by Chris Ryan
‘That’s terrible,’ Lili said.
‘Every cloud has a silver lining,’ Peter replied, waving a finger. ‘For the keen nature-watcher – and for we ornithologists in particular – these minefields are fascinating places. No human has set foot on them for nearly forty years. And as humans are nature’s greatest enemy, these areas have become miniature nature reserves, rich habitats for all manner of creature, especially birds. They’re too light to trigger the landmines, you see.’
‘Are you telling us we’re going on a nature ramble in a minefield?’ Lukas said.
‘Not in a minefield, my dear chap. But close to a minefield. I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but please pay attention to any exclusion fences and warning signs you see. Let’s make sure you get back to Arlene’s in one piece.’
‘You know Arlene?’ Abby asked.
‘Everyone knows Arlene,’ Peter said.
Outside the vehicle, Peter handed around the binoculars and maps. The cadets politely listened to his explanation of how to use them, though it was quite unnecessary. Then he pointed in a northerly direction and set off across the grassland. The cadets followed.
It was good to be out in the open air. The breeze felt as if it was blowing away some of the shock of the night before. As they climbed a shallow knoll, however, and the ocean came into view in the distance, the memory of the frogmen and the corpse hit Max with great clarity, and he had to repress a shudder.
They walked for twenty minutes before Peter stopped and pointed to their ten o’clock. ‘Over there,’ he said.
Max and the others raised their binoculars. A couple of hundred metres away was a wire fence and a post with a red sign: ‘Danger: Mines’. The fence extended as far as Max could see. The land beyond was not much different but, even as they looked, a flock of birds suddenly rose into the air. Max couldn’t help smiling as he watched them swoop and dive in formation. When he lowered his binoculars, he saw Sami grinning broadly while the others continued to watch, clearly rapt.
‘Skuas!’ Peter announced. ‘See the white markings on their wings? Tricky little chaps. They’re kleptoparasites. That means they’ll chase other birds and steal their prey. They’re not averse to killing and eating other birds either. Aggressive, dangerous – but beautiful too.’
‘A bit like Angel,’ Abby said under her breath.
‘Like whom, my dear?’
‘Just a friend,’ Abby replied. ‘Can we get a bit closer?’
‘Of course. Just don’t –’
‘Walk into the minefield. Yeah, don’t worry. I’m quite attached to my limbs.’
As they headed across the grass towards the minefield, the flock of skuas melted away. Excitedly, Peter pointed to another bird, perched on a fence post. ‘Cormorant,’ he announced. The bird flew away. Max found himself swept up in the guide’s excitement. He scanned the area for birds as carefully as he had scanned for enemies the previous night. He wasn’t disappointed. Flocks rose in the distance. Solitary birds stood on fence posts and pecked busily around the grass. For the briefest moment, Max felt as if he was back at the children’s home where he had been raised. Then, he would escape into nature at any opportunity. It awed him and comforted him at the same time. It did the same now.
By the time they reached the edge of the minefield, Max understood what Peter had been telling them. This truly was a birder’s paradise. The minefield itself was peaceful and rather beautiful. Only the fence and the ugly red sign gave any indication that it was a potentially fatal site. The cadets wandered up and down the fence, binoculars glued to their eyes. Max scanned the horizon, watching the birds rise and swoop. One in particular caught his eye. A vulture, maybe, but he didn’t want to stop looking to ask Peter. He followed its line of flight as it headed south, over the boundary of the minefield and off towards the horizon.
Then he saw something else.
It was hard to estimate how far away it was. Somewhere between seven hundred and fifty metres and a kilometre, he reckoned, and it was only visible from this position because they were standing on higher ground. It was a long, squat, grey building, possibly constructed from concrete. A bleak-looking place, seemingly deserted, and with no road leading to it.
He sensed Peter standing next to him. ‘What’s that building?’ he asked, lowering his binoculars and pointing in that direction.
‘Ah, that’s just the old listening post,’ Peter said.
‘A what?’
‘You seem more interested in that than in the birds, young man.’
‘No,’ Max said, ‘not really. Just curious, is all. What’s a listening post?’
‘Well, I’m no military tactician,’ Peter said. ‘But my understanding is that it’s a radar station. It detects aircraft flying overhead. If they’re on an unexpected flight path, the people at RAF Mount Pleasant are put on high alert.’
‘You mean it looks out for enemy planes.’
‘I suppose I do. Now then, I’m very hopeful that we might get a glimpse of a black-browed albatross –’
‘Would you mind if I went for a bit of a wander?’ Max said.
Peter blinked. ‘I … well, I suppose not.’
Max smiled at him. ‘I find it peaceful to be by myself sometimes. You know?’ As he spoke, Sami approached. ‘Sami and the others will stay around here, I’m sure. Won’t you, Sami?’
‘Of course,’ Sami said, one eyebrow raised. And when Peter moved away, he said, ‘What’s going on?’
‘There’s a radar station over there,’ Max said. ‘I want to check it out. Can you and the others keep Peter occupied?’
Sami gave a serious nod. ‘I will ask him about penguins,’ he said. ‘I think he will talk about them for a very long time.’
‘I think you might be right.’
Sami followed Peter. Max turned and headed to the listening post.
8
Albatross
The sound of the other cadets talking receded as Max strolled in the direction of the listening post. After a couple of minutes, when he was out of sight, he started to jog. He kept going to the barbed-wire cordon around the minefield. Occasionally flocks of birds startled into the sky, disturbed by his presence. Max didn’t stop to admire them. The listening post was his focus. He hurried towards it.
There was a thin film of sweat on his forehead by the time he had to stop. The barbed-wire fence around the minefield to his right met a more substantial fence that surrounded the listening post. This perimeter fence was about fifty metres from the low concrete building itself, but it had no minefield warnings attached to it. Did that mean it was safe to pass? Max didn’t know. It certainly wasn’t easy to pass. The fence was a good two metres high and topped with a roll of razor wire. It was impassable – without the aid of cutting tools.
To his left he thought he could see a bulge in the fence about thirty metres along. He checked back over his shoulder to ensure he was still unobserved, then jogged along beside the fence. He saw that the fence had been cut. The wire mesh curled back on itself, creating a gap large enough for an adult to pass through. Max examined the grass: it was flattened, which suggested that somebody had recently walked this way. Something else caught his eye. A fragment of black material was caught on the mesh of the fence. Max carefully removed it: just a scrap, but it had a slight elasticity. He couldn’t be certain, but he felt pretty confident that it came from a neoprene dive suit. At least one frogman, he decided, had penetrated the fence recently.
He peered through the gap in the fence towards the listening post. It was a bleak, desolate place. Max had the impression that it was seldom visited. It crossed his mind that there could be a very good reason for this: landmines. It was, after all, cordoned off.
But someone had passed this way without triggering an explosion. If they’d done it, perhaps Max could do it too. His eyes followed the line of flattened grass. If he kept to it, he would be able to avoid danger. And then, maybe, he could find out what the frogmen had been doing here at the l
istening station.
He took a deep breath, then gingerly stepped through the hole in the fence.
‘Where’s Max?’ Abby spoke under her breath, so that Peter wouldn’t hear her.
Sami replied in a whisper: ‘He’s gone to check something out. We need to keep Peter occupied so he doesn’t wander in that direction.’
Peter needed no help staying busy. His binoculars seemed glued to his face. He was watching another flock of skuas swooping over the minefield. His binoculars followed them like spectators watching the ball at a tennis match. At one point he cooed in delight – for a moment Sami thought the sound had come from a nearby bird. When he lowered his binoculars, he seemed surprised to see the cadets standing around him in a semicircle, watching him.
‘Is everything okay, chaps and chapesses?’
Before he could answer, something dark swooped overhead, casting a shadow over them. Peter looked up and his face creased with pleasure. ‘A black-browed albatross,’ he announced, pointing at the bird. ‘Endangered, you know. Beautiful birds. We’re lucky to see one.’
The albatross settled on the ground in the minefield, no more than thirty metres from its audience. Peter and the cadets stood very still.
‘Some people – sailors, mostly – say that the albatross brings bad luck. I pay no attention to them.’
The albatross cocked his head in their direction, as if it was listening to them.
‘Ever get the feeling you’re being watched?’ Abby said. The bird suddenly took flight again. It circled several times above them and they craned their necks to watch it. Then it flew, along the minefield cordon, in the direction Max had gone.
‘Come on!’ Peter called. His voice throbbed with excitement and he started running after the albatross, like a puppy chasing a ball. The sight of the bird seemed to have taken years off him.
‘Hey, Peter!’ Sami called. ‘Why don’t we just stay around here –’
But Peter either didn’t hear or was ignoring him. He continued to run after the albatross.
‘I told Max we’d keep him occupied while he checks out the listening post,’ Sami hissed. ‘Come on!’
The cadets ran after their eager instructor, who showed no sign of slowing down.
The moment he climbed through the hole in the fence, Max’s skin tingled with anxiety. Each step he took felt reckless. He found himself feeling the ground with the sole of his foot before putting any real pressure on it, but he told himself that was ridiculous. If a landmine was hidden, it was hidden. He wouldn’t feel it before stepping on it.
Much better, he decided, to stick to his original plan and follow the existing path across the grass. It was definitely there – a faint indentation in the grass. He followed it for a while in the direction of the concrete building, but then it seemed to disappear into nowhere. Max looked around for any more flattened grass, but there was nothing. Just grass, ankle height, swaying gently in the breeze.
Decision time: advance or retreat? He felt a chill at the prospect of crossing a potential minefield to reach the building, but also the urge to keep moving. If the frogmen had wanted to come here, there had to be a reason …
Keep going, he told himself. It’s worth the risk.
He looked up. Was that an albatross overhead? He remembered reading that they were considered bad luck by superstitious types.
But Max wasn’t one of those. He raised one foot.
‘WHAT ON EARTH DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?’
Max spun around. Peter was running along the perimeter fence of the listening post towards the hole in the fence. The other cadets were following him, Sami waving his arms around in an apologetic way. For a moment, Max felt deeply frustrated with his good friend, but Sami looked so distressed that Max couldn’t keep it up for long.
Peter was red-faced and clearly very angry. He stopped by the hole in the fence. ‘Get back here now, young man!’ he ordered. Max hesitated, but he understood that he had no real option. He retraced his steps back to the hole in the fence.
‘Did you do this?’ Peter demanded, indicating the hole.
Max was about to deny it, but something stopped him. If he said it wasn’t him, would Peter inform the authorities about it? What would happen then? Would it become common knowledge that something sinister was happening? Max predicted that Hector wouldn’t want that. ‘I … I just wanted to get a closer look,’ he said, hanging his head sheepishly. He hoped Peter wouldn’t ask how he’d cut through the wire.
‘I can’t believe you could be so irresponsible,’ Peter said. ‘You seemed like a perfectly sensible young man, and I thought we were having a lovely day.’ He turned to the other cadets, who were standing in a group behind him, keeping quiet. ‘Come along, all of you. We’re going back to the car. Our day’s birdwatching is at an end.’
He strode away towards the Land Rover. He’d only taken a few paces when he stopped and looked back over his shoulder. ‘Well, come on then!’ he said.
The cadets followed. Max sensed that they were bursting with questions, but they couldn’t ask them while they were in earshot of Peter. So they kept quiet as they walked back to the vehicle.
Clouds were coming in from the sea. The temperature was dropping. By the time they reached the Land Rover, it was completely overcast. Wordlessly, Peter unlocked the vehicle and took the wheel as the cadets climbed in. Max sat in the passenger seat. As Peter drove off, the atmosphere was thick with tension.
They were back on the road to Stanley before anyone spoke. It was Max. ‘I was just wondering …’
‘What?’ Peter snapped.
‘I was just wondering if there were mines in the area around the listening post.’
‘Did you see any minefield signs?’
‘No,’ Max said. ‘Not on that bit of fence.’
‘Well, there you go,’ Peter said. ‘But that doesn’t mean you should have been in there.’
‘No,’ Max muttered. ‘I’m sorry.’
As he said it, he glanced in the rear-view mirror to see the other cadets staring at his reflection. Did they know what he was thinking? That tonight, when it was dark, he would return to the listening post to try to find out more?
Their steely expressions suggested that they did.
Silently, they trundled back to the capital.
9
Click
‘We should split up,’ Lili said.
They were back in the guest house, having said a chilly goodbye to Peter at the harbour. Arlene had fed them large helpings of ham and eggs. Now they were in Max’s room.
‘Some of us should watch the cove,’ Lili continued, ‘and some of us should examine the listening post.’ She frowned. ‘I have a feeling this could be our last night in the Falklands. If Hector’s right, and the islands are going to be put on a war footing, they won’t need us here any longer. We should do everything we can to gather as much intelligence as possible while we’re here.’
‘We’ll need to be more careful than last night,’ Lukas said. ‘We could have got killed. It was stupid.’
‘I say we watch the top of the cove from a distance,’ Abby suggested. ‘We don’t need to see the frogmen landing. We need to see what they’re doing once they get onto the island.’
‘Roger that,’ Max said. He thought for a minute. ‘Lukas and I will go to the listening post. The rest of you put in surveillance on the clifftop.’
‘What do you think you’ll find there?’ Sami said. ‘At the listening post, I mean.’
‘I don’t know,’ Max said. ‘But if the frogmen were there, I don’t think they were just sightseeing.’
The cadets nodded grimly.
Once more, they waited until Arlene was in bed before creeping out of the guest house and heading away from the town. The weather was clearer tonight, the moon brighter. That was a blessing and a curse: it was easier to see by a bright moon, but also easier to be seen. They followed the same road out of Stanley as the previous night. At the end of it, however, they
split up. Abby, Lili and Sami followed the usual route cross-country to the clifftop. Max and Lukas headed in the opposite direction.
The two friends were silent as they jogged across the grassy ground. Although the night was clear, the area was exposed to the wind. Its howl drowned out all other sounds. The moon cast long shadows ahead of them. Aware that they were exposed, and that their sense of hearing was compromised, they stopped every minute to check that nobody was watching them. As far as they could see, they were alone in this wild landscape.
They had been jogging for ten minutes when, over to their eleven o’clock, they saw the jagged outline of the minefield fence darkly visible against the night sky. Max found it chilling to think of all those landmines, lying silently dormant for decades, ready to explode, maim and kill at the slightest pressure. He thought he could see the outline of a bird perched on one of the upright posts.
‘It’s the albatross,’ Lukas said quietly. ‘That Peter guy said they were bad luck.’
Max shivered. ‘There’s no such thing,’ he said quietly. ‘We make our own luck, right?’
‘Right.’
‘Then let’s keep moving.’
It took them another ten minutes to reach the gap in the fence. Here they paused again and looked around. No sign of movement or personnel. ‘I think you should keep guard here,’ Max said quietly. ‘If you see anybody approaching …’
‘… I’ll let you know.’ Lukas nodded and his eyes narrowed as he started to scan the surrounding countryside.
Max took a deep breath. Peter had said that there were no mines around the listening post, but still … He trod as lightly as he could as he climbed through the fence and started across the field.