Lion Resurgent (47 page)

“Forget him; get the bombers.” The fighter controller shouted the orders into the earphones of the pilots. They peeled away and started to turn towards the nearest of the Buccaneer groups. Only, they’d vanished from the radar picture. Marko picked them up visually; not by direct sight of the aircraft but by the white streaks they were leaving on the water behind them. The British bombers had dropped down so they were skimming only a few feet above the waves. They hadn’t dropped any speed in doing so and they had already pulled far ahead of the pursuing fighters.

That didn’t disturb the Argentine pilots. They had a 1,200 mph speed advantage over the Buccaneers. They closed the difference quickly, leaving a single Sea Mirage behind them to escape back to
Glorious.
Marko locked one of his AIM-7 Sparrow missiles on to a Buccaneer, then fired it as he dived down to intercept the bombers. It missed, hopelessly, exploding in the sea far behind the racing Buccaneer. Marko cursed and fired again. He watched helplessly as his second Sparrow follow the first. That was when he realized what was wrong. His radar was locking on to the cloud of spray behind the bombers. By now, he was closing on them fast. He flipped over to his remaining pair of ALM-9 Sidewinders.

As if they had sensed his intentions, the Buccaneers dropped even lower, nestling into the waves that were now barely a few feet underneath them. To his frustration, Marko realized he wasn’t getting an annunciator tone from his missiles. The same spray cloud that had foxed his Sparrows was shielding the engine exhausts from the infra-red homing systems on the AIM-9s. Worse, his Crusader was being bounced all over the sky by the turbulence this close to the sea. The F9U was like all American aircraft; optimized to fly high and very fast. Down here, a few feet above the waves, the shocks reflected from the sea surface were literally shaking his aircraft to pieces. Marko started to fire short bursts from his four 20mm cannon as he closed on his chosen target. He could see the tracers going wild as his aircraft bounced at critical moments in the attack run. He felt like screaming in frustration. This was a totally different kind of environment from the stately, choreographed battles he and his fellow pilots had trained for.

Finally, his gunsight settled on the Buccaneer for a few seconds. He got in a quick burst that finally, eventually, struck home. He saw the Buccaneer lurch, fragments flying from its fuselage, but to his utter disbelief the damaged aircraft kept flying. He was within the danger zone now, the area where missiles from the destroyers would be targeting him as well as the hostile bombers. He had to make one last effort to put the infuriating British bomber down. He was lined up for another burst and finally managed to get it off. This time, the bomber didn’t survive. It hit the sea below, bounced high into the air and broke up. Marko saw the two ejector seats going skywards and the white blossom of parachutes forming. By then he was climbing away from the pounding nightmare a few feet above the sea, and getting back to where his fighter was happy.

Argentine Aircraft Carrier
Veinticinco de Mayo

Vice-Admiral Juan Lombardo swore to himself. The fighters had taken their own sweet time about it but they had knocked down three of the eight inbound Buccaneers. The other five were angled away from his aircraft carrier; apparently heading for two members of his screen. A quick glance at the plot confirmed that. They would pass ahead of him and hit the destroyers
Cordoba
and
Rivadavia.
The
Rivadavia
was already spitting missiles at the five inbound bombers. She’d put a dozen Folgore missiles into the air. Lombardo felt like cheering when two of them sent Buccaneers spinning into the sea. His delight was short-lived because one of the three surviving bombers let fly with a salvo of four missiles. The other two were also firing missiles but singly. That told him they were Bullpups. The four missiles were an entirely different matter. Lombardo realized they had to be anti-radar weapons.
Rivadavia’s
Captain must have made the same conclusion but the missiles were too fast and the range too short. The missile destroyer’s superstructure vanished beneath the four explosions and her missile fire ceased instantly. Lombardo knew she was out of the game for a long time to come.

The
Cordoba
was thumping away with her old, slow-firing 5.3-inch guns but they were anti-ship weapons and their use against the low-flying bombers was hopeful in the extreme. The other gun destroyer out there was the
Hippofyte Bouchard.
She was an old American DDK Gearing, accompanying the fleet to provide anti-submarine cover. She had four five inch guns and six three inch, for all the good they would do her. One of the Buccaneers was heading for her. Lombardo winced as a Bullpup plowed into her bridge. Another Bullpup was heading for
Cordoba,
but the old ship brought it down with her 47mm guns. Her luck held. The Buccaneer heading for her actually flew between her funnels but the salvo of retarded bombs was badly late and exploded well beyond her.
Must have been a release failure, the bombs hung on their ranks for some reason.

Rivadavia
wasn’t so lucky. Already hurt by the Martel missiles that had gutted her fire control systems, the four one-thousand pounders bracketed her beautifully. One went into the water just short, two slammed into her midships section and the third was just over. By the time the water subsided, Lombardo could see the ominous sight of her wallowing. Her bows and stern moved differently. Any seaman’s eye would realize that her back had been broken by the blasts.
Hippolyte Bouchard
was better off, but only just. An older ship, built in an American yard, she was tougher than the more modern Italian-built ships. The bomb hits hadn’t been quite so devastating. They’d gone aft; that had helped as well. The destroyer’s stern guns were a shambled mess and the structure there was burning, but Lombardo could already see that the damage wasn’t fatal.

“Admiral, look!” The cry from the bridge wings caused Lombardo’s head to snap around. Another formation of eight Buccaneers was heading in. This one had got past the fighter screen untouched. They appeared to be heading for a group of four destroyers; the missile destroyers
Cervantes
and
Juan de Garay
and another pair of Gearing DDKs. For a moment, Lombardo felt a sense of relief that inbound bombers would have to get past the four ships first. Something about the flight paths disturbed him. It took him a split second to realize what it was. When the realization struck home, he knew he had missed something very important.
The Buccaneers aren’t trying to get past the screening destroyers to their primary target. The screening ships are their primary target.
He watched while
Cervantes
and
Juan de Garay
started pumping out missiles, sending more than two dozen at the inbound formation. Three Buccaneers went down, but the inevitable was already under way. The anti-radar missiles were already launched and they were fire-and-forget weapons. It didn’t matter to them that their launching aircraft was already fragments sinking in the chilled waters of the South Atlantic. They were locked in on the fire control radars of the two missile ships.

They didn’t do as well as the four fired at
Rivadavia.
The skippers of the
Cervantes
and
Juan de Garay
had realized what was coming. Their fingers must have been poised over the emergency shut-down switches. The destroyers’ radars went silent. The two ships accelerated, turning tightly to present the smallest possible targets to the Martels. It didn’t save them, quite. Both were hit but the missiles took out the ships’ after superstructures. The forward area with its vital command and control spaces escaped.

Lombardo held his breath as the five surviving Buccaneers made their runs. It was almost a repeat of the first groups attack only the
Cervantes
and
Juan de Garay
were already presenting their sterns to the bombers. That was good against missiles; not so good against bombs.
Juan de Garay
got away with it. The bomber targeting her made an error in deflection and that, combined with her turn, meant the bombs went clear.
Cervantes
suffered for her sister; the aircraft attacking her made a perfect run. Four bombs were neatly spaced along her deck. Lombardo saw the rippling explosions and the gouts of black-orange fire that erupted from the stricken destroyer.

That was when the Admiral realized how much his chest hurt. He had been holding his breath during the bombing runs and he was slowly turning blue. He forced himself to breathe, then looked out again where the surviving Buccaneers were heading for the horizon.
We got eight,
he thought,
eight out of sixteen.
Then he shook his head. He had the maths wrong.
The British had concentrated on my screening ships and done a good job of wrecking them. Two of my three missile ships are sinking and the third is badly hurt. One,
Lombardo looked out of the bridge and corrected himself
two of my ASW destroyers are hurt as well. The second British carrier has to be out there. If the British weren’t certain another strike was on its way, they’d have thrown everything at our carrier.

“Air group situation?” The question was blunt and terse.

The answer he got was equally so. “We’ve got eight CAP and seven escort fighters coming back. All low on fuel and ammunition. We have five Skyhawks from our strike on their way back. All damaged. We have a reserve of six bombers and six fighters ready to go.”

Lombardo nodded. “Reports?”

“Fighters are claiming more than forty enemy fighters shot down. Bombers claim they have sunk two cruisers, two destroyers and left the British carrier burning.”

“Get our second strike off. There’s another British carrier out there. Send the planes south west of the original mission plan. The returning aircraft will have to wait until the strike is on its way. Then get them down, reload the fighters on the deck and get them off again. There’s another British strike coming.”

“Sir, we’ve got six more Crusaders armed and fuelled, they’re part of the CAP that we couldn’t get up before the British hit us. What should we do with them?”

“Get them up as CAP of course.” Lombardo was furious that precious seconds were being wasted with stupid questions. “With the CAP aircraft out of fuel and the missile ships hit, we’re defenseless.”

Naval Attache’s Office, Australian Embassy, Santiago, Chile.

There were a number of reasons why Lieutenant Graeme Gavin considered himself a fortunate man. It wasn’t just that he had a beautiful and wealthy wife although that was a great deal of it. It was also that every morning he had a packed lunch waiting for him to bring to the office. Not just a cut lunch either; a proper meal, with a half-bottle of local wine to wash it down. One or two days a week, Emilia would come in herself and they’d eat together in his office. He wasn’t just a fortunate man; he was also a very happy one.

“Have you heard the news, Garry?” Captain Lachlan Shearston, the Australian Naval Attaché to Chile stepped into the office. He looked at the lunch Gavin had just taken out and sighed. “You know, I told Narelle about your lunches and suggested she might do one for me. Her reply was indescribable. Basically, it boiled down to asserting that the cut lunches her mum made had kept her old man working for years and now one would do me.”

“Grab a fork and tuck in.” Gavin was beginning to get the hang of the diplomacy thing. “Emilia always makes sure there’s plenty of food. Why don’t you and Narelle come up one weekend? We have great barbeques. What’s happening in the outside world?”

“For us? Chilean Navy is biting on the R-class submarines. The Lieutenant they’ve got out of
Rotorua
is most impressed and the commercial boys have been negotiating like mad. The Italians and French are most displeased with them. Anyway, the Chilean Navy is going to order four Batch IIs. Looks like you’ll be staying here a bit longer than expected to help get them into the fleet. The real news is the poms out in the Falklands. Word from the Septics is there’s a hell of a carrier battle going on. One of their manned orbiting stations radioed the news down. In clear, by the way, so the whole world is getting the message. Burning ships on both sides, so they say. My God, this is good. What is it?”

“Pastel De Choclo. It’s a sort of chicken and sweetcorn stew with raisins and hardboiled eggs. Have some wine. Emilia put in a half of the family white to go with it. Any word on how many ships lost?”

Shearston looked sadly at the rapidly disappearing meal. “I suppose I should offer you my sammies in return, but cheese and bread would be a come-down after this feast. Don’t know yet; all we have is ships on both sides burning. Now we’ll find out whether the British are really back or not.” He hesitated for a moment. “I don’t suppose Emmy gave you any afters, did she?”

Sitting Room, Private Apartment, 10 Downing Street, London.

“The latest expression of developments within current military affairs has just arrived Prime Minister.” Sir Humphrey Appleday had brought the messages up himself. “There appears to be a major exchange of hostilities between the Task Force and the Argentine fleet. Message from Admiral Lanning says the destroyer
Electra
has been sunk,
Glowworm
badly damaged.
Glorious
has been hit but she’s still operational. Our own strike is claiming five Argentine destroyers sunk. I think it would be fair to suggest that a major naval battle is in progress.”

Prime Minister Newton wiped his mouth and put down the egg sandwich he was eating. “Aircraft losses?”

“The reports from the personnel involved in executing hostilities suggest that claims at least fifty Argentine aircraft shot down in exchange for twenty of ours would not be amiss. If the claims of the forces there have anything like a reasonable level of veracity, I would say that we have made a substantial start of eliminating Argentine naval aviation capability vis a vis their aircraft carrier force.”

“It isn’t true, Humpty. You know that. Divide by three; that’s the rule. I’d say we’re probably running loss for loss at the moment. How are the forces taking it?”