Soldier B: Heroes of the South Atlantic

by Shaun Clarke

  Pleased with themselves, they divided the men into 16 groups of five, with Parkinson getting Sergeant Ricketts and troopers Winston, Porter and Gillis, the latter acting as signaller.

  With one man placed in charge of each group, the teams were given individual grid references before moving off in open formation, all heading north, but in slightly different directions, thus gradually losing sight of one another in the broad, mist-wreathed fields.

  Soon Parkinson and his team were all alone in the visible landscape, marching in file formation, with Danny well in front, taking the ‘point’ as lead scout, Parkinson second in line as PC, Gumboot third as signaller, Ricketts protecting Gumboot, and Andrew, heavily burdened with an American Stinger SAM system, as well as his GPMG and packed bergen, bringing up the rear as Tail-end Charlie.

  By nine that morning they learnt from Gumboot’s radio that the only casualty during the landing at San Carlos Water was the loss of three Royal Marines air-crew, forced down when fired on by enemy ground forces. However, over the next hour they saw many Argentinian aircraft, including Pucaras, Skyhawks and Daggers, flying from the mainland and Port Stanley, towards the sea and back, obviously attacking the fleet and the landing force.

  The sound of bombing was clear even from where they were marching, now farther north of Darwin, though they were encouraged to learn, both visually and from Gumboot’s radio, that Port Stanley and the enemy positions around it were being attacked relentlessly by Sea Harriers dropping air-burst shells and 10001b bombs, as well as by Vulcans firing American Shrike radiation-homing missiles. The smoke darkening the sky on the horizon was boiling up from Port Stanley.

  After a four-hour march, the men had encountered no enemy forces, though they had seen an enormous build-up in the number of British aircraft heading to and from Port Stanley. Stopping for a light lunch of biscuits, chocolate and water, Parkinson checked the southern landscape through binoculars and saw troops advancing across the high ground south of San Carlos Water. Giving Gumboot the grid location and asking him to check on the radio, he was informing that the advancing troops belonged to 2 Para.

  ‘They’ll capture what’s left of Darwin,’ he told Ricketts. ‘This advance won’t be stopped now. Come on, let’s get moving.’

  The farther north they advanced, the closer they came to the many inland Argentinian positions, including airstrips. For this reason, flights of enemy aircraft to and from the sea increased, and grew ever closer, the harsh, relentless chatter of their automatic weapons soon adding to the distant noise of exploding bombs.

  Late that afternoon they heard over the radio that in San Carlos Water, now dubbed ‘Bomb Alley’, their support ship, the Ardent, had been sunk, the Argonaut crippled, and the Antrim, Brilliant and Broadsword all hit by enemy bombs, each suffering different degrees of damage, most of it serious. Also, one Sea Harrier and two helicopters had been lost. In return, 12 Argentinian aircraft had been destroyed and the British force, having gained a foothold on the Falklands, was poised to break out and advance on Port Stanley.

  Parkinson and his four men spent that first night in a star-shaped OP, taking turns to sleep, listening to the distant sounds of relentless bombing and assiduously keeping notes on the movements and frequency of Argentinian aircraft. No enemy troops were seen, so at first light they filled in the OP and moved out again, continuing their long march to Port Stanley, following the bleak, windswept coastline.

  By dusk they had still seen no enemy troops, so they built an OP and spent another night listening to the radio, sleeping in turn and observing the movements of enemy aircraft.

  By dawn they were on the move again, all alone in the vast landscape, but still hearing the sounds of battle in the distance and seeing enemy aircraft flying to and from Port Stanley. During a break for lunch, again cold snacks and water, they learnt from the radio that three more British ships had been hit by Argentinian bombs and Exocet AM.39 missiles, two already sunk, the third sinking.

  ‘The Argentinians are being foolish,’ Major Parkinson said. ‘They’re concentrating all their attacks on the warships in Falkland Sound while ignoring the landing and supply ships. No wonder our troops are advancing with relative ease.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Ricketts replied.

  ‘I just wish we’d run into some Argies,’ young Danny said. ‘I’m bored just wandering about here.’

  ‘Right, man,’ Andrew said. ‘I agree with that sentiment.’

  ‘A right pair of bloody warmongers, you two,’ Gumboot informed them. ‘Always after the action.’

  ‘It’s in the blood,’ Andrew retorted. ‘We’re the sons of the Regiment. Come on, Argies, where the hell are you? I want to cop me an Argie!’

  He got his wish soon enough.

  Just before dusk they arrived at a lonely farmhouse in a wind-blown valley between Fitzroy and Bluff Cove, with the sea of Port Pleasant Bay visible beyond the edge of the distant cliff. Signalling for the others to drop to the ground, Parkinson, also belly-down, examined the farmhouse through his binoculars.

  A single track snaked from the horizon, across that desolate valley of gorse, to the lonely farmhouse. An enemy troop truck was parked in front of it. Smoke was rising from its chimney, indicating that the fire inside was being used. Armed soldiers were wandering casually in and out by the front door, some drinking from mugs. Between Parkinson’s group and the house, but well away from it, an Argentinian private was standing guard – though he was in fact sitting on an upturned bucket, smoking a cigarette, distractedly studying his own feet instead of the landscape, his rifle resting carelessly on his crossed legs.

  ‘A sitting duck,’ Danny whispered.

  ‘That’s a mobile radio patrol,’ Parkinson said, noting the makeshift antenna on the roof of the house. ‘They’re probably using that place as an OP – making daily trips around the area, reporting back what they learn about our troop movements. I don’t think we should let them.’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Ricketts replied.

  ‘Let’s take it.’ Parkinson lowered his binoculars and rubbed his tired eyes. ‘Trooper Porter?’

  ‘Yes, boss,’ Danny replied, not even having to ask, knowing exactly what was expected and already unstrapping his bergen, to lower it to the ground and leave himself free to move easily. This done, he removed his Fairburn-Sykes commando knife from its sheath, held it firmly in his right hand, then advanced crouched low, with the stealth of a cat, dropping down and rising up and running crouched low again, until he was coming around, then behind, the unsuspecting guard.

  Meanwhile, as big Andrew was unslinging his GPMG and holding it across his upturned left arm in the Belfast cradle, Ricketts and Gumboot were covering the distant house with their M16s.

  The unwary guard was still studying his booted feet, his clothes flapping in the moaning wind, when Danny rose up behind him, as silent and insubstantial as a wisp of smoke, to slide one hand over his mouth, blocking off all sound, and slash his jugular with the commando knife.

  The guard quivered like a bowstring and kicked out with one leg, but Danny dragged him off the bucket and pulled him down to the ground before he could make any sound or further movement. They both vanished in the gorse, Danny on top of his victim, waiting for his final, despairing breath and the stillness of death.

  Eventually Danny reappeared, resting on his knees, waving inward with his raised right hand, signalling the rest of them forward.

  ‘Fucking great!’ Andrew whispered.

  Still cradling the GPMG, he advanced to where Danny was waiting for him. There, ignoring the dead man, he fixed the machine-gun to its tripod, checked the alignment and prepared to fire on the farmhouse. Changing his mind, he signalled to the others, now coming up behind him, to take cover again, which they did by lying belly-down on the ground. Andrew then clipped his M203 grenade-launcher to the underside of the barrel of his M16, slid the barrel forward and loaded the grenade, then stood up in full view of the enemy troops milling about in front of
the farmhouse.

  One of the Argentinians looked across the field, directly at Andrew, just as he took the firing position, squinted along the pop-up sight of the M203, braced himself by spreading his thick legs, and fired the grenade.

  The Argentinian shouted a warning and threw himself to the ground as the backblast rocked even Andrew’s huge bulk and the grenade smashed through a window of the house, sending glass everywhere. The grenade exploded a second later, blowing the other windows out, as Ricketts, Danny and Gumboot opened fire with their M16s, raking the front of the farmhouse, cutting down the few Argentinians who had been too shocked to throw themselves to the ground. The other soldiers started crawling back to the house, where the walls were spitting concrete, but Andrew fired his M203 again, and this time, when the grenade exploded inside the house, it ignited some form of gas – either a cooker or a container – and yellow flames curled out through the windows, clawing at the darkening sky.

  The front door burst open and some men rushed out, screaming and slapping at their burning uniforms. They either collapsed of their own accord, rendered unconscious by pain, or were cut down by the semi-automatic fire of the M16s. Then big Andrew placed his M203 on the ground, knelt behind the machine-gun, and proceeded to rake the front of the house, left to right, up and down, until the wall was a living thing, spitting concrete and dust, and the men on the ground in front, trying to crawl back indoors, became whirling dervishes in clouds of exploding soil, their screams lost in the clamour.

  Parkinson raised his right hand and waved it in a forward direction, indicating ‘Advance’. As Andrew changed the belt in the GPMG, Ricketts, Danny and Gumboot followed Parkinson across the field to the farmhouse, all still firing their weapons as they advanced. Reaching the troop truck, which remained untouched, they saw that the Argentinians in front of the house were either dead or close to it. Some were badly scorched, others soaked in their own blood. The few still alive would not live long and were scratching instinctively at the earth, needing something to cling to.

  Knowing that Andrew was keeping them covered, Parkinson led the others into the house. It was a mess. The fragmentation grenades had caused utter havoc, with dead Argentinians peppered with shrapnel, the walls scorched, floorboards torn up and splintered, and the flames, still flickering out through the windows, coming from a punctured portable gas container used for the stove. The Argentinian radio equipment, also badly damaged in the explosions, was sparking and smoking.

  ‘No more messages through that,’ Parkinson said with satisfaction. ‘No tales about the British advance. A job well done, men.’ He went to the table in the middle of the room, which was covered in papers, some of them starting to curl at the edge from the heat of the flames. Flipping through them, at first carelessly, then more intently, he said: ‘Well, well, what have we here?’ He picked the papers up and waved them in front of Ricketts. ‘Precise details of the Argentinian defences. These could be useful. I don’t think we can hang around here, Sergeant. We have to get to Port Stanley. That truck outside was untouched, I believe?’

  ‘Yes, boss.’

  ‘Then let’s take it. We can get to Port Stanley earlier than planned and set up an OP. However, first I’ve got to talk to HQ and give them this info.’

  After leading them back outside, Parkinson told Ricketts to give Andrew the all-clear, which the latter did with a hand signal. As Andrew was packing up his GPMG and walking up to join them, Parkinson wandered around the front of the house, checking the Argentinian dead and wounded, all of whom were covered in dust and mud. The wounded, however, continued to moan and claw at the earth.

  ‘Let’s put them out of their misery,’ Baby Face said, stroking the knife sheathed on his hip.

  ‘No, Trooper,’ Parkinson said. ‘Let’s attend to them.’

  ‘There’s only the five of us here, boss. We don’t have any medics.’

  ‘We have our personal first-aid kits.’

  ‘For personal use, boss. Besides, these men are pretty badly wounded; we can’t do much for them.’

  ‘We can stop their bleeding and give them morphine,’ Parkinson said. ‘Don’t shit me, Trooper.’

  ‘Sorry, boss,’ Danny said. He glanced at Gumboot, who just shrugged, then withdrew his first-aid kit from his bergen. The others did the same and they all pooled their first-aid kits. Gumboot, who was well trained in medical emergencies, began patching up the Argentinian wounded as best he could as Andrew joined them, setting his GPMG on the ground and flexing his fingers.

  ‘That’s some heavy fucker,’ he said, ‘though she’s well worth the effort. What are you doing, Gumboot?’

  ‘Patching up these wounded Argies.’

  ‘What the hell for? Those are our first-aid kits, man!’

  ‘You don’t like it, Trooper?’ Major Parkinson asked.

  ‘Just passin’ a comment, boss.’

  ‘Weren’t you trained in first-aid, Trooper?’

  ‘Sure enough, boss.’

  ‘Then take over from Trooper Gillis. I need him to stay with me on that radio. Gumboot, get in touch with HQ. Trooper Winston is going to play doctor. He’s a man in a million.’

  ‘Sure am, boss,’ big Andrew said, looking disgusted. ‘Right on, boss, I’m in there.’

  Danny stood guard by the truck while Andrew reluctantly patched up the Argentinian wounded, Ricketts gave them cigarettes and water, and Parkinson, with the help of Gumboot, contacted HQ on the Hermes and relayed the information he had found in the papers of the enemy patrol. HQ expressed their thanks. They did no more than that. Though the information would hasten the reconquest of Port Stanley, its source would never be revealed. Parkinson and his men were not supposed to be here, so officially they weren’t here.

  ‘Thank you, boss,’ Parkinson said over the radio to his superior aboard the Hermes. ‘Over and out.’ Handing the phone back to Gumboot, he glanced back over his shoulder at Andrew, still patching up the Argentinian casualties, and asked. ‘How are they?’

  ‘Not good, boss. Fucked, actually. No minor wounds here. I’ve patched them up and filled them with morphine, but they need more attention.’

  ‘We can’t take them with us,’ Parkinson said, ‘so let’s leave them some food and water and send someone back later.’

  ‘You’re too kind, boss.’

  ‘These poor sods didn’t ask for this war. They’re just like you and I, Trooper.’

  ‘We’re a bit short on food and water ourselves, boss.’

  ‘You’re a member of the Regiment, Trooper, and should rise to a challenge.’

  ‘Yes, boss, I hear you.’

  In fact the few surviving Argentinians were so badly wounded, so deeply in shock, that they could hardly mutter their thanks when the SAS troopers each contributed half of their rations to a small food-well for them. Ricketts threw in a couple of extra packets of cigarettes as Major Parkinson was climbing up into the front of the Argentinian troop truck and the rest of the men were getting into the back. Ricketts waved goodbye to the dust-covered, moaning Argentinians, then he climbed up into the driver’s seat of the truck, beside Major Parkinson, and drove off, the truck bouncing and rattling along the muddy, wind-whipped road, heading for the stormy horizon way past Bluff Cove.

  ‘This will save us boot leather as well as time,’ Major Parkinson said. ‘It’s so nice to go travelling.’

  ‘I’ll second that,’ Ricketts said.

  They drove through the night and stopped just before dawn, well on the road to Port Stanley. Breakfasting on the last of their meagre dry rations – the rest had been given to the wounded Argentinians – they learned over the radio that the enemy garrisons at Darwin and Goose Green, psychologically destroyed by the SAS diversionary raid, had fallen to the 2nd Parachute Regiment, with 1300 Argentinians taken prisoner. Since then, the 550 Marines of 42 Commando had yomped eastward, all the way from Ajax Bay on San Carlos Water, to Teal Inlet, about ten miles north-west of Port Stanley, which they had secured with the aid of
SBS teams already placed there.

  ‘Another medal for Captain Grenville,’ Parkinson said with a smile of pleasure and pride. ‘OK, men, let’s go.’

  They had only been driving for thirty minutes, into increasingly hilly terrain, when they were attacked by a British Sea Harrier. Flying in from the west, obviously engaged in an inland recce, the pilot could not resist a lone Argentinian troop truck and swept in low to rake it with his guns.

  Momentarily forgetting that he was driving an enemy truck, Ricketts was shocked by the attack, accelerated automatically, then realized what was happening and slammed on the brakes, thus throwing the vehicle into a skid, with the men in the rear tumbling about and bawling. Careering across the road, the truck ploughed into soft earth, bounced up and down, shuddered violently and came to rest, as the Harrier roared directly overhead and away again, its bullets still stitching lines of spitting soil across the field by the road.

  ‘Shit!’ Ricketts exclaimed, opening his door and dropping down to the ground as Major Parkinson did the same and the other men jumped out of the rear, not forgetting to throw their kit and weapons out first.

  ‘Take cover!’ Major Parkinson shouted. ‘Get as far away from the truck as possible. He’s coming back! Go now!’

  True enough, the Sea Harrier was completing a great circle in the sky above the Atlantic, beyond the edge of the field.

  The men scattered as it returned, first seeming to glide, then rushing and roaring at them, its guns roaring also, the bullets preceding the aircraft by creating lines of spitting soil that raced across the field and peppered the truck, including the petrol tank, making it explode with a godalmighty clamour.

  Ricketts and the others were just throwing themselves to the ground when the truck’s doors were blown off, its tyres burst into flames and melted instantaneously, and its canvas top became a great bonfire under a mushroom of oily smoke. The Harrier had already ascended and disappeared in the distance when the truck, already a blackened shell wreathed in flame and smoke, hiccuped from internal convulsions and collapsed onto wheels devoid of tyres, the melted rubber still smouldering.