The White Vixen

by David Tindell

  “He wants to talk to us,” she said. The Blitz was starting to tremble now. Jo kept the nose down and started to look ahead for something to land on. A field, maybe a road.

  “He’s signaling again,” Willy said. “One finger, three fingers—“

  “That’s a radio frequency,” she said. “Wave your open hand over your ear. That’ll tell him the radio’s out.”

  “It worked,” Willy said. “He’s nodding. Now his wings are waggling.”

  “He wants us to follow him,” she said. “Either back to his base or to Rawson, I’m sure.”

  “Are we going to do it?”

  “Not on your life,” she said, and she put the plane into a steep dive. “Hang on!”

  The altimeter began to spin crazily. They’d been intercepted at twenty thousand feet, were down to fifteen thousand after the shells struck the airframe, and now they were under ten, nine…Jo waggled her wings erratically, not enough to lose control, hopefully enough to fool the pilots into thinking they were in serious distress.

  The ground seemed to be coming up fast now. Fortunately, the land appeared to be sparsely populated. Jo finally found what she was looking for, a road cutting east-west through the fields. Was it paved? Couldn’t tell. Not much traffic, and it looked fairly level. Was it wide enough? Had to be. Better than chancing an open field. Five thousand feet, now four…She started to level off, pulling back on the stick, using all her strength as the combination of speed, inertia and failing hydraulics fought back. The nose started coming up, but they were still losing altitude.

  Two thousand feet, one thousand…

  “Gear down,” she said, pushing the red button. Nothing happened, and another warning light came on. “Grab that crank, there on your left,” she told Willy with more calm than she felt. “Turn it counter-clockwise.”

  The crank stuck at first, but Willy put everything he had into it, and with an audible crack it started to move. After several turns, he said, “It won’t move anymore.”

  “I think they’re down,” she said. Five hundred feet, four, three…

  They soared over a small rise and startled a man driving a tractor with a large trailer behind it. The road ahead was clear, and Jo prayed for one last bit of luck. Throttling back the engine almost to stall speed, she floated the Blitz toward the waiting earth. The rear wheels touched with a loud thump, and the jet bounced back upward, but Jo cut the speed even more, and the wheels came back down and stayed down, then the nose wheel. The road was bumpy and the aircraft immediately began to shake violently. Jo stood on the brakes and cut the engine completely. She forced everything else out of her mind, vaguely hearing Willy yelling beside her. The nose wheel hit a pothole and the strut collapsed, spearing the nose of the jet downward. Jo and Willy were thrown hard forward, but their harnesses held. There was terrifying crunch as metal and dirt collided and the nose buckled, and then the jet shuddered one last time.

  “Are you all right?” Jo asked.

  “Yes,” Willy gasped. “And you? You were shouting as you brought us in.”

  “I was?” She hadn’t even realized it. Panting hard, she shut down the rest of the jet’s systems, not wanting to risk a fire. Her chest and shoulders hurt where the harness had dug into them. “All right, let’s get out of here,” she said. She helped Willy out of his harness and pulled him from the co-pilot’s seat. “Can you walk?”

  “Barely,” he grunted.

  They made it to the cabin door, which she undogged and pushed open. “We’ll try to find a vehicle or someplace to hide,” she said. “The fighters have radioed our position, you can bet there’ll be soldiers on the way.”

  “You go,” he panted. “Leave me here.”

  “What?” She looked up at him. Sweat drenched his face and hair, but his eyes were shining. “I can’t leave you behind.”

  “Yes, you can,” he said. “You must. Without me, you have a chance to stay alive long enough to find your people.” He pulled himself away from her and collapsed into a seat. “Leave a rifle with me,” he said. “I will hold off the soldiers. That will buy you some time.”

  Her heart told her not to leave him here, but her brain yelled at her to get going. “The dogs are on the trail”, Den Mother had said. That meant British commandos were coming ashore, maybe there already. If she could get to the coast, she could use one of her captured radios and the SBS combat frequency Ian had given her. What if it was him? What if it was his own unit?

  “Go now,” Willy said. “You don’t have much time.”

  Without a word, she found the two assault rifles and gave both of them to Willy. “One of these will only slow me down. Plus it’ll look pretty suspicious,” she said. “Give me your Luger.” She took the pistol from him and removed the clip, stuffing it in her pants pocket, and clipped a radio to her belt. Her own Luger went into the waistband at the small of her back. She went back to the cockpit for the map. Willy looked even weaker when she got back to him.

  “I guess this is goodbye, then,” Willy said.

  Her heart was beating fast, and not just from the excitement of the landing and the danger of the approaching troops. In another time, another place, maybe she and this man…She forced the thought aside. “You’re a brave man, Willy,” she said. She bent down and kissed him. He was smiling when their lips parted.

  “You’re a remarkable woman, Major Jo Ann Geary. The White Vixen, eh? Someday you will tell me how they came up with…that…” He was fading; he might not even make it until the soldiers arrived.

  “God be with you,” Jo said, and she leaped out the door to the ground.

  He drifted back and forth to the edge of consciousness. There was no more feeling in his wounded leg. So this was what it was like to die. The rifle was a dead weight on his lap. He doubted he would have the strength to lift it, much less aim and fire.

  Birds were chirping outside. Other noises, too. Trucks? Sirens? He couldn’t be sure. It was such a beautiful day.

  He thought of Heinz, lying on the floor back there. He turned his head to look back down the cabin. Yes, still there. Can’t help me now, Heinz, my friend, mein Brüder. So many good times we’ve had, eh? Remember that time in Rio, the women on the beach? That was a good time. When was it? He struggled to recall the date, couldn’t, gave up. Ah, well, we’ll be together again, now, won’t we, in the real Valhalla?

  Giselle. He saw her face, her open arms, her beautiful body on the soft green grass. He started to cry. Oh, meine Liebchen, so much I should have given you, my name, my home, my children. Always later, it was going to be later. After CAPRICORN…The anger roused him. Bormann, God damn him, he had taken it all from him, tricked him into thinking it was for Argentina. How he must have laughed at Dieter Baumann’s idiot son, doing what he was told, never suspecting…The laugh’s on you now, though, eh? Lying stone cold back on your library floor. Killed by a woman! Far away, Willy heard himself laughing. The great Taurus, der Stier, who’d used so many women, done in by one. Justice, at last.

  Voices outside now, shouting in, what, Spanish? German? He couldn’t tell. Get ready. He brought the rifle up, aimed at the open door. Wasn’t so heavy after all. He flipped the safety. On or off? A face appeared and he fired. Off. The face disappeared. Did he hit it? There was a lot of red, maybe the man’s blood, maybe his own. No, he didn’t have that much left. He laughed again.

  More faces, further off, and he fired again, kept firing, and things were stinging him, there was lots of noise, but he didn’t feel anything. God, please let the American get away. Couldn’t remember her name anymore. Vic—vixen? Oh, so beautiful, so deadly. Can she stop the bomb?

  Darkness was closing in on the edges of his vision. The gun stopped chattering, and he dropped it, reaching blindly for the other one. Where was it? His arms wouldn’t move anymore. Another face appeared, this one above him. His mother. Mutti! She beamed on him kindly. The tears were flowing now. Anna Baumann was calling him. Something appeared in the doorway, something flying in, cla
ttering to the floor and bouncing up against the seat next to him. What was it? He didn’t care. His mutti was calling him. I’m here, Mutti. He felt so warm now, so safe, as she took him. By the time the grenade went off, he no longer cared.

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  Chubut province, Argentina

  Monday, April 26th, 1982

  The glow in the distance had to be their target. Ian checked his wristwatch, and the illuminated hands told him it was nearing 10:30 local. They were really cutting this one close.

  The mission had nearly bollixed up right at the beginning. Bentley brought Reliant to within twenty miles of the shore, came to periscope depth, and took his time allowing the radar officer to complete his work. No contacts, a major worry avoided. The casing diver was out the hatch first, a sailor specially trained in prepping the vessel’s exterior skin and the SBS equipment for the team’s exit. The diver took an extra ten minutes before he used a hammer to tap an “all clear” on the hull. The extra time, which Ian knew had to be deemed necessary by the diver, nevertheless made him edgy. They didn’t have much time to spare.

  Ian and four other commandos went into the hatch next. Each man wore a dry suit over his regular camo uniform, with his weapons and ruck strapped on outside. Mask and fins, plus a RABA, the rechargeable air-breathing apparatus that would give each trooper ten minutes of air. While in the hatch, they breathed ship’s air through umbilical cords.

  This was Ian’s fifth E&RE, but the feeling of claustrophobia was just as strong this time as the first time he’d done it in a Scottish harbor. The water rushed in from near their feet and rose to within four inches of the ceiling hatch. Resisting the urge to keep their faces in the air, the men stayed hunched down until the casing diver undogged the hatch. Switching to his RABA, Ian kicked his way out and into the black water of the South Atlantic. Keeping to his training, Ian picked his way back aft toward the sail, guided by the casing diver. In less than a minute he reached the lurking area, where the team was to gather and wait until all were assembled. Ian plugged his RABA into one of the external oxygen tanks and waited, trying to be patient.

  One by one the four remaining troopers from the first batch joined him. Despite the darkness, Ian thought he could barely see the outline of the nearest one, which should’ve been Colour Sergeant Powers. The casing diver finally gave Ian the tap signal that told him all five men were outside the sub. Time for the second batch.

  The last man out, Lance Corporal Philip Kent, inadvertently caused the problem. The sub was making only about three knots, barely enough to maintain steerage, but the current here was erratic. Kent came up from the hatch right on schedule, but he lost his grip on the sub’s external hand-holds when a sudden gust of current caught him in the side. Only the quick action of the casing diver kept Kent from being swept away in the dark water. Then when he arrived at the lurking area, his RABA malfunctioned. Even the most experienced diver feels a moment of panic when his oxygen supply suddenly stops, and Kent was no exception. He began fumbling with his equipment, desperately searching for the umbilical that would connect his RABA to the sub’s external tanks. The casing diver realized the problem immediately and tried to help, but Kent felt the diver’s grasping hand and nearly lost control, thinking the diver was trying to keep the umbilical away from him.

  The next man in line, Corporal Garrett, sensed the commotion and turned to help. He could barely make out Kent thrashing with the diver, but saw just enough to be able to grab Kent by the head and mash him down on the hull, using enough force to pin him there but not enough to cause injury or damage to the man’s equipment. The diver recovered quickly, found Kent’s umbilical and made the connection to the tank. They had to wait another thirty seconds while Kent got fresh air and recovered his senses.

  Finally, the diver made his way back up the line of men and double-tapped Ian on the shoulder. Ian unplugged his umbilical, switched back to his RABA and followed the diver as they used hand-holds to make their way to the sail, then up its side to the periscope. Ian released his grip and kicked his way to the surface.

  The seven other men bobbed up in good order, and their training held as they swam to the floating case containing the Zodiac boat, which had been released from the outer hull by the casing diver. Flipping open the case, Ian activated the gas canister that quickly inflated the boat and then climbed aboard. Hodge was next and unlimbered the waterproof outboard motor as the rest of the men were pulled in, and they were off for the Argentine coast. Ian checked his watch when they got underway. They were nearly a half-hour behind schedule.

  The recon photos they’d obtained from American satellites hadn’t been able to tell them much about the lay of the land. The air base, headquarters of the Argentines’ Ninth Brigade, was about ten kilometers north of the town of Comodoro Rivadavia. The plan was to come ashore north of the base, well away from the town, but as they got closer to shore Ian could see they were about five miles south of the base, some ten miles south of where they’d wanted to be. Another navigational screw-up, but nothing could be done about it now. Turning north wasn’t an option; the longer the boat stayed at sea, the greater the chance of discovery by the enemy. Ian passed the word that they would come straight in.

  The beach, if he’d wanted to call it that, was filled with driftwood and craggy trees thrusting out from the ground at odd angles. Rocks were everywhere, creating even more of a hazard. There was a half-moon, giving them some illumination, and Hodge managed to steer the boat ashore without running into obstacles. Powers was the first man out, splashing into the surf five yards out from shore, followed quickly by Garrett and another lance corporal, Denny Henderson. The first British warriors to set foot in enemy territory during the war quickly fanned out and formed a perimeter. Sergeant Jerry Bickerstaff was next. The hulking Londoner, who had nearly made the ’76 Olympic team as a weightlifter, easily pulled the boat onto the gravelly beach.

  Almost without a word, the commandos stowed their dry suits and diving gear in the boat and concealed it as best they could with brush, some of it hacked out by Bickerstaff with his Nepalese kukhari knife, its two-foot-long curved blade more than a match for any Argentine flora. Then the men set off to the north, gaining some higher ground and gratefully discovering the area was bare of any signs of habitation.

  The absence of a nearby road, while good for security, made for tough going overland. They were used to a rough yomp, as they called a long trek carrying a heavy ruck, but Ian had to make sure they had adequate rest. By the time he’d done his 2230 time check, the troopers were starting to feel it, although none would admit to being tired. Even so, Ian ordered a halt to the march and the men gratefully sat down as comfortably as they could and broke out canteens and rations. Hodge detailed two men, Lance Corporal Charles Wayne and the luckless Kent, to take perimeter security about twenty meters away, one on either side of the line of march.

  Even though the unit was observing radio silence, Ian kept his transceiver turned on and tuned to the SBS combat frequency. The radio had a range of about thirty miles, enough for an emergency message to reach them from the sub off-shore. He’d forgotten all about it and was chewing on a candy bar when he heard a tinny whisper. He unclipped the radio from his web belt and held it to his ear as he slightly increased the volume.

  “Hello, any squaddies out there, this is White Vixen. Do you copy? Over.”

  He almost dropped the radio in surprise. Next to him, Powers looked over with eyes that seemed to shine from the midst of his dark, camouflage-painted face. Ian glanced back at him and then fingered the send button. “White Vixen, this is a Poole squaddy,” he said cautiously, wondering if it could possibly be true. “Squaddy” was Royal Marine slang for a fellow trooper. “We copy your transmission, Vixen. Tell me where you’ve been.”

  “Fonglan Island. I say again, Fonglan Island.”

  Good God, it was her! Ian keyed the mike. “Not a good place for swimming.”

  “Urgent we meet, squaddy. I am at a f
armhouse, one klick north of Highway 25 and Highway 153 intersection, then due east two klicks.”

  Powers handed Ian a map and a red-lensed pencil-thin flashlight. He quickly found her. Only about three klicks away. “Vixen, I have your location. See you soon. Poole squaddy out.” Just in case this was an Argentine trick, he deliberately neglected telling Jo exactly where they were.

  “Pass the word to the lads, Sergeant,” Ian said. “Time to go.”

  “I think I recognized the voice, sir,” Powers said. “Would that be the bird from Hong Kong?”

  “I certainly hope so,” Ian said. “We move out in two minutes.”

  ***

  Jo squatted at the base of a tree, one of the few that dotted the landscape of the Patagonian plateau, and peered through the night at the farmhouse a hundred meters away. That she had made it this far was nothing short of a miracle. She was nearly exhausted. Hunger gnawed at her, and there was only a swig or two of tepid water left in the bottle she carried in the shapeless, stolen peasant’s bag. She wiped the sleeve of the cotton shirt across her grimy forehead. One light was still on in the farmhouse. Sheep bleated from the small barn behind it and the pens flanking the buildings. An old pickup truck was parked in the yard.

  Her escape from the Blitz had come none too soon. Within five minutes of her leap to the ground, she heard sirens. She scurried well off the road into the pasture, hunkering down as the first vehicles screamed past her: a police car and an Army truck, heading west, back toward the jet. She could still see it, gleaming white in the middle of the rode, nose down, nearly a kilometer behind her. She knew there’d be helicopters soon, so she did the best she could to stick to cover, using the few trees, making a zigzag course eastward. She figured she had maybe a half-hour before the soldiers discovered she wasn’t in the plane and started searching.