by Chris Ryan
We threw their weapons into a patch of bog. They were unhappy about it; a couple of the guns looked valuable. We didn't need them though they were so much extra weight to carry. We had to crack on now. I was worried these people might be followed and be leading the military on to us. All in all, the sooner we handed them over to Seb the better.
I crawled up to the top of the ridge with Doug for a squint at the RV. Three hundred metres away across open grass, a cluster of broken stone sheds huddled under another low rise. Seb had told us it was once a refuge where shepherds brought their sheep on harsh nights. Now the bottom had long since dropped out of the sheep market and such buildings were gone to ruin. I studied the place through my binoculars. No sign of activity or human occupation.
I took a 360-degree check around. The area seemed long abandoned; there was no sign of any activity. The mist was lifting away fast and patches of grey sky were showing through. "If we don't get a move on soon we'll never make it across with this lot without being spotted," Doug said. I agreed. Once among the buildings we could hunker down with the prisoners out of sight and await Seb.
"Let's do it," I said.
I sent Kiwi and Nobby on ahead to scout the buildings. Together with Josh, Doug and I prodded the reluctant prisoners to their feet. "Hurry it up," I snapped. Any moment, I thought, the bloody helicopters will come back.
Kiwi came on the radio. "Looks all clear up here."
"Right," I said to the others, 'get 'em moving."
With our packs bumping on our shoulders, we ran the prisoners across the grass and up the slope. We were about fifty metres from the buildings when I heard the sound I dreaded.
"Helicopters!" I shouted. "Everybody down!" I grabbed the nearest Argentine and hurled him bodily to the ground.
The engine noise swelled and grew louder and nearer, coming directly for us. It was plain that we had been seen. We would have to make a fight for it. Our anti-aircraft missiles had been lost on the boat but we still had our personal weapons. Rolling over, I raised my rifle.
A burst of automatic fire crackled overhead. Bullets zipped and pinged all around our position. More guns opened up from the flanks. The fire was coming from both sides and ahead. From behind the tops of the buildings and from the flanks to either side the helmeted heads of combat troops were aiming heavy calibre weapons at us. I estimated a company of infantry with light automatic weapons, firing from fifty to a hundred metres' range. Now the helicopters were sweeping in beneath the overcast, stooping low for the kill. A machine-gun mounted in the side hatch of the lead aircraft winked at us like a red eye, and more bullets thudded into the ground nearby. The troops must have been lying in wait on the other side of the hill. They had called in the air power the moment they saw us start to move. We had walked straight into an ambush. Perhaps the prisoners had led them to us.
"Pull back!" I shouted, but before we could move, from the direction of the road came a rumble of diesel engines. A troop of infantry fighting vehicles had broken cover and was closing in, the muzzles of their cannons swivelling towards us. Any moment now we would have 30mm shells bursting around our ears. A patch of gorse burst into flames as incendiary bullets zipped through. We were pinned down and surrounded, under attack from air and ground.
Josh was carrying the light anti-armour weapon, a 94mm anti-tank missile in a single-shot tube capable of taking out a main battle tank at 500 metres. Ignoring the bullets whipping past, he ripped the launcher off his back, snapped the tube out to its full extent and crouched, aiming at the nearest IFV. A huge smoke plume belched from the rear of the tube and there was a swoosh as the missile ignited. The rocket scorched across the ground, arrowing towards the lead vehicle. It impacted against the offside track near the front with a boom that echoed across the clearing. The vehicle swung round and stopped, rocking on its tracks, smoke pouring from its engine compartment.
The turrets of the two other machines barked angrily. Shells smacked into the earth among us, exploding with showers of dirt. Splinters of steel sang viciously overhead and the air was filled with the stench of cordite.
"Fucking great shot," Doug was yelling. But next moment there came an ominous double thud and the whine of 81mm mortar bombs descending. More explosions fountained up as bombs and shells searched the hillside.
We had shot off our only missile, and the enemy had us at their mercy. They could sit back and blast us to pieces at their leisure.
The marines had been waiting. We had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The shelling stopped. The machine-gun fire slackened off. An officer's voice crackled over a loud-hailer. "British soldiers. Put down your guns and raise your hands. If you attempt to escape you will be shot."
The guys were looking at me for guidance.
"Sod the bastards. Let's make a run for it," Doug growled. "Some of us should make it."
I looked around. The prisoners had scattered and were lying shaking on the ground. They seemed unhurt. The Argy armour had paused on the track leading down from the road, and squads of infantry were dismounting to move across country and surround us from the rear. The helicopters were beating the air overhead. "No," I told Doug. "Sorry, but it's a bust."
"Fuck them!" Doug snarled. "The fuck I'm going to surrender to fucking Argy cunts!" He jumped up, clutching his C-5, and instantly a machine-gun opened up from one of the vehicles, sending a stream of tracer winging towards him. The rounds, clearly visible, seemed to start slowly then speed up with a sudden rush as they got closer. The stream of bullets reached Doug, there was a terrific smacking sound, and he was knocked flying off his feet and on to his back.
He lay there, seemingly stunned. "Doug!" I shouted. I crawled over to him, keeping my head against the ground as more rounds went screaming overhead like angry wasps. There was blood on his hands and face but I couldn't see exactly where he had been hit. I ripped open his jacket to check for chest wounds, but couldn't see any. His rifle was lying nearby, almost split in two across the middle. It looked as though Doug's gun had taken the main impact.
The voice with the loud-hailer was shouting something else about resistance being futile. I was in agreement with him.
Kiwi crawled over as Doug gave a grunt and stirred. "How bad is he?"
"OK by the looks of him," I replied. "He was fucking lucky. Those marines aren't pissing about. If we give them any trouble they'll let us have it."
"Looks like we're in the shit then." "Fraid so," I said. "Better tell the boys to do as they say. We don't want anyone else hurt."
I was ripping open Doug's medical pack as I spoke. His injuries were just scratches, splinter wounds where the bullet that hit his gun had shattered. Like I'd said, he had been very lucky. An inch either way and the slug would have gone clean through his body.
He groaned and rolled over, rubbing his head. "Jesus," he coughed, squinting at me. "Am I hit?"
"Not as badly as you should've been," I told him. "Next time, keep your stupid head down." Now I knew he was OK I felt a sudden burst of comradeship for him. Doug and I had had our differences and he was a difficult bastard to live with at times but we had been through a lot together.
"Here they come, boss," Kiwi called. "Better throw down the weapons and show our hands."
I saw the woman nearby and she was looking scared. I wondered what the Argies had in mind for her, and resolved to make it clear that she and her friends had been our prisoners. I would say we had stumbled across them in the woods and leave them to invent their own story.
All I could think was that I had blown the mission and got the lads caught. I felt gutted. The worst of it was that thanks to the communications failure we hadn't been able to contact Hereford, and now there was no way of warning them of the Argy plan for invading the Falklands.
Argentine marines were moving down the slope fifty metres away, weapons at the ready, to take our surrender. Doug reached into his pack for the satcom set. Slung over his shoulder was a Cla
ymore bag with an anti-personnel mine in it. He stuffed the satcom set inside and the 320 VHP set with it. All the encryption gear went in too, along with the codes. I added the maps I was carrying, the GPS and my UHF handset no sense in making the Argies a present of them. Doug set the tinier to fifteen seconds, closed the canvas flap and fastened it down. I could see his lips move as he counted off the seconds. Then, lofting the bag briefly, he flung it away from him down the hill. There was a loud explosion as it hit the ground, and a pall of smoke rose into the air. Bits of debris rattled down on top of us.
There were shouts of anger from the marines, and a volley of shots cracked over our heads.
Doug grinned.
Then I remembered the cellphone Seb had given me. If the Argentines found that it would be a dead give-away. They would work me over until I gave them the name of our contact out here. I slipped it out from my pocket and prised it apart with my knife. Then I snapped the SIM card and broke the circuit board apart so that they couldn't be used again. I shoved the bits into a hole in the ground and pressed some mud down over them. With luck they would never be found.
The marines came doubling up now. They pushed us roughly down on the ground again, kicking our legs apart and forcing us to put our hands behind our necks. They patted us down, searching for weapons and equipment. They took away my pistol and fighting knife. They made us strip to our vests one by one to check our clothes for anything we might have tried to conceal. My watch was taken and the dog tags ripped from my neck.
The Argies were in a state of high excitement, whooping and laughing as they squabbled over our possessions. They evidently considered they had won a great battle and everyone wanted a souvenir.
"SAS?" they kept jeering. "SAS?" They evidently knew who we were, and were over the moon about their cleverness in catching us. There seemed to be the best part of a company of them, fifty at least so we had been outnumbered by a good ten to one. This made me feel better.
When the searching was complete our hands were tied behind our backs with plasticuffs and we were placed face-down on the ground. The civilians were subjected to the same treatment; we heard them protesting their innocence to the officers, but with no effect. They were cuffed too and thrown down with us. Some of the men were slapped around roughly in the process evidently the marines had no love for dissidents.
There was a long wait then, of an hour or more. From the little we could see, it appeared the Argies were conducting a fingertip search of the ground, looking for any fragments of our com ms gear and encryption equipment. I doubted if they would have much luck a Claymore mine packs a pretty big punch.
My real fear was that they would turn up the remains of the cellphone, in which case I was in for a rough time. I figured I could handle that if I had to, at least hold out long enough for Seb to get clear. In a small community like Rio Grande, news of the capture of five SAS troops would spread rapidly, and a man like Seb would have his escape plans prepared in advance.
They made us all sit up and identify which was our equipment and our individual weapons. I couldn't make out what this was for apart from a bit of general intelligence. The officer in command, a major who spoke some English, tried his hand at a spot of questioning, but we had all done the interrogation courses at Hereford and pretended we didn't understand him.
This pissed them off, so they brought the woman out.
They stood her up in front of us, and though she was doing her best to be brave about it one of her legs was shaking uncontrollably. She was Argentinian, and she knew what was coming all right. The major took his time, letting the fear get to work. He was a small man, olive-skinned with very white teeth, broad in the shoulders and smartly turned out a typical officer, in fact. He said in English his name was Oliveras. He explained how he understood that we couldn't talk, that we were forbidden to give more than our names and numbers, all that crap. It was a pity, he said, because in the absence of help from us he would be forced to make his own deductions.
"We know you have been on the base at Rio Grande," he smiled. "Oh yes, we know all that. We know you were in the hangar and this woman was with you. If you will not tell us how you entered the hangar and what you saw, then we shall have to conclude that it was this woman and her friends who helped you. Which makes her a traitor. And that is a very serious matter, oh yes."
He paused to let us think about the seriousness of it, and lit a cigarette. "I wonder," he went on, 'have any of you ever witnessed the interrogation of a woman?"
There were sniggers from the men, who obviously felt they were in for a good show. The woman stared straight ahead stonily, but her leg was still shivering. The young boy, Julian, was looking white in the face. The major drew on his cigarette, then said something in Spanish to the woman. She replied in a harsh, clipped tone, from which every emotion had been ironed out. Pleading would do no good with this man; her fate depended on whether or not we were prepared to let her be tortured.
"So it is down to you English," the major said evenly. "You brave SAS will decide if this woman is to suffer and how much." He signed to two of his men standing behind the prisoner, and they seized hold of her by the arms. She stiffened but did not struggle. It would have been pointless anyway, they were huge men and she was slight.
The major unzipped her parka and pulled it down from her shoulders. He did it deftly and his movements, the way he touched her, were obscene. He was demonstrating his complete dominance. I can touch her any way I like, he was indicating to us. Underneath the coat she wore a black shirt and a grey turtleneck sweater. Reaching behind her neck, Oliveras grasped her hair tightly with his right hand. It was black hair and springy with a wave in it, and he wound a bunch tightly in his hand to get a good purchase.
From where I was sitting to one side, I could see the tears coming into her eyes as he jerked at her head. "Still," he commanded. He drew on his cigarette until the end glowed red,
then took it in his free hand. "Do not struggle. One touch of the tip on your eye and phut you are blind."
He tightened his grip on her hair. As the glowing cigarette end approached her face, she fought to turn away but he held her firm. He was a strong man. The marines either side had her pinned between them. Oliveras brought the cigarette closer. There was a sharp intake of breath from the woman and her body went rigid, but no scream came.
After what seemed an endless moment the major stepped back. An ugly red burn sat at the corner of her left eye, no more than a centimetre from the eyeball itself.
Oliveras turned his flashing smile on me. "So, you are the senior man in this band of pirates. Are you going to tell us what you saw in the hangar, or must I put the next cigarette in the eye itself?"
I had already realised that this was a man for whom the act of inflicting pain on a woman was an active pleasure. He was going to hurt her whether we answered him or not. Once he had finished with her it would be our turn, probably beginning with me. There was nothing to be gained by helping him along. I shook my head. "I have nothing to say."
Oliveras shrugged. He produced a gold lighter, and with deliberate carelessness selected a fresh cigarette from his pack. "Imagine," he said holding it up. "This red tip is the last thing she will ever see. Red fire, and then ... darkness." He gripped the woman's hair again. She fought against him with all her strength this time, twisting her head from side to side. Oliveras laughed and jabbed at her face with little stabbing motions. "There and there. Ah, so near that time. You make it worse for yourself when you struggle."
My stomach knotted. The guy was sick and there was nothing any of us could do about it. The woman was going to lose one eye at least. It was just a question of how long Oliveras wanted to prolong the agony.
"Are you ready, Concha?" he grinned as if addressing an old friend.
I gaped. How did he know her name? Of course, he was an intelligence officer stationed down here. As dissidents, the faces and details of all her group would be familiar to him. The marines must have tracked
them from the vicinity of the base to lay the ambush. They evidently figured we were working together.
And then, suddenly I saw it. It must have been the way the woman was standing, her arms behind her, fear and courage mingled in her face, that same face that had hurled defiance at her enemies two decades ago in another war.
Concha, Oliveras had called her. The name Jenny had told me the spy on the Northland had given. Suddenly I saw her as she'd appeared to me some twenty years before naked, outstretched and lashed to ring bolts in the ship's bulkhead while smoke from the Argentine bombs billowed through the deck. The girl spy who had come nearer than anyone to taking out the British fleet. I had been walking beside her all this time in the darkness and I hadn't guessed.
So, she had escaped from the ship. I had only seen her for a few minutes on board in the gloom below deck; and last night it had been dark it was hardly surprising that I hadn't recognised her. She would have been young then eighteen, perhaps. I remembered how we had fought in the back of the truck, how I had forced her down and pulled her sweater up to check she was a girl. Now she must be in her late thirties; she looked younger.
Back on the march I had almost guessed but the light had been poor and I'd had too much to think about. Now I was certain. It was as if I were back on the Northland once more with the bombs falling and my brother Andy shouting at me to get a move on.
But how was this possible? Then she had been an Argentine patriot, a heroine of the war on their side. If anyone could be expected to back the attack on Port Stanley it would be her. And yet now here she was being tortured by her own people! None of it made sense.
I was still trying to take all this in when there was an interruption a truck came lurching down the track from the road. A marine NCO came up and said something in Spanish to Oliveras, who glanced up at the truck and scowled. He gave an order and turned back to us.
