For most of a minute the three men sat in silence, savouring their safe arrival. It was 0220 hours on 17 May.
They removed their gear and, thinking to minimize the conflagration, tried to drain the remaining fuel from the tanks. There was none. Another half a mile and they would not have needed to destroy the helicopter.
As it was, they had to pile forest undergrowth into the Sea King to make sure of its destruction. As flames danced through the cab and hold, they turned away and started trekking up the hill, towards their intended camp-site.
None of them had noticed Juan Fonseca watching from the trees. He had been walking home along the coastal track from a friend’s house after a long and particularly satisfying game of chess. It had been satisfying because he had beaten his friend for the first time in months, and it was perhaps the resultant sense of well-being which persuaded him to investigate the strange sight of a helicopter landing in the forest.
It was not something which became clearer as he drew near. He arrived to see the crew of three – Englishmen from the Falklands War, judging by their faces and the strange markings on the helicopter – setting fire to the craft they had just arrived in. They had then smiled at each other and taken off into the forest like backpackers.
Fonseca went to look at the helicopter, now burning rather desultorily, but could make no sense of the business. He walked back to the coastal track, and wondered what he should do.
Nothing, he decided. He could make the trip into Punta Arenas the next day and tell the authorities, but he could see no good reason why he should. Wednesday was his day for visiting the town, and the helicopter was going nowhere. The three Englishmen might be invading Chile, but somehow he doubted it. This had to be something to do with their war with Argentina, and where that was concerned he rather favoured the English. They, after all, were not always threatening Chile, the way Argentina was.
On board the Resource Bill Hemmings spent the night waiting nervously in the ship’s radio room beside the brand new PRC319. Every now and then he would reach over and brush an imaginary speck of dust off one of the gleaming surfaces. Sod’s Law being in force, the first signal arrived while he was out of the room collecting cups of tea for himself and the orderly, an anorexic-looking young chap from Liverpool.
It came as a written message on the screen: NORTH BEDDED DOWN FOR THE NIGHT … OPERATION PROCEEDING AS PLANNED … OUT.
‘Any reply, sir, or shall I just acknowledge receipt?’ the orderly asked Hemmings.
‘Just acknowledge,’ Hemmings said. It was the first time he had seen the PRC319 in operation, and he was impressed. Hemmings was also pleased that the sender – either Docherty or Wacknadze – had not felt himself constrained by past SAS practice to use the system’s burst-message Morse capability. The PRC319 evaded transmission detection by picking out frequencies at random from a wide range, and North’s sender had just demonstrated both an understanding of, and his confidence in, the new technology.
Hemmings was still feeling pleased about this when South reported in, using the burst-message Morse facility. Either Brookes or Moseley obviously lacked such confidence. It was most likely Brookes. Moseley had seemed both intrigued and delighted by the new system, but his PC was probably getting more cautious and more set in his ways as he got older.
The message, when translated, was the same. South was also bedded down.
A few minutes later the Sea King crew reported their safe landing and their current location a few miles further inland. They had taken the helicopter as far from the SAS patrols as anyone could have hoped. So far, so good, Hemmings told himself. The SAS invasion of Argentina was going according to plan.
That morning dawned clear and cold over the Rio Grande valley in Tierra del Fuego, cloudy and cold over the grassy steppe south of Rio Gallegos on the mainland. Both patrols were secure in their scrapes half an hour before dawn, and the daylight hours passed without any great alarm. Better visibility had given South a safer location, high on a grassy slope beneath overhanging rocks in an empty valley. Dawn had been unkind enough to reveal a road not 200 yards from the North scrapes, but during the course of the day only four vehicles made use of it.
With darkness both patrols moved on. Each had a reasonably specific location in mind for their OP, but both were aware of the limitations of the maps they were carrying, and knew that their final decisions would have to await an inspection in situ.
Docherty’s patrol had the longer journey that night, but also the easier one, and soon after 0200 they could see, with the aid of the telescope, the lights of Rio Gallegos three or four miles away to the north, and those of the airbase some two and a half miles away to the north-west. Within an hour they had picked out a likely spot for the OP and begun to excavate. If daylight showed a better or safer vantage point they would move house again the following night.
Brookes’s patrol had a more difficult time. The area they needed to traverse was criss-crossed by tracks, contained several farms, and, according to the plethora of signs, was an area much frequented by anglers. They took it slowly and circuitously, aware that even one barking dog might pull the world down on top of them, and midnight had passed before they slipped across the main road and into the area of rough grassland north of the river estuary. The few lights of the town were visible away to the north-east, but the only visible evidence of the airbase came with a helicopter, which flew low and noisily over their heads before disappearing northwards.
It was almost 0430 before the patrol had worked its way round to a position between the airbase and the sea, and a provisional placement for the OP had to be swiftly agreed if the four men were to be safely out of sight by dawn.
More by luck than judgement, the location proved an ideal one. The area proved less flat than the map had suggested, more like a miniature landscape of hills and valleys, with the former rarely rising more than 10 feet and the latter seldom more than 10 feet wide. The OP was set on the eastern slope of a shallow dip on the edge of this strange countryside, and though it offered no direct view of the airbase a mile to the west, it did provide, as they soon discovered, a panoramic view of the sky above it. No planes would be taking off or landing without their knowledge.
Daylight on 18 May brought North rather less satisfactory news. Planes took off from Rio Gallegos airbase on a north-westerly course, and circled round behind the distant estuary before heading eastwards out to sea. The patrol was simply too far away from the airbase for precise observation. All through that day they filed as accurate a log of air-traffic movements as they could, but once darkness arrived they would have to move nearer and take up the digging tools once more.
Outside the Rio Grande airbase, Brookes had more adventurous plans. His patrol had also been monitoring traffic in and out, but so far they had seen neither Super Etendards nor Mirages, and Brookes decided a closer inspection of the airbase was in order. Shortly after midnight he and Stanley left a sleeping Hedge and an alert Mozza, and started working their way across the pocked grassland towards the airbase perimeter.
They moved slowly, frequently stopping for several minutes to listen for a possible patrol, but the only unnatural sounds came from motor vehicles, either around the airbase or on the road beyond it. Soon the yellow lights of the distant control tower were visible above the grassy knolls, and a further quarter of a mile brought them to where the land suddenly turned flatter, as if some enormous steamroller had been employed. Lying face down behind the final fold, the two men took turns examining the airbase through their image-intensifying night-sight.
About 50 yards ahead of them a tall wire fence, topped with razor wire but apparently not electrified, ran out of sight to both left and right. One hundred and fifty yards behind this fence, and parallel to it, a single runway stretched half a mile or more in each direction on a roughly east-west axis. Between fence and runway there was nothing but rough grass waving in the wind.
The only planes parked in the open were two Aeromacchi reconnais
sance craft and a single Puma helicopter. All the others were presumably tucked up for the night in the long line of buildings on the far side, between the runway and the distant highway. Away to the left there were four identical long, one-storey buildings, which looked distinctly like barracks. Next in line to the west were a two-storey office building, several large cylindrical fuel tanks, what looked like a civilian terminal building, and three hangars of various sizes. The doors of the nearest one was open, revealing the front half of a Skyhawk.
Most interesting of all, almost directly opposite the SAS men’s position, three concrete shelters in the shape of flat-roofed pyramids had been constructed, and foundations dug for three more. The doors of each were shut. Working on the theory that people gave the best protection to what they valued most, Brookes reckoned the shelters might well contain Super Etendards, Exocets or both. If they did …
Brookes took a deep breath. If they did, he could see very little in the way of their strolling over and blowing the planes into little pieces.
Getting away would not be so simple, of course.
Stanley’s hand touched his arm, and he followed the Brummie’s glance to the right. The night-sight showed a patrol of four Argentinian soldiers wandering lackadaisically along the outside of the perimeter fence, chatting.
They ambled slowly past, never even throwing so much as a glance in the SAS men’s direction. As I was thinking, Brookes said to himself. It looked almost too easy.
In Rio Gallegos, on the following morning, Isabel Fuentes popped the last corner of the cinnamon pastry into her mouth and stared out of the wide front window of the Le Croissant patisserie at the rain sweeping across the intersection of Calles Estrada and Zapiola. On the opposite corner a Pinguino Company bus was slowly consuming a queue of waiting passengers, all of whom were attempting to shield themselves from the downpour with soggy newspapers held above their heads. As was usual in such situations, the driver, happily ensconced in his dry seat, seemed to be checking each ticket as if it was a forgery.
Isabel smiled, took a sip of the excellent coffee, and went back to her newspaper’s reporting of the Junta’s final rejection of the British peace proposals. She could see that they had little choice in the matter – assuming that they wanted to save any face at all – but when all was said and done they were only prolonging the agony. And killing off the nation’s young men in the process.
She folded the newspaper and stared out once more at the rain. This was not the day she should have chosen for a day off, she decided, but since the job itself was imaginary it hardly seemed worth worrying about. After almost a month’s work the briefcase on the chair beside her was bulging with information for the discerning tourist, including a glowing write-up for the establishment she was currently patronizing – ‘the best croissants south of Bahia Blanca’, no less.
She smiled inwardly, and wondered how much longer this would go on. She had enough money for another six months – British Intelligence was either absurdly generous or had no idea of the Patagonian cost of living – although she felt she could not stand much more than another one in the Covadonga.
She would never have guessed it, but she missed cooking. Eating out all the time was not only boring; it became almost soul-destroying after a while. There were some things people needed to do for themselves, she decided, if they wanted to keep in touch with who they were. Maybe that was why the rich tended to lose touch, because they never did their own cooking.
There were compensations in all the free time offered by hotel life. Reading, for one: she seemed to be consuming novels at the rate of one a day, or one every two for the longer ones. She had a feeling that the small secondhand bookshop in Calle Urquiza had not seen a better customer since TV arrived in town.
She took another sip of the strong dark coffee and wondered whether to have another pastry. There was no point in leaving until the rain abated.
A large limousine drew up at the kerb almost directly opposite her window-seat, splashing water from the swollen gutter onto the pavement. The rear door opened and two legs emerged, swiftly followed by the rest of Tomas Solanille. His hair was greyer than she remembered, but the aquiline nose and the bleak eyes were unmistakable. She almost cried out in her surprise.
Another man emerged from the driving seat on the far side, younger, with that lean, cadaverous look which she always associated with Colombian gangsters on American TV shows. The two of them hurried up the short flight of steps and into the patisserie. Sit at the back, she mentally urged them, but to no avail. They sat down at the only empty window table, just as the man occupying the table between her and them got up to leave. Only two other tables were occupied, both by pairs of women, and they were in the centre of the room.
Isabel felt exposed, frightened and close to panic. If he should recognize her …
At least he had sat down with his back to her. Keep calm, she told herself. Remember the old discipline.
Would he know her after all this time? She had recognized him, but that was different – she had been questioned by only one of him, whereas he had doubtless questioned hundreds like her. In a way she hoped he would recognize her …
Christ, she told herself, get a grip! This was not the time or the place for restoring her faith in humanity. This was something to be got out of, as quickly as possible, as quietly as possible. As alive as possible.
It was a hell of a long way to the door. And first she had to pay the bill. Christ, she thought, that would have been a smart move – being chased into the street by the woman at the counter for not paying.
She got to her feet, took the briefcase in one hand and the newspaper in the other, and, turning in such a way that her face was never visible to the two men, went up to the counter and paid her bill. Then, taking a deep breath, she walked across the five yards separating her from the door, half-hiding her head with the newspaper, as if preparing to protect herslef from the rain outside.
The only problem with this was that it left no free hand to open the door. Solanille obliged, extending an arm to push it open, without even bothering to glance up at her face.
She emerged into the rain, shivering with the memory of fear.
Early on the morning of Wednesday 19 May Juan Fonseca started up his battered Dodge pick-up and drove the nine miles up the coastal track to the Chilean town of Punta Arenas. He had several things to pick up at the market, and it always paid to buy early, so it was not until nearly noon that he walked through the portals of the police station on the corner of Calles Errazuriz and Navarro. Once inside he had some trouble persuading the duty officer to take his story seriously, but the fortuitous arrival of an officer who knew Fonseca, and was ready to vouch for his reliability, saw the wheels of investigation grinding into motion. The local military base was informed, and a meeting of all parties arranged on the southern outskirts of town. From there a convoy of police and military vehicles followed the battered pick-up down the coastal track.
It was soon being shadowed by several other vehicles, each containing a journalist alerted by his or her informant in the ranks of the police and military. By the time the convoy reached that spot on the coast nearest to the burnt-out Sea King, it contained nine vehicles. A veritable swarm of people, uniformed and otherwise, poured up through the trees to examine the scene in the clearing.
Fonseca and various officers were exhaustively interviewed, photographs were taken, theories propounded. By mid-afternoon the more seasoned journalists were back in Punta Arenas, phone in hand, trying to sell the story to the nationals in Santiago and the international press associations. News of the helicopter’s landing might have taken some 60 hours to cover the eight miles to Punta Arenas, but it only required a couple more to reach Buenos Aires and London.
From the latter it rebounded southwards, via Ascension, to the Task Force. Hemmings heard of the discovery as dusk was falling across the scattered ships of the fleet, and immediately signalled the two patrols on Argentinian soil.
/> For Docherty the news explained quite a lot. Half an hour earlier two lorryloads of army troops had arrived at the Rio Gallegos airbase, and in the meantime two helicopters had been flying obvious search patterns over the hills to their left. Despite the fact that the Sea King had been discovered more than 100 miles away, someone in enemy intelligence had clearly put two and two together. If the helicopter had put down troops in Argentina, then the obvious place to look for them was outside the prime targets for reconnaissance – the two major airbases. Hence the arrival of the lorries.
At least it was getting dark. Docherty doubted whether an exhaustive search would begin before first light the next day, although the Argentinians might send out random patrols that night, particularly if they had access to thermal-imaging equipment.
He took another long look at the airbase through the telescope. Both helicopters had now landed, and the troops had mostly disappeared into one of the barracks buildings. The patrol was safe for the moment, but Docherty reckoned their chances of remaining undiscovered for another twenty-four hours were less than even. If they stayed where they were.
He turned to Ben. ‘Wake the others,’ he said.
When all four of them were gathered together, each lying in his own arm of the cross-shaped hide, faces only a foot or so apart in the central space, Docherty told the others of the Sea King’s discovery, recounted developments in the airbase below, and asked for suggestions.
Razor came up with the same idea as Docherty himself. ‘Why not move back to the other OP, at least for the day? We couldn’t see what was happening from up there, even with a half-decent telescope, so with any luck they’ll not bother extending their search that far out.’
‘I agree,’ Docherty said. He raised an eyebrow at the other two, who both nodded their acquiescence. ‘Ok. I think we should move as soon as it’s dark enough, or even slightly sooner, before they start thinking about trying out their image intensifies. So you two start clearing up here while Wacko calls home and tells them what we’re doing.’
Soldier K: Mission to Argentina Page 14