Soldier K: Mission to Argentina

by David Monnery

  They were flown from Punta Arenas to Santiago, where they gave a press conference on Wednesday 26 May. ‘We were on sea patrol when we experienced engine failure due to adverse weather conditions,’ they explained. ‘It was not possible to return to our ship in these conditions. We therefore took refuge in the nearest neutral country.’

  The few people who believed this story did not include anyone in political or military service with the British or Argentinian governments.

  By this time Razor and Ben were already on board a plane above the Atlantic, headed home to a discreet heroes’ welcome and two weeks’ immediate leave. Ben took the overnight train north with an anxious heart, not knowing how he was going to tell Morag that he had decided his future lay with the SAS. He did not want to lose her, but if she forced him to choose, then that would have to be his choice.

  It was a beautiful morning in Fort William, and she met him off the train with the news that she had taken the afternoon off. This was surprising enough in itself, but one look at her face and he knew that she had missed him much more she had expected. They took the local train to Glenfinnan and walked up across the heather to a place above the viaduct, the famous statue of Bonnie Prince Charlie a distant spot far below, and made love beneath the blue sky, the sun warm on their skin.

  Afterwards, knowing what he had to say to her, Ben felt almost guilty. But it was she who first broached the subject of their future, announcing that she was withdrawing her ultimatum. ‘My father says you’d be a fool to leave the Army at the moment,’ she added, ‘with unemployment rising so fast.’

  He looked at her, wondering how he could get across what he felt about it all. ‘It what’s I do,’ he said helplessly.

  On arriving back at Heathrow, Razor had found to his delight that the Cup Final replay was scheduled for that evening. It was not exactly a good game, and jet lag had added its contribution to his overall exhaustion, but he managed to stay awake for the sight of a Tottenham player holding up the Cup for the second year running. And next season, with their two Argies back in midfield, the sky would be the limit.

  His mum was certainly pleased to see Razor back – in fact she hardly seemed to stop fussing over him from morning till night. Then he overheard her end of a telephone conversation, and thought he understood why. That evening he announced he was going out with Corinna – which was true – and that it was about time his mother found herself a man to look after her. He was fed up feeling guilty for being away so much, he said.

  And then she told him about the new man in her life, grinning like a schoolgirl.

  Razor felt really happy for her, and could hardly stop smiling all evening, at least until Corinna found another use for his lips. Familiarity makes the heart grow fonder, he thought, as they wrestled each other into her bed.

  In the third week of June, the week that followed the final Argentinian surrender in Port Stanley, there were memorial services for both Stanley and Brookes, in West Bromwich and Hereford respectively. Bryan Weighell and Bill Hemmings attended both of them, as did many of their regimental comrades.

  At the end of the service for Brookes, Weighell asked Hemmings if the number of Super Etendards in service with the Argentinian Air Force had ever been finally established.

  ‘Not with complete certainty,’ the Welshman admitted. ‘But every indication we have is that there were only five of them.’

  ‘And they took out three,’ Weighell murmured to himself.

  ‘They did that. And the other two sank the Atlantic Conveyor and the Coventry four days later. God knows what damage they might have done with all five still available.’

  ‘They’ll get some recognition, of course,’ Weighell said, ‘but no one will know what it was for. Which always seems a pity, somehow.’

  In the same week, in the northern Argentinian town of Metán, a funeral Mass was held for the repose of Raul Vergara’s soul. His body had never been recovered from the sea, but his spirit could be seen reflected in the upturned faces of his mother and father, brother and sisters, sweetheart and friends.

  Later, back at the Vergara house, amid the expected protestations of sorrow and pride, the anger that now lay so close to the surface of Argentinian life was occasionally expressed. Bitter voices were heard asking how, after such a defeat and so many lost, the Generals could still cling to power.

  A few days later Wacko and Hedge were dispatched for home via the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo. It was more than a month since their capture and Wacko felt good as new, but Hedge knew his knee would never be the same again.

  Their treatment, first in Rio Gallegos and then in Buenos Aires, had improved as the Argentinian Army’s fortunes had declined. Garbled reports of the negotiations for their release had reached them in the suburban villa where they were confined, but the government official’s arrival that morning with the news of their imminent departure had come as a very pleasant surprise. A long drive to the docks had afforded them their first and last view of ‘South America’s Paris’, and now they were leaning against the rail of a ferry across the River Plate, looking out on the scene of the famous battle.

  Hedge had seen the film about five times as a kid, and had always secretly wanted the Germans to win. He supposed that that was because their captain seemed more English than the English. He stared out at the rolling waves and wondered if the film had been made here. He doubted it. In fact, they had probably shot most of it in one of those big tanks in the old film studios.

  Despite the gammy knee, he had to admit to feeling pretty good. During the weeks in captivity, and particularly through those first uncertain hours and days, he knew he had held himself together well. He was glad to be going home, but he had no regrets about coming. He reckoned his father would have been proud of him.

  Wacko was feeling much the same sense of achievement, and even looking forward to seeing Anne. The letters she had written since receiving news of his capture had seemed to come from a much more loving person than the one he remembered. Maybe there was still something there to build on, or maybe they would find it better to just go their separate ways. It seemed not to matter as much as it had.

  Mozza did not arrive back in England until some time after Razor, Ben, Docherty and Isabel. His penguin colony had certainly been on Chilean soil, but a particularly remote part of it, and it took him the best part of forty-eight hours to find his first native. This fisherman gave him a lift to Dawson Island, and from there he got another to Punta Arenas, which was still discussing Razor and Ben’s blow-out the weekend before. Mozza finally reached Heathrow on the first day of June.

  Like Razor and Ben, he was given a fortnight’s immediate leave, and the homecoming in Manchester proved everything he had hoped for. Lynsey’s smile and open arms were exactly as he had visualized them in the forest on Tierra del Fuego, and every day for a week he had to tell Hannah the story of how he had met all the penguins on the beach.

  His nights, though, were not so kind. For several in a row he had a dream of falling through a pool of blood, and each time he awoke in a cold sweat with Lynsey’s worried face looking into his. Eventually he told her what had happened on the Rio Grande airfield, or at least enough of it to give her some understanding of what he was dreaming about.

  She just held him tight until he fell asleep in her arms, but the next day, as they watched Hannah playing in the park sandpit, she said she had been thinking about it and wanted to say something. ‘Maybe the dream is trying to tell you something,’ she began, ‘maybe you weren’t meant to be a soldier, no matter how good you feel about being one.’

  He turned his innocent eyes towards her. ‘Why, what’s wrong with me?’

  ‘Nothing, nothing at all. Maybe it’s what’s right with you. People who wear their hearts on their sleeve can’t cut themselves off from what they’re doing. And you’re like that. It’s what makes you such a wonderful man.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m so wonderful,’ he said. ‘But maybe you’re right about the res
t.’

  Isabel Fuentes and Liam McCall were sitting in his local, just round the corner from the church, waiting for Docherty to come back from visiting his mother.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about who really won the war,’ Isabel said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ the priest asked.

  ‘I get the news from Argentina now,’ she said, ‘and it really looks like the military’s days are numbered. The elections will be held – everyone seems sure of it. My country will get a good government out of this war, or at least a better one. And at some point they will have to go back and look at what was done in the Dirty War. The Mothers of the Disappeared will accept nothing less, and now the people are behind them.’

  She took a sip of her beer. ‘Oh, I’m not saying that everything is perfect there, or that the torturers will all be punished. They won’t be. But some will, and it will make it harder for the others to show their faces. Argentina is a better place for losing the war. Whereas England …’ She sighed, and reached again for her glass.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ Liam said. ‘The woman was on her way out, and now we’ve probably got her for the next ten years. And at the rate she’s going there won’t be much left of the country I used to love by the time she’s finished.’

  They both sat in silence for a moment.

  ‘And what are you and Jamie intending to do?’ he asked eventually. ‘If you don’t mind my asking.’

  ‘We don’t know,’ she said simply. ‘We were talking about it the other night, and we decided that there was only one thing we were both qualified for, and that was creating mayhem.’

  Liam grinned. ‘Is Jamie going to stay with the SAS?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Isabel replied. ‘But you can ask him yourself,’ she added, her dark eyes lighting up.

  Docherty wended his way through the tables and sat down, taking her hand in his.

  ‘We were just discussing your future,’ Liam said.

  ‘Oh aye, which future’s that?’

  ‘That’s what we were trying to work out.’

  Docherty opened a bag of crisps and handed it round. ‘I’ve got two months left of a three-year term,’ he said. ‘When the time comes I’ll decide whether I think this is a country worth serving. And if the answer is yes, I’ll ask this woman here if she agrees with me. And if she does, then … who knows? Maybe we’ll live in a bungalow outside Hereford and raise children.’

  ‘Or maybe we’ll go and create mayhem somewhere else,’ Isabel said.

  Discover other books in the SAS Series

  Discover other books in the SAS Series published by Bloomsbury at

  www.bloomsbury.com/SAS

  Soldier A: Behind Iraqi Lines

  Soldier B: Heroes of the South Atlantic

  Soldier C: Secret War in Arabia

  Soldier D: The Colombian Cocaine War

  Soldier E: Sniper Fire in Belfast

  Soldier F: Guerillas in the Jungle

  Soldier G: The Desert Raiders

  Soldier H: The Headhunters of Borneo

  Soldier J: Counter Insurgency in Aden

  Soldier K: Mission to Argentina

  Soldier L: The Embassy Siege

  Soldier M: Invisible Enemy in Kazakhstan

  Soldier N: Gambian Bluff

  Soldier O: The Bosnian Inferno

  Soldier P: Night Fighters in France

  Soldier Q: Kidnap the Emperor!

  Soldier R: Death on Gibraltar

  Soldier S: The Samarkand Hijack

  Soldier T: War on the Streets

  Soldier U: Bandit Country

  Soldier V: Into Vietnam

  Soldier W: Guatemala – Journey Into Evil

  Soldier X: Operation Takeaway

  Soldier Y: Days of the Dead

  Soldier Z: For King and Country

  This electronic edition published in 2013 by Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

  First published in Great Britain 1993 by Bloomsbury Publishing

  Copyright © 1993 Bloomsbury Publishing

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  eISBN: 9781408842270

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