outside. He then jumped from the bridge wing into the cold embrace of the sea.

  He surfaced and spat salty, sweet seawater. Dragon was slipping under. The suction tugged at his legs. John swam away, escaping the downward pull. Geysers erupted from hull openings as air was forced from Dragon’s interior. It hissed and howled and rained upon John.

  “My poor girl,” he whispered, when he looked to the Merlin helicopter chained to the flight deck. As much as he loved his ship, to see the Merlin strapped to her sinking decks was even more painful. An aircraft at the bottom of the sea, he contemplated morosely. Just not bloody natural for a sweet bird to become a reef for fish and slimy things. He could not watch. He had to turn away. When he did he saw a flash of orange. A life boat.

  Gaston leaned over the boat’s gunwale, hesitated for a moment when he saw John’s burnt hair, missing eyebrows, and the patch of singed flesh that had sluffed from his forehead, and then grabbed hold of his life vest, using his good hand. Another shivering sailor grabbed hold too, and they hauled John aboard.

  “Thank you. Thank you.”

  “De nada, mi amigo,” Gaston grunted. The effort was nothing for his new friend, for the man that had helped pull him from the cold, slow death threatened by vast open ocean. John flopped onto the lifeboat’s bench. As soon as he was up again in the rocking craft, John turned to view Dragon.

  There was just a triangle of grey metal remaining, and it slipped under quickly. Dragon disappeared fast, and was on her way to the bottom. The proud ship left only a boil of light blue water and bobbing flotsam behind. All the sailors in the life boat were silent. Gaston thought of San Luis II and his crewmates.