Tom Strobie had said, a few weeks after that rendezvous in the back of beyond, ‘Heard you were up at the Sandrini wreck, Andy. You and—’
‘Heard?’
‘One of my peóns — Anselmo, know the fellow? He saw we had visitors, so he rode up for a closer look and recognised both horses. He’s one of the old brigade; see a nag once, he’ll know it ten years later. He’d know it was your horse even if he didn’t recognise you, boy.’
‘I see… ’
‘He’s a wise bird, though. You can rely upon it, I’m the only person he’ll have told. But all the same’ — the old man’s hand had fastened on Andy’s shoulder — ‘more remote a place is, more conspicuous you are in it. Might be no one there in half a year, but—’
‘We met for an asado, Tom.’
Asado meaning ‘barbecue’.
‘Surely. I’m telling you it’s not a good spot even for that. Anyway, not with that particular young woman. For whom as you know I have a soft spot, a warm admiration — as well as respect, Andy, for your taste and good fortune. So’ — he’d turned away — ‘if you want some place to meet her, meet her here. I shan’t play gooseberry. I’m out and about a lot, you know.’
He’d wondered then, right at the time, what might have been Strobie’s motivation in making this offer, of which a lot of people would have been highly critical but of which he and Francisca had taken full advantage all through that summer. Strobie’s paternal attitude to him, and the fact it had spread now to embrace Francisca as well, was hardly enough. Then a clue had emerged from one of Tom’s rare personal revelations, the story of a young and adored wife who’d died of polio when Tom had been away at sea on the other side of the world, and of whom Francisca reminded the old man. Over the years since, he’d come to accept that this had been the heart of it.
*
Cloudsley stirred them at dusk, for a bite to eat before moving down to the lake shore. The first job was to unpack the boat, fit its deckboards and inflate it, and unpack and prepare the outboard. They’d done it before, of course, as a drill and in the dark, working to a stopwatch, and it took only a few minutes. The boat’s fabric was black, the motor’s pod and even its short shaft dull grey, gas-tank and spare jerrycan the same; there was no reflective surface anywhere.
West asked as they started loading — Tony Beale meanwhile checking wiring points and plugging in headsets for’ard and aft — ‘We liable to meet patrols on this pond, Harry? At the border, maybe?’
‘Yup.’ Cloudsley hefted a pack, slung it down to Hosegood, who stowed it snugly against the inflatable’s swollen port side. The next went end-on to it, balancing a similar stowage-plan on the other side. Down here at the water’s edge it was already dark; the sun’s last efforts still lit the heights above them but were cut off from the valley floor by the ridge they’d spent the day on. Cloudsley said, ‘We’ll tell ’em we’ve nothing to declare. Take the green channel. But — patrol or no patrol — no ruckus, remember. We lie doggo, or we run for it.’ He added as if to himself, ‘Circumstances permitting, of course.’
Policy, dictated from on high: no firefights or killings, except in self-defence, last resort. The enemy was to be avoided, not confronted, and the SBS motto By Stealth, By Guile was to be the keynote of the operation. Each man except for Andy was carrying an Ingram 9-mm Model 11 machine-pistol with suppressor, but the hope was to take them out of the country clean, unused, their 30-round magazines all full.
‘Looks like the lot.’ West straightened. ‘What’ll we do — swim?’
‘We sit on top of the cargo, Jake. But you can swim behind if you like. Tony—’ Beale was climbing into the bow: Cloudsley told him, ‘Get set with your PNG.’
Passive Night Goggles: a smaller type than the helo pilots had used, but effective up to eight hundred metres, with the image in green and black. Cloudsley continued his distribution of body-weights: Hosegood already in his appointed place. ‘Andy, you next. On the centreline.’ Peering down… ‘Now you, Jake. Right… Last, but very far from least’ — easing himself over, sliding into the stern — ‘the driver.’
‘Nothing sophisticated like remote control, Harry?’ Andy suggested. ‘From up front so you’d see where you were going?’
‘Waste of space. This is all we need.’ Holding up a headset — small plugs to fit in his ears and a spring-loaded throat microphone. It plugged into wiring that was integral to the boat’s starboard blister and connected him with Tony Beale who was at the sharp end with the goggles.
‘Any more fares?’
Nobody offered. The boat lurched from the shift of Cloudsley’s weight as he swung back on the lanyard. The outboard coughed, then roared, went a lot quieter as he shut down the soundproofing glassfibre lid over the starter mechanism. Shoving off then, Beale with a long leg out against rock.
Gathering way. Black lake water lifting, rolling away in a wide, smooth ‘v’, while under the boat’s stern the water shivered, fragmenting, glassing over again before it was lost to sight. Ahead the mountainsides rose towering, forming a huge canyon which, from this beetle-like object creeping into it, was daunting, overpowering in its immensity. Cloudsley opened a the throttle another notch: you felt the surge, and the engine-note rose but there was no significant increase in volume. Keeping one hand on the tiller Cloudsley removed his cap, pushed the headset on and settled the plugs in his ears, adjusted the position of the tiny mike against his throat. Cap on again, pulling it down all round, and its flaps down over the earplugs; he spoke quietly, the words indistinguishable even though he was only a few feet away. ‘D’you hear me, Tony?’
No answer. Beale didn’t have his set on yet, he was still getting the Litton’s PNG in focus. Cloudsley waited, then winced when the colour sergeant said in a normal tone of voice, ‘Testing comms…’
‘Keep it down, Christ’s sake!‘
‘Sorry, Harry.’
‘And don’t suck your teeth, Tony, d’you mind?’
With a throat microphone you had to be careful how you salivated.
*
Bloody cold. And you couldn’t swing your arms or stamp your feet, could hardly twitch a muscle. It would have been much worse without ponchos — and in Andy’s case, thermal underwear — but it was still tooth-rattling cold. They all had their caps on with earflaps down, muffling the steady swish of lake water, hum of the night wind and the steady grumble of the muffled motor, which was pushing the boat along at a fair rate of knots and hadn’t — yet — faltered even once. It could happen at any moment, of course; the others had made gloomy prophecies, earlier on, all of them having had unpleasant experiences at other times with outboards, apparently. Mountainsides rose sheer to a starless, black infinity, and Andy thought about the coming day, the Argentine side. If they made it that far, they’d be landing thirty miles inside enemy territory, and then would come the moment of truth when you’d discover whether the HALO dropper’s mission had been successful.
Strobie might well be dead. He was of an age when people died — quite apart from the fact that his survival of the last forty years had been fairly miraculous. There wasn’t anyone who’d have written, sent the news if Tom had died or been removed to hospital, whatever.
Francisca, he guessed, would have kept in touch with the old man. (Knowing she would have been seeing him from time to time had made that paragraph in his letter — the accusation of having given her up too easily — exciting, full of a sort of frustrated hope, when he’d read it. Guessing it might not have been only Tom speculating, that she might have said something to inspire it.)
Strobie really loved her, and she’d enjoyed that rough, no-strings affection; but she wouldn’t have written. She’d have done whatever might have been necessary for Tom — nursed him, or helped in any other way including burying him; but she wouldn’t have brought him, Andy MacEwan, into it. She would not, in fact, have said anything to make Strobie write that in his letter. The hope had been wishful thinking, hadn’t taken account of the kind of
person she was — that she’d made her choice, picked her bed to lie in, would be loyal to that decision. Roberto’s bed; and Roberto in close cahoots with Alejandro Diaz — who’d made his choice too, was playing for high stakes, for power, both of them — or you could say all three of them, because Francisca would be a part of it, wouldn’t have allowed herself to be shut out — the Diaz-MacEwan alliance with its future riding on the outcome of this fight for the Falklands, alias Malvinas.
*
The silence woke him. As startlingly as a gunshot might have. Not total silence. The motor had cut out, that was all. He loosened his earflaps. Wind’s gusty thrum, water lapping, a soft thumping from under the inflatable’s flat bottom; and the others stirring, questioning. Cloudsley growled, ‘Quiet. Get down. Right down…’
Trying to make himself smaller, between West’s crouching, bony length and the awkward heap that was Geoff Hosegood doing his best to become invisible. Hearing Cloudsley ask ‘Where is it now?’ — using his intercom with Beale — and a very quiet reply whispered from that end. It wasn’t engine failure, anyway: he guessed the PNG had picked up some hazard out there ahead. He was fully awake now, shedding the aftermath of a dream in which they’d been burying old Tom, Alejandro Diaz scattering a handful of dirt into the open grave and Francisca, old, wrinkled, a crone shrouded in a mantilla, clinging to her father’s arm. Still enough reality about it so that he’d wondered, since waking in this tense silence, why Roberto hadn’t been there too…
Cloudsley informed them in a whisper, ‘Patrol boat passing, right to left, four hundred yards ahead. Haven’t seen us yet.’
Andy heard the chugging beat of a diesel engine.
Beale hissed, ‘Turned towards us.’
Cloudsley shifted, squirming round without rising, groping for the lid of the outboard’s glassfibre pod. He flipped it up, found the wooden toggle and took up the lanyard’s slack against the spring. Ready to start up; then to open the throttle and run for it.
If this was the border — which Andy thought which it might be, to justify the presence of a patrol — you’d only have to retire a mile or so into Chilean waters, then try again later. The Argies surely wouldn’t follow very far that way. Chileans and Argies had certain differences of opinion, some of them of long standing, and the Argies wouldn’t want to create problems on a second front — unless they’d consider ‘hot pursuit’ worth the diplomatic consequences.
‘Three hundred yards.’
No way on the boat now: just drifting, turning slowly. The diesel sound seemed very close — so close that he was straining his eyes into the dark and expecting to see the approaching boat at any second. Watching for it with his head down, watching under his eyebrows, knowing from wildfowling experience how a face, the whites of eyes, could show up. Wondering how close Cloudsley was going to let them come before he made his break for it. Could be leaving it a bit late, Andy thought: for instance, if the outboard didn’t fire on the first pull — which obviously they’d hear…
‘Stopped!’
The diesel was still audible, but idling, chuntering to itself in neutral. But the boat would still be closing in this way, because its momentum would be carrying it on. You could imagine them with their glasses up, trying to decide whether one of them had actually seen something or only imagined it. A minute ago — or however long ago it had been — a flicker of broken water might have caught an Argentine eye. Another question sprang to mind: how many of them? Few enough for this team to handle, if they came in close?
Probably. Andy thought the four men with him in the inflatable could probably deal with three times their own number, and think little of it.
But — if they shone a light this way, saw the huddle of crouched intruders, wouldn’t they open fire, look for identification later?
Cloudsley might have had the same thought. He whispered, ‘Geoff. Jake. Be ready to return fire.’
Shifting: Ingram automatics emerging from the heavy layers of peóns’ clothing. The Ingrams’ thirty-round magazines emptied themselves in one and a half seconds, Cloudsley had told him; it’d take that long to cut a man in half.
Quiet movement from Cloudsley now. Getting set to jerk the lanyard back, shatter the night’s peace… But the other sound thickened: there was a wrench into gear, then a stronger, deeper beat. Cloudsley’s head lifted an inch as he listened to whatever Beale was whispering over the intercom. He’d grunted an acknowledgement; then he held the mike away from his neck for long enough to tell them, ‘Moving on, leftward. Sit tight, keep quiet.’
Five or six minutes — or three or four — dragged like ten or twenty.
‘Tony?’
‘Yes. All clear.’ Beale let out a breath as if he’d been holding it since yesterday. The diesel sound had faded some time ago. He added, ‘Well out of sight, Harry.’
‘Some guide, we have.’ Holding the microphone clear again, and jossing, pulling Andy’s leg. ‘Leads us smack into an Argie patrol!’
‘Balls.’
‘Did Mr MacEwan make some remark then?’
Chuckles: humour not difficult to trigger in the sharp relief from tension. Andy said, falling into the trap and defending himself unnecessarily, ‘I don’t know a damn thing about this Chilean side, you know that.’
‘We aren’t on the Chilean side, chum.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Distance run, for one thing. For another, half an hour ago there was a patrol boat showing lights — inshore, no threat, we let you layabouts sleep on. But a boat showing lights would’ve been Chilean, wouldn’t it? The Argies are the ones playing silly buggers… We’ll push on, now. Keep your goggles peeled, Tony.’
The outboard wouldn’t start.
Cloudsley swore, and Hosegood murmured, ‘Have to get out and push.’ West said, ‘Many a true word…’
‘How far to go, Harry?’
Beale had asked it, but no one answered — except the motor, responding to about the sixth pull. Relief was enormous: it would have been a long, long paddle to shore, and then a very long trek indeed, carrying all the gear and missing by maybe two or three days the rendezvous which he hoped Start would have set up. But — say thirty miles to go, and there were roughly seven hours of darkness left. A lot to be said for long nights and short days, at that. If nothing else delayed them — and the outboard’s reluctance to start did shake one’s confidence in it, somewhat — they’d make it with time in hand.
If…
The boat was gathering way, and Cloudsley was turning it back on course. Beale using the PNG, searching for any sign of the patrol returning. But if it was far enough away to be out of range of those goggles its own engine noise would cover the distant sound of this one. Which sounded OK now, and the stink of petrol which had been strong a minute ago had gone.
No need for any guide. Navigation was a matter of keeping roughly in the middle, mountains equidistant right and left… Cloudsley, however, knew more about it than he’d let on, and wasn’t surprised when Tony Beale picked up an island with the PNG. He put the tiller over, slanting towards it on Beale’s directions, and after about ten minutes rock loomed over them, a whaleback shape with stunted firs like bristles along its spine. He slowed the engine as they approached, then cut it and let the boat drift in.
‘Hope the bloody thing’ll start again… Look, I’m landing here. Geoff, come with me. Bring those binos. You come too, Andy. Jake, fill up the tank, will you. Tony, you might break out some nutty and a thermos or two.’
‘Nutty’ meaning chocolate, a sailors’ word for it. The thermos packs were disposable, and easy to dispose of too, when you had deep water all around.
The landing was on rock, and steep. Cloudsley led, then Hosegood, then Andy. A slightly dangerous scramble, then, aiming for the top, a tree all on its own. All the trees bent exactly the same way and looked as if they’d been chewed; there was hardly any soil, and he guessed they’d be rooted in crevices in which wind-borne dirt had settled; wind-borne seeds as w
ell. Cloudsley explained, ‘At this end the lake gets wider. And we want to land in its northwest corner, right, Andy? So I need a course to steer — that’s to say, I know the compass course but I need a mark or marks to steer by.’
His compass would be useless in the boat, because of magnetic interference from the outboard and other metallic elements in the gear. Up here they were well away from such influences.
‘OK.’ He had his landmarks. ‘That’ll do it.’
Hosegood, meanwhile, had been using binoculars to examine that end of the lake, and found nothing except for some lights on the southern shore. Which figured: there was a settlement there, the map had shown it. Cloudsley pointed into the darkness. Resting the other hand on Andy’s shoulder he said, ‘We steer that way now, about six hours’ run. If—’ He moved that hand, rapped his forehead with its knuckles and muttered, ‘Touch wood… If our blessed motor keeps up its so-far impeccable performance…’
4
Shropshire, rocking through a moderate northeasterly wind and sea, had the oil-tanker Tidebreak fine on her bow and about one cable’s length ahead. Distance lessening fast. John Saddler was in the bridge wing but only watching, leaving the conning of the ship to David Vigne, his navigator. From this close, the 27,000-ton tanker’s heaving stern, looming white-fringed through the dark, looked about the size of the Palace of Westminster.
About which the less said the better. BBC news bulletins had referred to members of Parliament objecting to the sinking of the enemy cruiser Belgrano. And the loss of life from that action was shocking, certainly, had shocked everyone here in the Task Force, let alone at Westminster; but for an explanation of it those people should address themselves to the Argentine naval command, not to Northwood or Downing Street…
Special Deliverance Page 6