Exclusion Zone

by Exclusion Zone (retail) (epub)

I sat in the front seat of the Land Rover, studying the map, then drove off diagonally across the runway. A barbed-wire perimeter fence surrounded the airfield and a bored-looking sentry stood guard at the entrance gates, but there were none of the crash barriers or antiterrorist precautions there would have been at home.

  The cattle grids set in the concrete at the edge of the runway nearly shook the teeth from my head. I wound down the window. ‘Any chance you could get those fixed?’

  ‘The grids? They’re supposed to be like that,’ the guard said. ‘It’s protection against FOD.’ He saw my blank look. ‘Foreign Object Damage. The perimeter road and the one down to Mare Harbour are the only sealed roads in the whole of the Falklands, the rest are just hardcore. The grids shake the loose stones out of your tyre treads on the way back in. It keeps them off the runway.’

  I drove up the road for a few miles then turned off onto a rough moorland track leading over the hillside. The Land Rover bounced and jolted over the ruts and even in four-wheel drive it skidded and slewed as it hit patches of peat bog. Twice it almost ground to a halt but I kept it going, creeping on at barely above walking pace towards the white enclosure on the hillside.

  It took over an hour to reach it. A steep valley opened up to my left, leading down to a sheltered cove. I could see a red-roofed farmhouse and a cluster of shearing sheds grouped around the head of the inlet.

  A neat, white picket fence surrounded the graveyard. The graves were laid out in neat rows, like soldiers on parade, each plot marked out by white quartz stones the size of a fist. I entered through the gate and walked slowly along the rows. I found what I was seeking at the furthest corner of the graveyard.

  * * *

  I don’t know how long I spent there, but dusk was falling by the time I retraced my steps and jolted my way back down the hillside. As I looked across to Mount Pleasant, I could see how well the base was camouflaged from a distance, the drab colours of the buildings merging into the dull greys, greens and browns of the landscape. Only as the lights began to come on did it reveal itself.

  The same sentry was still on duty. He stopped blowing on his hands and stamping his feet long enough to give me a nod of recognition, then shrank back into the shelter of the guard post.

  I drove straight to the Death Star and climbed the stairs to my room. My bag lay half unpacked on the table. I threw my socks and T-shirts into a drawer and hung the rest of my clothes in the wardrobe. In the bottom of the bag was a cardboard tube and a small bundle of yellowing papers, bound with a rubber band. As I lifted the papers out, a medal and ribbon slipped from between the leaves. I picked it up and turned it over to read the inscription on the back, though I could have recited every word from memory.

  ‘I never knew you’d been decorated.’

  I spun around, closing my hand defensively. ‘I haven’t.’

  Jane waited for me to continue. ‘So whose is it? Your father’s?’

  ‘My brother’s.’ I dropped the medal back into my bag.

  ‘I didn’t even know you had a brother.’ She studied me in silence. ‘It’s all right, you know.’ She touched my arm. ‘If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.’

  ‘This’ll sound stupid.’ I hesitated. ‘I’ll tell you about it sometime, just not right now. Okay?’

  She searched my face again. ‘So what else have you got in the goody bag?’

  ‘Just this.’ I took out the cardboard tube, unrolled the poster it contained and pinned it to the wall. Jane peered at it over my shoulder and I could feel her breath warm on my cheek. ‘Rolling hills, turf cottages and picturesque curls of peat smoke rising into an azure sky; all that’s missing is a donkey cart. It’s not really still like that, is it?’

  ‘Not really. The old homestead is slowly crumbling away. But I still like the poster. It reminds me of when I was a kid.’

  We both fell silent. ‘Speaking of crumbling,’ Jane said, ‘there was a phone call for you. You remember the Falkland farmer and his wife on the Tristar? She rang to invite “Mr Riever and his companion” to tea tomorrow. Clay House, five o’clock prompt. They’re having a sort of welcome home party and for some bizarre reason they want us to go along – well, you anyway, I don’t think she’s a big fan of mine.’

  I stared at her. ‘Why?’

  ‘She was obviously seduced by that troubled, angst-ridden look of yours.’ She reached out and ruffled my hair. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a drink in the Mess. We need an antidote before we get poisoned by dinner.’

  The rest of the guys were already in position at the bar, or watching CNN on satellite TV. A report from Argentina showed crowds milling around the streets, carrying identical banners bearing the legend ‘Malvinas Argentinas’.

  ‘Funny how those people have all got the same handwriting, isn’t it?’ Jane said.

  A speech to the crowd by the new president turned into a rabble-rousing rant. Noel watched for a few seconds, then stormed across the room and turned it off.

  Shark laughed. ‘Don’t get so wound up, Noel. You don’t even speak Spanish. For all you know that little tirade could have been about the price of corned beef or Diego Maradona’s cocaine habit.’

  Rees winced, expecting a further outburst from his new nav, but Noel hesitated, peering at Shark, unsure how much he was being wound up. ‘You don’t need to speak Spanish to know what that load of bollocks was about.’

  ‘It’s worrying though, there’s no denying it,’ Jimmy said, his brow furrowed in its permanent frown. ‘Now they’ve found oil here, it’s not just a matter of injured Argentine pride, there’s going to be bucketloads of money at stake as well. In my book that’s a recipe for trouble.’

  ‘Not really.’ The Boss had been listening to the exchange from his stool at the bar. ‘If we got excited every time some Argentinian politician started tub-thumping about the Malvinas, we’d be on permanent war alert.’

  Chapter Three

  Clay House was a modest-sized farmhouse on a small promontory looking out towards Choiseul Sound. The drive, a muddy, rutted track, was flanked by a thin belt of wind-burned conifers, the first trees I’d seen since we arrived.

  The once white walls were stained with lichen and damp, and the green paint on the metal roof was faded and peeling. There was a barn and a group of tumbledown sheds to the rear and an ancient Land Rover in the lean-to garage.

  The patch of grass in front of the house was speckled with what looked like sun-bleached sticks. Jane took a closer look. ‘Shit, those are bones.’

  ‘It’s all right, George and Agnes didn’t look like serial killers to me. In places where the soil and the farmers are both very poor, they chuck their meat bones out into the yard. They fertilise the soil as they rot away.’

  She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Your store of totally useless information is a constant source of wonder. But what about rats, for Christ’s sake?’

  ‘They’d starve to death inside a week. What did you use back home? Big Ben pie crusts and empty cans of lager?’

  ‘No, sheep dags or £10 Poms; the Poms are better fertiliser.’

  ‘Don’t tell me. They’re really full of shit, right?’

  ‘You said it.’

  Agnes was standing on the doorstep to greet us. Jane and I had our coats buttoned against the wind, but Agnes was wearing a short-sleeved pullover, as if she were taking the air on a mild English spring day.

  ‘Sean, I’m so pleased you could come, and Jane too.’ She led us into a room full of ruddy-faced farmers and their wives.

  A peat fire smouldered on the hearth. I smiled at Agnes. ‘That smell takes me back. If I closed my eyes I could be back in my grandfather’s house in Kerry.’

  ‘We all burn it here. It’s the only fuel we have. The council allocates every household a section of moor. Have you ever dug peat, Sean?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve watched though. It’s back-breaking work.’

  She nodded. ‘And the digging’s only half the work. Then it has to b
e stacked to dry – rickling we call it – and then we have to get it back to the farm, though that part’s much easier. A dry peat is only about a quarter the weight of a wet one.’

  As she half-turned towards Jane, including her in the conversation, I saw the wiry strength in Agnes. She was old and thin, but there was still muscle and sinew beneath the wrinkled, weather-beaten skin.

  ‘Do you still dig peats by hand?’

  ‘There’s no other way. We’ve tried machines; they don’t work.’

  ‘They work in Britain.’

  There was a momentary spark of anger in her pale blue eyes, but the reproach was gentle. ‘This isn’t Britain, Sean.’

  Inside, a long table was set with the sort of farmhouse tea I remembered from home, enough meat, cakes, pies and pastries to give a nutritionist nightmares, and not a fresh fruit or vegetable in sight, other than a bowl of yellowing green tomatoes.

  ‘The last of the summer’s crop,’ Agnes said, following my gaze. ‘We grow them in our greenhouse, but the season is never long enough to ripen them properly.’ There was a wistful note in her voice. ‘Now what can I get you to drink? A cup of tea, or there’s wine or George’s home-brewed beer.’

  ‘I’ll have wine,’ Jane said with transparent haste. ‘Red, if you’ve got it? Then white, thanks.’

  ‘I’ll try the beer,’ I said.

  ‘Aren’t you the teacher’s pet,’ Jane murmured as Agnes moved away.

  ‘Some of these home brews can be surprisingly good.’ I watched with a sinking feeling as Agnes approached carrying a glass of opaque, grey-brown liquid.

  She moved on to her other guests, but Jane looked on with glee as I took a mouthful. It was sour and yeasty, but as I caught Agnes’s eye, I managed to turn my grimace into a smile of approval.

  Jane approached her wine with suspicion. ‘It’s sweet,’ she said.

  I smiled. ‘There’s always the beer.’

  We surveyed the assembled company, but Agnes didn’t leave us alone for long. ‘Come along, Jane,’ she said, taking a firm grip on her arm. ‘We can’t have Sean keeping you all to himself, there are lots of handsome farmers dying to meet you.’

  I blew her a kiss as she was led away. George waved me over, breaking off a conversation to introduce me to his companion. Bernard looked no more than thirty, but his black hair was already streaked with grey. His chin was stubbled and there was a scar on his cheek which showed up livid against his red, wind-burned face.

  He gave me a curt nod, then turned back to George. ‘The Argies will be back. Especially when the offshore oil starts to flow. 1982 wasn’t the first invasion and it won’t be the last.’

  ‘There was another?’ I said. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  Bernard ignored the interruption, but George nodded. ‘There were two of them, 1966 and 1970.’

  Agnes passed with a tray of teacups. ‘Don’t let them fill your head with nonsense, Sean. They were a couple of planeloads of lunatics.’

  ‘They were lunatics armed with guns,’ George said. ‘And we were worried enough at the time, even you.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said.

  ‘There was – and probably still is – an Argentine society called Condor dedicated to reclaiming the Malvinas. Twenty of them hijacked a flight from Buenos Aires to Gallegos in September 1966, took the other passengers hostage and made the pilot fly to the Falklands.’ He began to chuckle. ‘When they got here, they discovered their first problem. We didn’t have an airport – the only contact with the outside world in those days was the monthly mail ship to Montevideo and the wool ships to Britain – but they forced the pilot to try a landing anyway.

  ‘I was in Stanley picking up some supplies and saw it happen. It came in over Ross Road, cleared the top of the cathedral by no more than a couple of feet and then landed on Stanley racecourse. We all thought it was an accident until they planted an Argentine flag and dragged a policeman into the plane at gunpoint. We only had half a dozen police for the whole of the Falklands, but the remaining ones cordoned off the plane and sat back to await developments.

  ‘One of the Argentinians eventually came out brandishing his gun and began a long speech. It was in Spanish of course and no one could understand a word of it. None of the Condor men could speak any English either, so we stood around staring at each other until one of the schoolteachers arrived to interpret.

  ‘The man spoke for about twenty minutes. “We are here on behalf of twenty-two million countrymen to end the English invasion of Las Islas Malvinas.”’

  ‘They thought we were all Argentinians too,’ Agnes said, ‘imprisoned in our land by ruthless English imperialists.’

  ‘They weren’t so far wrong there,’ Bernard muttered.

  ‘Better than Argentinian ones though, eh, Bernard?’ George gave me a ghost of a wink as Bernard shrugged and went back to his drink.

  ‘So what happened?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh there was a stand-off for twenty-four hours and then they surrendered. We sent them home via Montevideo on the next ship that docked at Stanley. It was the ultimate indignity for them; it was a British ship.’

  ‘They all lined up at the rail of the ship and sang Argentine songs as it sailed away. It was quite touching.’ Agnes flushed at the looks that Bernard and George directed at her. ‘Well, I thought so anyway.’

  ‘You’d have thought they’d have had enough after that,’ George said, ‘but four years later they were back again. This time they turned up in a private plane, the Cronica. They still hadn’t done their research very well though; we’d blocked the racecourse after the first incident to stop anyone else trying to land there. They circled a couple of times and then crash-landed on the moor above Eliza Cove. This time they at least had some leaflets printed in English with them, and after planting the Argentine flag again they handed them out.’

  ‘I’ve still got a copy in a drawer somewhere,’ Agnes said, gesturing vaguely towards the kitchen. ‘Something like: “We don’t come as aggressives but as Argentinian citizens to meet you with our country and the men of this country which are our brothers.’”

  She smiled at the memory. ‘Port Stanley was to be renamed Port Rivero, but they assured us that the property rights of “the natives” would be respected. That was another serious tactical error. As I told you at the airport the other day, you can call us almost anything you like, but you must never call us that.’

  George swallowed the remnants of a sandwich. ‘Anyway, as I was saying, they did a lot more huffing and puffing, and speech making and flag waving, and then they surrendered again as meek as lambs.’

  ‘I felt quite sorry for them really,’ Agnes said. ‘They looked so baffled and helpless, as if they couldn’t understand why we didn’t welcome them with open arms, instead of pitchforks and shotguns. It must have been a bit of a shock to discover that the people they had been taught to think of as countrymen were more British than the British themselves.’

  This was too much for Bernard. ‘No, we’re not. We’re Falklanders, Agnes, Falklanders.’

  She gave him a look of mock severity. ‘You’ll give yourself an ulcer with all this pent-up anger, Bernard. You can’t hold a grudge forever. Whatever Britain should have done before the war, we’ve no complaints since then, now have we?’

  George pounced again in the brief silence that followed. ‘That was the last invasion until 1982, but for years afterwards the approach of any unexpected aircraft was a signal for a mass panic in Stanley.’

  He broke off as Jane slid into the chair next to mine, having escaped from the circle of farmers by the fireplace.

  ‘Right,’ Agnes said firmly. ‘That’s more than enough about the good – or do I mean bad? – old days, thank you, George. I’m sure these two must be bored rigid.’

  ‘No, really, I’m enjoying it,’ I said, trying to ignore the pressure of Jane’s elbow in my ribs. ‘Tell me more about what it was like before the war. Has it changed so much since then? I’ve only been here a c
ouple of days, but,’ I hesitated, wary of giving offence. ‘It’s probably because it’s all a little new to me, but I’m feeling every inch of the distance from the UK.’

  ‘I’ve lived here all my life and that’s something I’m always very aware of too,’ Agnes said. ‘There’s a table of postal times in Stanley Post Office, dating from 1892. Back then it took a month for a letter to reach the UK. Know how long it takes now? By surface mail, it’s still a month. Not much progress in one hundred years, is it? Even airmail takes a week.’ She gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘Of course there are telephones and satellite television these days, but some things don’t change.’

  ‘You must have felt even more remote before the war,’ Jane said. ‘At least people have heard of the Falklands these days and know where they are.’

  Bernard snorted and started to say something, but Agnes cut across him. ‘My dear, you simply can’t imagine what life was like then.’

  ‘I could make a stab at it,’ Jane said. ‘I grew up in the outback of New South Wales, back of Bourke as we call it. The sheep stations there were so big you might not see your next-door neighbour more than once or twice a year.’

  ‘Who owns them?’ Bernard asked, suddenly interested.

  ‘Mostly families when I was a kid. These days it’s all agribusiness and big corporations.’

  He shook his head. ‘Then you don’t know what it was like here. There were big farms here too, with a couple of hundred thousand acres, but all except a handful of tiny holdings were owned by the FIC – the Falkland Islands Company. When you went to work on a settlement, you were owned body and soul by the FIC.’

  ‘Come on, Bernard,’ George said. ‘It wasn’t that bad. You make it sound like slavery.’

  ‘We weren’t slaves maybe, but it was a strange kind of freedom. You worked on a settlement full-time, from one year to the next. If you had a day off, you couldn’t go anywhere. There were no roads on the islands and the tracks were so rough you couldn’t even get a Land Rover over them without bogging down.