Prince Hunter

by Garrett Russell

  PRINCE HUNTER

  Garrett Russell

  To the memory of

  Dr David Garrett Russell

  1975 – 2020

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Even now, almost a decade after declassification of many documents relating to the extraordinary events in the South Atlantic Ocean in May 1982, much of the detail of the Falklands Conflict between Great Britain and Argentina remains unknown.

  There are a few intriguing facts on record.

  We know that during the height of the South Atlantic crisis in 1982, at least one small yacht sailed through the Royal Navy’s Total Exclusion Zone. We also know that in May of that year, Sea King helicopters of 820 Squadron, Fleet Air Arm, lifted Argentine “civilians” from a small vessel in the TEZ to HMS Invincible. We have heard of clandestine offers of aid to Argentine forces from such shadowy powers as Qaddafi’s Libyan Revolutionary Army. And we know of previously existing links between the IRA and illicit operations on the South American continent.

  These are the warps of fact around which I have woven the story you will read on the following pages.

  Sunday 2 May 1982

  They came at him as he expected they would: suddenly, brutally, with overwhelming force.

  The biggest surprise in the attack was that it had taken so long to come. Argentina and Britain had been hostile for a full month now.

  For almost thirty days, he had tensed at every footstep behind him, checked the street before going out even for a newspaper, chosen café tables that gave him a view of both the street and the back door.

  Now that the waiting was over it was almost a relief.

  He felt the familiar serviceman’s kick at going into action, the adrenaline high of being committed to the jump. The past month of waiting and watching had brought back instincts and reactions he’d forgotten his body possessed. He was ready, as ready as if he’d still been in active service. And he had one fighting advantage on his side. They had made the mistake of attacking him in his own element.

  He was on the water, in the middle of the Rio de la Plata.

  It was now late afternoon, and he had been out there since early morning – a long time for a man on a ten foot sailboard.

  The pampero, the wind that sweeps cold and strong from the Andes, whipping through Buenos Aires and across the Plata on its way out to the South Atlantic, had set in the previous afternoon. It was the kind of chill wind that sent most of the city scurrying for shelter, the sign that autumn had well and truly set in. The broad boulevards in the centre of the city would be almost deserted, turned into howling canyons by the wind. Pedestrians would run from the shelter of one building to another, clutching their overcoats close to them. Crowds at the futbol and hipodrome would be sparse. Few people would venture out into the buffeting wind. But in the leafy waterside suburb of Olivos, the pampero was greeted with quite a different activity.

  Shutters were hastily pulled over windows in the expensive apartment blocks, sure enough, and the majestic trees lining the streets furled like umbrellas in the force of the gusts. But as the waters of the Plata kicked up into a short, steep chop and the rigging of the yachts in the marina piped a rising wail to the wind, all manner of high speed sailing machines were hurriedly prepared along the beaches.

  He had watched from the comfort of his marina office the other sailors rigging their Hobie Cats and high wind sailboards all through Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t just duty that kept him inside. Long experience in these waters had taught him that the first wild gusts sweeping down from the mountains would eventually settle to one strong steady wind speed, and that was the weather he wanted to sail in.

  By the time he walked across to the marina from his apartment in the first light of Sunday morning, the wind had once again proved his sailor’s judgement correct. It was blowing a steady 35 knots.

  He chose a ten foot wave jumping board from the storage room behind his office, rigged a sturdy storm sail, and was zipping himself into a full wetsuit and harness when Luis, bleary-eyed and shivering in an old blue fisherman’s jumper, stepped out onto the dock.

  ‘Buenos dias, padrone. A good day for the sailing,’ he said, turning to the west to sniff the breeze.

  ‘A good day, Luis. If the wind stays up, I might make it for lunch in Uruguay.’ He had his passport and money in a waterproof wallet already packed. The sailors of Olivos often crossed the border which runs down the middle of the Rio de la Plata to overnight on the other side. This far up the estuary, the northern shore is only 45 kilometres away, and the small seaside town of Colonia is in almost a direct line from Olivos.

  Luis turned to face him, concern creasing a face made prematurely old by years of squinting into the gales of the South Atlantic.

  ‘Alone, padrone?’

  ‘Don’t worry, old friend. You know I’ve survived much heavier weather than this.’

  ‘The weather is not what I worry about.’ Luis forced an ironic smile. ‘I have known many who disappeared on a perfectly calm day and in clear sunlight.’

  The disappeared – los desaparecidos – was a national euphemism. Nobody knew for sure how many Argentine people had simply vanished in the past few years, as the military government pressed its brutal campaign against dissent of any kind. Most estimates ran into hundreds of thousands. The only evidence was an occasional corpse that would wash up on a beach or riverbank to betray a careless executioner.

  He and Luis had discovered three such bodies in the past two years, tangled by the tide into the mooring lines of yachts at the Olivos marina. Each one bore the marks of agonising torture. The one he could never forget was a young girl, no more than nineteen years old. Her fingers and toes were a bloody pulp where fish had torn at the tender flesh left behind where each of her nails had been pulled out. Her naked body was a patchwork of bruising, none worse than around her breasts, where the marks of electrical burns stood out angry and livid. And her crotch was a violent desecration.

  They had reported the discovery of each body to the government. Ambulances had come to take them away, each accompanied by a policeman who asked a few perfunctory questions. There had never been a mention of any one of them in the newspapers or on the state television news.

  Luis shivered and crossed himself. Perhaps he had remembered the girl in the water, too.

  ‘Take care, padrone. Adios.’

  He watched his boss drop the board into the water, holding the mast and sail up, then dropping himself feet first off the dock with an agility Luis always thought remarkable for a man so big. It was a manoeuvre Luis knew he had practised to perfection. As his feet hit the board, he pulled the sail against the force of the wind and sailed away with hardly a splash.

  Clear of the shore, he settled into a brisk sailing routine. He hooked his harness onto the short line looping down from the stubby boom, slid his feet into two of the foot straps which crammed the after deck of the board in a chevron of rows, and settled his body into the surging balance between wind and waves that had made boardsailing such a passion for him. Like making love to Nature herself. The consistency of the wind gave him a screaming reach, the board’s fastest point of sail, to the north east. Without even thinking about it, he headed for Uruguay.

  It took him not quite three hours to step ashore on the beach at Colonia. After another couple of hours enjoying the amiable company of several local sailing friends he had encountered, he found himself fulfilling his own prediction and staying for lunch. The group of old companions sat in the lee of an old verandahed restaurant and ordered a huge crock of carbonada. The stew was as warming as it was good: big chunks of beef served in a gravy thick with rice, peaches, raisins and pears. They washed it down with a hearty Uruguayan red diluted with mineral water.

&nbs
p; They talked sailing and women in that order, each exploit becoming wilder and less believable the more it was told. They laughed and joked, and he realised with a painful twinge how good it was to simply relax. Such an ordinary pleasure was now impossible for him on the other side of the Rio de la Plata, where he was born.

  Finally, the fun was over. The wind had eased to under 25 knots and he had to leave to be sure of making it home by nightfall. Warmed by the easy camaraderie and a final steaming mug of pungent local coffee, laced with a mellow Brazilian rum, he slid his sailboard into the water and set off.

  Perhaps it was the rum and the stew, perhaps the relaxation in the autumn afternoon. For whatever reason he was off guard when they attacked. They very nearly got him on the first pass.

  They came out of the sun, over his right shoulder, four of them in a 28 foot Bertram. The helmsman had brought the boat straight in on a fast collision course, judging his position for impact exactly at the mast of the sailboard. It was an impressive piece of seamanship: the board had a water speed of at least 15 knots, the Bertram was well above its cruise speed at 25 knots, both bouncing wildly in the river chop. Seconds before the inevitable crushing impact, the helmsman swung his wheel hard to starboard, sweeping the Bertram into a tight arc just ahead of the board. The boat threw a huge sheet of solid water, dazzling silver and gold in the afternoon sun, up off its sharp bottom strakes and over the board and its rider. He felt the chill impact of the water before he even heard the roar of the Bertram’s powerful motors. His first recognition of danger was the flash of dark blue of the boat’s bottom as it lurched crazily away to the right, only centimetres from the nose of his board.

  His reaction was smooth and instinctive. He snapped his chest closer to the boom, ducked down slightly to release the hook of his harness, then savagely shoved the boom forward, swerving the board left and away from the threat. There was an instant when the tail of the board and the boat’s transom locked in a violent embrace. The Bertram’s helmsman still held his wheel hard over, maintaining his stern in its deadly arc towards the board. The boat was heeled so hard that its port stern drive leg was almost above the surface, the propeller thrashing water and air into a fury of spray. At the moment of impact, the stern drive rode up over the smooth tail of the board. The propeller chopped into the fibreglass like a buzz saw, gouging a gaping scar deep into the dense foam core. It made the brittle sound of a butcher sawing bone.

  Just as quickly the embrace was over. The two craft arced away from each other, the Bertram helmsman still holding his violent turn but now pulling back on the throttles to bring his hull level. The board rider continued his turn, too.

  He lunged the mast further forward to swing into a gybing turn away from the wind, stepping back out of his foot straps to make the tail a sharper pivot for the turn. His left heel sank into the jagged scar left by the propeller and a cold fury took over from the animal survival instinct which had guided him through the last few seconds.

  He completed the turn to face almost upwind, into the sun, where the Bertram was now idling towards him. In making the turn the sailboard had lost all its speed. The two craft wallowed in the confusion of wind waves chopped with boat wash, like a couple of drunken street fighters cautiously moving in on each other.

  There was a burst of activity on the Bertram’s foredeck. Two men edged their way forward around the cabin and gingerly stationed themselves at the bow. Their clumsiness betrayed them as inexperienced small boat sailors as they hung grimly to the rail, one grappling with a long boathook he had dragged forward with him.

  The fury in the board sailor’s cold blue eyes intensified by several degrees. He suddenly realised the collision was no accident, that this was the attack he’d waited so long for. The passionate energy he had built up to abuse what he had taken to be an inept Sunday sailor had already tensed all his muscles. Now his mind raced into action, plotting positions and tactics like a chess player caught out on his opening move.

  The Bertram drifted closer, yawed around to the right to keep the bulk of its hull between the wind and the sailboard. At least the helmsman knew what he was doing. The fourth man was on the after fishing deck, swinging another boathook out over the gunwale and gesturing commands to the others. So, he was the boss. He was braced against the side of the boat, legs slightly apart, swaying easily with the movement of the sea. An experienced sailor, making the aft end of the boat its formidable point of attack.

  The board rider luffed his sail, bringing the nose of the board through the eye of the disturbed wind to point directly at the Bertram. Crossing to starboard tack, he yanked hard on the boom to get a sling of power from his sail. The lightweight board leapt forward, as if to ram the bow of the larger boat. He could see the faces of the men on the foredeck, determination turning to stunned apprehension as he rapidly closed for the assault. He broke from the lee of the Bertram’s fly bridge superstructure just as a higher than normal wave peaked in front of the board. The combination of wave and sudden gust of turbulence-free air gave him the boost he needed. Hauling hard on the boom, he lifted the board off the crest into a powerful, shallow jump.

  The men on the foredeck froze. This was a development they had obviously not expected. The one with the boathook was in a semi-crouch against the foredeck rail, the pole dangling loosely outboard from where he held it under his right arm.

  The board and its rider were in the air for only a few seconds, but it was all he needed to cover the last metres between himself and the bow of the Bertram. As the board slid back to the water he let go of the boom, twisting himself around against the fulcrum of a foot strap. The tip of the boathook was just within reach. Grabbing with both hands, he hauled it savagely away from the limp grasp of the crewman. Spurred by the sudden action, the crewman recovered enough to lurch into a semi-standing position. Still leaning against the rail, he reached out to grab the pole back. For the man on the board, the timing was perfect. He lunged hard. The end of the pole caught the crewman square in the chest, lifting him to a full standing position with both hands now grasping for the pole.

  A second savage lunge, this time higher and into the throat, sent the crewman stumbling backwards with a roar of pain. His own momentum carried him the full width of the pitching deck until his legs caught on the opposite rail. Arms flailing in a forlorn bid to find a handhold, he disappeared over the far side.

  The other foredeck hand, who had remained frozen with shock or fear through the skirmish, now sprang into action. But he ignored the board rider and dashed across to the starboard side to look for his comrade.

  The board rider let himself sink into the chill water, kicking in a backstroke to where his sail lay flat out on the surface, at right angles to the board. He kept his eyes on the Bertram, studying the confusion he had created. The second deckhand and the helmsman were both concentrating on the far side, manoeuvring to pick their crewmate out of the choppy seas. They took no heed of the frantic orders the man in the after cockpit yelled at them. He alone was still watching to port, where the sailboard drifted only metres away.

  The Bertram still had its motors in gear, idling slowly forwards. It was only a matter of seconds before the stern cockpit would come level with the board. The man in the cockpit braced himself, swinging his boathook out wide. The board rider could clearly see a broad, humourless grin spread over his face as they drifted inexorably closer.

  There was no escape. Not yet.

  With the Bertram so close upwind, his source of power was blocked off. He would have to wait until he drifted past the stern. He let go of the boathook he had won – the man in the cockpit would be wise to that trick – and slid his feet into the straps of the board. He swung around to position himself against the wind which would come after the boat had passed. It meant placing himself and the sail within striking range of his new opponent’s boathook, when he would have preferred to use the board as a shield, but he had no option.

  As the Bertram’s superstructure slid past, he t
ested the wind strength by easing the sail clear of the water. Each fresher puff lifted it a little higher, billowing the sail closer to the shape of an aircraft wing. But there was still nowhere near enough power.

  The board drifted down the flank of the boat, each wave pushing them closer together. The two men were now close enough to hear each other, but neither spoke a word. Their eyes locked in a duel of nerves. The board sailor eased his sail higher, tensing to the wind strength building up in his hands.

  To the man on the boat, the mast lifting clear of the water was an open invitation. He lunged with the boathook a second too early, missed and lunged again. This time he connected. The hook caught fast in the notch between boom and mast, and he hauled in hard with a whoop of victory. But as he hauled, he pulled the sail further into the clearing strength of the wind. The board rider braced his feet hard against the foot straps, angling the sail against the pull of the boathook.

  With a crack like a pistol shot, the sail billowed into full lift, pulling the rider out of the water as smoothly as a water skier behind a big-engined drag boat. As his body cleared the pull of the water, the board accelerated with a jump. The man at the other end of the boathook lurched forward. He held hard to the pole, feet scuffling for a firmer grip on the deck as he was hauled towards the stern by the power of the sailboard.

  The wind gusted. The board shot forward like a startled animal. The smooth aluminium pole of the boathook slipped through the man’s tightening grasp, a rough bolthead on the handle gouging the flesh of his hand on the way past. And suddenly the board was free.

  The board rider felt his mount accelerate further. He stole a glance across his shoulder to the chaos aboard the Bertram. The helmsman and deckhand were still leaning far over the starboard side, grappling to help their crewmate up the slippery fibreglass side of the hull. The man in the stern clutched his bloody hands together and screamed a chain of abuse and unheeded commands.