‘Quite.’ Roberto cut him short. ‘Connect me with Lieutenant Rodriguez. After that I’ll be in a mess for an hour.’ He waited, drumming his fingers on the desk. ‘Lieutenant. Stand them down, in the Exocet compound. That helo won’t be returning. We’ll have a Chinook here instead about 0700 to clear the whole lot in one lift, so it makes no odds really. Stand-to had better be at’ — he paused for a moment, working it out — well, make it 0630.’
*
Those lights up ahead were on the top floor of the house in which he’d spent his childhood, years from which only the most tenuous memories of his mother remained as anything to treasure. He’d been four when she died, and his image of her was of no more than a source of physical warmth, and fiercely reciprocated affection, and now — as remotely as if it was a piece of some old, old dream — a vision of dark eyes and a red mouth smiling.
As if the sight of the house had triggered a long-buried memory…
Reining-in, easing the mare down from a canter to a walk, turning her off the track that had been hardened by nearly a century of MacEwan horses’ hooves and rutted, since, by decades of MacEwan truck tyres… At a walk now, soft thudding of the mare’s plates along the softer, rough-grassed edge. That window with the light in it was the one in the end wall of the main bedroom. It had been Robert’s and Fiona’s room, then Fiona’s alone — the old woman had refused to move out, make way for her son and his little ‘mongrel’ wife. As Bruce should have insisted she did, of course… Now, Francisca would be in that room; and waiting for his knock. Incredible: he was conscious of this sense of unreality, of a need to convince himself that he was actually this close to her, that within minutes she’d be in his arms… Passing through the last gate — turning the mare while he hooked it shut again he saw, fifty yards up the avenue of poplar and eucalyptus, that there were lights burning on the ground floor too.
Not much secrecy, he thought. But then, that would be in character, for Francisca. Would have been; evidently still was.
Riding slowly up the drive, he felt the first flurry of snow. He guessed that by the time he started back the blizzard would have taken over, would have obliterated tracks and roads… Presenting no problems at all when you could find your way around with your eyes shut anyway, but maybe a complication for the SBS team.
But they’d steer by compass, then follow the line of fence-posts.
Kicking his feet out of the irons, he swung his leg over and slid down. A dark figure appeared from nowhere at the mare’s head: a man in a cap and a poncho with a hand on the bridle. His impression was of a peón who’d have been waiting — on her orders — to take care of his horse, and the strangeness was only the way he’d so suddenly appeared and hadn’t spoken. Then he heard a cough behind him: felt a rifle-barrel jabbing him in the back: ‘Not into the big house, señor.’ Juan Huyez poked him again with the gun: ‘This way — if you would be so kind…’
*
Hosegood asked Beale, ‘Any special reason they’d use Pucarás for napalm?’
‘Yeah.’ Beale was at the periscope. ‘If they want to base ’em on the islands. And I mean, where else…? Only airstrip that’s anything but grass is the one at Stanley — and that’s too short for your Mirages or your Skyhawks. Any case, they’d want to use the grass strips, wouldn’t they — on West Falkland, maybe? Pucará only need — well, less than a thousand feet, for take-off. Even your Aermacchi’d want three times as much.’
Hosegood said, ‘Like having a mobile computer along, this one.’
‘Did some homework, that’s all. But they’re highly manoeuvrable too — designed for counter-insurgency, knocking the shit out of blokes on the ground. Come to think of it, you wouldn’t find better, would you?’
Cloudsley checked the luminous face of his watch. ‘You should be in the BAS, Tony.’
‘Did consider it, one time.‘ BAS stood for Brigade Air Squadron, Royal Marines who flew Scout and Gazelle helos. But flying’s only a hobby, I don’t know about helos, never touched one.‘ Beale moved suddenly: ‘Harry. Don’t like to peak too soon, but — it’s happening…’
Cloudsley took over at the scope. Beale told Hosegood, ‘They’re packing up, shutting the main gates! Panic over!’
‘What panic…’
They were leaving the fuel-truck inside the compound, although they were shutting and locking the gates. A possible interpretation, Cloudsley thought, was they might have been waiting for a helo which now wasn’t coming but would be coming later. In the morning, maybe. Otherwise they’d hardly be leaving the big tanker there.
Almost 2130 now. It would be a mistake to move in too soon: people forgot things, came back for them. On the other hand you couldn’t wait too long either, having already lost several hours of drilling time. Give it, say, half an hour. Ten o’clock, for the start of eight hours’ work; or more realistically allow for nine. Nine hours, or less; at any rate be finished and clear out by seven.
Having done it!
The surge of confidence was a reaction to several hours of depression… Watching a group of men in overalls come into sight from the front of the hangar, and guessing they’d have shut the sliding doors. Might even have remembered to lock the little doors, tonight; he felt for the key, checking he had it strung to his wrist. Its secret was that it was pliable, adapted itself to any ordinary kind of lock. Those guys were walking towards the guardhouse — that small gate. He saw a van — same one — coming along the road, passing the front of the compound then stopping at this near corner to reverse into the slip road. Those three were outside now, talking to the sentry at lighting cigarettes. Could be Frenchmen, at that… The van was returning, its lights sweeping along the wire; and stopping now to pick them up. Cloudsley told Beale and Hosegood, ‘Fifteen minutes. After that, when the sentry moves — on your marks…’
12
Shropshire pitched heavily, rolling too, wind and sea on her quarter. Her gun had thudded once, one dull crack’s vibration punctuating weather noise and ship noise, and now after a pause the distant flash of the shell’s airburst explosion flickered in the dark circle of Saddler’s binoculars. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but at any moment visibility would be down to zero again; there’d been showers on and off all through the early part of the night, snow and sleet driving horizontally over black, wind-whipped sea… He lowered the glasses, hearing over the Tactical Line the echoey distant crackling of the FOO’s voice — forward observation officer, somewhere on the eastern shoulder of Mount Kent — ‘Bang on target. Twenty salvoes now, airburst, fire for effect!’ A flow of gun-control patter followed, over the Command Open Line, the other ear-phone in his headset, before the 4.5” turret’s twin guns began a regular pulsing discharge of high-explosive shells. Unless the crew of that turret had cast-iron insides, Saddler guessed, they’d be puking all over its bright paintwork by this time — contending not only with the ship’s violent motion but also with the constant to-and-fro jerking of the turret as the computer kept it lined up on target; and at that, in close confinement…
‘Airburst’ meant shells fused to explode fifty feet above the ground — in this instance above an enemy artillery position overlooked from the FOO’s perch and most likely pinpointed by SAS reconnaissance in recent days. That mountain top was crucial, and a force of Royal Marines was in the process of occupying it at this moment, knowing that whoever held it would dominate the approaches to Stanley and the other hilltops and ridges, the battlefield of the coming days or weeks.
Days, please God…
‘Stop loading, stop loading, stop loading!’
‘Rounds complete…’
The patter included some interjections by the FOO’s link-man, a warrant officer who was with the gun director down in Shropshire’s radar-glowing Ops Room. These bombardments were conducted according to pre-arranged fire plans, lists of coordinates as aiming points fed into the computer and then corrections to fall-of-shot coming by radio from the man ashore — who’d be exposed to all the
worst of this weather, working in sub-zero temperature tonight and no doubt soaking wet… Saddler heard the soldier’s voice again, a muffled but astonishingly cheerful tone: ‘We’ve malleted that lot, all right!’ There’d be a fresh target selected in a minute. Shropshire was off Bluff Cove, ‘on gunline’ and tonight at the service of ‘K’ Company, 42 Commando RM, who’d have been deposited on Mount Kent by two PNG-equipped Sea Kings flying from San Carlos, their object being to seize and hold the summit.
David Vigne murmured, ‘Come ten degrees to port, John,‘ and Holt, officer of the watch, passed the order via the wheelhouse microphone. The ship had to be close offshore for this gun-support job, but she had also to be kept clear of known or suspected concentrations of kelp. At this moment she was inside the range of Argie coastal howitzer batteries, but if any of them woke up to her presence the FOO on Mount Kent might be in a position to ‘mallet’ them as well.
Everything was on the move now. 2 Para had taken Darwin and won their battle at Goose Green — against odds of four to one, and at heavy cost. On the twenty-seventh, when 45 Commando and 3 Para had started out from San Carlos, stomping — because of the loss of the Chinooks in the Atlantic Conveyor — to Douglas and Teal Inlet, the SAS had already begun to invest the lower slopes of Mount Kent, preparing the way for tonight’s capture of the summit. A Chinook would be going in behind the Sea Kings, lifting in some 105-mm guns and ammunition.
‘Course two-four-five sir…’
Shropshire’s action damage had been patched or plugged, and all her systems were operational. Saddler was very concious of the element of luck, supplementing reasonably good management, that had left his ship fighting fit and her crew’s morale as high as ever. In contrast, the list of casualties in his diary now read: SUNK/Sheffield, Ardent, Antelope, Coventry, Atlantic Conveyor. DAMAGED/Glasgow, Antrim, Brilliant, Argonaut, Broadsword, Shropshire. AIRCRAFT LOST/7 Harriers, 4 Sea Kings.’ Despite the fact the act was holding together pretty well, the Royal Navy of 1982 wasn’t big enough to stand such a rate of loss and damage.
A new call for fire was coming through. Loading with HE; airburst; a multi-figure set of coordinates to be punched into the computer and pinpoint a new target… Snow plastering the glass screen again as Shropshire pitched bow-down, ploughing her stern in deep.
‘Salvoes — airburst — fire for effect…’
He’d had a letter from his daughter, and begun to answer it earlier this evening while they’d been fuelling. Early tomorrow there was to be a RAS(S), a rendezvous with a fleet auxiliary mainly to replenish ammunition, and outgoing mail would be passed over then, mailbags being dragged over on the hawser to start their long, slow journey back to the UK… Lisa had written, ‘I’m really fed up with Andy. He’s been gone ages and I haven’t had even a postcard from him. He takes me so much for granted I don’t suppose it would be anything but water off a duck’s back if I were to tell him how sick of all this I am, but it adds considerably to one’s frustration not to be able to. All I know is he’s in America, but no address at all, he might as well be on the moon. His office people say they’ve no idea where he is or when he’ll be back or anything. It’s really too bad and very inconsiderate, and I suppose I’ve got to face it — better late than never — accept the fact he doesn’t give a damn and there’s no point going on trying, he’d better leave me to get on with my life instead of wasting time like this. Don’t you agree? You don’t give your opinions much in this kind of thing and I’d very much like to know what you really think. Sorry, I know I’m being terribly self-centred, burdening you with such petty problems when you’re out there coping with heaven knows what awful—’
In the back of his mind he’d counted ten rounds as they’d left the gun; now in the lull he heard Vigne suggest, ‘Might come about, sir, steer the reciprocal, before the next call?’
‘Yes. Bring her round to port.’
He’d answered that part of Lisa’s letter in stone-walling fashion: ‘You have a good man there. You may not think so at the moment, and I can well understand how you feel — I sympathise, and appreciate you’re going through a rotten time, but my advice — since you ask for it — is don’t burn your bridges yet. Not if you really do care for him, I mean at heart, which I think you must do or you wouldn’t have put up with it as long as you have. You’re a very special girl and you have a great deal to offer any man, you don’t have to tolerate casual treatment from anyone at all; all I’m suggesting is you might give him a chance to explain himself to you when he gets back — have a showdown, lay it on the line, etc, but I’d say don’t commit yourself to paper before then…’
Except, of course, Andy wouldn’t be able to say a word about where he’d been or what he’d been doing. If he got back… Saddler put a hand out to the console for support as his ship swung her beam to the direction of wind and sea, rolling practically on to her beam-ends, hanging there for some taut seconds before she began the slow swing back the other way… There’d been no explanation of the Sea King that had been found in Chile, and no word at all of the SBS party from any source here either. For all anyone could know, they’d flown into the back of beyond and disappeared; Andy MacEwan could be dead, might have the best excuse in the world for not writing postcards.
*
This time, when the moment had come to start running for the fence, Cloudsley had led but with Beale right on his heels, taking a race of it. They got to the wire in a dead heat and far enough apart to swarm over it side by side but without getting in each other’s way, landing just about simultaneously in the compound — Cloudsley facing the wire, staying there long enough to catch the pack with the drill and liner-upper in it which Hosegood slung over, lobbing it clear over the fence’s barbed top and Cloudsley catching it like a rugger player taking the ball from a long, high kick, turning and running as his hands folded it against his stomach, and Hosegood on his way over the wire by then, Beale flat on the ground between the generator shed and its fuel-tank, unearthing one of the other packs. Beale and Hosegood made it to the little door in a photo-finish, the door being open for them to dive straight in and out of sight, Cloudsley having unlocked it with his burglar’s tool and left it open for them. Hosegood pushed it shut — nearly shut — and stayed there long enough to be sure no alarm had been raised, while Beale took the batteries out of the pack and clipped the liner-upper’s leads to the terminals of one of them and the drill’s leads to the other. Cloudsley meanwhile on his back under first one trolley and then the other, with one of the little torches between his teeth and the millimetre measure in hand, checking the undersides of the missiles and finding the almost invisible scar on one of them. He was back at the first one now, unscrewing the cover of the plug socket, taking the multi-pin plug from Beale then and shoving it in… ‘Right.’ Beale switched on, and Cloudsley heard the whirr and click of the booster motor moving into line: if you hadn’t done this first, the second drilling would have gone into some area better not penetrated. Hosegood was tightening the drill’s snout on one of the short drilling bits; he put the drill on the ground beside the first patient, and when the cover had been screwed back over the socket he and Beale were ready at the missile’s tail-end to raise it and twist it around, belly up. Cloudsley did his measuring and marking then, handed the measure to Beale and picked up the drill. Checking the time: he was starting the first incision at four minutes past ten. It had been ten o’clock exactly when the sentry had been going out of sight and he’d pushed himself out of the hide. Urgency, after the hours of waiting and frustration, was like a clamp in his gut.
He put more weight on the drill than he thought he had last night. It wasn’t easy to judge, and he was aware of the penalty for overdoing it, but it was plainly essential to get the job done faster this time. Hosegood and Beale were at the back of the hangar, at the racks, checking the other three missiles to make sure none of them had been one of last night’s patients. If one had been, it would have meant the Alouette must have taken one that had not b
een doctored. This wasn’t likely, the overalled men who’d brought the things out would have had to shuffle these racked ones around instead of taking them as they came; there could have been some reason for doing so, so you had to make sure. In fact all was well. Beale and Hosegood used the liner-upper on all three, then turned them and did the measuring and marking.
At ten thirty-five Hosegood took over the drill from Cloudsley. But at the end of this thirty-minute stint he wasn’t through to the air space, and he stayed with it because it would have consumed some time changing over for just a minute or two. In fact that first stage took nearer seventy than sixty minutes, finishing at 2313. Then that missile had to be left to cool, and Beale started on the first of the three in the racks.
The first pair were finished at 0244. So it had taken four hours and forty minutes. It wasn’t good enough. It was better than the first night’s result, but they were going to have to do better still. Cloudsley had thought he was pushing it along as fast as he dared, and he was sure the others had been doing the same, but it was still unacceptable. He’d been doing the last half-hour’s drilling himself — actually more than half an hour but roughly the last two-thirds of the second-stage drilling on missile number two — and while Hosegood now started the first stage on number three he went to the door to clear his head with some cold night air while he thought about it, got the situation in perspective.
Snow.
It took him by surprise. He’d envisaged it as a possibility, before this, but tonight he hadn’t; he’d been looking at the problems they actually had already. So now here was a new one: snow swirling pale yellow in the beams of light and lying tinged yellow along the lines of the fence, but white in the shadows. It was settling as it fell on pre-frozen ground; and clinging to the sentry’s overcoat, glistening on his cap as he paced at a hunched angle with his nose down in the coat’s upturned collar; you could have walked up and poked a finger in his eye before he’d have known he had company… But by the time they were ready to duck out of here — four and a half hours, say — if the snow kept on throughout those hours there’d be quite a lot of it lying around. The only hope — he’d thought of this before — was that it might be coming down fast enough to cover tracks very quickly.
Special Deliverance Page 21