Lion Resurgent (21 page)

“Sir, what is a jongmens?” A corporal had asked the question.

“A jongmens is somebody who has just joined a unit. One that has not yet seen blood spilled. Once he has seen his first action, he is no longer a jongmens. He becomes a broer, a brother within the unit.”

The man nodded and seemed thoughtful. Van Huis knew why; the entire British Army consisted of jongmens. It had been rebuilt, reconstructed and reformed. Its ancient heritage had been repolished and the stains of defeat removed but it was untried, untested. Worst of all, its officers were inexperienced and unseasoned. Cross was a good example. He was a man with an exemplary record and well-regarded by his superiors. Yet, he had never fired a shot in anger. Compared with van Huis and his veterans, he was indeed a jongmens. There was another problem. It was significant there were only eleven crews here for the 14 vehicles in the tank destroyer company. They were the three four-vehicle platoons, two of which still lacked a commanding officer. The Company headquarters section still had not arrived.
Did that mean the British were finding it hard to decide on suitable candidates?
van Huis did not know. But, without the headquarters section it would be hard to exercise the new unit the way it would have to perform in the field.

“Any more questions? No? Then come to the next vehicle. We will show you how to reload the missile magazine. Note that this can be done at any time; it is not necessary to wait until the magazine rings are empty. We start by opening the doors at the rear of the vehicle. There is a trick to this, one not in the manuals. Watch closely, jongmens.”

A hard six hours of work later, Bastiaan van Huis treated himself to a cold beer in the Officer’s mess. It cut through the gritty dust that lined his throat perfectly, and led him to contemplate the virtues of a second. The old principle “one to cut the dust, one to wet the throat” kept creeping into his mind.

“And how are our Britse friends doing?” van Huis jumped as the question cut into his train of thought. Captain Shumba Geldenhuis was standing behind him with a beer in hand.

“Very well Sir. They are keen and smart, just very inexperienced. And we are still short of men for the whole unit.”

“And will remain so. There is a war coming for the British. The Argentines, angry and humiliated from their fiasco in Chile, will pick on them next. The Britse know it and are already moving their forces south. There are few enough as it is and those they have are not needed in a training unit.” Geldenhuis narrowed his eyes as he thought over the situation. “And yet our Boomslangs could be of great use to them. It is a pity the unit is not complete.”

“It is not so far from being so.” Van Huis had his eyes narrowed as well and he was sure that he and Geldenhuis were thinking along the same lines. “They just need a company commander and two platoon commanders.”

“A pair of lieutenants and a captain in fact.” The narrowed eyes had become a grin, “and some veterans to give the new unit a backbone.”

“My thoughts exactly, Captain.”

“I am pleased to hear it, Lieutenant.” The two men smiled broadly at each other and touched their glasses. “Now I will make some discrete inquiries and see what our much-loved superiors have in mind.”

HMS
Hotspur,
Alongside, Vickers Fitting Out Basin, Barrow

“At ease.” Hargreaves looked at the men assembled on the ship’s hangar deck. “There have been some rumors of late that we will be cutting short our fitting out period and sailing for parts unspecified very shortly. Well, just for once, the rumor mill is right. We will be setting sail within 48 hours and our destination is, as stated in the rumors, unspecified. Of course, we’ve all been reading the newspapers and it doesn’t take much to guess where parts unspecified are likely to be. That means we have 48 hours of really hard work ahead of us. Everything that needs dockyard equipment to complete either gets done in the next two days or it doesn’t get done at all. We’ll be taking on stores and equipment at the same time. That means no rest for anybody. All watches will be on duty all the time for the next two days, no exceptions.

“Also, I’m pleased to say that many of the dockyard staff have volunteered to sail with us and they will be continuing to work on the ship once we have put to sea. You old hands, remember these men are dockyard workers, not sailors. They won’t have a clue about shipboard routine so help them out.

“Finally, another two drafts are on their way up and they will complete our crew. Again, help them out. They won’t know their way around and they’ll have to learn fast. No pranks and practical jokes; we just don’t have time. We’ll be getting our two Rotodynes fairly shortly as well. I’m told that a full load-out of Sea Dart and Sea Wolf missiles are already on their way up to us. So our teeth are coming.

“That’s it men. This is the real thing, I believe we all know that. The Septics saw the Argies off from Chile but they don’t care what happens to us, so we’ll have to show them we can look after ourselves.
Hotspur
might be incomplete and missing a few important parts but I think we’re already the finest ship and crew in the Navy. Now, we have a chance to prove we’re the finest in the world. Dismissed.”

Hargreaves watched the men disperse back to their work stations. There was an urgency in their steps, a sense of purpose. He hoped it would keep them going for the next two days. Then he turned and set off for the ship’s galley. He had to strip it of all unnecessary manpower so the stores and equipment arriving would be loaded and stowed. But, he also had to make sure that enough men were left to provide hot food for the crew. Then there was the problem of finding somewhere for the dockyard workers to sleep. He shook his head. Compressing six months work into two days was going to be hard enough. Getting the crew ready was going to be even harder.

King Edward Point, South Georgia

The pile of parcels, suitcases and steamer trunks on the jetty was growing steadily. Captain Hooper looked at the mess with almost bewildered disbelief.
What part of ‘hand luggage only’ did these people fail to understand?
For an insane moment, he had a suspicion that King Kong himself was hidden away somewhere in the settlement and was being used as the standard for ‘hand-carried.’ “Mister Walsingham, a moment of your time please.”

Beside the growing pile, Postmaster Walsingham pretended not to hear the call. Since the arrival of the Special Boat Service team, he had been carefully nurturing his sense of outrage and injustice at the slights he believed they had poured on his head. Making the officer come over to him was a small but, to him, significant first step in evening up the score.

“Officer calling you, Sir.” Sergeant Wharton kept his voice quiet and polite.

“Can’t you see I’m busy?” Walsingham spat the words out. Being slighted by an officer was bad enough. Having an ranker doing the same was intolerable.

“Yes, Sir, but getting a bruised arse won’t help with your work, will it?”

“How dare you....“

“And arses do tend to get bruised when people bounce off them while being hurried to answer my officer’s request. So, if you really are busy, I’d suggest you see what Captain Hooper wants. Pronto.”

Walsingham wattled furiously, but took a discrete look at the marine Sergeant and decided not to press the point. Instead he stalked over to Hooper. His mind greedily added this latest exchange to his already overflowing mental file of complaints and grievances.

“Captain Hooper, your sergeant just...”

“I’ll speak to him about it. We have more important matters to address. Did I not advise you that the nine members of your party should prepare to embark upon HMS
Mermaid
as soon as she arrived? And the nine members of the British Antarctic Survey Team should do the same? With hand baggage only? So where are they and what is the meaning of this pile of cases?”

“The ship’s not here yet, and we have official property here, most valuable official property.”

“Mister Walsingham. We believe that Argentine ships are closing on South Georgia. Exactly how far away, we are not quite sure but the margin between the arrival of HMS
Mermaid
and the Argentine ships will be very small. Perhaps only a few hours. There is a grave danger that if her stay here is extended beyond the minimum possible, she may get caught in port by the arriving Argentine forces. We have to get the civilians here on board as quickly as possible and get her back to sea with the minimum of delay.”

“That’s not my responsibility. It’s more than my job’s worth to allow any of this material to be left here.”

“Mister Walsingham. Frankly Sir, I do not care in the slightest what you think your job is worth. What I do care about is getting the civilians on this island out of here before the Argentine invasion force lands and the fighting starts. I will do whatever is necessary to achieve that end. If that includes having you locked up in a temporary cell, then so be it.
Mermaid
will not be docking at this jetty for more than a few minutes. So, decide which of these bags you love the most and the rest go into the sea. Got it?”

Walsingham said nothing. Instead he stomped off and started rooting through the pile of bags. Hooper was amused to note that the bag he finally selected was his own personal property, not one of the ‘official’ crates he had expressed so much concern about.

Field Exploration Camp, Penguin River, South Georgia

“Ohh, look, Cynthia. The brutal and licentious soldiery have arrived.”

“At last.   After six lonely months on this island we’re going to be brutally ravished.”

“That is as may be ma’am, were we soldiers. But we’re not, we’re Marines. You ladies are, I take it, Cynthia Paine-Williams and Georgina Harcourt?”

“We are.” Cynthia looked at the five Marines and dropped the dumb blonde act on the spot. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Badly wrong, Sergeant?”

“Sergeant Bill Miller, ma’am. Dusty for short. And yes, things have gone very wrong indeed. Have you been listening to the radio up here?”

“We tried but our set is out. Georgy here is a whiz with radios, but she couldn’t fix it.”

“Ham. Ranked as expert by the British Amateur Radio Association. Daddy was a radio operator in the Resistance and he taught me himself.” Georgina flipped her hair back and her smile faded as quickly as her friend’s had done. “But I lost contact with King Edward Point and Grytviken about three weeks ago. When I saw you, I thought Bill Durand had sent you up to find us. I’m going to give him a right telling-off, you see if I don’t. The agreement was, if we went off the air for 72 hours, he’d send a team up to find us. We’d left our movement schedule at the base and we stuck to it religiously. So he’s in trouble.”

“More than you can possibly know. Why didn’t you try to get back when your radio went down?” Miller was curious.

“We’re about ten miles out as the crow flies, not that any do down here, but it’s more like twenty when we go around the bay. And the weather has been frightful. So, we thought we would stay here where there is shelter and plenty of food.”

“We’ve done this kind of expedition before, Dusty.” Cynthia seemed on the defensive. “We’re not amateurs. First rule in a situation like this is to stay put where we can be found. But Bill let us down.”

“Quite right, ladies. But the situation has changed now. While you’ve been up here, there’s been a near-war in Chile with the Argies. Got to shooting it did, but the Septics stepped in and banged heads together. Now, we think the Argies will come here. They may have already started. The reason why nobody came to check on you is Bill Durand got sick and a bunch of Argie troops disguised as scrap metal merchants took him away to ‘treat’ him. Walsingham took over and my guess is that Durand isn’t breathing any more. So we need to get you out. Excuse me, Jacko, got the radio set up?”

“We have, Sarge. Got the Boss loud and clear. He’s not happy.”

“Ah. I was afraid of that. Gimme the set. Sir? Dusty here. We’ve got the girls, they’re safe and sound. Put on a bit of a dolly-bird act when we got here, but turned out there’s a couple of hard heads buried under the fluff.....Twenty miles back the girls reckon. 24 hours?” Cynthia shook her head vigorously and traced an x in the air followed by two fingers held up. “Wait one, the girls disagree.”

“Allow for two days. It’s ice-covered rocks all the way and Georgy and I will slow you down. You might make it in 36 without us.”

“48 hours, Sir. Yeah, I understand. Wait one.”

“How much food have you got here?”

Georgina laughed. “We provisioned for six months and we’ve been here five weeks. You brought some food as well of course.”

“Seven days for us. So we’re OK for what, another five weeks?”

“Easily.”

“Here’s the thing. The Argies are due in less than 24 hours and there’ll be a hell of a firefight when they land. The sloop picking you up will have to be here and gone in that time. We can try to hoof it back to the Point and risk getting caught in the open or hole up here. How many people know where you are?”

“Only Bill Durand and anybody who read our movement schedule.”

“So we can hole up here then. We’ll get picked up before the food runs out. If not, we can always shoot a few penguins.”

“No!” Georgina was horrified. “We’re here to study them, not eat them.”

“I wouldn’t say that ma’am. Roasted King Penguin is very tasty. Season the penguin breasts well with salt and pepper and dip each piece in melted fat. Roll in flour and fry to seal the meat. When each side is crisp, put the breasts in a tray and pour over the fat from the frying pan. Sprinkle with dried onion from a ration pack and roast until tender. If you want gravy, just stir a teaspoon of flour into the cooking fat then add a spoon-full of gravy granules, also from a ration pack, and sufficient water to thicken.” Miller had been through the Arctic Warfare survival cookery course.

“Anyway, we’ll talk about that later. Sir? Right, we can stay holed up here then.. Sir? . . . Better we stay put. . . . We’ve got food for five weeks and we can stretch that if we need to. Hut is pretty well hidden already and we can improve on that a lot. Yeah, that’s assuming Durand didn’t talk. Just come and get us ASAP, Sir.”