Soldier B: Heroes of the South Atlantic

by Shaun Clarke

  ‘I agree,’ Ricketts replied.

  ‘So do I,’ Danny said. ‘I don’t think it’s fair at all. I’m already bored lying in this bed and we’ve only been here one night. I want to be part of the assault and take out some more Argies. We’ve earned that right, Sarge.’

  ‘How do you feel?’ Ricketts asked him.

  ‘The same as always. I’m not suffering from hypothermia, I don’t have a temperature, and I’ve got a lot of energy to burn. I don’t want to go back, boss.’

  ‘What’s that fucking doctor know?’ Big Andrew was working himself into a lather. ‘He sits on his arse all day, treating a lot of poncy sailors, sticking thermometers up their arses, probably his swollen dong as well, and expressing sympathy when they say they have a cold or got ill drinking mother’s milk. He’s a fucking Navy doctor – a soft twat treating wimps. He’d send a sailor back for recuperation if he just stubbed his toe. So who’s he to say we’re not fit enough to fight? Tell him to go bang a few more sailors and let us get on with it.’

  His increasingly venomous monologue was only interrupted when Paddy, Gumboot and Taff – who had not been assigned to the diversionary mission to East Falkland and were therefore hale and hearty – arrived at the sick bay for some mischief. When they saw the grim expression on Ricketts’s face, the jibes died on their lips.

  ‘Where are our uniforms?’ Ricketts asked.

  ‘In the laundry,’ Gumboot informed him. ‘Being cleaned and pressed.’

  ‘Since last night?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Then they’re ready.’

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘Go and get those three uniforms, Gumboot, and bring them back here.’

  ‘You want your underclothes as well, do you, boss?’

  ‘Don’t piss around with me, Gumboot. I want everything – uniforms, underclothes, socks and boots – and I want them right now.’

  ‘I’m on my way, boss.’

  Gumboot departed and returned soon enough with the clothing. Ricketts slid out of bed, carelessly washed and dressed himself, combed his dishevelled hair, then marched grimly to the ladies’ toilet, still housing the SAS HQ. Major Parkinson was there, leaning over a cluttered table, thoughtfully studying a map of East Falkland with captains Hailsham and Grenville. They all looked up in surprise when Ricketts entered.

  ‘What are you doing here, Sergeant Ricketts?’ Parkinson asked. ‘I thought you were confined to the sick bay, prior to being flown back to Hereford.’

  ‘I don’t want to go back to Hereford, boss. Neither do troopers Winston and Porter. We all want to stay here.’

  ‘What you want is irrelevant, Sergeant. The doc says you must …’

  ‘Fuck the doc, boss. He doesn’t know shite from shinola. He says we have to go back to recuperate, which is pure bloody nonsense. We were only in that water five minutes and we know how we feel – and we’re all feeling fine.’

  ‘I don’t give a damn how you feel – you’re all going back.’

  ‘No, we’re not, boss.’

  Parkinson straightened up, glanced at Hailsham and Grenville, then stared unflinchingly at Ricketts. ‘You’re being insubordinate, Sergeant.’

  ‘What’s that mean, boss? That sounds like an RAF or Navy word. It’s not a word that I know.’

  ‘A smart ass,’ Hailsham said.

  ‘A hard head,’ Grenville added.

  ‘A smart-assed hard head,’ Parkinson said, ‘who’s asking for trouble.’

  ‘Him and his troopers,’ Hailsham said. ‘They’re all begging for aggro.’

  ‘Then let’s give them a bit of aggro,’ Grenville added with a sly grin. ‘As much as the bullshit artists can take. It’s the least we can do.’

  ‘OK, Sergeant,’ Parkinson said, his gaze steady and bright, ‘you have heard judgement passed by your superior officers. If it’s trouble you want, you can have it.’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Ricketts said.

  ‘We insert tomorrow,’ Parkinson told him. ‘We’re 18 men down, but their replacements are parachuting in tonight. Take care of them, Sergeant.’

  ‘Yes, boss. Thank you, gentlemen.’

  A jubilant Ricketts returned to the sick bay, where he eagerly informed Andrew and Danny about the boss’s decision. They both raised their clenched fists in the air and let out a loud cheer.

  That evening Ricketts, Andrew, Danny, Gumboot and Taff were leaning on the railing of the flight deck, looking out over the calm, moonlit sea as the replacements for the 18 dead jumped out of the tailgate of a Hercules C-130 flying over the fleet. Picked up by the slipstream and spread across the sky, they descended silently on billowing white parachutes, falling silently, gracefully, like pollen in a field at night, to splash one after the other into the sea, rising and falling on foam-capped, murmuring waves.

  The replacements popped their life-jackets and floated freely with the tide, waiting patiently for the crew of the Rigid Raiders from the Hermes to reach them and pull them to safety.

  For a while 18 parachutes drifted like flowers in the black sea.

  Eighteen flowers for the 18 dead.

  Chapter 13

  The following evening, 60 men of D Squadron landed near Goose Green with GPMGs, a MILAN anti-tank weapon, an American Stinger surface-to-air (SAM) missile system, 81mm mortars, and the usual collection of automatic and semi-automatic rifles, favouring the L1A1 SLR, the Heckler & Koch G3, and the ever-reliable M16. This time their intention was not to hide from the Argentinians, but to let them know they were there and create the impression that a battalion ten times their number had landed.

  This would merely be one of several diversions being created that night to distract the enemy’s attention from the main landings on the opposite coast, far to the north of Goose Green.

  Inserted on East Falkland by Sea King helicopters, the Squadron, led by Major Parkinson and including captains Hailsham and Grenville, embarked on a twenty-four-hour forced march south, across rolling fields of marshy peat and tussock grass whipped constantly by sleet and freezing wind. It was an arduous march offering little respite, but endured with a combination of physical strength and the traditional, though now mostly whispered, bullshit.

  ‘To think you could have escaped this,’ Gumboot said to Andrew, ‘by letting yourself be shipped back to England and a Hereford rest home. You three must be mad.’

  ‘Dedication, Gumboot. It’s a word you won’t know. One used by the kind of individual who stands too tall for you to see.’

  ‘Wanking again, are you, Andrew? Tugging that big, purple dong. In real terms I stand taller than you by a mile and a half, so your size doesn’t bother me.’

  ‘You mean the size of his purple dong?’

  ‘No, Paddy, I don’t. I’m talking about real stature, my friend, though that’s a word you won’t understand.’

  ‘I befriend him and he turns on me. Insults my intelligence. In fact, I once saw a statue in a museum – a naked man with a white dong. I was only a teenager, on an outing with my school class, and the size of the dong on that stature gave me problems for years.’

  ‘It’s not the size – it’s the quality,’ Taff advised with a solemn nod.

  ‘I learnt that too late in life,’ Paddy explained, ‘which is why I lack stature like my friend here – the Jock with the fantastic vocabulary of words he can’t actually spell.’

  ‘You must be talking about Andrew,’ Jock said. ‘He’s the one with the banana-republic education and the need to assert himself. Now me, I’m white as snow with no hang-ups …’

  ‘Which is why he stands tall,’ Andrew interjected, ‘though only five foot five inches in stature. Who the fuck’s kidding whom?’

  ‘Quiet back there,’ Ricketts said, trying to glance over his shoulder, one eye visible around the edge of his packed bergen and gleaming in the darkness. ‘Keep your voices down. You’re not supposed to be a bunch of car salesmen, advertising your presence. Zip your lips and pick those feet up. We’ve a long w
ay to go yet.’

  ‘Yes, boss!’ they chorused in a whisper, then did as they were told, leaning into the wind, forcing themselves to go faster, marching throughout the night, resting up before dawn, having a breakfast of cold snacks and water, helping the grass grow with their urine and excrement, then moving on again, into the day’s sleet-filled grey light, marching, ever marching, towards the horizon and what lay beyond. Twenty-four hours later, back in early morning’s darkness, exhausted but not defeated and still raring to go, they arrived at the Argentinian garrison.

  Remarkably, it was brightly illuminated, its defensive slit trenches clearly visible in the lights beaming out of the many huts raised behind them. The sentries, placed well ahead of the trenches, were completely exposed.

  ‘Looks like they’re not expecting us,’ Parkinson whispered.

  ‘So let’s give them a little surprise,’ Grenville replied.

  ‘Why not?’ Hailsham asked.

  After dividing the Squadron into three groups – one led by Hailsham, another by Grenville and the third by himself – Parkinson spread them out over a wide arc as part of his strategy for making the Argentinians believe that they were being attacked by a vastly greater number of men. When the 80 troopers were all in place, Parkinson contacted the Ardent, out at sea, requesting that the previously agreed support barrage from its single 4.5in gun be implemented immediately. After the ship had confirmed, Parkinson knelt beside Ricketts and waited.

  ‘Here goes,’ Parkinson whispered.

  Ricketts merely showed his crossed fingers and gave a broad grin.

  The sound of the Ardent’s big gun was heard by the Squadron as a distant, muffled boom. Hardly more than a second later the first shell exploded with a mighty roar and the ground erupted in front of the Argentinian slit trenches.

  Immediately Parkinson dropped his arm, letting his group open fire with everything they had, including mortars and small arms, causing another shocking, deafening din. Simultaneously Paddy Clarke, as signaller, relayed the firing command to the other two groups, thus releasing a barrage of fire along an arc at least half a mile wide and angled towards the Argentinian positions, as if about to surround them.

  Between the Ardent’s single gun and the mortars, explosions were now taking place all over the field in front of the enemy positions. Meanwhile the troopers were firing their small arms without letting up. Even before the Argentinians could gather their senses enough to return fire, Paddy had given new calibrations to the mortars placed farther back. Soon shells were falling between and behind the slit trenches.

  Eventually, with mortar and big-gun shells exploding along the length of the Argentinian positions, filling the air with flying soil and wreathing the area in smoke, the enemy returned fire with their small arms.

  Noting this, Parkinson had Paddy contact the other two groups by radio and order them to start changing positions, moving even farther apart, to convince the enemy that the line of attack was much wider and involved at least a full battalion.

  Even as Paddy did so, and while Sergeant Ricketts was fitting the MILAN anti-tank weapon to its tripod, big Andrew was expertly raking the slit trenches with automatic fire from his roaring GPMG.

  Having set up the MILAN, Ricketts lay behind it, beside Taff Burgess, who already was squinting down into its optical sight. Getting the target centred in his thermal-imaging sight, which would bring the SACLOS semi-automatic guidance system into play, Taff placed one hand firmly over the carry handle, to hold the MILAN steady, then carefully pressed the trigger grip.

  The backblast rocked his body, as if tugging him off the ground, and the anti-tank missile shot out of the exit point and raced on a plume of fire-streaked smoke towards the enemy position. The ground erupted just in front of the prefabricated buildings lined up behind the slit trenches, filling the air with billowing smoke and showering the men in the trenches with raining soil.

  ‘Too short,’ Ricketts said.

  ‘Give me a chance,’ Taff replied. ‘The next one won’t be too short, boss. Just hold on to your hat.’

  Glancing across the field, Ricketts saw that the Argentinians, though returning the SAS fire, had still not left their trenches.

  ‘It’s working,’ he said to Major Parkinson. ‘They obviously think we’re a whole battalion and they’re scared to come out.’

  ‘Let’s hope it stays that way,’ Parkinson said.

  More shells from the mortars and another from the Ardent caused havoc to the Argentinian defensive trenches, the air above and in front of them filled with smoke, raining soil and debris.

  Smiling dreamily, Taff inserted another missile with folded wings into the launcher tube of the MILAN, squinted down into the optical sight, centred his target and pressed the trigger grip. The backblast was deafening and rocked him again, but this time he was on target and one of the buildings behind the slit trenches was hit, exploding in flames, its roof being blown off, the walls collapsing in on the flames and causing a great shower of sparks.

  ‘Good one, Taff,’ Ricketts said.

  ‘Damn right, it’s a good one,’ Taff replied. ‘Right on the nose, boss!’

  Hot debris from the explosion rained down on the slit trenches as some Argentinian troops, screaming in agony, tried to climb out. Big Andrew, monolithic behind his GPMG, cut them down with a short, precise burst. The Argentinians threw up their arms as soil and dust spat about them. They jerked and shook epileptically, toppled over in all directions, hit the ground beneath the still showering debris or rolled back down into the trenches.

  ‘Take that, you cunts,’ Andrew hissed, continuing to rake the area with murderous fire as young Danny, right beside him, methodically picked off single targets with his SLR, whispering, ‘One, two, three’, as he did so, like a kid playing marbles in the schoolyard, counting them off as he hit them, the number growing each time. The Argentinians were falling like flies, but they didn’t seem real from where he was.

  ‘The rest are still keeping their heads down,’ Ricketts observed. ‘They think we’re here in our hundreds.’

  Parkinson checked his wristwatch. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Paddy, get me HQ on that radio.’ Handed the phone, he plugged his free ear with his finger, to cut out the ferocious noise of the battle taking place on both sides and to the front, then listened intently to what he was being told by HQ on the Hermes.

  Passing the phone back, he said: ‘The invasion of the Falkland has commenced. Fearless and Intrepid are anchored off Jersey Point, West Falklands with the troops already disembarked from the LCUs and advancing inland. Brilliant, Canberra, Norland, Fort Austin and Plymouth are anchored in the Falkland Straits. The Antrim’s guns are shelling Fanning Head in support of the landings there. More ships are presently steaming into San Carlos Water and Port Stanley is under constant air attack. This is it, gentlemen.’

  Again taking the phone, Parkinson contacted the other two groups, led by Hailsham and Grenville, told them the news, then ordered them to spread out even more and continue the mock assault on the Darwin defences. That they did so was soon indicated by the increased size of the arc of fire, which now seemed at least a mile long.

  Parkinson moved his own men, then moved them again, and kept doing this as the others were doing the same. They kept this up throughout the morning, never letting up on their fire, and the Argentinians, obviously thinking that they were being attacked by a full battalion, returned the fire in a confused, desultory manner, but never left their slit trenches.

  By the hour before dusk the three groups had advanced and spread out until they were practically forming an immense semicircle around the burning, smoking enemy defences. Keeping contact by radio, Parkinson told them to keep firing until dawn, then advance under cover of the morning’s remaining darkness and meet up at their chosen grid location well north of the confused Argentinian troops.

  By this time, too, he had learned from constant radio communication with the fleet that 12 British ships were now in the Falkland S
traits, another five warships were patrolling just outside, and the landing troops, including 40 Commando and 2 Para, were occupying Port San Carlos and Ajax Bay.

  By the early hours of the following morning, when the three SAS groups had stopped firing, circled around the blazing, smoking Argentinian positions, and met up north of Darwin, to embrace each other, shake hands and settle down to a good breakfast, the landings on the opposite coast had been a complete success and the battle for the Falkland Islands was well under way.

  Chapter 14

  ‘I’m proud to say,’ Major Parkinson informed his troops when they had gathered north of Darwin, though still in sight of the smoke rising from the burning buildings of the Argentinian garrison, ‘that the British landing troops were guided in by the torches of the SBS already ashore and hiding out in OPs. Congratulations, Captain Grenville.’

  ‘Thanks, boss. They knew what they were doing. Now what about the 80 men we have here? What do we do with them?’

  ‘Create havoc,’ Parkinson said. ‘We break up into 16 groups of five, all heading north, but each covering different areas, and we gradually make our way to Port Stanley, harassing the enemy in whatever way we can – wherever we can.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ Captain Hailsham said. ‘Keep the Argies dancing on tiptoe, turning left and right.’

  ‘Hit and run,’ Parkinson said. ‘Disorientation and confusion. Outside the normal chain of command. All the way to Port Stanley.’

  ‘Naughty, but nice,’ Grenville said.

  ‘Better than sitting here waiting to be lifted out,’ Captain Hailsham added. ‘A positive contribution.’

  ‘Might cause a little annoyance at HQ,’ Grenville reminded them.

  ‘Who dares wins,’ Parkinson said with a grin.