by Stuart Slade
“We’re picking up radar, comms and datalinks. Recording everything, of course. Most of this is Argentine.” The ELINT operator on duty thought quickly. “I’d say this is an ASW operation, Sir. We’ve got radars from ships and aircraft plus datalinks between them. If this was normal times, I’d say we were watching an exercise. Under the circumstances, I’d say this is the real thing.”
“And something we’d better keep well clear of.” Beecham looked around quickly. “Record everything you can and store it. What we can’t decrypt or analyze, the boys back home will. If any of that lot starts to move our way, alert me immediately.
Beecham returned to the control room. “We have an ASW operation going on north and east of us. We’ll stream our tail and hang out our ears for whatever we can pick up. Otherwise, we can head south and get away from this.”
Rotorua swung south, shuddering slightly as her towed array was deployed from its nest between her twin screws. Soon, it too was adding its input to the information on the Argentine ASW operation behind her.
Ministry of Defence, Whitehall, London
“Good afternoon, General.” Igrat smiled at General Howard and sipped delicately at the tea she had been offered. “I have the latest reconnaissance pictures and other data your command staff will need. Also, I have words for you.”
Howard smiled politely, and listened to her voice adopt the flat, disinterested tones of The Seer. As usual, the ‘words’ were mostly opinions and analysis rather than facts although a few of the latter were included. As always, they were ones that were too sensitive to be put in writing. Idly, Sir John Howard wondered just how many profound secrets Igrat carried in her head. To his surprise and discomfort, Igrat appeared to have guessed what he was thinking.
“I forget them. Not deliberately, but I do. In a week’s time, I will never be able to remember anything I have just told you.” Igrat had finished the ‘words’ and was speaking in her own voice. “Experts who have studied memories tell me people can either remember things like messages for a long time or they can remember them very accurately but not both. I do the latter. I remember the words until I deliver them, then they fade away quickly.” She grinned at him, knowing her ability to guess what people around her were thinking had caught him unawares.
“Igrat, I have news for you although I’d guess the Seer already knows most of it. The Argentine forces on South Georgia have surrendered. They’re being taken to HMS Argus now for delivery to Uruguay.”
“Alberto Astrid?” Igrat’s heavy-lidded eyes had opened slightly at the news. She wasn’t absolutely certain why The Seer was so interested in that one man but he was and so she took it on herself to gather as much data as she could for him. “Do you have him?”
“We’ve got him. We’re charging him with the murder of Postmaster James Walsingham. There’s a lot of complications of course, we’re already getting representations from four governments … .” Howard saw Igrat’s interest and enlarged on the subject, “Italy, Sweden, France and Spain. They all have citizens who have disappeared in Argentina over the last few years and they seek an accounting. At the very least, they want to talk to him. The problem is that we have already heard from the Argentine government as well. They have waxed furious over the charges we are bringing against Astrid and are threatening reprisals against prisoners of war they hold if we continue with them.”
Although Igrat gave no outward signs of it, internally she winced. That sort of action would not go down well in the United States. This was probably the hardest part of her job, one that she had learned over thousands of delivery trips around the world. She had sat in on meetings where the information she had brought was needed and had to bite her tongue to stop herself speaking. Her position meant that any words she uttered would be taken as official U.S. policy. The consequences of voicing her own personal opinions could be disastrous. At the very least, it would mean a complete loss of trust in her. That was something she was not prepared to countenance.
“Do you have words for me to take back to Washington?” Igrat’s husky voice was dead level and showed no sign of her own internal conflict. The question was her way of getting back her mental equilibrium.
Howard smiled at her. He had dealt with high-grade couriers many times and he had a shrewd idea of what had just passed through Igrat’s mind. “Yes, indeed. Please pass on the message that we have Astrid and we have received messages demanding he be transferred to the custody of other countries for trial and from Argentina demanding he be treated like any other prisoner of war. Please also add that observation of our other Argentine prisoners of war indicate that he is much feared by them and equally hated. At the moment, there are no British PoWs in Argentine hands, so their threats are mere posturing. That’s the end of my words on this issue. May I offer you another cup of tea?”
He pressed a button on his desk and the door opened with the tea-trolley. “General, the Prime Minister is about to make a public announcement.” The tea lady was arranging a fresh pot of tea and a plate of Jaffa Cakes on Howard’s desk. She smiled at the General, looked coldly at Igrat and then left.
“Let’s see what he has to say.” Howard turned on the television. It was already tuned to the BBC and the picture formed quickly.
Prime Minister Newton was speaking. “Ladies and gentlemen. The Secretary of State for Defence has just come over to give me some very good news and I think you’d like to have it at once. We have received the surrender of all Argentine forces on South Georgia. The news has been confirmed by the following message from Admiral Chupe, commander of the British forces in the South Georgia region. ‘Be pleased to inform Her Majesty that the White Ensign flies alongside the Union Jack in South Georgia. God save the Queen.’ Now is the time to rejoice at this news and congratulate our forces and the marines while not forgetting the stern tasks that are still ahead of us. Rejoice.” Newton turned away to the door of Number Ten and vanished inside.
Naval Headquarters, Buenos Aires, Argentina
“We can’t hold Las Malvinas without controlling the seas around the islands. We can’t do that while the British Navy is operating there unchallenged. So, we have to challenge them. Get the fleet to sea and do just that.” Admiral Jorge Anaya had just come from another bristling meeting with President Galtieri; one that had centered around the fall of South Georgia. Anaya had his own worries about that; not least was the fact the British had captured Captain Astrid alive. So, in the great manner of things, he was about to relieve his problems by giving Vice-Admiral Juan Lombardo a hard time. Lombardo would doubtless pass that down to his flag captain who would transmit the nausea with interest to his lieutenant. The lieutenant would go home and beat his wife who would then kick her dog. The dog would then go out and harass a cat that would respond by killing the nearest rodent it could find. Such was the way of the world
“We only have the one carrier available.” Lombardo was thoughtful. “Of course, we carry more aircraft than the British carriers and we have a better screen. Yes, Admiral, I think we can do this.”
Anaya stopped in his tracks. He had been expecting protests and explanations as to why it couldn’t be done. Lombardo’s thoughtful and considered approval took the wind out of his sails. That left him only one line of attack. “Then why aren’t the ships at sea?” The question came out with menacing undertones.
“The British carriers have only just come within our range.” Lombardo still sounded thoughtful, apparently unaware of his superior’s urgent need to scream in rage. “There was little point in wasting fuel cruising around waiting for them. But now is the perfect time to stage our attack. The two carriers must be split, one coming up from South Georgia, the other already in our area. If we move quickly, we can catch them apart and destroy them piecemeal. Admiral, I suggest the ships put to sea without a moment of delay.”
Anaya was almost crying. Why was it, the one time I really needed to throw a furious tirade at somebody, they all kept anticipating what I want and agreeing with m
e? “See that it is done. And we need to reinforce the garrison on the Malvinas immediately.”
Lombardo looked at the situation display. “We lost a freighter west of the islands. We have also lost contact with a submarine that was in the same area. We believe that both were the victim of a British submarine that was in the area. Almost certainly one of their nuclear-powered boats. We are conducting a hunt in the area now but so far we have made no contact.” That had hardly surprised Lombardo. Trying to find a nuclear attack submarine with the resources the Argentine Navy had available was a triumph of optimism over reality. The British submarine that had killed the merchant ship and the submarine, he had no doubt that both were lost, was certainly long gone from the scene by now. “It would be unwise for us to send another slow merchantman into that area now. Instead, I suggest that we use the two assault cruisers. They can make the voyage at full speed and deliver additional anti-aircraft equipment to the islands. We have the destroyers Catamarca and Entre Rios to act as escort for them. We’ll need the other three missile destroyers to screen the carrier of course.”
Lombardo paused at that point. He was actually unhappy about detaching the Entre Rios to screen the assault cruisers. Another missile destroyer, Mendoza, should have been available but she had stripped a main reduction gear a few weeks earlier and was in dockyard hands. That left just three such strips to screen the carrier. Quietly, he cursed the state-owned Argentine naval shipyard. They had two more missile destroyers under construction but they were running years late. They should have been in the fleet already, but it would be a long time before they arrived. That left the navy short of anti-aircraft firepower.
“You would trust such important ships to a mere two destroyers as escort?” At last Anaya had found something he could rant about. The relief was cathartic to his troubled soul. He let loose with a flurry of choice epithets and stomped over to view the ready board. “You will add Santissima Trinidad and Almirante Garcia to the squadron immediately. And see that those ships are at sea without any further delay. Then he stormed out of the room.
Lombardo made the necessary additions to the plans. He admitted to himself that adding the two old American destroyers to the screen made a certain amount of sense. They were Gearing class DDEs, fleet destroyers modified to act as fast escorts for aircraft carrier groups. Their twelve three-inch guns gave them good anti-aircraft firepower by gunnery standards. They had Otomat anti-ship missiles in case enemy warships intercepted them. It was their capability against modern submarines that was sorely lacking. Still, there was nothing in the Argentine fleet that was much better in that respect.
He looked at the resulting naval operations plan and shrugged. A carrier group to hammer on the British and the assault cruiser group to run additional equipment to the garrison on the Malvinas. It was about as workmanlike a plan as he could come up with.
Military Transport Drakensburg South Atlantic.
“I think we have found the rest of the amphibious squadron.” Lieutenant Colonel Rigsby looked around the bridge of the Drakensburg with a measure of satisfaction. He was painfully aware that the British troops on the ship were inexperienced by comparison with the hardened South Africans but the sight of the ships arrayed around them was compensation. There was no way South Africa could match the sea power that was on show here. And that didn’t allow for the cruiser squadron and the aircraft carriers that were already closing on the Falkland Islands.
“I thought the carriers were running ahead of us.” Shumba Geldenhuys looked at the two massive ships off to port with curiosity. “Are we to go in as a single group then?”
“Those aren’t carriers Shumba. They’re the assault ships Albion and Bulwark. They’re putting the AirMech brigade ashore. They’ve got the Rotodynes for the job. See over there? The two LPDs? They’re Fearless and Intrepid. They have the bulk of the armor on board for the landing at San Carlos. The infantry is aboard the two liners.” Rigsby waved at the two liners slipping through the waves behind the warships. Their elegance tended to emphasize the chunky functionally of the warships. The two liners were exuding a faint air of embarrassment, rather akin to two society ladies who had accidentally found themselves in a bordello.
“God have mercy on them if they are hit.” Geldenhuys spoke with deep sincerity. He suspected the ships had limited internal subdivision and were stuffed with inflammable materials.
“It’s not quite as bad as that. They were designed with experience from the Titanic and Britannic in mind, so the subdivision is a lot better than you might think. Also, they’ve been thoroughly stripped inside. Lord knows what Cunard will think when they get them back. It’s the size of the target they offer that worries me. An Argie pilot will be hard put to miss them. We’ll just have to hope they won’t get that close.”
Geldenhuys looked around at the six destroyers escorting the amphibious formation. “The big ones over there, the cruisers? Can we persuade them to stay close to us?”
Rigsby laughed. “Well, if your farms can get fresh steaks out to us, they’ll stay close all right. Best beef in the world so I’m told.” He’d done his research on the South Africans. One of the things he’d learned was that to the Boers, their farms held a special place in the national consciousness. Praising their produce was a sure way to make friends and influence people. “The two big ones are H-class destroyers. Hero and Hotspur. Hero’s in good shape but Hotspur is fresh out of the builder’s yard. Still got dockies on board finishing her off.”
Rigsby paused for a moment. Ugly memories tugged at his mind. “Last time we sent a ship to sea like that was during the Great Escape. The battleship Howe. She was only partially complete and the only operational guns on board were a few machine guns. The other battleships in the group were fully armed and could put up a pretty lethal barrage so the Germans picked on her. She caught hell from German Condors and only just made it out. The crew just had to sit there and take it. For hour after hour without any help. If the Condors had torpedoes, it would have been all over for them because the rest of the fleet couldn’t stop to pick up survivors and the Germans had no intention of doing that. But the Condors didn’t and so they made it to Canada.”
Geldenhuys spoke gently, understanding the depth of the memories being evoked and noted Rigsby’s age. He’d already noticed that the British Army was a young force. Its officers were, on average, five or six years younger than their equivalents in other armies. He still hadn’t decided if that was a good or a bad thing. “You sound like you knew this personally. Your father was on board?”
“My father. After they got to Canada, Howe was completed in an American yard and spent the first part of the war escorting convoys in the North Atlantic. Then she and the other members of the class went out to Singapore as the British Pacific Fleet and sort of deterred the Japanese. After the war, he came back to the U.K. He had the chance to go to Australia but he wanted to come home and help the old country recover. I remember waking up at nights, hearing him have nightmares about the Great Escape. Not about the Arctic Convoys; although Lord knows, they were bad enough. It was the Great Escape that haunted him. He didn’t talk about it until I joined up and then he spent a whole evening telling me the story. That’s one reason why I went into the Army, not the Navy.”
“I had no choice there. Our navy is too small to offer a worthwhile career. It was the Army. The only choice was whether to do three years as a conscript or volunteer and become a professional. Not much for me back home, so a volunteer I became. Good choice for a Griqua. Fighting is what we do best.”
“And very lucky for us.” Rigsby was fervent on that point. “You’ve brought good men with you and we need the expertise. Lord knows we’ve trained enough but we’re as green as grass compared with your boys.”
“You should believe me on this; the fighting on our northern border is no work for a real soldier. Fighting those gangs of murdering thugs is nothing like a real war. Take Lieutenant van Huis. Fighting the ‘Stams is the only thing Bas
tiaan has ever done. He knows as little of fighting a real army as your young Lieutenant Cross does. We’re all learning this together. Let us just pray there’ll be enough of us left to pass on what we have learned.”
“Amen to that. Cross comes from good stock though. His father was a German panzergrenadier.” Rigsby hesitated slightly. “There’s something a little odd there. His old man is a housepainter; nothing special, but some of the records are sealed. Something happened with that family back in the ‘50s that isn’t for publication.”
Geldenhuys shrugged. “Who knows? Bastiaan comes from the second richest family in the Republic and his wife comes from the richest. That’s why the men call him Lieutenant Geldsakke. Lieutenant Moneybags. He could have bought his way into a comfortable desk job in Pretoria, but he’s out here with us instead. Just like your Lieutenant Cross. We’re all here now. That’s all that matters. True my friend?”
“True.” Rigsby looked out at the amphibious squadron that was shifting positions to absorb the new arrivals from Simonstad. “And there’s no way we can get out and walk home if we change our mind.”
Sea Mirage F.2 XS-576. Over the South Atlantic
There were times when a fighter needed two crew members. One to fly the aircraft and another to watch the radar set. This was not one of those times. That was fortunate because the Sea Mirage was a single-seater. Lieutenant Commander Dudley Pope was flying his Sea Mirage with its radar emphatically turned off. He was relying on radar input from the ships to steer him in on his target, an Argentine Navy Superstream I executive jet that had been bought on the civilian market and converted for maritime reconnaissance. The equipment fitted to it had included an elaborate ELINT system, probably housed in the great pod that hung under its belly. That system was undoubtedly picking up radar emissions from the British warships. In fact, the crew were probably depending on those emissions to find the ships. If they detected airborne radar emissions coming for them, they would run.
