The Exit Club: Book 5: Old Comrades

by Shaun Clarke

  The wind continued howling across the deck, bringing with it more snow. The men went below decks again.

  Chapter Six

  The Boat Troop succeeded where the Mountain Troop had failed. To make up for the Fortuna Glacier disaster, the men of the Boat Troop were tasked with establishing a couple of OPs on Leith and Stromness, using Grass Island in the north-west as their LZ and inserting by sea instead of air. Once the OPs had been set up and the surrounding area recced, the full-scale invasion of South Georgia would commence.

  They left at last light from the docking area at the stern of the ship, which had been opened and was already being flooded when the men of the Boat Troop gathered near the launching bay. Kitted out with waterproof clothing and the usual array of weapons, the Boat Troop also carried special survival suits, life jackets and SARBEs (search-and-rescue beacons) to facilitate the pick-ups and, if necessary, aid rescue from the sea.

  The five Geminis, two large and three small, already inflated and roped to the docking bay, were being lifted towards the men on the rising sea as it poured into the open stern to flood the bay area, roaring and spewing spray in every direction. Viewed from that vantage point, the sea appeared to slope up to the distant, stormy horizon, soaring and rolling dramatically in immense, shadowed waves that appeared to be about to swamp the ship, though they actually just made it rise and fall as if made from cork. The sky was just as threatening, hanging low, scarred with black clouds, and the wind that came rushing in to smack the men was icy and vicious.

  Nevertheless, they embarked in the five Geminis, three men to each boat, with Captain John Banville in charge of the lead craft. The two large Geminis were powered by forty-horsepower outboard motors, the three smaller ones by eighteen-horsepower motors. The small boats were roped to the larger ones: two to one and one to the other. When the docking ropes had been untied and the outboard motors turned on, the inflatables cruised out of the docking area to be carried away on the giant swells of the windswept, boiling sea.

  The immense waves picked the boats up, carried them through shrieking wind, above ravines of lightflecked darkness, then swept them back down into roaring, spinning tunnels formed by waves curling practically above them, threatening to swamp them. When the inflatables were low in the water, the waves pounded against them and washed over the men, pummelling them mercilessly and making a dreadful drumming sound against the rubber hulls. When they were raised on high, barrelling along the crest of the waves with the men glancing down what appeared to be dizzying depths of light and darkness, their outboard engines, coming clear of the water, shrieked and shook dementedly.

  Within minutes the Antrim, which had been towering above them like a brightly-lit skyscraper, receded beyond the stormy ocean, blending in with the grey haze where sea and sky merged, until little of it remained within view. Then it disappeared completely, leaving only the sea and sky, while the inflatables, rising and falling, plunging in and out of the water, shrieked and vibrated like wild things that could not be controlled.

  In the smaller inflatables, roped to the large boats, the men on the rudders had to fight to keep close to the one ahead in case the rope snapped. This required great physical strength, since the howling wind and raging, roaring sea between them threatened to tear the rudders out of their hands. Meanwhile, the men seated up front were leaning forward, heads bowed, stretched out over the strapped-down weapons and equipment in the hope of keeping them as dry as possible. In the middle of each small inflatable, the signallers with the waterproof PRC 319 radios were keeping in contact with Captain Banville’s larger Gemini, which, a good distance ahead of them, repeatedly disappeared in immense fountains of spray and then reappeared, often on the crest of giant waves that seemed to float on high, almost touching the black, tumultuous clouds, as if about to take wing.

  In many ways it was a miracle that they made it at all, but long before they reached the island the eighteenhorsepower outboard motor of one of the smaller Geminis cut out and the rope connecting it to the larger Gemini was stretched as taut as it could go. Within minutes, the outboard motor of a second small inflatable cut out as well and then its rudder was smashed loose by the pounding waves and it went out of control, its rope snapping and sending it adrift. Finally, the rope of a third small inflatable actually snapped in two and the craft, set free, its outboard motor not working, went spinning away out of control. It disappeared beyond a series of high waves and did not reappear.

  As the lost craft was swept westward, towards Antarctica, Captain Banville, in the large Gemini, was left with only one dinghy in tow, while the other large Gemini had none. He had just lost two boats and six good men, with little hope of getting them back. Luckily, while the remaining inflatables were still intact, the jagged hills of Grass Island emerged out of the storm. The beach was less than a kilometre away and the boats were heading straight for it.

  The storm abated a little as they headed for the shore, but about four hundred metres out, when the white, frozen hills were visible through the mist, snow started falling upon them to make up for the lessening wind. The men huddled up in their waterproof outfits and prepared for the landing.

  Luckily, the closer they came to shore, the less the wind blew and the more settled the formerly raging sea became. Slowing down their outboard motors, the pilots of the two large Geminis inched carefully into shallow waters, then stopped and anchored, enabling the men to clamber out and wade to the shore, holding their rifles above their heads.

  Leaving his exhausted men on the beach, within sight of the inflatables bobbing in shallow water, Captain Banville held his M16 at the ready and hurried up the snow-covered hill directly ahead. Reaching the summit, he was able to look across the small island to Leith Harbour, only three kilometres away. Blocks of ice were floating in the water, but the storm had abated. Glancing about him, Banville saw nothing but other snow-and-ice-covered hills; no sign of Argentinian troops. Looking out to sea, he could not even see the British fleet; and nor was there any sign of the two missing dinghies – only what now looked like calmer sea under a dark, stormy sky from which snow was falling.

  Satisfied that they would no longer be bothered by the storm, he returned to the men resting on the snowblanketed shore and they took the inflatables out again, first cruising around the small, bleak island, then starting across the three kilometres of ice-filled water, heading straight for South Georgia.

  The sky was low and ominous, but the storm did not return, and the darkness, which had fallen with great speed, offered protection from Argentinian observation posts. Cruising slowly, quietly, between drifting blocks of ice, they managed to reach Stromness Bay without seeing, or even hearing, Argentinian patrol boats. However, just as Banville was beginning to feel more confident, assuming his troubles were behind him, the blocks of ice gave way to drifting packs of gleaming, sharp ice splinters that punctured the inflatables, one after the other in rapid succession, letting the air hiss out and forcing them to abandon the boats.

  They were only about thirty metres from shore, in ice-filled, shallow water, which allowed them to clamber out of the hissing, sinking inflatables, form a chain from the inflatables to the shore, and pass the equipment along the chain before the inflatables crumpled completely and sank for good.

  Now, no matter what happened, they had no means of returning to the fleet hidden beyond the horizon.

  Encircled by mountains that hid them from the Argentinians in Grytviken, they rested under an outcropping of rocks until they had dried all their equipment, shucked off their life belts, and were ready to march on in pursuit of locations suitable for observation posts.

  After checking his map for two areas of high ground overlooking Leith Harbour and Stromness Bay, Captain Banville broke his remaining group into two separate units, one to establish an OP in the hills above Leith, the other, his own, to establish the same above Stromness. He then marched his own team up to his selected vantage point overlooking both areas, where they settled down
to building an OP. Because he had no idea when the assault from the fleet would take place, he anticipated a long stay here and therefore had the men dig a rectangular OP layout, rather than the shortterm star shape.

  The spoil, or soil, from the digging was removed in Bergens and sprinkled unobtrusively over the ground a good distance away. Once this had been done, the scrape was lined with plastic sheets and the men put up a hessian screen, with a poncho and overhead camouflage net, supported by wooden stakes, iron pickets and chicken wire, and including a camouflaged entry/exit hole.

  When this business was completed, the troopers, wearing face veils and thick leather gloves, settled down in the OP, taking turns as telescope observer and sentry, as well as alternating in the rest bays, with their kit, including the weapons, piled up in the middle.

  From the completed OP the group signaller was able to establish communications with Antrim, letting Captain Banville inform the CO of what had happened to him and the others, including those lost at sea and still missing. In return, he was informed that one of the missing boats had been found by helicopter and the crew brought back safely to the fleet. The other boat was still missing and its occupants presumed drowned.

  Though disturbed by this news, Banville tried not to show it and instead encouraged his men to settle down to the task of observing Argentinian movements from their OP.

  Thirty years earlier both areas had been whaling stations, boasting hundreds of workers, but now they were virtually deserted and, as viewed from the windwhipped, moaning hills, they revealed themselves only as a few scattered lights in the night’s chilling, occasionally moonlit, darkness.

  The wind howled eerily all night long. The snow covered them like a blanket. Before very long, they were cramped, cold and uncomfortable, boots wet, limbs numbed by constricted blood.

  For many it would have been a night in hell, but Banville and his men had been trained for this and stoically endured.

  In their private cabin aboard the Antrim, now anchored with the other ships far north of South Georgia, Marty and the other members of the joint Royal Marine-SAS planning team were informed by Lieutenant-Colonel Osborne that an Argentinian submarine had been observed reconnoitring the coastline of the island, almost certainly looking for signs of British landings. It was not believed that they had witnessed the insertion of Captain Banville’s Boat Troop, which had since been in radio contact to confirm that the two OPs had been set up overlooking Leith and Stromness.

  In the event, Lieutenant-Commander Randolph Paterson was out searching for the Argentinian submarine when he spotted one of the two missing SBS inflatables and lifted its three men to safety. The crew of that inflatable had the foresight to sink it before letting themselves be lifted up. Lieutenant-Commander Paterson had confirmed in his report that the inflatable sank before he left the area. To date, there had been no sign of the second missing inflatable and it was believed to have either sunk or been blown clear of the island, into the southern ocean.

  According to Argentinian radio signals monitored by Endurance while she was anchored in Hound Bay, the enemy submarine had recently landed reinforcements on the island, bringing the Argentinian garrison strength up to about 140 men. However, just before first light, Lieutenant-Commander Paterson, busy as always in his helicopter, had spotted the submarine on the surface as she sailed over the shallows of Cumberland Bay, heading out to look for the British fleet. After reporting her location to the fleet, Paterson straddled her with two depth-charges. Soon afterwards, she was attacked byEndurance’s Wasp and the Lynx from the destroyer, HMS Brisant. Those helicopters forced the submarine to run for King Edward Point, her conning tower damaged and listing after being hit by A2-12 missiles. It was assumed, and hoped, that it would either sink before reaching its base at King Edward Point or at least be incapacitated when it reached there.

  Finally, with the enemy submarine out of action and the two SAS OPs sending back invaluable intelligence about Leith Harbour and Stromness Bay, Major Sheridan had given clearance for an immediate landing to seize the two areas. This would be accomplished by a quick-reaction force of the three composite troops aboard the Antrim.

  The first QRF would be composed of the Mountain Troop and remaining Boat Troops of the SAS, the second would include 2 SBS and the commando recce sections of ‘42’, and the third would be made up from commando mortarteams and the ship’s marines. Though that added up to a total of only seventy-five men, scarcely more than half the strength of the Argentinian garrison, it was believed that the superior quality of the British troops would help win the day.

  ‘Who dares wins,’ Marty said. After three days in his OP overlooking Stromness, Captain Banville was virtually buried in snow, feeling as miserable as his SAS troop looked, but resolutely sending back to the fleet every scrap of information he had picked up on the movements of the Argentinians, both on land and out at sea, including the frequent submarine patrols out of Leith Harbour. This information had come from a combination of radio interception and visual observation, the latter either from foot patrols that went dangerously close to the Argentinian bases, to spy on them at close quarters, or by using binoculars to scan the sea from the hills. Either way, the information was meticulously recorded and radioed back to the British fleet under the most uncomfortable, risky circumstances.

  The SAS troopers, though now buried in snow, smelling their own shit and piss, increasingly frozen and exhausted, would hold out to the bitter end.

  Like his men, Banville was able and willing to hold out as long as necessary, but during that early afternoon of the third hellish day, with the snow still falling upon the OP, he was finding it difficult because of his concern for the three men still missing in the lost inflatable, almost certainly drowned at sea because of the weather. Nevertheless, determined not to give in to morbid thoughts and to uphold the precepts of the SAS by sticking here as long as humanly possible, Banville gazed over the piled-up snow of his OP to observe Grass Island and, beyond it, the vast, grey, empty sea, now dimly, eerily lit by the early afternoon’s pale sun.

  Suddenly, a fiery flickering illuminated the horizon and the distant roar of the fleet’s big guns made the whole OP shake. The first shells exploded far below, sending smoke billowing up from the lower slopes of Leith Harbour and Stromness Bay.

  The assault had begun.

  Chapter Seven

  With the thunder of Antrim’s two 114mm guns pounding in their ears, Captain Peters and his SAS troop, all with full battle kit, filed into the helicopters clamped to the ship’s landing pads. As Peters still didn’t know about the restrictions placed upon Marty because of his health, he was still using his RSM as his second-in-command and so Marty gladly took a seat between Taff and TT, strapped himself in, then glanced out through the rain-streaked window as the ship slowly tilted to one side. The sea, which was filled with deep swells, seemed very far below him. When he looked in the other directions, back towards the ship, he saw the big guns jolting each time they were fired, wreathing the whole flight deck in smoke.

  The combined bedlam of the RN helos and the guns was like the end of the world and became even worse when, with more noise and much shuddering, the holding clamps were released and the helos lifted off the deck. They ascended vertically, hovered briefly above the landing pad, moved sideways to hover above the sea, then headed for shore.

  The big guns of Antrim and Plymouth were continuing to roar in a relentless barrage which would ensure that the landing area and Brown Mountain, dominating it, would be clear of Argentinian troops. Looking across that short stretch of mottled grey sea, Marty saw the billowing columns of smoke where the shells were exploding. The shore was now rushing at him, pebbled, snow-streaked, with the shells exploding farther inland, on the hills of Brown Mountain.

  Marty glanced westward, beyond the other two helicopters, to where sea and sky met, thinking glumly of the men who had been lost in their Gemini inflatable. Either they had drowned or were still drifting helplessly towards
the Antarctic, in which case they would almost certainly freeze to death, after suffering hypothermia and frostbite. It was not a comforting thought.

  When he looked down again, he saw the shore whipping out of view, to give way to the inland hills and valleys, mostly barren and brown, though brightened here and there with snow and frost. The ground was rushing up at him.

  ‘Prepare to disembark!’ the RN loadmaster shout ed from up front.

  After unclipping their safety belts, the men stood awkwardly in a metallic jangling of rifles, submachine guns, hand grenades, fighting knives, ammunition belts and water bottles. Burdened with Bergen rucksacks and bulky in their Gore-tex jackets, they held onto the safety straps above their heads. The helo shuddered as it slowed down, hovering just above the ground. The loadmaster opened the door as the helo descended, letting the freezing air come howling in.

  Captain Peters was at the opening, standing beside the loadmaster, a radio telephone held up to his ear, his free hand firmly gripping a support as the wind beat wildly at him, threatening to suck him out and spin him away like a rag doll. As they neared the DZ, the rotors whipped up dirt and snow, made foliage dance and bend, creating a minor hurricane that shook the whole helo.

  ‘Go!’ Peters bawled – and the first man disappeared through the opening even before the helo had touched down. It did so as the second man went out and the queue inched towards the exit. The helo was still bouncing lightly on its landing skis as Marty went out, following the man ahead, slapped brutally by the slipstream but landing safely on the snow-covered ground.

  The men fanned out as they hurried away from the helo, leaning forward to escape swirling slipstream. Though all personal weapons at the ready, there was no sign of enemy troops; only that desolate, rolling landscape, covered in snow and frost, viewed hazily through the curtain of loose snow being whipped up around them. the drag with its of them had their