Soldier K: Mission to Argentina

by David Monnery

  On the near side of these, hidden from the new arrivals, another couple of officers were hurrying in their direction. One was still apparently fastening his trousers.

  ‘Morning crap took longer than expected,’ Mozza murmured to himself. He looked at his watch. It was almost seven – time to wake Stanley. He wrote down the time of the arrival, the type of helicopter – a Huey UHIH – and the ranks of both the visiting officers and their reception committee. He took one more look through the telescope, and found the pilot standing up against his machine, having a piss. After a vigorous shake the Argentinian turned round and strolled a few yards away across the meadow, lighting up a cigarette and gazing around at the scenery with an obvious air of self-satisfaction.

  ‘What’s he thinking about?’ Mozza muttered to himself. The wife back home? The wonders of nature? Or was the Argie a city boy, wondering what the fuck he was doing in the middle of nowhere? At that moment, as if he sensed the watching eyes, the man looked up towards the distant OP, stared for a moment, then turned away, taking another drag on his cigarette.

  Mozza put down the telescope and used his unaided eyes for a quick panoramic sweep of the hillside. The four of them had decided, after a long, whispered discussion on their third night ashore, to plant themselves in this immense stretch of bare slope precisely because it gave them such a field of vision. In daylight at least there was no chance of their being surprised, and the freedom to talk without fear of being overheard was a priceless asset when it came to retaining one’s sanity.

  The downside of such an exposed OP was the lack of any cover, or any other lines in the landscape which might draw the eye away from signs which the patrol had inadvertently left on the ‘surface’. They had turned themselves into hostages of their own camouflaging skills, and only time would tell if they had occasioned some slight change in texture or colour only visible from the air.

  At night, of course, none of the above applied. They were safe from the air, but the risk of an enemy patrol passing nearby was ever-present, so that strict silence had to be maintained at all times.

  So far the only loud and inadvertent sound they had made was an enormous snort from the sleeping Hedge. That had been two nights before, and the rain had either covered the noise or deterred the Argentinians from venturing out on patrol. According to Stanley, the wind had been blowing the wrong way for the snort to be heard on the mainland 400 miles away.

  Mozza remembered this as he worked his way back through the cramped space towards the gently snoring trooper. In response to his shake the ginger-haired Brummie’s eyes opened with a start, only to wearily close once more when they saw who it was.

  ‘Where’s the luscious Conchita?’ Stanley murmured.

  ‘Which luscious Conchita is that?’ Mozza asked.

  ‘The one in my dream,’ Stanley said sleepily. ‘You’re too young to hear the details. All I can say is that she brought her own Angels’ Delight.’

  It was raining in Hereford. It seemed to Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Weighell to have been raining all day, the dark-grey skies adding their sombre voice to the general depression which the previous day’s news had spread across the Stirling Lines HQ of 22 SAS Regiment. Even his tea was cold. He pressed his intercom to demand a fresh cup, and was informed that Major Neil Strachan had just arrived to see him. ‘Make that two teas then,’ he said. ‘And a couple of rock cakes,’ he added.

  The red-haired, blue-eyed Neil Strachan came through the door with a smile on his face and a briefcase in one freckled hand. ‘Rock cakes,’ he echoed, in an accent straight out of the Great Glen. ‘We are taking risks today.’

  ‘I hope you’ve come to cheer me up,’ Weighell observed.

  Strachan sat down. ‘That depends on what you find cheering. I’ve got the preliminary report you asked for. You’ve got a general map, I take it?’

  Weighell lifted up The Times Atlas which had been leaning against one end of his desk, placed it between them and opened it where he had left the bookmark: Plate 121 – Argentina, Chile, Uruguay.

  ‘That’ll do for the wider picture,’ Strachan said. He pulled a couple of smaller maps out of his briefcase. ‘You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to find more detailed maps. This one’ – he was opening a 1:1,000,000 map of Argentina’s Santa Cruz province – ‘comes from the Bodleian Library, and I got this one’ – it was a 1:500,000 map of Tierra del Fuego – ‘from an outdoor activities bookshop in Covent Garden.’

  ‘What are the Task Force using?’ Weighell wondered out loud.

  ‘God only knows. Probably old school atlases. Anyway …’

  He was interrupted by the arrival of two steaming mugs and two ominous-looking rock cakes.

  ‘I think I’ll pass on the grenades,’ Strachan said. ‘I still haven’t found the last filling they ripped out.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re missing,’ Weighell said, taking a giant bite. ‘Now what have you got?’

  ‘Right. Let’s start with the first idea, of dropping two squadrons onto their airbases to commit general mayhem. It’s a non-starter, Bryan. I could tell you why in detail if you want, but it seems like a waste of time. It would just be a suicide mission to end all suicide missions. We’d probably lose less men using the Harriers in a kamikaze role.’

  Weighell grunted. ‘That’s what I thought from the word go,’ he said, ‘and I think the PM thought so too …’

  ‘I thought it was her idea …’

  ‘It was. I think she just threw it into the pot so it would look like a concession when she plucked it back out again.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Strachan agreed.

  ‘But the other idea …’

  ‘Is not so mad. In fact, it makes a lot of sense, if you ignore any diplomatic ramifications. Let’s start with the job itself.’ He placed his two maps side by side over Weighell’s atlas. ‘The terrain’s far from perfect, mostly because there’s no cover to speak of …’

  ‘Like the Falklands.’

  ‘Exactly. And since we already have patrols concealed above their bases on the islands there’s no real reason why we shouldn’t do the same on the mainland. Here and here’ – he used the end of his pen to point out a particular spot on each map, one a few miles south of the Rio Gallegos airbase, one between the latter and the sea – ‘seem like reasonable locations given the limits of the maps available to us. I would put in a request for American satellite photos, but that would rather give the game away and …’

  ‘No, don’t do that, not yet anyway.’ Weighell was studying the two maps. ‘And the idea would be to land them 20 miles or so away, as on the islands?’

  ‘Maybe nearer. Maybe even farther away – I’ll come to that in a moment. But one last word on the job itself: there’s no technical problems I can see. They can send out the info in burst transmissions on a Clansman, which should minimize the chances of interception. Of course, if the Argies have any sense they’ll be mounting patrols, but if they weren’t then our lads could just sit there with their telescopes and have a picnic. There’s bound to be some risk.’

  ‘Ah, that reminds me,’ Weighell interjected, the last chunk of rock cake poised perilously between plate and mouth. ‘I’ve been trying to get some guidelines from Whitehall about our lads’ status if they should be caught. Without any success; of course. There’s been no declaration of war – there never is these days – so even if they’re in uniform, and I’m still assuming they will be, then it’s rather in the lap of the Argentinians.’

  ‘Who don’t exactly inspire confidence,’ Strachan said soberly.

  ‘No. And in any case the politicians are just as likely to insist the lads are not in uniform, so that they can wash their hands of them … I don’t know …’ He scowled. ‘Let’s leave it for the moment.’

  ‘Right,’ Strachan said. ‘Getting them there. I don’t have any cast-iron information, but from what I’ve gathered so far it seems that a one-way trip by a Sea King is the best bet.’

  ‘It couldn’t
get back?’

  ‘Not a chance. Which of course creates its own problem: what do we do with the Sea King once it has delivered its passengers, and even more to the point – what do we do with its crew?’

  ‘What about the HALO option?’

  ‘We don’t think so. The consensus of opinion is that it would be much harder to get the men in unobserved that way. We think the Argentinian radar defences are too good for anything other than a low-level insertion. High-altitude, low-opening tactics won’t do.’

  ‘OK, so assuming you can render a Sea King and its crew invisible how do we get the patrols out again?’

  ‘That shouldn’t be a problem. One of the submarines will pick them up at two designated spots.’

  Weighell took a gulp of his tea and found it had already gone cold. ‘Under that cynical façade, do I detect a certain enthusiasm for this venture?’ he asked.

  Strachan took the question seriously. ‘Yes, I think it could be done,’ he answered. ‘And should be,’ he added almost as an afterthought. ‘It is the sort of mission the regiment was designed for.’

  ‘Well, the PM is certainly in favour,’ Weighell said drily. ‘Who do you have in mind for the magnificent eight?’

  ‘Ah. Well, there’s one obvious difference between the Falklands and Argentina …’

  ‘One of them belongs to us?’

  ‘In Argentina they speak Spanish. Of course, we hope the need for conversation doesn’t actually arise, and that we can get in and out without a single “buenos días”, but just in case something goes wrong it would be nice to send eight Spanish-speakers.’

  ‘Are there that many in the Regiment?’ Weighell asked incredulously.

  ‘There are eight that we know of,’ Strachan said. ‘And would you believe that three of them are this moment sitting in an OP above Port Howard on West Falkland: Major Brookes and Troopers Laurel and Moseley?’

  ‘Where are the other five?’

  ‘Here in the UK. Two are from A Squadron, the other three from B. The B Squadron bunch have worked together before: an undercover mission in Guatemala during one of the Belize scares.’

  ‘Sergeant Docherty,’ Weighell remembered.

  ‘Yes. His father died a month ago, and he’s on compassionate leave, but the time’s almost up.’

  ‘He had all that time off when his wife died.’

  ‘Yes, almost six months.’

  ‘Why so long? I was in Oman at the time,’ he added by way of explanation.

  ‘Because they thought he was worth it,’ Strachan replied. ‘He’s a damn good soldier.’

  ‘This isn’t just the Scots’ Old Boys Network talking?’

  ‘You must be joking – the bastard’s a Celtic supporter.’

  Weighell laughed. ‘OK, you have him earmarked as PC. What about the others?’

  ‘The other two Spanish-speakers in B Squadron are Wilkinson and Wacknadze. The two in A …’

  ‘I would think six out of eight was good enough, Neil. If you’ve got two four-man patrols who know and work well with each other, then go with them.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Of course, it’ll mean pulling Brookes’s bunch out of West Falkland,’ Weighell added. ‘All that bracing fresh air,’ he mused. ‘Have you called the others in?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Do it. By my reckoning they’ll be sending the Marines ashore in less than three weeks from now. And by that time our job should have been done. We’re on borrowed time, Neil.’

  The mountain with which he shared a surname was wreathed in cloud, but Stewart Nevis – ‘Ben’ to his comrades in the SAS – had his eyes to the ground as he walked moodily up Fort William railway station’s single platform. The conversation he had just had with his girlfriend was still going round and round in his head, and the temptation to go back for more was a strong one. But he would see her again the following day, and Morag would be none too pleased if he turned up again at the shop. The tourist season might be hardly started, but she took the division between work and play as seriously as she took everything else. They had wasted her lunch hour arguing, and that was the end of it until tomorrow.

  He looked once more at the front page of the paper he was carrying, emblazoned with news of the catastrophe which had befallen the Sheffield. It was hardly the day to ask him to choose between the Army and her, Ben thought. But she had.

  This should be an easy choice, he told himself, one eye on the Class 37 engine backing up the relief track, diesel fumes pumping into the grey sky. He loved Morag, and the SAS was just a job.

  But it was more than that. Why could she not understand? Or maybe she did. Maybe she understood it better than him, which was why she was forcing him to choose.

  ‘I won’t marry a soldier,’ she had said. It was as simple as that.

  He had asked her what she expected him to do instead. His elder brother Gavin would take over the family farm, so there was no place for him there, at least not in the long run. And new jobs were not exactly thick on the ground around Fort William. So what did she expect him to do?

  ‘Anything,’ she had said. ‘You could do anything. What’s the good of what you’re doing now?’ she had asked, neatly changing the subject, he now realized. At the time he had been too busy defending himself.

  ‘How often do we have a war?’ she had asked. ‘Once in a blue moon. And when we do have one half of you get left at home … oh, I know that’s not your fault, you idiot, but don’t go giving me all that nonsense about duty. You’re in the army because you love it.’

  Which was true enough, Ben admitted. The engine was being coupled up to the Mallaig train: it was time to get aboard.

  He sat gazing out of the window as the train rattled through the junction and struck out for Banachie and the bridge across the Caledonian Canal. Outside his window Loch Linnhe stretched away to the south; on the other side of the train mountain slopes clambered towards the clouds.

  His uncle had driven engines on this line from the beginning of the fifties through to his death from a heart attack in 1981. He had never really come to terms with diesels: the old steam engines, he had always said, were like women – you could always coax that little bit more out of them, particularly with a little tenderness. A few years later he had decided that women had changed as much as engines: these ‘uppity-tight’ modern women, as he called them, were just like diesels – one little problem and they just cut out altogether.

  Morag was not like that, Ben thought. If anything she was a bit old-fashioned, even by Fort William standards. But then that was one of the things he loved about her.

  She had said she was prepared to wait a year or so for Ben to make up his mind. There was no hurry. But in some strange way – as if the decision had nothing to do with him – he was impatient to know which way he would jump. He could not honestly imagine relinquishing either Morag or the SAS, but he seemed to have little choice.

  At Arisaig he got down from the train and started down the lane towards the family farm. The sky was clearing in the west, and 10 miles away across the water Eigg was bathed in sunlight, but he still felt oppressed by his dilemma.

  His mother was in the kitchen, rolling pastry for an apple pie. She glanced up as he came in, a worried look on her face. ‘There’s a message for you,’ she said. ‘It’s by the phone.’

  Ben went through into the living room, and read the note in his mother’s neat writing. He had been ordered back to base.

  ‘Is it the Falklands?’ his mother asked from the door. Her voice was calm, her eyes full of anxiety.

  ‘No idea,’ he said.

  Darren ‘Razor’ Wilkinson was also talking to his mother, though the view through their back-room window was somewhat different: a half-tamed garden and the backs of terraced houses in the next street. Out of sight between them, but distressingly loud all the same, trains on the Barking to Gospel Oak line ran through a brick-lined cutting.

  ‘Who are you going out with tonight?’ she asked from
the armchair. She already had her uniform on for the night shift at Whipps Cross Hospital.

  ‘Her name’s Corinna – but then nobody’s perfect.’ He gave the sleeve one more stroke of the iron, and turned the shirt over.

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this,’ he said, ‘but in a vegetarian restaurant. A future one, that is.’

  ‘You mean, that lot down the street who are doing up the place on the corner? I was thinking of offering them a hand, if I ever get a spare ten minutes.’

  ‘Like mother, like son,’ Razor said.

  ‘You offered to help?’ she asked disbelievingly.

  ‘Not exactly. You remember Rick Manning? Well, he knows them from the Tap & Spile, and one of the women …’ He grinned. ‘He fancies her. So he volunteers both himself and me for a morning’s hard labour.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘Nice people, though. For do-gooders, anyway,’ he added slyly.

  ‘And Corinna – is she a do-gooder?’ his mother asked sweetly.

  ‘I hope she’ll do me good.’ He leaned over and pulled the plug out of its socket. ‘I’m going for a bath while you watch Emmerdale,’ he said.

  Upstairs, he tuned the radio to LBC in the hope of hearing some news of Spurs, did his best to extend his lanky frame in the short bath, and wondered how the evening would go. He hated first dates – it was always so hard to just be yourself.

  He thought about Corinna. She was attractive enough – blonde, no more than verging on plump, a lovely smile – and she certainly seemed bright. Not that a degree usually impressed him, not in itself anyway. He thought most people would benefit from three years of freedom to read books and talk to each other without any irritating need to earn a living.

  But if there was one thing he had learnt at school it was that the bright ones usually saw through everything a little too quickly for their own good. It was the plodders who went to university, them and the ones whose parents never considered any other possibility.