Special Deliverance

By Alexander Fullerton

  A top-secret mission to change the course of the Falklands War—first in the trilogy that continues with Special Dynamic and Special Deception.
 
In the war-torn, storm-swept South Atlantic, a small band of highly-trained SBS experts embarks on a vital secret mission: to sabotage Argentina’s stock of deadly Exocet missiles. The course of the Falklands War depends on their success.
 
One man, Andy MacEwan, an Anglo-Argentine civilian recruited to the team as guide and interpreter, has more than the mission on his mind. His brother is a commander in the Argentine Navy Air Force and there is no love lost between them.
 
The coastline is exposed and treacherous, the missile base is surrounded by vast tracts of open land, and they must complete their deadly work without ever being detected. Some say it’s impossible . . . but this lethal band of elite warriors are used to upsetting the odds.
 
An absolutely gripping war novel from one of the genre’s most celebrated authors, perfect for fans of Alistair MacLean and Jack Higgins.
 
Praise for the writing of Alexander Fullerton
 
“His action passages are superb, and he never puts a period foot wrong.” —The Observer
 
“The most meticulously researched war novels that I have ever read.” —Len Deighton, author of The Ipcress File
 
“You don’t read a novel by Alexander Fullerton. You LIVE it.” —South Wales Echo
 
“The research is unimpeachable and the scent of battle quite overpowering.” —The Sunday Times

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Jul 30, 2015
• ISBN: 9781910859919

Alexander Fullerton

Alexander Fullerton was a bestselling author of British naval fiction, whose writing career spanned over fifty years. He served with distinction as gunnery and torpedo officer of HM Submarine Seadog during World War Two. He was a fluent Russian speaker, and after the war served in Germany as the Royal Navy liaison with the Red Army. His first novel, Surface!, was written on the backs of old cargo manifests. It sold over 500,000 copies and needed five reprints in six weeks. Fullerton is perhaps best known though for his nine-volume Nicholas Everard series, which was translated into many languages, winning him fans all round the world. His fiftieth novel, Submariner, was published in 2008, the year of his death.

Book preview

1

The aircraft shuddered, lurching as it lowered its bulk through the last shreds of the clouds’ underlay, and the five men shifted their feet, reaching to the wire jackstay to steady themselves. But they were in level flight again now; and the hydraulic door at the tail end of the cavernous, thunderously noisy hold was swinging open. A light came on above it, glowing red. The process at this point took on a quality of inexorability that was terrifying: it was happening now, unstoppable, and Andy MacEwan found it impossible to accept that in about one minute he was going to walk out through the doorway, drop into wind-torn space four hundred metres above the near-freezing South Atlantic. Harry Cloudsley, glancing round and down at him, allowed him a brief, sympathetic grin, but said nothing — partly because anything worth saying had been said, maybe also because the lung power that would have been needed to make it audible would be better saved for use when he hit the water. Cloudsley would be jumping first, then Andy, then Tony Beale, Geoff Hosegood, and Jake West, finally, the three containers. Men and containers were already linked to the jackstay by static lines that would jerk their ‘chutes open as they fell. At Harry Cloudsley’s shoulder, dwarfed by Cloudsley‘s towering frame, the stocky Marine Sergeant who would not be jumping with them was standing with his feet apart, fists on his hips, eyes fixed on the red light which any second now would turn green. Despite the sense of unreality and the slight sickness induced by fear Andy knew there wasn’t a damn thing he could do except go through with it. He could throw a fit, but the stick of men would still move forward, carrying him with them — out…

A voice — it was Colour Sergeant Beale’s — yelled into his ear, high-pitched to cut through the din but only saying what had been said, in so many words, a dozen times in the last hour: ‘Be OK when we move, Andy, you’re going to love it, right?’ Before he could even nod the light turned green, the stocky sergeant swung to face Cloudsley with his mouth open, shouting, but Harry was already on his way, striding out through the gaping doorway with Andy close behind him, actually in the frame, the wind’s suction, brain screaming protest but limbs ignoring it so that he was conscious of his own movements but as if he himself had no control over them; he’d felt a blow on his left shoulder and then the world was a grey-white seascape swinging, turning on its side as he fell into space.

*

The first parachute opened — khaki, a dun-coloured mushroom abruptly taking shape under the ceiling of grey, fast-moving cloud. John Saddler was in the wing of his ship’s bridge with binoculars trained upwards; he’d seen the first man tumble from the aircraft and the stream of the ‘chute before it flowered, but it was a white one he was watching for particularly. Everything around him meanwhile highly mobile and very noisy. Shropshire down to a few knots, plunging to the sea and to a northerly blow of force five to six, rolling hard. Clouds heavy, and under them the stout-bodied Hercules spewing its load like a fat fish shedding spawn. The white ‘chute came second, and now more khaki blossomings — a stick of eight in all, five men and three containers all out and swinging down towards an icy sea.

Saddler thought, Sooner them than me, and called without turning his head, ‘Away Gemini.’ Shropshire rolling and plunging, with just enough revs on to hold her to this course. He’d heard his order being passed into the bridge, from where it would by now have been transmitted aft by telephone, and the Gemini inflatable would be pushing off from the destroyer’s side where it had been waiting. Its coxswain had been told he was to get to the white parachute first, if possible within seconds of its human load hitting the water.

Before the load — lad — froze, or suffered damage of a kind that might not be in the best long-term interests of John Saddler’s daughter Lisa. Not that the parachutist would be getting this preferential treatment because he did happen to be Lisa Saddler’s boyfriend; it was because he was a civilian and straight from a City desk, an outsider whom the Special Boat Squadron had recruited and were now referring to as their ‘guest artist’. Captain John Saddler, father of Lisa, shivered inside his padded nylon jacket. Descent from cloud level into that turbulent ice-water might be no problem for the case-hardened SBS men swinging down under their khaki canopies, but in the few weeks they’d had Andy MacEwan with them in England they could hardly have raised him to their own incredibly Spartan standards. Lowering his binoculars he saw the Gemini just about standing on end as it climbed a morass of foam, white sea sheeting back, powerful outboard screaming, the coxswain crouching low over his controls and the other crewman hanging on tight, both men’s faces upturned to the white parachute — which wasn’t far above the khaki leader, the first of the SBS team splashing in — now…

Above them, the Hercules was circling and climbing, thrusting up into the overhang of cloud for its return flight to Wideawake.

Saddler saw all five men picked up before he went back inside. An hour or so later he was welcoming Andy MacEwan to his day-cabin, one level below the bridge. MacEwan in Royal Marine uniform now instead of a wetsuit under parachute overalls: not exactly spick and span, since he evidently hadn’t shaved for a day or two and could have done with a haircut, but with one pip on each shoulder representing the ultra-short Short Service Commission they’d fixed up for him — or rather for themselves, so they could see him and expect him to do as he was told. He saw Lisa’s father glance at the rank insignia, and admitted, ‘I’m an impostor, I know. Wasn’t my idea.’

Twenty-six, rising twenty-seven. An inch or so below average height but ruggedly built, blunt-featured, with intelligent grey eyes. He might not have belonged in the uniform but he looked the part, he filled it. Except for the long hair…

Saddler said, ‘All my fault, and I’m glad to have the chance to apologise. I only thought they might pick your brains, never dreamt they’d go so far as to co—opt you.’ He pointed at a chair. ‘Make yourself at home. Like some coffee?‘

This was early afternoon. Sunrise in these remote Atlantic wastes came at about 11.30 a.m., by Greenwich Mean Time, which was what the Task Force was keeping. The SBS section had dropped out of the sky just in time for lunch, and they’d be on board for only a few more hours; Shropshire was hurrying them west now.

MacEwan admitted, ‘It’s still a bit — surprising.’

‘I’d have thought the word might be terrifying.’

‘Well.’ A shrug. ‘Dare say it’ll have its moments.’

He was no gas-bag, this MacEwan. His reticence, in fact, was a characteristic with which Lisa found fault — according to her mother.

He added, ‘I’m only along as guide, you know. And interpreter.‘

Shropshire pitched heavily, dipping her shoulder deep, trembling all through her 520 foot length as she recovered and her forepart lifted. She was in transit to the fly-off position, and the Sea King helicopter which would be taking the SBS party into mainland Argentina would be landing-on before sunset. Saddler said, ‘I have a broad idea of the objective, Andy, and it’s as worthy a cause as I ever heard of. All I can say is bloody good luck to you, and the sooner it’s done, the better. If it can be done.’

There was a scene in his mind’s eye as he said it, a memory two weeks old but still vivid. Men dead, bodies smashed, oily black smoke pouring from a ship’s split side, helos flying in extra pumps and medical aid, lifting out the casualties. Then the long fight to keep the ship afloat. The fight had been lost, and there’d be other losses yet, more deaths, you knew it and you had that image stamped in your mind, the reality of disaster and recognition that defence systems now being tested in battle for the first time were not infallible, were nothing like infallible — especially against sea-skimming missiles, the AM39s.

He pulled his thoughts back.

‘I’d like to explain how I came to let you in for this, Andy. Even though I didn’t guess quite how far in. We were in Devonport — under sailing orders, tearing round like mad apes, half the ship’s company still not back from leave, blind rush to get to sea. Right in the middle of it a Royal Marine detachment rolled up with a truckload of stuff they wanted us to bring along. Which we did, naturally — I suppose that may be part of the reason that we were picked for this job now. But a visiting Admiral, also the Bootnecks’ officer, was having a coffee with me, and I was asked what I thought our prospects might be down here. I mentioned a couple of problems, one being our lack of any real defence against sea-skimming missiles, and the Admiral suggested it might be worth trying to nobble those — either the Exocet missiles or the Super-Etendard aircraft that carry them — before the shooting started. He looked at the Marine and added, Right up your street. He knew him, apparently, and from what was said then I caught on to the fact this lot were SBS. And of course they must have taken the idea a lot farther, from there on. But what I want you to know, Andy, is that when I told them about you — the fact I knew this chap who had intimate knowledge of the country and so on — I never dreamt they’d shanghai you. My only thought was they might usefully pick your brains.’

‘About all it was, to start with.’ MacEwan nodded. ‘I had a call at the office — from some guy in the PR department, Navy, Ministry of Defence — would I come along and answer questions on a subject of which he’d been given to understand I had special knowledge? He mentioned your name. Casual but guarded, was the tone of it — you know? Naturally I guessed — only one area where I’ve any special knowledge, and the Task Force was being mounted — you’d already sailed, Lisa told me — and it was all anyone was thinking about just at that time. So there I was — and at one stage I heard someone suggest, Ought to take him along. Couple of weeks’ hard training, tone him up a bit. They asked me what sort of swimmer I was, and that is something I’m not bad at.’ MacEwan added, ‘The idea seemed nutty, at first.’

‘Does Lisa know what you’re doing?’

‘God, no!’ His glance seemed to question Saddler’s intelligence. He explained, ‘She thinks I’m in the States. Business trip resulting from the temporary severance of our trading links. As far as the office is concerned, since we’re hamstrung as long as this lasts it’s a good time for me to be away, too. Nobody’ll be expecting to hear from me for a while.‘

‘You really think she won’t?’ Saddler smiled. ‘My daughter won’t be expecting you to write?’

‘Well, I — I explained I’d be on the move a lot.’ He shook his head. ‘It was left sort of vague, you know?‘

Saddler could imagine. Andy MacEwan’s natural obduracy, reinforced by a need for blackout on this business; and Lisa’s frustration, which had been fairly evident even before this — he’d seen it, heard it, more than once, and been careful to keep his head down, leave it to the women. The relationship between Andy and Lisa wasn’t as clear-cut as either she or — more outspokenly — her mother would have liked it to be. They’d been going around together for more than a year, and in recent months they’d been sharing a flat; Anne Saddler didn’t like this, wanted the relationship legitimised. If she’d been on board and could have met the dripping parachutist when he’d come up the Jacob’s ladder she’d as likely as not have asked him there and then what his intentions were in regard to her daughter; and she’d have expected her husband to be working round to some such question now, he guessed. He could almost hear the outraged tone: You didn’t even ask him?

As if it mattered. Even back home, in its context. Except he did like what he’d seen of Andy, wouldn’t at all mind having him for a son-in-law.

‘Have you seen her lately?’

‘About — twelve days ago. Just for a few minutes. I haven’t been given much time off, you see. And of course she hasn’t been too ecstatic about that.’

It wasn’t difficult to imagine. He acknowledged, accepting blame again as the telephone buzzed, ‘I have a lot to answer for.’ He got up, went to the desk. MacEwan meanwhile glanced round the cabin. It had been designed for occupation by an Admiral, but with none on board — thank God — Saddler had its spacious luxury for himself, while his executive officer had what would have been the CO’s accommodation.

‘Yes?’

Ian Prince, operations officer, was on the line, telling him about a signal just in from Hermes concerning the change-over of helicopters. The Wessex was to be sent away to make room for the Sea King to land-on, and this was now to be brought forward by one hour because Shropshire and the carrier group would be passing within convenient range of each other at that time.

‘All right, Ian. Warn the flight Commander.’

Hanging up, he checked the time, pausing to glance out for a moment at the wilderness of sea through which his ship was ploughing, plunging, with nothing in sight except salt water and a low roofing of cloud. The Wessex was on its pad now, chained down — sonar useless in this turbulence and also at this speed. But the wind might have dropped by a few knots, he guessed. This suite, on 01 Deck, one level below the bridge, occupied the whole width of the superstructure, so the day-cabin had this wide curve of windows — all of them now salt-streaked, running wet. Below him was the gleaming rectangular bulk of the quadruple Exocet mounting — the surface-to-surface type, MM38, each missile enclosed in its own steel container filled with an inert gas. No maintenance or pre-flight checks, you couldn’t get at the missiles themselves even if you wanted to; when the firing button was pressed, in the Exocet console down in the Ops Room, the front of the container would be blasted away, its securing bolts exploding a fraction of a second before the missile streaked out. Unlike the AM39, the airborne type, which was not enclosed, therefore could be got at — by men with the nerve and skills to attempt it.

He came back to his chair. ‘I really should congratulate you, Andy — on being able to measure up to SBS requirements.’

‘Oh, well.’ A shrug. ‘All I had to do was sharpen up physically. And one or two things like parachuting. My value to them, as you just said, is that the area they’re interested in happens to’ve been more or less my back yard. I have contacts there — one in particular who’s important to us now — and of course I talk the lingo. It’s not plain Spanish, you know, the stuff they talk. So I can pass myself off as a local if I need to — which a real Spanish speaker couldn’t.’

‘Fantastic.’

‘Not really. Except for schooling — and recent years, of course — it’s where I’m from, what I am.’

‘And’ — Saddler remembered this suddenly, thinking of that family background — ‘where your brother still is?’

He saw the wary look. Andy had never talked much about it, but one of the few things the Saddlers did know was there was an older brother who ran the family sheep station. Both parents being dead, and Andy having opted to join the wool-trading company in London which had his family name in it. But he owned half the property in Patagonia, Lisa had told her mother.

He’d nodded. ‘Far as I know, yes.’

‘So how would this war affect him?’

A slow nod. ‘Good question.‘

Saddler frowned. Aware of the kind of irritation his daughter might sometimes feel. ‘Is there a good answer?’

‘There isn’t an easy one. And it’s a subject I’ve been required to go into lately in what journalists tend to call in depth.’

The SBS, of course, would have needed to know enough to be sure of his loyalties. Saddler said, ‘We’ll leave it then. Forgive my idle curiosity.’

‘The short answer might be — if this tells you anything — my brother won’t be talking about the Falklands, he’ll be calling them the Malvinas.’

‘I see.’

But anyone born and raised out there, Saddler thought, surely would do. The loyalty factor might be more complicated, in fact, than he’d hitherto appreciated. Relevant to this thought was another fact passed on by Lisa — that Andy and his brother were the fourth generation of MacEwans to have lived and farmed there; and wouldn’t roots that long make them more Argentine than British? But the young man facing him neither looked nor sounded in any way South American. He’d been to school and university in the UK, of course — and then chosen to make his home in London. He asked him, ‘Any chance you might see your brother, on this trip?’

‘No.’ The headshake was quick, decisive. ‘No chance at all.’

A double rap on the cabin door interrupted them. Saddler still watched the younger man, curious. Then he called ‘Yes?’ and Nettlefold, his secretary, pushed a prematurely balding head around the door. ‘Will you see Lieutenant Cloudsley, sir?’

He didn’t have to answer that question. Cloudsley came in at a rush – a big man travelling fast and ahead of his feet, the ship having caught him wrong-footed as she performed one of her more spectacular lunges. Cloudsley fetched up hard against the bulkhead — apologising to Nettlefold, whose feet he’d trampled on in passing. Turning to Saddler: ‘Very sorry, sir. Believe me, I have not been at your wardroom’s liquor. Hello, Andy.’

‘Better sit down.’ Saddler pointed at an armchair. ‘Before you break a leg.’

About 220 pounds of Royal Marine transferred itself to safety. Cloudsley was about the same age as MacEwan, but six-five, Saddler guessed, and broad in proportion. Black-haired, incongruously long black hair, for God’s sake — and unshaven over sunburn.

A double-take on that; they were both tanned. Fresh out of England, in the month of May? He guessed at sun lamp treatment, for Argentine-type complexions, and recalled that the Special Boat Squadron’s motto was By Stealth, By Guile.

Cloudsley asked him, ‘How’s it going generally, sir?’

‘If you mean this war, the answer is it isn’t.’

‘Because — one’s gathered — they won’t oblige by coming out where you can clobber them.’

‘Exactly. We’re supposed to win the air and sea battle before your fellow Bootnecks land, but all we’re doing so far is shadow boxing. They’re saving their strength, of course. You’ll have heard about Sheffield?’

A nod. ‘Were you close, when she was hit?’

‘Close enough.’

‘If we could have gone in weeks ago, right off the bat, that thing might’ve been a damp squib.’ The big man shook his head. ‘Couldn’t have, of course. We needed the time we’ve had to get the show organised on the ground, put Andy here through his paces, and last but most important of all for the boffins to work out a technical modus operandi for us.’ He paused, and then changed the subject: ‘What’s your role in the Task Force, sir? You have Seaslug, don’t you…?’

‘Seaslug and Seacat. Both outdated. We’re also twenty years old, and frankly not a hell of a lot of use. All right for jobs like this one, of course, but otherwise you could say our role is almost entirely NGS.’ He interpreted for Andy MacEwan’s benefit, ‘Naval gunfire support. Hitting shore targets, very often in support of Special Forces teams, SAS and SBS.‘ He looked back at Cloudsley. ‘You said — a "technical modus operandi"?’

‘Right.’ The SBS man nodded. ‘How to screw up an AM39 missile so it won’t fly. Or won’t fly straight, or explode, or whatever. They had an open brief — misdirection, malfunction, anything that would effectively castrate the thing. By no means an easy problem to solve. Certainly wasn’t, in fact after a couple of days they came back and told us it was impossible. At that stage they were concentrating on buggering up the radar guidance, the homing head. As you can imagine, there was a lot of gloom around, for a while.’

‘But’ — Saddler was puzzled — ‘what’s wrong with the old 1940s SBS tradition, a lump of plastic and a pencil fuse?’

‘Ah. If only… ‘ Cloudsley sighed. ‘Unfortunately’ — he jerked a thumb vaguely towards Whitehall, eight thousand miles away — ‘orders from on high, policy decision.’

He cocked an eyebrow. ‘She who must be obeyed? Well, God bless her. But we’re not to do anything that might be seen as spreading the war to the mainland, thereby upsetting people and losing world support. Nothing noisy or violent — no bangs, and no avoidable harm to Argie personnel on their own ground. Bit tricky, really.’

‘I’d imagine very tricky.’ Saddler added, ‘And what puzzles me in particular is how you can hope to cover all the ground — three of you, or four’ — he glanced at Andy, back at Cloudsley — ‘with Río Gallegos, Río Grande and Comodoro Rivadavia — they could all have Exocets deployed on them by now — such huge distances apart. Gallegos is more than just one airfield anyway, isn’t it?’

‘Well, sir.’ Cloudsley frowned. ‘The answer’s probably not entirely to your liking — or ours, for that matter. The fact is, missiles already deployed to the operational bases are out of our reach. Our target’s just one place which the Argies don’t know we know about. A new airbase and missile store, not all that far from the MacEwan mutton factory. Not next door, exactly — and unfortunately we can’t use his place anyway—’

‘By Patagonian standards of distance,’ Andy interrupted, ‘it’s almost next door.’

‘Right,’ Cloudsley said. ‘Enormous distances — as you said, sir. They have farms the size of English counties, I gather. But anyway, American satellite intelligence watched this place being built. An airfield of sorts — pilot-training in Pucarás, it seems — but the interesting bit is one large hangar with its own perimeter fence and guardhouse. It was being thrown up in a hurry, the Yanks were keeping an eye on it, and just recently some AM39s have been arriving. In ones and twos, flown in by helos — heaven knows where from originally. We knew they were shopping around, and there’ve been hints of potential suppliers — Libya for one, and Israel, South Africa’s been mentioned — and a Peruvian naval transport tried to collect a consignment from Le Havre a week ago, but the French turned it away… Anyway, they’ve now found a supplier, the things are arriving and that’s where they’re putting them, presumably until the missiles already deployed have been expended. They may believe they’re safer there than on the operational bases. The location’s well insulated, you see, by wide-open spaces, mile upon mile of damn-all in every direction, and some distance from either the coast or the Chilean border.’ Saddler crossed two fingers, to keep a question in mind while the SBS man added, ‘It’s also conveniently placed as a distribution centre for those three main bases. So it makes sense, from the Argies’ point of view. It’s also possible — not certain, but we’re told it’s on the cards — they may have some tame Frogs there, for maintenance or pre-flight checks, whatever. There’s an accommodation block beside the airstrip. It wouldn’t mean the French would necessarily know about the new deliveries, they could have been diverted from some other consignee, and it’s thought the technicians were there already, you see?’

Saddler nodded. ‘And you do have some way to — er — screw them up?’

‘Yes, sir.’ A smile. ‘Missiles, or Frogs. Missiles will be a little difficult, but—’

‘Hang on.’ The telephone buzzed. joking apart, he thought, how the hell you’d do it, sabotage an AM39 without blowing it up — even if you could get that close to it in the first place. He was on his feet, at the telephone, dealing with a query from the officer of the watch; then, while he was at the desk, putting a call through to Hank Vaughan the commander (WE), which stood for Weapons Electrical, about a defect his people were working on, a breakdown on the port Seacat director. Vaughan reported progress to the extent that they’d identified the trouble. The incidence of defects — in Vaughan’s own language, of equipment ‘throwing wobblies’ — was increasing daily. Hardly surprising, admittedly, in a twenty-year-old ship that had been at sea now for a solid month, most of that time in lousy weather. Saddler told him, ‘Let me know as soon as it’s operational,’ and put the phone down. Seacat was obsolescent, but for close-range anti-missile defence it was all this ship had, apart from a pair of Oerlikons, WW2 weapons, up on top. He came back to his visitors, remembering he’d crossed his fingers as an aide mémoire to a question he wanted to ask — he put it to Cloudsley now.

‘Couldn’t you have gone in by parachute? With the MacEwan place so handy, and time rather vital?’

‘Yes.’ Cloudsley drew a breath like a sigh. ‘We need to be in there now, you’re right, sir. We did aim to go in by HALO drop, too. But — well, several factors, here. One, when the scientists worked out how we might nobble the missiles, we saw we were going to need a certain weight of extra gear. The weight’s mostly batteries, actually. Two, the new base has a radar installation, and maybe ground and air patrols. We have to be bloody secretive about it, not only because we don’t want to be caught but because if they knew we knew anything at all about this place they’d deploy all the missiles right away. Which wouldn’t help you much, sir. Then again, we can’t drop close to the target without the overflying aircraft being detected, and if we landed far enough away to avoid it it’d be next to impossible to do a yomp there, with that weight of equipment and over ground which provides no cover whatsoever — so we’d only be able to move at night, and short hauls, too… Tell you the truth, we just about gave up, at one stage. Someone suggested bombing the place instead. Of course that wasn’t to be allowed. Then’ — he pointed at Andy MacEwan — ‘genius here came up with some answers.’

‘Some quite ordinary things I told them turned out to be useful, that’s all.‘

‘Still leaving the time factor as a major worry, I admit.’ Cloudsley added, ‘But even if we get there in time to nobble two or three of them — when you think of the lives and damage just one can—’

‘Right. Absolutely.’ Saddler nodded. He’d seen it, still saw it, in his mind’s eye. He said, ‘I have another question for you. If you’re allowed to answer it. You’re Special Boat Squadron, and there must be a hell of a lot of Patagonian coast you could land on, so why not go in by sea? Alternatively, why the SBS and not the SAS?’

‘Ah, well,’ Cloudsley began, with a straight face, ‘they wanted men with brains, you see—’

‘Come on, now…’

‘Sir. Well, the answer to the last bit is that the idea was so to speak born — here in your ship, I was told — with one of our chaps present, and so it became the squadron’s baby because it was ours from birth, sort of thing. Then when the planning got under way, the idea was certainly to have gone in by sea — by submarine, of course. But the fact is — as was then pointed out — there’s no SSK down here yet.’

Saddler took the point. An SSK being a patrol submarine, conventionally powered, small enough to be able to operate in coastal waters, whereas the nukes, SSNs which were on station now, were too big to get in close enough — on that coast — for beach landings. Nukes didn’t much like to surface, anyway, in close proximity to their enemies. Cloudsley added, ‘If all goes according to plan, we’ll be taken out by submarine, when the job’s done.’ He reached sideways to the table, to touch wood.

*

At 1620 the carrier group was thirty miles to the south, still on what had become known as its ‘racetrack’ daylight patrol on this east side of the islands, but steering southwestward, beginning to close in for whatever night operations had been ordered. Bombardments, anti-shipping sweeps, or insertions or extractions of Special Forces teams. It had been a quiet day for the Task Force so far: Harriers had splashed one Mirage, and that had been the sum of the day’s action. Boredom was the enemy, at such times, and John Saddler could see it in many of the young faces around him. He was in the Ops Room, on his chair and wearing the communications headset which gave him the Command Open Line in one ear and, in the other, occasional laconic exchanges between the CAP — combat air patrol, Harriers from the flagship Hermes — and their fighter control ship, which this afternoon was the Type 42 destroyer Glasgow.

Now his own ship’s broadcast: ‘Hands to flying stations!’

It was the slow way to get the helo into the air. If you wanted to do it in a hurry, the order would have been ‘Action helo!’ His eyes moved around the weirdly lit cavern of the Ops Room, thinking that to a newcomer it might have resembled a scene from some sci-fi drama. Hum of machinery and fans: light bleeding orange from radar monitors, filtering silver over the big plot where everything that moved on, under or over the sea and in range of the ship’s electronic sensors was plotted and its movements constantly updated by the radarmen clustered round it. So young looking, some of them, they might still have been at school: boys with men’s jobs, while his own was not only to direct and control their joint efforts but also, please God, to keep them alive, eventually get them home to mothers, fathers, wives, girls…

Saddler pulled off the headset, replaced it with his gold-peaked cap. He told Joe Nicholson,