by Stuart Slade
“Sir. Butcher’s bill.” Sergeant Ian Mackay had a single short piece of paper in his hand. “Eight dead. Four from one Chevalier that was knocked out and four infantry. Twelve wounded; mostly rifle fire. Argies have twenty dead, mostly from the four tanks, and about sixty wounded, almost all fragmentation injuries from the rockets. Our medics and theirs are working together to treat the wounded. We’ve got a joint field hospital set up.”
“Twenty dead and wounded, and they took eighty. It could have been a lot worse Sergeant; this was a strong position. If we’d have had to take it unsupported, I doubt if either of us would have lived to tell the story.”
“May be, Sir. But this airmech stuff seems to be all that the top brass thought it would be. The Argies never got themselves together enough to put up a real fight.”
“Sir.” A Signals officer had a flimsy in his hand. “We have the word from Kingfisher-Two. Mount Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge are both secure. No casualties in the direct assault. Their Junglies caught the Argentine garrison moving up on the road and tore it up something horrible. One Junglie got nailed by a SAM when it took off again. Crew are MIA.”
“Very good. Make back to Prime. ‘Kingfisher-One objective secured. Most of Argentine garrison have been taken prisoner. Own casualties, eight dead. One Junglie damaged but secure.”
Jones and Mackay looked around at the base, now securely in British hands. The Union Jack was fluttering proudly over it. When Jones spoke, his voice caught slightly, as if there was an obstruction in his throat. “Sergeant, I think we’re back.”
Operations Room, HMS Bulwark, East of the Falkland Islands.
Forty rotodynes had gone out, carrying the two paratroop battalions. Thirty eight had returned and were spread out between the two assault ships, being refueled and rearmed. The Marines were waiting, ready to stream on board the aircraft that had landed on Bulwark. A couple of nautical miles away, the rotodynes were preparing to pick up the heavy equipment for the two existing airheads. Artillery mostly; the lightweight 25-pounders that would open the siege of Stanley.
Strachan watched a Marine driving his Chevalier light tank up the ramp and into the belly of the Rotodyne. Counter-intuitively, it had been loaded nose first and would back out of the aircraft when it made its touch-and-go landing. So much experimentation had gone into making tiny decisions like that. Backing the vehicle out meant that its guns would be facing the right way as soon as they cleared the Junglie’s rear ramp. That, in turn, meant they would be available just a small fraction of a second earlier.
“Ready to launch in thirty minutes?” Strachan addressed the question to Hartmann who was watching replacement Adder missiles being loaded onto the wingtip racks of the Junglies.
Hartmann didn’t answer immediately. Instead he spoke first into the intercom on the operational panel in front of him. “On schedule, Sir. A few of the Junglies have bullet holes in them but nothing to worry about. They’re being checked out while my Marines load up.”
“Then, we’d better get down to the flight deck and mount up ourselves, Karl. We don’t want your booties thinking we’re holding them up.”
Position Kingfisher-Two, Mount Tumbledown, Overlooking Stanley
“Friend.”
The voice from the rocks was exhausted, shaky and near-spent. But, it was in English and that made the paratroopers in the observation point take notice. “Firefly.” That was the password and the reply was “Serenity.”
“God knows what the watchword is. We’ve been stuck out here for weeks. We’re just about done in.”
“Identify yourselves.” The paratrooper nearest the voice settled down a bit closer into the rocks. If this was a trick, things would get very bloody, very quickly.
“Sergeant Jordan, Royal Marines. Late of Naval Party 8901. We’ve been evading and resisting ever since the Argies landed. Bagged a few of them as well. Who are you?”
“Two Para.”
“Oh God, a bunch of Toms. There goes the neighborhood.”
“Yeah, we thought you booties were around somewhere; the sheep are terrified. Advance and be recognized.”
A number of ragged figures rose from positions in the rocks. They were wearing a mixture of British military uniforms and civilian clothes. Only one was carrying a British L1A2 rifle, the others had a mix of FAS rifles taken from Argentine Marines and SVKs taken from Army troops. It was their faces that shook the paratroopers. They were gaunt, the eyes sunk so deep into their heads that they appeared to be black holes. The men had lost so much weight that their cheekbones stuck out over jaws that seemed to expose their teeth. The men looked almost like skeletons. The paratroopers grabbed them and hustled them into cover. There were eight of them in all.
“Get the medics up here, fast.” A message runner took off, worming his way through the rocks towards the battalion headquarters area. Using radios was out. The Argentines could pick up the transmissions and use them to locate headquarters positions.
“Easy, we got you. You evaded after the Argie invasion?”
“There were a dozen of us to start with. Lieutenant Hallam bought it early on in a firelight with the Argies. Sergeant Fox a bit later. Then I took over. We ran out of 7mm, mostly, so we picked up Argie weapons. The SVK is a real piece of crap. Most of the ones we found had cracked receivers. We got a lot of help though.”
“From the civvies?”
“Yeah them too. They gave us food, water and what warm clothing they could find. This here, where you are, is as far south as the Argies ever came. Beyond here, it’s all still ours. But there’s more to it than that. The Island is haunted. There are ghosts here. Argies just died for no reason.” Sergeant Jordan shuddered slightly. “Couple of times we thought they’d found us, but they’d have these weird accidents and we’d manage to get clear.”
The medics arrived and took over the Marine survivors. A Lieutenant drew Sergeant Tennent to one side. “They say anything of interest?”
“Yeah, the SVKs crack up. We knew that anyway. Their tactical intelligence is worthless. They think the Argies never came further south than this. They’ve no idea what’s happening on the rest of the island. Oh, and the Island is haunted. They say ghosts were helping them out.”
The Lieutenant shook his head. Stress from a weeks-long guerilla war against the Argentine forces had taken its toll. Those Marines would take a long, long time to recover. “They probably believe that too. They’ll be saying there’s an Auxiliary Unit on the Island next.”
A gentle laugh ran around the observation point. “Right. Shape up and keep your eyes skinned. We just heard from the assault ships. The Junglies carrying the guns will be arriving here soon. When they do, the Argies will go spare. They’ll have to take those guns out or Stanley becomes unusable.”
The Lieutenant moved back to his platoon position, taking care not to stick his head up over the rock line. The surface landing force would be coming ashore at dawn. Once they were in and could advance along the carpet of Airmech troops that had landed across the Island, the whole battle would be over. The end game was approaching fast and he didn’t want to be picked off by a sniper before it happened.
Argentine Headquarters, Stanley.
“They’re all over the Island. You say they took both Mount Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge?” General Mario Menendez asked Colonel Fernandez, even though he knew the answer.
“They took both. They caught us on the road. We didn’t have a chance. My men, those who survived, are still trickling in.”
And a damned good thing that they are or we would have almost no troops between the British and Stanley. Menendez shook his head, angrily aware that this was all not supposed to be happening. “And another British unit struck Goose Green. The last radio message we had from there was that the position was falling to armored units landed from Rotodynes. We have had reports from a Special Forces unit that a third British force has seized Mount Kent. Look, Fernandez, look what the British have done. They have seized positions right
across the island and cut us in two. The best units we have are here, at Teal Inlet, ready to counter-attack the British when they landed on the beaches in the northern part of the Island. We’re cut off from them.”
Menendez studied the map again and shook his head angrily. “The runway at the airfield is out. That airstrike knocked out only three of our Ciclones but it reduced the runway to a shambles. Our men are still clearing delayed action bomblets off the runway and parking apron. The Air Force refuse to launch strikes from the mainland now. They say by the time they get here it will be night. They do promise us strikes in the morning though. By then it will be too late.”
“What about the Navy?” Fernandez tried to think of other forces that could be brought in.
“What Navy?” Menendez was openly derisive. “They fought the British and got raped. We won’t see their aircraft for a long time to come. If ever. There are three Crusaders parked at the airfield and that’s all. The rest are at the bottom of the sea. If it is any consolation, there’s an Australian submarine out there picking up the pilots. Don’t ask me why she is so far from home. Probably left over from that naval garden party in Santiago a few weeks back.”
“The British have made a mistake. Their landing forces are deployed over a wide area. If we can take the airborne forces deployed on Mount Kent out, then we will have split them into two non-supporting pockets that we can defeat in detail.”
Menendez looked at the maps and nodded in agreement. “We can move the cavalry at Teal Inlet over to attack Mount Kent at first light. I’d like to move sooner but trying to redeploy a unit at night on this wretched island is a sure way to lose half of it and wear out the rest. By dawn we will have the airfield here back in action and we can use the remaining Ciclones to support the cavalry. Then, once Mount Kent has been retaken, the infantry at Teal Inlet can bottle up the force that took Goose Green while the cavalry relieve us here in Stanley. We can win this one yet, Fernandez, despite the mess the Navy made of their part of this operation. You have overnight to put your battalion back together, then deploy then in a defense line, here at Sapper Hill.”
The orders Menendez was issuing were interrupted by lightning flashing along the horizon out to sea. It made Fernandez shake his head. “That’s all we needed; a thunderstorm now to disrupt our counter-attacks.”
Menendez was puzzled. “There were no thunderstorms in the weather forecasts.” Any further comments he might have made were cut off by the howl of inbound artillery fire.
HMS Lion, Flagship, Cruiser Squadron, Off Stanley Airfield, Falkland Islands
Admiral Chupe watched as Stanley Airfield disappeared under a hail of six inch rounds. There was no messing round this time, no demonstration of firepower followed by an invitation to surrender. This was a bombardment intended to totally destroy the airfield beyond any hope of quick repair. The four cruisers had four semiautomatic six-inch guns each; the two H class destroyers each had another pair. That made 20 guns each firing 20 rounds per minute. A total of 400 shells had deluged the airport; shattering it and causing secondary explosions to erupt all over the area. As suddenly as it had begun, the gunfire ceased. The ships swung their weapons to engage other targets in the Argentine base area. The mass barrage that had opened the bombardment wouldn’t be repeated. Not now the large target that had justified it was a sea of flame. The warships had secondary targets to pick off before they vacated the area and moved south to support the landings already under way at San Carlos.
“Air raid warning red, red, red!” The alarm was accompanied by a wailing of alert sirens. The radar repeater on the bridge showed six thin red streaks leaving positions on the island.
“Here they come.” Chupe’s comment had a note of the old Navy prayer ‘for what we are about to receive, may we be truly thankful,’ about it. “Let’s hope the Heroes live up to their name.”
HMS Hotspur, Destroyer Screen, Cruiser Squadron, Off Stanley Airfield, Falkland Islands
“Engaging with Seadart.” Hargreaves gave the order as the anti-ship missile batteries around the Argentine base area unmasked and opened fire. There were six missiles in the first wave and four in the second. Hotspur was already shifting her six inch gunfire to the positions revealed by the missile launches. A few thousand yards away, HMS Hero was doing the same. The positions were probably empty, the crews would have shot their missiles off and left as fast as possible but it wouldn’t hurt to be sure.
“Engaging.” Hotspur was a big destroyer; not substantially different in size from the cruisers she was escorting. The missiles leaving her vertical launch system hardly caused her any movement. The Air Warfare Officer had watched the ship’s command system fire a stream of missiles at the first wave of anti-ship missiles. The radar screen dissolved in flare as the Seadarts tore into the Otomats and started to bring them down. Three inbound broke out of the kill-zone and closed on the line of British ships, skimming just a few feet above the surface of the sea. One was knocked down by a Seawolf from Hotspur’s secondary battery. A second looped out of control as jamming disrupted its homing system. The last passed astern of Hotspur and slammed into the aft superstructure of HMS Lion.
The cruiser rocked with the blow and her aft turret ceased firing as black, oily smoke mixed with orange flames enveloped the ship’s stern. Hargreaves looked at the picture on the electro-optical display and cursed. “I thought we had that lot taped.”
“Hero got all hers; four for twelve missiles fired. We fired twelve Seadarts, two malfunctioned and went into the ‘oggin. The other ten scored three hits. Also, fired three Seawolfs for one hit.” Leading Seaman Goldsteam gave the report quickly. The reason as simple; the existing numbers didn’t fit and that meant there were more anti-ship missiles out there. “We had six targets, Sir. Hero only had four.”
“That won’t help Lion” Hargreaves was still watching the screen with the night-vision picture of Lion on it. The ship was a shadowy green color, but the aft superstructure was brilliant white. It was mute testimony to the ferocity of the fire raging there.
“Three more missiles coming in, Sir. We’re engaging.” There was an agonizing pause as Hotspur opened fire again. “They’re down. Hero is engaging the next set.”
It was a weird feeling, sitting in the comfort of the Operations Room, with comfortable chairs, fresh tea and coffee available, breathing cool, clean air. Intellectually, Hargreaves knew that the battle against the anti-ship missiles was a desperate one. The stream of missiles from the shore batteries were a deadly threat to the cruisers that were the backbone of the bombardment force. The two H-class destroyers were all that stood between those cruisers and the missiles. Yet, Hargreaves had a strange sense of detachment, as if the punch and counterpunch of missile and anti-missile was a play he was watching on television. It all seemed very unreal somehow.
“Shifting targets again.” That came from the Surface Warfare Officer. The six-inch guns were moving to their next target, independent of the air defense efforts of the destroyer. Despite the missiles coming in, the methodical destruction of the Argentine primary base continued.
Aft Superstructure, HMS Lion, Off Stanley, Falkland Islands
The fires burned red, deep red. The glare from them made the Fearnought fire-resistant suits of the damage control crews glow scarlet rather than their proper silver color. The men fighting the fires had lost their identities, hidden behind the heat-reflective surfaces and dark visors of their suits. All around them, the tangled wreckage of the aft superstructure twisted and crumpled in the flare of the fires. Mixed in with the roar of the flames and the thunder of high-pressure foam from the hoses were screams from the men who were trapped inside compartments and were now being roasted alive. For them, simply being burned to death would have been a mercy. Anybody who suddenly found themselves in the aft superstructure of HMS Lion that night would have been forgiven for thinking they’d suddenly been translated to Hell.
It hadn’t been luck that had saved HMS Lion. It had been skilled ship
handling. The ship’s Number One had seen the missile break through the defenses and swung the ship around so that her stern quarter had presented to the inbound missile. That meant the missile that should have struck the machinery spaces had hit the superstructure forward of the aft six inch gun turret. The ship’s watertight integrity had been preserved. She was hurt and burning, but she was not flooding. The first and probably the most critical battle had been won before the missile had even exploded.
Coming in from the stern had meant the missile hit at an oblique angle instead of perpendicular to the ship’s side. The Otomat had a shaped charge warhead that blasted blazing fuel through the area it had ripped open. The damage looked much worse than it was. The missile had torn away a substantial proportion of the side plating on the aft superstructure decks but the damage was shallow, not deep. The Duty CPOs who were heading the fire teams had already realized that the damage was not fatal. Not now, not yet. They had confidence in the old cruiser’s ability to survive the damage. That also was a battle won. Now, all they had to do was cement their victory by communicating that confidence to the young sea men who made up the rest of the damage control teams.
The flames flared up, increasing the glow as a section of steel, softened by the heat of the fires and deprived of support by the explosion, collapsed on to the deck below. One of the CPOs grabbed two members of the team he headed, men who were dangerously close to the collapsing structure, and pulled them clear. “Watch yourselves, you damned fools. You can’t protect the ship if you don’t protect yourselves first!” Then he smacked each of them hard on the back of their Fearnought helmets and pushed them back towards the inferno that was engulfing the decks.
The secondary fire was being beaten back as the damage control crews sprayed water and foam on to the flames. They were the easy bit; the sea water cooled the steel and made reignition less likely, the foam blanketed still-burning areas and cut off the oxygen supply to the fires. Deploying the two together took skill and training. If used too soon, the water jets would break up the foam blanket and allow air back to the fuel for the fires. Timing was everything.
