"Welcome back, Mr. Sparke. Best get a shake on, we're a little bit tight for time."
Sparke knew when it was best not to offer resistance, so he heaved himself into her Land Rover and allowed himself to be taken to yet another part of the airbase he had never seen. In fact this area was different from the other parts he had seen in almost every regard. They were small things, but there were many of them. This was a civilian terminal.
McCafferty picked up Sparke's bags as though they were empty and walked into the building. Almost a dozen people were crowded around a long table strewn with maps. He did not recognise any of them, but they seemed to be expecting him, and they all knew McCafferty, who quickly ran through the names of all the people there, and the organisations they belonged to. Apart from McCafferty, they were all civilians.
"Beth, can you talk us through the plan as it stands?" asked McCafferty, smiling towards a young woman dressed in the almost universal Falkland Islands civilian uniform of heavy knitwear and waxed jacket.
"Well, the plan is very straightforward," said Beth in her casual lilting Falklands accent. "We just need to get from here to here." She pointed on the map at two points: one being the Falklands Islands, the other being a point on the Antarctic landmass.
"Turning the plan into practice might be a bit more of a challenge, though," she said, smiling. "We can only get to the final location by ship, but the survey ship MS Stornoway is not too far away from there already. In fact she will be close enough to have her own helicopter reach there by tomorrow afternoon."
Sparke did not want to jump to any conclusions, so he asked, "And they can send ashore a landing party?"
"Well, they could, but they won't need to," answered Beth. "It seems that you and I will be the main part of the landing group."
"We will be landing? How can we get to the ship?"
"It is too far for a helicopter to make it on its own in normal circumstances," said Beth. "So the plan is that we will take one of the big choppers. Two spare crews go via South Georgia and our good friends in the RAF will give us a mid-air refuel."
"You can take a helicopter from here all the way to the Antarctic?" Sparke had spent a lot of time around helicopters but had never heard of any making a trip anything like as long as that.
"The chopper can manage just fine. So long as the fuel is there and a crew to fly it, we can stay up as long as we want." The voice came from a tall, gaunt man with a shaved head who was wearing civilian flight overalls. "Beecham," he said to Sparke. "I'll be the flight commander."
Sparke could tell that during the time he had been in the air from the UK, there had been a massive project going on to design the logistics plan that could get him, and specifically him, down to the Antarctic in record time. He did not doubt that it could be done, but he was concerned that the whole thing might be a wild goose chase.
Despite the number of civilians, it was clear to him that McCafferty was in charge. He gestured to her to follow him out of the room.
"I can't begin to imagine what this is costing. Are you and your people sure this makes sense? We have to give some serious consideration to the idea that we can get all the way down there and find nothing."
"This comes directly from the Chief Secretary, Mr. Sparke. But just so you can feel better about things, there is no chance that you will not find anything."
"What do you mean?"
"Your people in Germany have sent through details of the full journey the Santa Simone took, so we know exactly where that ship was for every day between leaving Buenos Aires and being lost in the Antarctic. It never went anywhere near the land that the Argentinian government claim. Also, we already know there is still something there, but we don't know what."
Sparke looked at McCafferty and tried to process exactly what she had said. He knew better than to ask questions that he did not want to know the answer to.
"You know there is something there, but not exactly what it is. I wonder if your drones can fly all the way down to the Antarctic?" he said aloud, but not expecting any answer.
"This is a civilian project, Mr. Sparke. The Ministry of Defence has no involvement or interest." Which sounded strange coming from the Marine Captain who was obviously in charge of the whole operation.
Chapter Twenty Nine
For days now, the entire world, from Opitz's perspective, had shrunk into a narrow field of vision a few metres wide on either side of the road, punctuated with road signs. The armed men in the back of his truck scanned the rooftops and hillsides for Red snipers and the Driver focused on the road ahead, so Opitz had only to navigate. The open cab of the truck was constantly freezing and normally wet, but everyone in the column of vehicles had given up any claim to comfort long ago. Conversation in the cab was limited to little more than discussing routes and estimating travel times.
Well over a thousand men in the Friekorps Marinebrigade were now travelling south together, some by road, many by train. On most occasions, the arrival of the Friekorps flying columns in a town caused any opposition to dissolve without any real fighting. Behind Opitz were two armoured cars mounting machine guns which had joined his unit from an army barracks on the way south. A small field gun was towed behind one of trucks at the rear of the convoy.
Towns which showed any signs of loyalty to the revolution were occupied and arrests were made. The fighting that did take place normally consisted of brief firefights from behind barricades, followed by a charge of heavily armed men in some of the many commandeered touring cars the Freikorps now possessed.
Opitz paid little attention to the men he was travelling and fighting alongside, apart from issuing orders and making sure that they had somewhere to sleep each night, and something to eat whenever the opportunity arose.
A day's travel north of Munich, Opitz and his men were ordered to stop and wait for the rest of their forces to catch up. They were about to enter the city at the heart of the Soviet Republic of Bavaria and a major battle was expected, probably the final battle between Red and White forces.
The Communist Party had been in power in Bavaria for months and the leader of the Soviet Committee, Eugen Leviné, had created a Red Army and seized food, cash, fuel, and virtually all means of transportation from the local population. Many of the luxurious apartments in the city had been expropriated and turned over to the homeless and poor. Workers' Councils now took possessions of factories and breweries, money was to be abolished, hostages had been taken and several killed.
During the two-day halt outside the city, Opitz finally took the time to learn a little about the men whom he had been leading since the first fight at Bremen Police Headquarters. They mainly fell into three groups: the frightened, who saw Bolshevik revolution as the end of the world; the lost, who were mainly ex-army and navy who joined the Friekorps simply to bring some order into lives shattered by the defeat of Germany by the Allies; and the furious. The furious lived on the anger of the betrayed: betrayed by their government, let down by civilians who had demonstrated for an end to the war, and increasingly they felt betrayed by invisible international forces bent of the destruction of Germany. In the town where they waited to attack Munich, he saw written on the wall of the Town Hall by one of his men, "This town is now free of Reds and Jews". Opitz had the writing painted over. This obsession with Jews was not new, but had lately turned into something like a policy.
From birth, Opitz had known the Jewish families who lived in Feldkirchen. The village librarian had been Jewish and had done more than any other adult in Opitz's life to encourage his study of mathematics, and coached him through the stringent exams which got him into the Imperial Naval Academy.
The most vocal of the anti-Semites in their ranks were invariably the least intelligent and most brutish. Opitz comforted himself with the certainty that once peace was established, they would slink back to wherever they came from.
At last, the bulk of the Freikorps arrived and Opitz was summoned to a briefing led by Ehrhardt himself. The attack pl
an was simple, but well thought through. They seemed to have excellent information on where resistance was to be most expected, and where all the major defensive points were. Opitz and his group, now numbering over two hundred, were detailed to attack directly into the heart of the old town where the Soviets were headquartered.
An hour before dawn, Opitz and the Driver stood next to their truck, the road behind them filled with a ramshackle collection of vehicles and crowded with men. At exactly 4.30, Opitz lifted his whistle to his lips and blew a long, single note. Instantly men clambered on board the trucks, dozens of engines roared and the column lurched forward towards the dark Munich streets.
For Opitz and his men, the battle for Munich was an anti-climax. The barricades they found were swiftly hauled down by trucks using grappling hooks. Few shots came their way and the isolated pockets of resistance they encountered collapsed swiftly under the fire of the machine guns from Freikorps armoured cars.
By late afternoon it was virtually over. Only a few Red strongpoints remained, but they were cut off and surrounded.
Opitz and the Driver headed to the City Hall, where Ehrhardt and the rest of the leadership had based themselves, to report on the situation and get new orders.
Ehrhardt was standing outside the building talking to a group of officers when Opitz arrived. In the background, prisoners, with their hands over their heads, began appearing. Occasionally, one wearing the remnants of military uniform would be pulled out by Freikorps soldiers, pushed against a wall and shot.
"Cowards and traitors," said Ehrhardt, watching the executions impassively. "This is a time for decisive justice, don't you think, Opitz?"
Opitz looked at the crumpled bodies of the dead men.
"We have secured our objectives," he replied. "I have men out looking for food, but the place seems to have been looted pretty thoroughly.”
"You are from round here, Opitz, yes?"
"Feldkirchen, sir. South of here."
"Good, good. There will be funds available by tomorrow to buy food from the farmers. Take the men and vehicles you need and secure the area around your little town. Tell them we will want to buy whatever food they have – with real money."
Opitz saluted and turned to walk back towards the temporary base he had set up with his men. After a dozen paces he noticed that he was alone, not accompanied by the Driver, who normally seemed to be at his side. The Driver was deep in conversation with Ehrhardt, both oblivious to the others surrounding them. The Driver noticed that Opitz was watching them, said a few words to Ehrhardt, and then turned to follow Opitz, his small frame almost lost in the huge army overcoat he had acquired and made to look even smaller by the way the coat was trussed up in the heavy leather belt and pistol holster he now always wore.
"So, Herr Leutnant, it seems like you will be arriving back at the farm in some style."
Chapter Thirty
Helicopters are not built for comfort, neither are they built for long journeys. For years now, the British military, and their private contractors on the Falkland Islands, had been developing ways to use their huge helicopters for many of the jobs which more expensive, fixed-wing aircraft had normally carried out. Carrying additional flight crews, mid-air refuelling, and thousands of hours of specialist training had given them the ability to fly immense distances over the sea and there was now almost no practical limit to their flight endurance.
Unlike a conventional aircraft, flying long distances in a helicopter is an experience of constant disruption. There is little chance for long periods of steady cruising as the pilots frequently climb and descend to find calmer air or to avoid squalls. Mid-air refuelling seemed, to Sparke, to be similar to trying to hit the bullseye on a dartboard from the back of a speeding motorbike. But, several times during the flight he felt the chopper climb up to meet a tanker, find the tiny refuelling link, maintain position, and then drop away, back down to flying altitude.
For hour after hour, the two passengers, Sparke and Beth, spoke to each other as best they could over the intercom system. Beth was a born and bred Falkland Islander, and apart from four years of study in England, she had spent her whole life based there. Her work in environmental impact analysis had taken her to the Antarctic on several occasions and she was qualified to guide parties in extreme conditions, including over sea ice.
As far as Beth was concerned, she had been engaged by Sparke's firm to escort him to a point on the Antarctic continent to examine a location of "potential cultural importance". Since oil and mining companies often worked in areas where few people ventured, it was not unusual for them to come across locations which contained artefacts such as old tombs, lost monuments, or rare animal remains. While this had never happened before on Antarctica, there was no reason to behave any differently here. Sparke's firm was engaged in reviewing the potential impact of drilling in the Southern Ocean and, as he explained to Beth, their research had uncovered information that there might be a site of unusual cultural or scientific importance at the edge of the zone.
Their helicopter had taken off from the Falklands just as dark was descending and after an epic night of flying, including a short but welcome stop on the island of South Georgia. Dawn found them hammering their way south over a featureless grey sea.
Incredibly, Sparke had managed to fall asleep, so the voice of the pilot bursting over the intercom shocked him awake.
"Fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes to touch down."
Looking out of a side window, it was only when the helicopter flew a wide circle around the survey ship that Sparke could see the next step in his journey. The MS Stornoway was typical of the strange looking vessels that Sparke had spent so much of his life around. Almost all of the superstructure was crammed into a tiny spot at the prow, leaving most of the rest of the deck open and flat. Despite the many times he had landed on ships or oil platforms by helicopter, Sparke never lost the sense of shock that something so small was the destination for, what now felt like, a huge helicopter.
The landing was as smooth as any civilian airliner. Sparke and Beth were ordered out of the aircraft first – the moments after landing can be amongst the most dangerous as the huge blades are still turning, creating lift and making the aircraft unstable. As he ducked his head under the low doorway, Sparke turned to look back at the helicopter. The three sets of crew were grouped around the nose, talking to the pilot in the cockpit as she ran through the shutdown procedures. They were obviously all happy, some shook hands with each other. Sparke tried not to feel uncomfortable with the idea that the flight he had just been on was something so notable that even these hard core pilots thought it was something worth celebrating.
The sudden warmth and silence of the inside of the ship enveloped Sparke, and the gentle rolling of the vessel came as a welcome relief from the noise and vibration of the helicopter journey.
The first room they entered was obviously used as a "ready room" for helicopter crews and their passengers. As they began the laborious process of removing their survival suits, a short wiry man walked in, offering his hand.
"Glad you made it," he said. "Bit of a monster flight for you. I'm Andrew Bates, Ship's Master. You must be knackered."
Sparke shook Bates' hand.
"Tired, hungry, and glad to be off that helicopter."
Bates smiled as he turned to Beth.
"Doctor Brownlee, great to have you with us again. We have almost twelve hours sailing ahead of us before you can fly the last leg. I'm afraid you will have to squeeze onto our own baby helicopter for that leg. All the pilots who flew you here need a full day's rest before they fly again." A young seaman walked into the room carrying the huge pile of bags which Sparke and Beth had brought with them. Bates turned to the crewman.
"Staines, as soon as you get these two to their cabins, make sure they get down to the galley." He turned back to Beth and Sparke.
"We will give you a shout about two hours before take-off. Give you some time to get your kit sorted out, okay?"
>
Now almost too tired to speak, Sparke nodded and followed Staines into the metal bowels of the ship.
A long, dreamless sleep left Sparke feeling human again, and as soon as he woke, he made his way to the galley. As he sat finishing a massive breakfast, he unrolled his personal computer and looked at the map containing the plots of the last voyage of the Santa Simone. Along with the map there was a lengthy note from McCafferty, who had reviewed the plot with a small group of Royal Navy and civilian ships officers. The thin, zigzagging line told an undeniable, but horrifying tale.
He read her analysis of what happened to the ship and tried hard not to think what that meant to her crew. Sparke was still lost in thought when Beth sat down opposite him.
"Best get ready to rock and roll," she said. "We need to get kitted up."
"Sure, let's go," said Sparke, draining his coffee cup.
"Just before we go, can we go over a few basics? Just one basic, really. When we get onto the ice, the only rule is that everything I say is final. No debates. If I say we stop, we stop. If I say we call for support, then that is what we do. Make sense?"
"Makes sense. I want to get to that location and then I want to get back out in one piece."
The rest of their time on ship passed in a blur of checking kit, packing and repacking. Before he had any more time to think, Sparke was crammed into the small ship's helicopter with Beth and a mountain of kit.
After the experience of the flight from the Falklands, this last leg was like a short taxi ride. The weather had improved and the small chopper sped smoothly between a blue sky and sea until they were over the dazzling white of the ice as they approached the coast.
The pilot slowed the helicopter as they approached their target point.
"Five kilometres to point...four kilometres... three thousand metres..." The voice in their headsets was a study in calmness. "Two thousand five hundred metres. Object on the ice, my ten o'clock, two thousand metres."
The Kaiser’s Navigator (Peter Sparke Book 2) Page 13