Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands (12 page)

◊◊◊◊

A familiar Huey helicopter came over the hill, hugging the ground.  Its rotor chopped the moist air, and pushed the ground fog away in swirls.  Even though the Huey still had the holes Linda had made with her rifle, it had been repaired inside.  A man leaned out from the aircraft’s cabin.  He braced himself against the door and pointed when he saw the checkpoint, the very one that had failed to respond to headquarters’ radio calls.

Vargas tuned to his pilot and yelled above the whine of the Huey’s engine: “
Ayi estan
.”

Vargas’s gunship circled the area in a wide arc.  The gun that pointed out of its cabin declared ownership of the area within which all were subject to prosecution.

“
Estan muertos
,” one of Vargas’s team noted the obvious: Everyone at the checkpoint was dead.  The Huey’s pilot hovered over the adjacent field, and then set the helicopter down on its tubular skids.  Blades of soft green grass were pressed beneath their hard steel.

Soldiers exited the aircraft and fanned out.  They knelt and brought rifles up to their shoulders.  One by one, Vargas went to each of the checkpoint’s dead Argentinians.  He felt their necks for a beat.  Finding none, he became ever more angry and frustrated.  He got on his radio to request a new detachment of men to collect the bodies, and take over the position.  This miserable dirt road, barely noted on most maps, had become the escape route of his game.  Clenching his teeth, Vargas spotted and picked up bits of hay scattered along the roadside.  He twirled his hand in the air and his men pulled back to the Huey, jumped in, and, hanging their legs from the cabin, took to the air again.

“
Vamos a saltar encima de ellos
,” Vargas told the pilot, and pointed off to the south-east.  He and his men would leapfrog Prince Albert and his compatriots.

◊◊◊◊

Kicking up stones, The Warrahs truck drove along the bumpy dirt road.  McGregor fought the steering wheel to keep the trailer from going into the drainage ditch.  Gubbins sat beside him with Albert and the rest of the men hidden in the trailer.  They crested a hill.  A sprawling horse farm lay ahead and below.

The farm included a long stable and a huge barn beside a big white house.  Almost a serene scene, MacGregor realized there were no horses in the fenced paddocks.  Gubbins pointed out a clump of what looked like camouflage netting.  From beneath this innocent plant-like charade jutted four dark missiles pointing skyward.

“Surface-to-air missiles,” Gubbins said.

Muddy brown ruts dirtied the farm’s otherwise bright green field, leading to and from the emplacement.  Several vehicles—troop trucks and jeeps—were parked just inside the open barn’s doors, and soldiers milled about.  Apparently, the horse farm had become a center of enemy activity.

“That’s John Nelson’s farm.  Hope the old boy is alright,” McGregor said to Gubbins.

The road passed close to the farm’s periphery and ran along a white-washed three-rail fence.  McGregor decided to stop and consult with the men hidden in the trailer.  He would fake a flat, and go about repairing it as he spoke with them.

Albert was happy to leave the claustrophobic stuffiness of the trailer hide and climb the hill with Sykes.

“It looks like an Argentinian stronghold,” Sykes said, as they made their way up the embankment.  Sykes went on about property and property rights.

“Nelson has worked that land most of his life,” Sykes said.  “His ancestors did the same.”  Sweat and tears had dripped into the black soil, and become one with it, Sykes explained.  This farm was Kelper land.  Any foreigner who illegitimately comes upon it deserves nothing short of death.  Their transgression would be redeemed by spilt blood, blood that would nourish the land.  Although dirt was just worm droppings, it meant so much more to people.  It was the reason they existed.  It was how they subsided; the menial tasks it demanded justified their day-to-day existence; a reason to wake in the cold morn, a reason to toil, and a means of feeling closer—one—with the Almighty.  Simply: it was worth fighting and dying for.

As they reached the top of the embankment, Albert and Sykes got low and crawled.  They crept to a spit of rock and leaned upon it to peer through binoculars.  In the figure eight of their vision, they saw men scurry like insects around Nelson’s farm.  Albert focused on the missiles
that threatened the sky.  As a pilot, he both feared and respected such advanced weapons.

“Roland II,” Albert told Sykes.  “Two-stage; Solid propellant; Three-point-five kilogram hollow-charge fragmentation warhead detonated by impact or proximity fuse with a lethal radius of six meters.  Cruising speed: Mach one-point-six,” he rattled off from training.

Albert and Sykes watched as soldiers came and went from various farm buildings.  Albert fixed his view on an officer sitting on the stoop of the farmhouse.  He panned his view and spotted several bodies stacked like firewood next to a shed.  The bodies were obviously those of civilians, and likely belonged to the family that owned the farm.  Albert sighed.

“I count at least 40 soldiers and technicians,” Sykes noted.  He tapped Albert on the shoulder and pointed to where he should train his binoculars.  Albert turned that way and saw the squat sloped hull of an infantry fighting vehicle.  It was tracked, had a rear infantry hatch, and a large cannon turret and a missile launcher.

“That’s a Marder 1A3,” Albert told him.  Named for the agile and slender animal native to boreal forests, this German-made machine was a nasty beast with a remote 20 millimeter cannon and Milan missiles.  “I have to get this information to friendly forces.”

“Your Worshipfulness,” Sykes said, using his latest perversion of the proper way to address the Prince, “
we
might be the only friendly forces around.”  Albert saw the disdain in Sykes’s face.  Like many islanders, he was angry at the neglect London had shown the Falklands since the last war.  Albert knew that Argentina may have been deterred had a larger force been garrisoned here.  He also knew that, in a time of huge budget cuts, British forces had been stretched very thin by adventures elsewhere.  Down on the road, MacGregor continued the pretense of changing a blown tire.  Then, in the corner of his eye, he saw the ground nearby move.

A bush rose up and seemed to grow.  Grass suddenly undulated as several shambling mounds of foliage appeared in the field.  Instinctively, McGregor reached for the Sterling machine gun perched on the pick-up truck’s worn front passenger seat.  It was too late, however.  He saw the flash and felt the bullets as they ripped into his abdomen.  MacGregor’s nervous system shut down as one hit his spine.  He fell face-first onto the soft seat.  MacGregor’s last view was of the dashboard’s clock.  It had dots instead of numbers.  His last thought:
That bloody thing hasn’t worked in years
.

“Gunfire,” Albert said of the echoing crackle.  He turned and saw The Warrahs being mowed down.  The enemy had popped up from the field.  Dressed in yowie suits—camouflaged clothing covered with native foliage—they had sprayed The Warrahs with lethal fire.  The soldiers tossed grenades, and fired a rocket-propelled grenade.  In short order, the old pick-up and trailer were in flames.  Someone—likely Calvert—had forced his way out of the top of the hay-covered hide, but folded over and was
engulfed by the flames.

Albert was stunned, his mouth agape.  He looked to Sykes who sat crouched beside him.  Sykes, too, had a look of surprise, and his eyes widened further as a bullet tore into his forehead.  Albert’s face was sprayed with brain matter.  Sykes’s body slumped and Albert moved to catch him.

Disturbingly, he grasped a loose flap of hair-covered skull bone.  Albert saw the pink jelly inside the man’s skull.  With his ears ringing and eyes in tunnel vision, Albert barely heard the helicopter that hopped over the next hill.  Yes, his mind screamed run, but Albert’s feet were clay.  He managed to stand, however, and the olive-drab aircraft dashed towards him.

The adrenaline waned and Albert’s presence of mind returned.  He wiped Sykes’s blood from his cheek and looked around to decide which way to run.  He saw only open fields and the road with the burning truck.  Albert sat and lowered his head to his hand.  Had he the energy, he might have sobbed.

◊◊◊◊

Albert’s head, jaw, and ribs ached bad.  He had been punched, knocked unconscious with the butt of a rifle, and kicked in the ribs.  Other than the dim light that pushed through a small window, the room was dark.  He tried to focus, and spotted a washbasin.  
I’m in a
cellar
, Albert thought.  He saw a table that held a drill, and an array of knives and saws.  He turned away, and shifted on the chair in which he sat.  His hands and ankles were tightly bound.  A door creaked open and boots came down old wood stairs.

“Prince Albert.  I am Major Ezequiel Vargas, 601 Commando Company,
Fuerzas Armadas de la República Argentina
.  A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,” Vargas said and went to the table.

“Captain Albert Talbot.  His Majesty’s Armed Forces.  Service number one-two-eight-three-six-four-one-three.”

Vargas picked up the electric drill.

“I did not ask you a question,” Vargas said with a chuckle.

“Captain Albert--” Albert started to repeat.

“
Silencio
.  You have eluded me, embarrassed me, and delivered the wrath of my superiors upon me.  For this, you will be punished.  I will not kill you—as I am under orders not to—however, I will make you wish that I had.”

Albert felt his heart pound in his temples.  His breath grew shallow and rapid. 
Stay Calm and Carry On
, Albert recited to himself.  He decided to go on the offensive against this rather frightening man.

“You are a soldier,” Albert said.  “You do not fight unfair.  To torture a man who is bound and helpless is unfair.  It dishonors you.  Are you not a man of honor?”

Vargas plugged the electric drill into an outlet.

“This is the horse farm?” Albert asked.  “Where is the family that lived here?  Dead, I imagine.  You are a murderer.  You are not a soldier.  At least when I killed an innocent, it was an accident.”

“You killed--” Vargas started to say, but then stopped himself.  His face betrayed internal conflict.  Albert pressed further.

“I killed a little girl; flew 9 kilos of high-explosive right into her.  Do you have a family, Major Vargas?”

“I had--”

“Did you have a little girl, too?”

Vargas realized he had faltered and he grew angry.  He revved the drill, as his defense from guilt or sadness continued to be violence.  He moved for Albert and placed the drill bit on the top of his hand.  With a high-pitched whine, Vargas started the drill spinning.  Albert felt the sharp steel bit tug at his skin.  Then it burned and ripped as Vargas drove it through flesh.  Albert tried not to scream, but his attempt failed.  When he quieted, he heard other soldiers upstairs, laughing as Albert suffered.  Vargas’s face displayed sadistic satisfaction.

“I will never tell you anything,” Albert spat.

“I have not asked you anything,” Vargas replied as he steadied the drill on another part of Albert’s hand.  “We go again, yes?”

“Wanker,” Albert bellowed at Vargas.

The drill started up again, and the new hole it made splattered both men with Albert’s blood and tissue.

“I must have hit a vein.  
Triste
.  Very sorry,” Vargas said with a crooked smile.  He waited for Albert to quiet and calm.

“Hurting me won’t bring back your family,” Albert jabbed, though his words were pinched by the raw pain.

“Perhaps you are right.  Perhaps I should hurt another,” Vargas said quietly, then yelled: “
Traiga la mujer
.”

Albert did not know Spanish.  He did not know that his tormentor had made an order that would only serve to ratchet up the torment.  Albert heard shuffling upstairs, and then the cellar door creaked open.  Several footfalls descended the stairs.  Albert strained to turn his head and see what was coming.  A soldier had brought a person, a folded mess of hair and dirty clothes.  When that person looked up, Albert saw it was Linda, bruised and beaten.  Vargas’s peon pushed her to the floor.

“You know her, don’t you?” Vargas asked smugly.  Albert would not meet Vargas’s or Linda’s eyes.

“
Su madre
?” Albert swore; it was a phrase he had heard at a London tapas bar where he had spent joyous evenings of eating and drinking with old mates.  Those days seemed so far away.
  Perhaps part of another life
, he considered.  Vargas went to Linda, stood over her, slid his hand beneath her shirt, and grabbed her left breast.  Linda squealed with loathing.

“You do not know her, so you do not mind if I touch her, right?” Vargas said as he fondled Linda’s chest.

“Piss off, tosser.”  Albert’s statement was defiant and steadfast, though his heart had broken when he saw Linda and the condition she was in.

“You do know her, then?  Well, my men and I now know her
very
well.”

“You’re a rapist and a murderer.  You will burn in hell.”

“I will see you there, then, eh,
amigo
?”  Vargas’s laugh was sickening and exhibited a tenuous grasp on sanity.

“Don’t you realize that every time you kill, every time you drill someone’s hand, every time you rape, it is your own soul that you are torturing.  God will make you pay.”  Albert saw this last statement worried the Catholic.  He would play this line further.  “God is always watching—sees all.  He will judge you,” Albert said with a smile.  Vargas fidgeted, so Albert punched again: “You are evil.  You are a demon.”

“Enough,” Vargas bellowed.  He turned to Linda, and then grabbed and lifted her chin, forcing her to look to Albert through swollen eyelids.  “I have your friend,” Vargas told Linda.  “I took your daughter, too.”  Linda’s bloodshot eyes rolled Albert’s way.  “I raped her before I cut her throat.”  Linda began to sob.  “She squealed with pleasure like a little whore,” he twisted the knife of his words.  “And, just, before she died, she cried for her mommy, her grandfather, her dog, and her little furry cat.”