Shropshire, rocking through a moderate northeasterly wind and sea, had the oil-tanker Tidebreak fine on her bow and about one cable’s length ahead. Distance lessening fast. John Saddler was in the bridge wing but only watching, leaving the conning of the ship to David Vigne, his navigator. From this close, the 27,000-ton tanker’s heaving stern, looming white-fringed through the dark, looked about the size of the Palace of Westminster.
About which the less said the better. BBC news bulletins had referred to members of Parliament objecting to the sinking of the enemy cruiser Belgrano. And the loss of life from that action was shocking, certainly, had shocked everyone here in the Task Force, let alone at Westminster; but for an explanation of it those people should address themselves to the Argentine naval command, not to Northwood or Downing Street…
Saddler heard Vigne’s calm tones bringing the ship up into position, using the bridge-wing microphone, its lead plugged into a socket in the windbreak. Shropshire’s stern about to overlap the oiler’s stern… Distance apart had to be one hundred feet, which in the dark and a lively sea called for skill and concentration from the man handling her: the evolution being known as an RAS — replenishment at sea — and in this case an RAS(L) — ‘L’ for liquid: oil, and fresh water. They’d completed an RAS(S) for ‘solids’ earlier in the night, topping up magazines and shellrooms and other stores, but the fuel replenishment was a routine carried out every forty-eight hours or so as a matter of course. This time, perhaps, with an added sense of purpose: London had given the Admiral authority to go ahead with the San Carlos landing plan, at his own discretion — which meant, in effect, subject to weather conditions being suitable.
There’d be a decision, Saddler guessed, any minute now.
‘Stop both engines…’
This was the modern way of doing it. Instead of creeping up, gradually adjusting speed to match the tanker’s, you came up fast, stopped engines and let the ship’s momentum carry her on into position, and exactly as she got there you put the screws ahead again at the required twelve knots. It was a faster and neater way of doing it, and practice made perfect… From the wheelhouse now, three decks down in the ship, a voice from the loudspeaker reported, ‘Both engines stopped, sir,’ and Vigne lifted his microphone again to order, ‘revolutions one-zero-four.’ Those revs would give her twelve knots when he ordered the engines to be put ahead again — which he’d do as the fuelling points arrived opposite each other. A single light glowed down there on the upper deck where a small party of seamen and engineers waited; there was a corresponding light on the tanker’s deck. Shropshire arriving in the right spot about — now…
‘Half ahead both engines.’
Kingsmill leant over the windbreak and bellowed into the wind, ‘Duck!’
A Coston gun barked from the tanker’s deck, and the weighted end of a line soared across the gap. A Coston shot could go wild, and the weight was heavy, which was why you ducked. In fact the line had fallen across the foc’s’l: a sailor snatched it up, ran aft with it, bringing it to the fuelling point. The Coston cracked again and a second line came flying.
‘Steer zero-four-zero.’
Yesterday the amphibious force — the assault ships Fearless and Intrepid, with LSL’s — landing ships logistic — plus Canberra and a supporting train of STUFT ships — the letters stood for ‘ships taken up from trade’ — had joined the Task Force. The day before, the Atlantic Conveyor had come with a reinforcement of twelve Harriers, while another four had since flown in, direct flight from the UK via Ascension with mid-air refuelling; so there were now thirty-five Harriers here. Every one of which would be needed, Saddler thought. He leant over the windbreak, seeing them hauling in on the line, dragging the hawser across from the oiler. It would be secured to the jackstay fitting, an eyebolt on the superstructure, and at the tanker’s end it would be triced up high so there’d be a slant downward to the destroyer and the fuelling hose, slung from a ‘traveller’, would come rushing down to be received and connected to the fuelling intake. The other line, up on the foc’s’l, was for a check on the ships’ distance apart, one end secured to the oiler’s rail while on Shropshire’s bow an oilskinned sailor held it taut and watched the flags that marked it at twenty-foot intervals.
‘Revolutions one-zero-zero.’
Freshwater hose on its way over now, running down the hawser just as the fuel line had. Saddler watched, as far as the dark allowed, thinking that every one of those jump-jets was going to be needed because if the landing was to go ahead — if the Admiral was satisfied that the weather outlook was favourable — then that small force of Harriers was about to take on the entire Argentine air force. The Argies hadn’t been beaten in the air — hadn’t even been scratched in the air — which right from the start had been seen as a prerequisite for troop landings, for the simple reason they’d stayed out of sight. You could bet they wouldn’t stay away much longer, once the landing force moved in.
Fuelling was now in progress, and both ships having settled down to it had now recommenced zigzagging, a long-legged zigzag pattern with alterations of course made in ten-degree steps. A refinement of the art of RAS, necessitated by the submarine threat. Altering now — both ships, this one very small-feeling in such proximity to the other’s bulk… Dark sea leaping, thundering between them. John Saddler, looking down into that seething torrent, was thinking now that it was about time Shropshire had a mail delivered. The arrival of letters and newspapers was always a fillip to morale. Not that morale was bad — far from it, and their successful action against the blockade-runner had sent it soaring; but it tended to have its ups and downs, and boredom had to be kept at bay, after so long at sea and with so little, so far, to show for it.
‘Captain, sir?’
The door into the wing had banged open; Saddler turned, identifying himself in the dark, ‘Yes?’
‘You’re wanted on the Secure Net, sir!’
‘Right. Thank you.’ Running… The Secure Net was the scrambled communication line which the Admiral used for conversations with his captains, and you could only take a call or initiate one in the MCO, main communications office, next door to the Ops Room. Lift gates slammed shut; in pitch darkness he pressed the ‘down’ button, and the floor seemed to drop away under his feet.
Like a hangman’s platform. Except that when he hit the bottom he was still alive. Passing the Ops Room entrance, and into the MCO. ‘Morning, Chief.’ He took the telephone from Chief Yeoman of Signals Harriman. ‘Saddler here.’
‘John, this is Willy.’
Not the big white chief himself, after all. This was a senior member of the great man’s staff. Telling Saddler crisply, ‘Point one, John — Operation Sutton is on.’
‘Sutton’ being the code-name for the San Carlos landing.
‘D-Day, subject to weather, twenty-first. Meaning we move in tonight. Your orders are on the way, but — point two — conference on board Fearless this forenoon at ten. Weather predictions’ll be complete by then. Can do?’
‘Can indeed. Thank you, Willy.’
He replaced the telephone. CPO Harriman asked, ‘All right, sir?’
Several pairs of eyes were focused on him, waiting for an answer — a statement, a hint, a clue… He told them, ‘Depends how you look at it. It’s all right for you, Chief. I’m required to attend another bloody conference.’
His caginess was less in the interests of security than of maintenance of morale. If he’d said We’re landing the commando brigade tomorrow morning, and there was a postponement — for weather reasons or any other — it would be a let-down. Those signalmen, who’d have passed on the red-hot ‘buzz’ as straight from the skipper’s mouth, would have suffered a loss of face.
After this Fearless conference, if the intention was confirmed by then, he’d make an announcement in the proper way, over the ship’s broadcast.
The RAS had been completed. Shropshire and Tidebreak, with the Type 22 frigate Boreas in company now, were steering northeast towards the battle group. Saddler, with half an hour to spare before he’d have to get dressed up for his helicopter trip to Fearless, was taking a walk around the ship, dropping in on this and that department at random, but mostly picking ones he’d missed out on his last solo ‘walk-about’. He’d gone aft along 01 Deck, visiting the canteen, sickbay, galley and servery, dining hall, then over to the starboard side to the Seacat transmitting station. The port Seacat director had been fixed up and was fully operational now, Vaughan had reported — which was a relief, even if one didn’t have such a hell of a lot of faith in the Seacat missile system. You had to make yourself trust it, because it was all you had — for close-range defence against anything like an Exocet. The petty officer in the TS, name of Hobbs, asked him, ‘We ever going to put our lads ashore, sir?’
‘Oh.’ Saddler turned from the TV monitor. ‘I’d say you can expect that pretty soon now. With the right weather conditions, of course.’ He changed the subject. ‘How’s your family bearing up, Hobbs? Heard from your wife lately?’
Out — having had a run-down on the Hobbs family’s house-moving problems — and down to 02 Deck for a call at the Seaslug missile test equipment room. As distinct from Seacat, which was a close-range system of air defence, Seaslug was the ship’s surface-to-air long-range weapon, designed to cope with fast, high-flying aircraft. The Seaslug magazine occupied most of this deck, from the checkroom amidships right to the launchers on the stern. It was something like a car-deck in a ferry — except it was gleaming white and packed with the missiles ranged on their trolleys, which could be shifted around by remote control, hydraulics worked from a control panel in the MTER — to move them out to the launchers, withdraw them or shuffle them any other way, like a move to the checkroom for maintenance. They travelled at high speed and you wouldn’t want to be in there when it was happening. The missiles themselves were sharp-nosed, predatory looking, with white bodies but a delicate shade of pink on wings and fins.
Carter, a fleet chief petty officer with red hair and deepset eyes, asked him, ‘Reckon we’ll get to poop some off, sir?’
‘Bound to, Mr Carter.’ Looking past him through plate glass into the checkroom. ‘When the Argie air force shows up, eventually.’ Thinking, Not that Seaslug’s likely to be much use to us…
Forward of the checkroom was an extension of the magazine called Crated Stowage, where missiles still rested in their protective cases. The entire magazine deck took up a very large proportion of the ship’s interior, and it was also a highly explosive space: if an Exocet struck here — or for that matter lower down, below it…
He thought, briefly, of the SBS section who by now would be inside the Argentine. But even if they did their job to perfection, there would still — as Cloudsley had admitted — be the missiles already deployed on the airfields.
‘What about the Bootnecks, sir? We going to let them loose some time?’ Bootnecks — from the older term ‘Leathernecks’ — meant Royal Marines. Saddler assured him, ‘Can’t be long now. Probably very soon.’
Donald Sale arrived then. He was a lieutenant, one of Hank Vaughan’s bright sparks in the Weapons Electrical department. Sale was a BSc, his immediate superior Jimmy Lampard BSc and AMIEE, while Vaughan himself had so many letters after his name he could never remember half of them. Saddler spent a few more minutes in there, discussing the new British sea-skimming missile Sea Eagle, which when it emerged from development stages was likely to put Exocet in the shade. Sale then gave him some news: the 965 radar, the long-range air warning set, had ‘thrown a wobbly’. Vaughan had men working on it, had been trying to contact Saddler to report it as out of action, meanwhile…
Leaving the MTER — more phlegmatic than depressed by that news — he went down one deck to visit the machinery control room; and considered then going aft to the Chinese laundry but decided against it because conversations with Mr Wu tended to be lengthy and difficult to cut short, and he didn’t have all that much time left. Instead he paid a quick visit to the computer room — another area where you wouldn’t want a missile impacting, since it would completely paralyse the ship — and then down to 04 Deck to the gunnery TS, where they deserved a visit and a pat on the back after the success of the previous night.
He was asked the same question, or some version of it, everywhere he stopped. When do we put the booties in?
Natural enough. It was what they’d all come out here for, what would have to be done before they could go home again. Saddler very much hoped that after this morning’s conference he’d be able to give them the news they wanted. He was on his way up through the ship, with five levels to climb to reach the bridge, when he heard the broadcast ‘Hands to flying stations…’ So he’d timed it well, because that pipe was in preparation for his transfer by helo to the assault ship Fearless. He could fit in a brief visit to the bridge now, a word with Kingsmill and Vigne — and with Vaughan about the defective radar — before climbing into his goon-suit for the flight.