The weather yesterday had been as prayed for; Saddler had recorded in his diary: ‘TEZ transit. Weather northerly force 6, low cloud base, poor visibility, ideal.’ But now in the early hours of ‘D—Day’ the sky was clear, stars like the sort on a Christmas card. There was a hope in one forecast of the ‘clag’ closing in again, but his own weather sense made him doubt it. Since nightfall there’d been a number of air-attack warnings, mysterious and anonymous radio voice warnings. Four Mirages taken off from Rio Gallegos — time, course, speed… Or Six A45 closing you now… Saddler visualised SAS teams hidden in the mainland hills, camouflaged men in camouflaged holes, using high-powered binoculars and maybe with headphones linking them to electronic watchdogs of some kind; and nukes off the coast, out in the deep water between here and there, their periscopes and radar and radio antennae slicing the black surface — while here, now, holding its collective breath and with taut nerves, the assault force drove in towards its target, having linked up with the heavier troop-carrying units. Astern of Shropshire, now that the forces had joined up you could see (all too easily) the ‘great white whale’, Canberra, frighteningly easy to pick out through the darkness because of her size and the white paint which there hadn’t been time to do anything about. But the whole force ploughing south, entering North Falkland Sound.
David Vigne murmured, ‘Should come round to two-four-zero, sir.’
He was navigating visually, by shore bearings. Saddler agreed, ‘Bring her round.’
‘Starboard fifteen…’
At eleven knots, the ships were pitching to the sea running up astern, Shropshire swinging away to starboard, turning her beam to it, and the ‘great white whale’ swimming on past, massive as an iceberg swimming grandly on into the Sound.
‘Midships. Steer two-four-zero… May I come up to fifteen knots, sir?’
Exactly as they’d planned it, as was now laid-off on the chart, in the chartroom at the back of this bridge. He heard Vigne order ‘Revolutions one-two-eight’ and the quarter-master’s report of the course as now two-four-zero; it was the course for an attack on Pebble Island, a bombardment which would be timed to coincide with landing-craft ramps splashing down in San Carlos. Saddler heard distant gunfire from the east, and Jay Kingsmill’s murmur of ‘Glamorgan’s at it again’. Their sister ship would be bombarding the north shore of Berkeley Sound, on the other side of East Falkland and not far from Stanley, where the Argies might well be expecting a landing to be made. Other diversions would be starting soon: there’d be a joint SBS and SAS raid on Fanning Head, which commanded the San Carlos approach, the attackers landing by helo from Antrim who’d then provide gunnery support, and an attack by SAS on the garrison at Darwin. During this period Shropshire would be lobbing shells onto the Pebble lsland airstrip, where the SAS had done a fine job a week ago but which might well have more Pucarás on it by now. One way or another these sideshows should guarantee General Menendez getting enough conflicting reports to confuse him thoroughly while the beachhead was being secured.
Saddler told Jardine over the Open Line, ‘I’ll stay on the bridge for this shoot. Is the White system ready?‘
‘Closed up and cleared away, sir.’
The gunnery lot were very self-confident, following their success in destroying the blockade-runner. There’d been mention of it in a BBC news bulletin, which had delighted everyone.
By now the assault ships would be in the entrance to San Carlos Water, flooding their docks to float out the landing craft which would be waiting packed with heavily armed men. The beaches and their immediate surroundings would be secured before the big ships — Fearless and Intrepid, and Norland and Canberra with supporting vessels — entered the narrow gulf and anchored.
Shropshire was rolling a bit, on this course. The sea noisy, engines’ thrum an accompanying and familiar background sound as she closed the dark land.
Five Mirages taken off from Gallegos on course zero-nine-five…
The fact that none of the reported take-offs had yet materialised as raids didn’t mean they wouldn’t be coming. Come daylight, you could count on it.
‘Five minutes to go, sir.’
Landing craft would be moving in towards the beaches, which during recent nights had been checked out by SBS teams. The SBS men, who’d been living in holes on the hillsides around the landing areas for most of the last week, would be at the tide-line to meet the first commandos when they splashed ashore. 2 Para and 40 Commando… 2 Para would be heading for Sussex Mountain which they’d hold against any interference from the direction of Goose Green, while light tanks of the Blues and Royals spearheaded a move inland through the settlement. 45 Commando would be going in at Ajax Bay, 3 Para landing at Port San Carlos.
‘Ready to open bombardment fire, sir.’
He said informally, ‘Go ahead.’
The island was part of a dark visual confusion to port. Saddler took off his headset, went out into the port wing of the bridge and focused his glasses on the area where the airstrip had to be. Vigne had brought her round to 270 degrees, due west: the target would be engaged for five minutes on this run, then the ship would be brought-about and there’d be another five minutes’ shelling while she steamed back eastward.
Before he’d left the bridge he’d heard all the preliminaries, war cries, over the Open Line, but they still hadn’t opened fire.
Distantly, Glamorgan still banging away… The wing door flew open, crashed shut, and Kingsmill told him, ‘Some fault in the firing circuits…’
Saddler thrust past him; then he was in the bridge, pulling on his headset: ‘Are you going into independent?’ Meaning local control, from the turret… Vaughan, Commander (WE), came on the line: ‘Vaughan here, sir. Guns won’t fire. Some fault between the TS and—’
‘How long?‘
‘Can’t say, sir, until we’ve—’
‘Wait.’ Three seconds for thought, and no time to waste: this bombardment was as important as any other action on the periphery of the landings, there had to be some loud noises in this sector, now. He said over the Open Line, ‘Stand down the White system. Load Seaslug launchers for CUSTARD shots. One missile every thirty seconds for ten minutes.’ The bombardment was to have lasted ten minutes; over the same period there’d be fewer bangs, but bigger ones, and the Seaslug missiles could be expected to create large disturbances on the surface of the airstrip. CUSTARD was an acronym for constant angle of sight with terminal dive; he’d never used Seaslug in this role before.
‘Should we come round, sir?’ Vigne was sighting over the gyro repeater. ‘To zero-three-zero?’
So that the launchers would be pointing towards the target area. Saddler concurred, and Vigne ordered starboard helm.
‘Range one-eight-zero!’
‘Fifteen of starboard wheel on, sir…’
Seaslug was a beam-riding missile with a range of twenty-four miles. Within that distance you could put it down wherever you wanted it, although it was primarily a surface-to-air weapon. All the control data the Seaslug director needed now would be in the computer already, fed into it for the aborted gun action.
‘Seaslug launchers are loaded, sir.’
‘Course zero-three-zero.’
‘Engage.’
Only yesterday, he remembered, Fleet Chief Petty Officer Carter had queried whether they’d ever fire one of his cherished missiles. He’d be losing twenty of them now. Saddler heard the first one leave; then the report, ‘One Seaslug away…’ It wouldn’t be a popular move, in some quarters. Seaslugs were in short supply, weren’t being manufactured now that the system had been declared obsolete. But he’d had to do something, and by now there’d be commandos ashore at San Carlos.
At noon Shropshire was patrolling on a figure-of-eight track in the northern approaches to San Carlos Water. She would have been with Antrim, available for NGS on call from shore, if the gun circuits hadn’t still been u/s. She was here now for AA defence, a fielder out in the middle where she might well become a target herself, Saddler guessed, when the Argie air force finally showed up.
Four thousand men had been put ashore unscratched. You could see some of them on the hillsides digging trenches, and the Union Flag was flying over the settlement. Sea King helicopters were ferrying Rapier missile-defence batteries ashore — personnel, launchers, missiles, generators and ancillary equipment — the helos depositing their loads at pre-selected hilltop sites and racketing back to the ships for more. Guns, stores, vehicles and men were flowing in over the beaches, but the Rapier system was a priority because this peace wasn’t likely to last much longer. The sky was clear, visibility excellent; the weather, hitherto pro-British, had changed sides.
He walked into the Ops Room; pausing, looking around, tasting the atmosphere, hearing (or maybe imagining) the edges of alarm in some voices, seeing awareness of the imminence of action in some young faces. And that was OK: it would have been unnatural if there had not been some signs of tension.
‘Delta Eight Charlie reports hostiles two-eight-four, forty miles!’
Delta Eight Charlie was Boreas. She was down to the south: she and her Lynx helos had been searching the coves down there for patrol boats or other lurking dangers. So far they’d drawn blank. But from that report, the action might be starting soon. The most recent warning before that had been a cryptic call of ‘Eyes open, west!’ and minutes before that, ‘Six Mirages taken off from Rio Gallegos…’ There’d also been chat on a different circuit — from Harrier pilots in the CAP — combat air patrol — which was operating a long way out, outside the circumference of the missile defence zone. But there’d been no actual sighting or radar contact until that shout from Boreas.
‘EWD — anything around bearing two-seven-zero?’
Two-seven-zero would be roughly the bearing from here of Boreas’ contact. EWD being the electronic warfare director — a PO at that console monitoring a radar system which auto-analysed and identified hostile radar transmissions.
‘Only Blue Fox in that sector, sir.’
Blue Fox was the weapons radar in a Sea Harrier’s nose. And the more of them, the better.
Warning voice again: four Skyhawks had now left Gallegos eastbound. Then news that two more Harriers had taken off from Hermes to reinforce the CAP… A shout now — the fighter controller’s voice: ‘Blue Leader has two A45 visual, going buster!’
A ripple of excitement, a hand raised with fingers crossed… Saddler checking radar monitors, then the big plot where radarmen with chinograph pencils were marking-up the picture as it thickened and the ranges closed. ‘Blue Leader’ was a Harrier pilot at this moment going in for a kill. Saddler considered returning to the bridge: the attackers would be here soon, and down here there wasn’t a lot he could do except listen, preside – which he could do just as well up top, but also see it…
‘Blue Leader has splashed one Skyhawk, other’s legged it!’
Cheers.
‘Four Mirages taken off from Rio Gallegos!’
Another foursome. Take-off intervals seemed fairly regular. Arrivals would be similarly regular — once the first lot arrived.
‘Delta Eight Charlie, birds away!‘
Boreas had launched missiles. She was a Type 22 and therefore had Sea Wolf, which was a weapon for close defence with either TV or radar tracking and one launcher for’ard, one aft, each of them six-barrelled. Saddler would have given a lot to have Sea Wolf right now, instead of Sea Cat.
‘I’ll be on the bridge, Ian.’
Prince, AAWO, nodded as he switched his radar monitor from one set to another. ‘Aye aye, sir.’
‘Delta Eight Charlie, one Mirage splashed!’
Delight in that tone; clapping greeted it. Not a bad start, two splashed in the same minute; if you could keep that up, the Argies might run out of aircraft before long… Joe Nicholson looked across at Saddler and suggested, ‘Threat warning red, sir?’
Instinct, more than any evidence of an immediate threat here in the Sound, told him Yes…
‘PWO.’ Jardine looked round. He told him, ‘Air warning red.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ Into the broadcast: ‘Air Threat Warning Red. On anti-flash. Oerlikons and Seacat Red and Green, on your toes!’
Saddler paused at the GOP — general operations plot — where Adamson, the navigator’s yeoman, was rubbing out old position lines on chart 558. Those were the pencilled tracks and fixes from Shropshire’s transit of the TEZ with the Special Boat men on board. It felt now as if that might have been a month ago; and there was a question-mark lingering in his mind, about that Sea King… He asked Adamson, ‘In the right place, are we?’
Pointless remark, of course: although the GOP was a navigational plot, he’d only said it for the sake of saying something to this quiet, rather introspective lad. But Adamson smiled, and answered, ‘I’d sooner be in the Dog and Duck, sir.’
Saddler’s chuckle was drowned by the broadcast: ‘Aircraft in the Sound!’
He ran for the lift. In, slamming the gate shut, whooshing up. Out — and round the corner; then into the bridge, hearing the crash of gunfire then a louder, impacting torrent of sound as the first attacker hurtled over at mast-head height. Two bombs away. He saw another Delta-shaped aircraft screaming in over Fanning Head. Sea spouting where those bombs smacked into it — closer to Argonaut than to Shropshire. Shropshire’s rudder hauling her around… Oerlikons in action, and lighter machine-guns, Blowpipe missiles from launchers hand-held by soldiers on Canberra’s and Norland’s decks, the air a futuristic tracery of missile trails; a Skyhawk swooped up from the sea-skimming height and a Seacat missile rose with it, exploded under its tail — debris starring, pock-marking the water around the central splash.
Noise dying, smoke clearing. End of round one, and in Shropshire no damage or casualties. Three Seacat missiles had been fired. One of the Oerlikon gunners was sure he’d hit an A4, he’d seen his 20-mm shells impacting on its wing, then lost track of it as it swept over and he’d switched to a new target. There was no indication that the Seacat which had splashed the other Skyhawk had been Shropshire’s, neither the Red nor Green director would claim it. Radar, Nicholson reported from the Ops Room, had been confused by land clutter.
Argonaut had three men wounded, one seriously, and a chunk of her ‘bedstead’ 965 aerial blown away. Harriers of the CAP has splashed two Mirages, bringing the CAP’s score to three.
Kingsmill came back to the bridge. He’d been up top, visiting the Oerlikon gunners and organising what he called the ‘for’ard battery’ — sailors with rifles and one machine-gun to join in the close defence. Saddler thought, glancing at his executive officer, Why not bows and arrows? Thinking also about one very near squeak, a bomb that had passed about ten feet from the front of the bridge and exploded in the water thirty yards to port; HQ1 — damage control headquarters — had reported only minor shock-damage. But as to the men up there with self-loading rifles and a GP machine-gun — well, you could say every little helped, that the more lead went up in the faces of Argie pilots, the tougher — slightly — their job would be. Shropshire was under helm again, heeling to the turn: Holt, who was OOW at action stations, conning her under the navigating officer’s watchful eye, keeping her on the move but out where she’d help to block attacks coming into San Carlos Water at low level and on straight courses for the ships anchored farther in, off the beaches; and if this was where you had to be you might as well muster every pea-shooter you could find. Playing Aunt Sally was what it amounted to — particularly with radar so useless in here that visual sightings were the first warnings you could expect.
‘Eyes open, west!’
That would be a pre-recorded, automatic transmission, he guessed, triggered by take-offs at the end of some runway, or ends of runways. More specific alerts could only come from live, human observation. Maybe they — observers — were alerted by that call and then stood ready to amplify it. Maybe…
Vaughan reported that the White system, the gun, was now operational. Some defective piece of circuitry had been located and replaced. Saddler initiated a signal reporting this — to Broadsword, senior ship in this group, and to the Admiral. The 965 radar still wasn’t functional though, Vaughan said. In fact it wouldn’t have been a lot of use in any case; going by other ships’ reports it seemed that attacking formations were dipping to sea-level when they were still a hundred or more miles short of the islands, and only an airborne warning system — aloft and looking downwards, the kind the Task Force didn’t have — could have countered this tactic.
‘Eight Mirages taken off from Rio Gallegos…’
Hold muttered, ‘Any advance on eight?’
Because it was the largest formation so far reported. And there were at least two attacks en route ahead of that one.
Saddler told Vigne, Holt and the PWO, Jardine, ‘I’ll be taking a walk round the upper deck now.’
‘Aye aye, sir.’ Vigne watched him remove his headset and put it on its hook on the command console. He suggested, ‘Five minutes before the next lot, would you say, sir?’
It was a hint, of course. Tactful way of asking Do you think you should? He checked his watch. ‘If the CAP don’t intercept it. But I’d think more like ten minutes than five.’ He was thinking of those intervals between take-offs. He met Kingsmill outside; the commander reported, ‘I’ve set up an after battery, sir, on the flight deck. Flight deck party, plus some odds and sods.’
‘I’ll pay them a visit.’ More riflemen, for God’s sake. Even in World War Two they hadn’t found it necessary to resort to rifle-fire for AA defence, he thought. But then they’d had a better profusion of close-range weapons, hadn’t placed so much reliance on the high-tech stuff which didn’t always work or suit all circumstances… ‘I’m going aft, Jay, for a chat with the Seacats.’
He went aft ‘over the top’ — from the bridge wing, up fixed rungs on to the bridge’s roof, aft across it and along the starboard side to the signal deck and gunnery defence position. The riflemen were GDP crew and signalmen; they looked self-conscious, Saddler thought, clutching their SLRs, but glad to be visited. The Oerlikon gunners had some yarns to tell: one gun had jammed just at the moment he would have scored. Saddler told him, ‘Better luck next time. It won’t be long.’ Thinking that it was fairly ludicrous to be defending a modern, missile-armed destroyer with SLRs in the hands of signalmen — then qualifying the thought, because it was twenty years since Shropshire had been ‘modern’ — but wondering how long it might be before the Marines ashore were issued with pikes and halberds.
He was talking to the port Seacat operator when the next assault came in. The operator was a seventeen year old named Pitts; he had bright yellow hair under his tin hat — which made him look rather like a mushroom — and a face scarred by acne, with dark, quick eyes. His job entailed sitting inside the director, which was a structure about the size of a telephone kiosk with a seat in it and a binocular sight mounted on top where his head protruded. The launcher, loaded and ready, was below him and to his left. The way the system worked was that the Seacat transmitting station on 01 Deck locked the director to its target, and when the missile was launched Pitts had to hold it in the centre of the binoculars, steering it by movements of his thumb on a joystick control not much bigger than a matchstick.
‘It’s this side we had a defect on recently, isn’t it?’
‘Yessir.‘ Pitts nodded. ‘OK now.’ He grinned. ‘I ’ope.’
‘Did you get any shots away, just now?’
‘One, sir.’ He added, ‘But I lost it. Gets confused like when there’s all the smoke an’ that.’
‘Easier at night.’
‘Oh, yessir. See the tail-flame, then.’
‘Is it impossible to see it in daylight, if you could concentrate on just that and nothing else?’
‘Well, I dunno—’
‘Aircraft! Aircraft!’ The broadcast, booming excitedly. ‘Red and Green systems, for’ard and after batteries, stand by!’
Saddler shouted to Pitts ‘Good luck!’ and ran — into a mounting blur of noise, gunfire and already the screaming approach of aircraft. Vigne had been right — five minutes… He saw Antrim hit. She’d launched a Seaslug, then two A4s swept over her in close succession. He had only an impression of it as he ran for’ard, but he thought they’d hit her with bombs and rockets too — or that might have been cannon… A deafening blast of sound as a Mirage crashed over, drowning the snarl of Oerlikons and the random popping of SLRS; cannon-fire was part of the bedlam as he raced up a ladder, rushing for the bridge. Splinters flew from hits along the port side of the upper deck where he’d passed only seconds ago; he was in the bridge then, his eyes on smoke pouring from Antrim’s stern. Reaching for his headset and binoculars. Shropshire’s Seacat had fired; a report of ‘Birds away!’ from the Green system, the side he hadn’t had time to visit. Then the explosive roar of the last of this particular bunch of attackers flashing over — bombs falling, whacking in and raising spouts close to the ships at anchor inside there — Canberra and Norland — much too close… The Argie pilots had flown right through that curtain of fire and now as they swooped away Seacat, Blowpipe, Seawolf, Seaslug and Rapier missiles streaked after them, curving their trails across the sky, cats’ tails of flame and smoke that became static, hanging and then thinning, the wind wiping the sky clear again.
‘Eyes open, west!’
More coming. Showing their hand now, all right.
Jay Kingsmill came to the bridge to report. Cannon shells had punctured the hangar on the starboard side, wounding three men inside it and one member of the ‘after battery’ on the flight deck. The after first aid party had taken care of them, and two men had been transferred to the wardroom where the doctor, Alec Claypoole, aided by a team of assistants which included Peter Ridpath the chaplain, had set up a dressing-station and temporary hospital. Apart from these casualties, damage was superficial and the Wessex helo hadn’t been touched. Whereas Antrim — reports were coming in now — had lost the use of her Seaslug and Seacat systems, had virtually no defence left with which to resist the further attacks now on their way. One bomb had penetrated her Seaslug magazine, but, thank God, failed to explode, although it had done a lot of damage. It was fairly plain that the ships, not the beachhead, were today’s prime targets.
The last attack of the day was the worst.
By that time Broadsword had been strafed and suffered casualties — and splashed two Mirages with her Seawolf — and Argonaut as well as Antrim had sustained major damage. Brilliant had been hit in her Ops Room, important cables had been cut and she’d lost all her weapons systems except the after Seawolf. The CAP Harriers had splashed several of the attackers, mostly on their way home.
But in the last assault of the day, they got Ardent. She was mobbed by a mixed force of Mirages, Skyhawks and Aermacchis; bombs plastered her stem, knocking out all her weapons systems. Helpless to defend herself, listing to starboard from flooding on that side, she was out of control and heading for the shore; Saddler saw men running for’ard over her foc’s’l, then an anchor going down just before another wave of attackers hit her. This time it was the kill. Yarmouth closing in to help… Smoke poured from Ardent’s stern, which looked as if it had been destroyed internally — gutted, and the glow of fire inside her plainly visible — oily black smoke oozing like blood and against it the day-glo orange of men in ‘once-only’ survival suits on her canted decks and in the water. Yarmouth ran in alongside the dying frigate and embarked survivors over the port side for‘ard before she sank.
That night Saddler summarised the day’s action in his diary. Shropshire was steaming south at fifteen knots, after a bombardment of the Goose Green area, to rendezvous with the oiler Tidebreak for a liquid RAS. He added on that page of the diary, having listed the ships sunk and damaged — and knowing he ought now to be starting a letter to Anne, who’d be getting fragmentary news of the fighting and would be trying to convince herself and Lisa that she wasn’t worried sick — ‘Tense and tiring day. Morale however still high. Landings successful, 17 enemy aircraft destroyed.’
‘May I come in, sir?’
Jay Kingsmill, in the doorway. ‘Of course, Jay.’
‘Sir.’ He shut the door; Saddler waved him to a chair. ‘News flash on the BBC, sir, thought you’d want to hear it. I sincerely hope it’s not as rotten as it seems to be, but — well, the Chileans have reported a Sea King crashed and burnt out. On Chilean territory, near Punta Arenas.’
The words in his own neat hand in the diary blurred, out of focus. Visualising the crash, the fireball on some lonely mountainside. Kingsmill’s voice adding, ‘Of course, doesn’t have to be that one, I suppose—’
‘No. It doesn’t.’
Might have delivered its passengers to the LZ before the crash? Might have been on its way back?
If it had had a way of getting back. How this was to be accomplished was a question he’d raised when they’d given him his orders before the rendezvous for the para drop. Knowing a Sea King’s fuel capacity, and the weight factor which if they’d fitted it with extra tanks would impose another limitation, and the distances involved; also wondering whether, if its crew did have some facility for refuelling — Chilean help, perhaps — it might become his task to move out to the western edge of the TEZ, or beyond that, to make the recovery. But the answer had been dismissive: ‘All taken care of, John. Not your pigeon.’
In other words, Mind your own business…