by Stuart Slade
Galtieri slammed his hand on the table. “I will not tolerate such defeatism. Dozens of heavily armed troops? Not according to the reports your own men have made. There was one submarine came in and that was all. A dozen or so men at most. Your excuses are as feeble as the performance of your commandos. Since the British are on the move, we can be grateful we have good army troops in the Malvinas. They might be conscripts but they know their duty. We will concentrate our defenses there.”
‘And what about the troops on South Georgia? With the ships we had stationed there sunk, they can’t get back.”
“Then they can do what they should have done right from the start. They can fight. To the last man and the last bullet.”
Anaya settled back and thought about that. Given how much Astrid knew, his unit fighting to the last man and the last bullet could solve a lot of problems.
Control Room, HMS Collingwood. 145 nautical miles south of the Falkland Islands
“She’s a freighter, Sir. Heading is one-three five; direct course from Port Ushuaia to Stanley.”
“Any identification?”
“No, Sir. We’re picking up sound signature for two diesels and two screws but that could make her anything or anybody’s.”
Captain Paul Wicklow nodded. There was only so much an acoustic signature could tell a lurking submarine. “No sign of an escort?”
“No sound signature of one, Sir. That freighter is all alone out there.”
“Cheeky bastards. I suppose they thought we wouldn’t really sink a freighter.” Wicklow paused, his thumbs were prickling fiercely. “I don’t like this. Beware Greeks bearing gifts and all that. Load a Mark Two into tube one, three Mark 22s into tubes two, three and four and squitters into five and six.”
“A Mark Two, Sir?” Mark Two was a British-built 22.4 inch electric straight runner. It had replaced the older Mark One when British submarines had shifted from 21-inch tubes to 22.4s. It might be unguided but it had a ferociously heavy warhead. Ideal for killing a merchant ship from ambush. Since it was merely an enlarged and improved version of the old German G7e, that was hardly surprising.
“When that eel goes, I want it out and on its way. There’s something out here; I can feel it. Bring the boat up to periscope depth.”
Collingwood angled upwards, her decks tilting with the movement. She was moving very slowly, keeping her sound signature to an absolute minimum. Wicklow took a deep breath. “Up scope.”
What followed next was a virtuoso demonstration of how to use a periscope. The mast broke surface, the slow speed and rough water combined to make the feather hard to spot. Wicklow knew exactly where to look and what to look for. He didn’t need the bow identification number to confirm his opinion but everything came in useful. “Argentine flag, bow number B4.”
He snapped the words out while he did a quick scan. “No other contacts.” The scope was down less than ten seconds after breaking surface.
“Argentine naval auxiliary Bahia San Bias.”
“Right, we have an Argentine naval ship well inside the exclusion zone and on course for Stanley. That makes her a legitimate target. I can’t see how the Septics could complain about this. Plot, prepare firing solution and enter into the computer.”
There was a delay while the fire control system took in the target course and speed, compared them with the characteristics of Torpedo, 22.4 inch Mark Two and came up with a solution that would put both together at the same time and place.
“Solution set, Sir.”
“Well done, Weaps. Fire One.”
There was a pause while the fire control computer made a minor adjustment, then Collingwood rocked slightly as the torpedo left the tube. It was wakeless, so the only warning the target was likely to get would be the initial uplift as the eel exploded under her keel.
“Impact in five….four….three….two….one….“
There was a pause that seemed to have taken hours, then the ramble of an explosion echoed through the boat.
“Periscope up.”
Wicklow seized the scope and focused on the target. He had missed the spectacular under-the-keel explosion itself but its effects were obvious. The freighter had broken in half. Her bow section was already rolling over while the stern was sinking fast. Worst of all, the ship was under a pyre of black smoke, the sea around her in flames.
“Down scope.”
“We get her, Sir?”
The question was verged on the redundant but Wicklow’s nod of answer still caused a cheer that stopped suddenly with the comment that followed it. “She must have been carrying fuel. She’s burning like a torch out there. So is the sea around her; the crew must have had it.”
The control room was silent. The men there were trying to imagine the efforts of the survivors trying to abandon ship in a world where everything was burning. “Anything we can do, Sir?”
Wicklow shook his head. He was about to speak when the sonar room cut in. “Sir, we have a contact; something stirring. Slow revs, single screw, very low frequency machinery noise, 50 hertz. I think we have a diesel-electric boat on our tail.”
“Damn, I knew this was too good to be true.” It was a well-put together ambush. A juicy target to make the submarine expose herself, a diesel-electric lurking to take the shot. “Any bearing on that threat?”
“Due west Sir. My guess is she was behind the freighter and below the layer.”
“Make oh-nine-oh. Speed six knots.” That was Collinwood’s creep speed, the maximum speed she could make before her noise levels started to rise. “Single screw. An Italian-built Manta class?”
“I think so Sir. The CBs say she’s got an average passive sonar set but is very quiet. Small too; designed for the Med.”
“She knows we’re here, that’s for certain. Bearing still two-seven-zero?”
“Yes, Sir. Sir, we’re losing her. I think we picked her up as she came through the layer, now we’ve lost her again.”
Wicklow drummed his fingers. “We’ll separate. Make speed 32 knots. Give her a tailchase. She can make 20 knots, but that’ll run her batteries flat in a few minutes. Ready all decoy systems in case she tries for a shot.”
Collingwood lurched slightly as her screw bit into the water. The three members of her class were known as the Ferraris of the fleet, fast and loud. The problem was at that speed, her sonar coverage was very poor.
“Sir, we have torpedo launch. Two torpedoes coming in fast from astern. American, Mark 37s.”
“Full left rudder, take her down. Launch bubble decoys and fire a squitter. Reload tube with same.”
The “squitter,” more formally known as Decoy Mark 27, was basically a torpedo loaded with the electronics necessary to simulate the sound signature of a submarine. Collingwood was turning hard and diving to create a knuckle in the water that would block sonar pulses. Two foam generators had been planted in that knuckle to improve the effect. The squitter was running ahead. Hopefully the Mark 37s would track it and ignore the submarine that was already far down and out of their tracking cone.
“We’re through the layer, Sir.”
“Slow down to six knots. Lurk and listen.” Separating from the diesel electric hadn’t worked too well. It had to be a gutsy skipper in that diesel-electric to chance two torpedoes on a tail chase against a nuke boat.
The seconds ticked by and turned into minutes. Eventually the sonar operator shook his head. “I think he’s out there, Sir. Can’t pick him up. There’s just little hints.”
“He can’t be getting anything better. Come back to oh-nine-oh and we’ll do a creepy-creepy away.”
Collingwood had barely started her turn when her hull rang with the pulse of an active sonar system. “She’s got us, Sir. That was way above threshold value.”
“Give a bow pulse.” Collingwood’s own bow sonar slammed out its signal and a bright contact light exploded on to one of the sonar displays. “Launch two Mark 22s as soon as the target is dialed in.”
It was a race against
time to get their torpedoes off. Collingwood won, just barely. Her Mark 22s were swim-out launched, another advantage of the larger-than-usual size of her torpedo tubes. That made the launch as near silent as made no difference. It didn’t hide the torpedoes themselves as they started their run towards the Argentine submarine. They were well on their way when the report from the sonar room came in. “She’s fired again, Sir. Two Mark 37s, coming straight at us.”
“Fire all decoys, take her down, turn and go to maximum revs.” The Mark 37 was a lot faster than the Australian Mark 22. Wicklow watched the two lines speeding out from the sonar contacts. Each represented a pair of torpedoes hunting their prey. Collingwood had the advantage of launching first; it paid off. The trace of the Argentine submarine vanished in a blaze of light on the display. He could picture what was happening; the Argentine boat had probably been hit on or near the bows. The Manta only had one watertight bulkhead in the whole submarine. It was unlikely that would save her. Her nose opened up, she would be heading down until she dropped to the point where the water tore her apart.
“Decoys have filtered off one of the Mark 37s. The other one is still coming for us.” The report was neutral, calm and collected.
“Shut all watertight doors, rig for collision.” Wicklow paused for a second. To head for the surface or not? “Take her up.”
Collingwood started to rise but it was too late. The Mark 37 had been about to run out of fuel when it struck the nuclear-powered submarine’s screw and exploded. The shaft whiplashed from the blast, then ran out of control as the mutilated propeller started to shake itself apart. The shaft seals and bearings ruptured, causing flooding throughout the whole machinery space. Collingwood never got to make it to the surface. Her stern flooding and her machinery gone, she was already sinking fast. The control room crew had time to scram the reactor before the hull collapsed under the pressure. In the space of less than half an hour, three more ships had joined the long list of wrecks at the bottom of the Drake Passage.
Seer’s Home Philotas, Saranac River Valley, Adirondacks.
“You do realize that Sir Robert has a long history of chasing every female in sight don’t you?” The Seer sipped his whisky and sighed gently. He was reasonably certain this was not the sort of conversation a man was supposed to be having with his daughter.
“Of course. I just have to run not quite fast enough. Although I’ve as good as told him he’s going to catch me.” Igrat was sitting on the couch, freshly showered and wrapped in a thick cotton robe, her legs drawn up beside her. She’d caught a rotodyne out of Washington International and it had dropped her off at the airstrip attached to the house. What had once been a long drive up here was now a convenient ride on a puddle-hopper. She didn’t mind paying the extra fee for the additional stop. The views alone made it worthwhile and she needed the rest. The constant flights across the Atlantic were more wearing than most people realized.
The door to the living room entered and Raven entered, pushing a trolley loaded with plates. Igrat whinnied slightly with delight at the smell of rich stew. “Wild turkey, Raven?”
“Wild turkey.” Raven confirmed that and took quiet pride in Igrat’s open enjoyment. It had taken her some time to get used to Igrat’s ways, especially her wholehearted pursuit of life’s pleasures. Privately she had thought that those pursuits would have dropped her into a mass of trouble if she’d lived on a reservation. Angry wives would have been coming for her in the night, Raven was quite convinced of that. “Achillea shot it and it’s been hanging for just the right time. And, it really has been cooked according to an old Indian recipe.”
Igrat and her father both burst out laughing at the comment. Raven was pure-blooded Shoshone and a superb cook. She’d even published a book of Shoshone recipes, under an assumed name of course. It had sold well. One of many ways customs and culture from the Nations had become popularized after being neglected for far too long. She started spooning the stew out of its casserole into serving dishes, making sure that the Seer had his favorite pieces, before adding slabs of corn bread. Igrat took hers and quietly took a few mouthfuls. In Naamah’s absence, the job of food tasting fell to her. Nobody took it that seriously these days, but it was better to be safe than sorry. “Gods, Raven this is good. How do you get the turkey so soft? I keep expecting it to be like rubber.”
“Cook cool and slow.” Raven was smiling with happiness at the obviously sincere praise. “I put the chopped turkey into a dutch oven a whole day ago. So, how did you get along with Sir Robert Byrnes?”
“He dined me, wined me and made it very clear there were quite a few other things he wished to do to me. Some very naughty.” Igrat closed her eyes with sheer pleasure at the thick gravy mopped up with freshly-baked cornbread. “But he said nothing that even hinted at the Auxiliary Units. The official line is they don’t exist, never have existed and are just media speculation. Even mention them directly and I get the ‘pat on the head, silly little girl’ treatment. I thought Robbie might tell me something from the funding end, but not a word.”
“What do you think Iggie?” The Seer absorbed the information and mulled its implications.
“The Auxiliary Units? Oh they exist all right. They’ve overdone the ‘we don’t exist’ bit just a little too much. If they really didn’t exist, there would be a few loose ends knocking round. You know the sort of things, little mysteries that nobody can quite solve and which curious-minded people could construct into an obviously-absurd legend. But there aren’t. Somebody has gone around and carefully closed off all those loose ends, every conceivable one of them, and the only reason to do that is to hide something. The fact that there is so obviously no evidence at all is, in an odd way, the strongest evidence of all. Could I have some more stew please, Raven? I’m hungry.”
“Plate.” Raven served out some more stew and watched Igrat start to wolf it down. “How do you stay thin?”
“Lots of exercise.” Igrat looked innocently around, an appearance that deceived nobody. “After all, I’m a Royal Courier now. I’ve got to run around like a greyhound. Father, do you want me to keep sniffing around for hints about the Auxiliary Units?”
“Amongst our friends over there, sure. No need to take chances though. At the moment it’s just curiosity. But if the Auxiliary Units do exist, it would be nice to know about them.”
SBS Unit, Penguin River, South Georgia
To his dismay, he was now certain that the Argentine force was larger than the original sighting had suggested. More of the swimmer-commandos had appeared, working their way through the field of ice-covered rocks that led up to the Penguin River. There were at least 18 by now, and Marine “Tiny” Stroud was sure there were six more somewhere. Assuming there were 50 swimmer-commandos in the team that had occupied Grytviken, that meant at least half their force were up here. It was certainly more than the five SBS men were capable of handling.
Stroud had already picked his target. One of the swimmer commandos had moved into an overwatch position and was scanning the rocks with the telescopic sight mounted on his FAS rifle. Stroud assumed it was the FAS. The Argentine swimmer-commandos and Marines both used the Belgian-designed rifle while the Argentine Army used the much cheaper Russian-designed SVK. He was in no doubt about the scope though. He had seen light flash from the rising sun flash off its lens. Stroud was quietly confident he hadn’t been seen yet. Partly, that was because nobody was shooting at him but there were other reasons as well.
One of them was the rifle he was carrying. The original L1 had been equipped with the traditional wooden furniture. That had been replaced in the L1 A2 version with the lighter and stronger plastic stock and grips. At first, those had been made in black. At some point a great light of inspiration had engulfed somebody and it had been realized that the plastic furniture could easily be made in any color. So now, the L1A2 had a range of camouflaged components that could be switched over to make the weapon unobtrusive in any environment. The rifle itself was a bullpup design with the
magazine behind the pistol grip and trigger. That had been a controversial decision and other rifle designers had ridiculed the resulting design. They had suggested it was best suited to inserting hot cartridge cases up the nose of anybody using it. Certainly it gave left-handers problems, but the layout had provided a compact weapon with an unusually long barrel for its overall size. The resulting accuracy was exploited by the provision of an optical sight, making the British Army the first to issue such sights as standard equipment.
Stroud was using that sight, confident that with the sun behind him he would not be betrayed by a reflection. He had placed the red dot just below the chin of the man he had chosen. A gentle squeeze of the trigger and a five round burst struck his target. That was another advantage of the bullpup configuration; the rifle recoiled straight backwards and it was very easy to prevent muzzle climb. A short burst put all the bullets where the shooter intended, not sent them skywards. His target slumped downwards. The red stains from the bullet wounds spread across the rocks and glistened in the sun. Stroud didn’t stay around to watch. By the time the 7mm bullets had struck, he was already beginning to move out of his firing position and shift to an alternative.
The speed of that move saved him. Despite the flash suppressor built into his rifle, there had been enough of a firing signature to tell the Argentine commandos where the shots had come from. Their return fire sent bullets all around his just-vacated position. The heavy 7.65mm bullets whined off the frozen ground or splattered against the rocks. The full-power 7.65x54mm had a lot more striking energy than the intermediate power 7x43mm used by the British rifle. It was enough to send rock fragments skittering around the impact area. One of those fragments sliced across Stroud’s cheek, leaving a long but shallow cut. He ignored it, knowing that soon he would have much more serious things to worry about.
Swimmer-Commando Team, Penguin River, South Georgia
The short burst had felled the overwatch sniper without warning. Lieutenant Marcos Rafa cursed as he saw the man’s body tumble from the rocks and sprawl on the frozen ground below. He had been relying on the sniper to pick off any British troops the Swimmer-Commando unit would run into while they closed on the observation point the British had positioned somewhere up here. Instead, the enemy had scored first blood and taken the man out. Rafa decided that he would make sure any prisoners his unit took paid for that. The thought was drowned out by the hammering of rifle and machine gun fire. It was one thing the Swimmer-Commando units had learned during their long fight against the guerillas who plagued the Argentine countryside. Ambushes had to be dominated by an immediate mass return of fire. It would pin the ambushers down and allow them to be isolated and picked off.
