Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands (16 page)

As Albert, Annie, and Linda climbed down ladders and stairs,
California
’s hull popped and groaned with submergence.  Invited to share the captain’s quarters, they showered and got tucked into the bed and spare bunks.  All three fell fast asleep.

In the morning,
California
met a launch from South Georgia Island’s
British Antarctic Survey Research Station at King Edward Point.  Albert, Annie, and Linda were brought ashore where they boarded a C-130 Hercules that skied its way from an ice field and into the air.  From on high, Albert admired the rippled cobalt-blue ice of the glaciers. 
The land is bejeweled
, he thought.

The Hercules met an air force KC3 Voyager tanker over the Atlantic Ocean.  It maneuvered its refueling probe into a drogue that trailed behind the big twin-engine jet and topped off the Herky Bird’s tanks.  Several hours later the Hercules landed on the long runway of RAF Ascension Island.

Silhouetted by the sunset, Albert, Annie, and Linda boarded a BAe 146 regional airliner for the final leg back to England.

◊◊◊◊

“Son,” King Edward bellowed as Albert walked into Balmoral’s Drawing Room.  The blue walls, gold trim, and plaid carpet momentarily mesmerized the Prince.  Back in uniform, and hand healing satisfactorily, Albert longed for the soft shirt and pants Linda had gifted him.  He shifted where he stood, itchy from the wool that draped his now thinner body, and again uncomfortable from the color and opulence of the room.

“Your Majesty,” Albert said with a formal dip of the head.

“Father.  Father…Or, Dad, for goodness sake.”  For the first time in ages, King Edward embraced his son.  “Welcome home,” he whispered into Albert’s ear.  Albert froze, unsure of how to respond, and then patted his father on the back.  “Well, then,” the King pushed Albert back.  He held him by the shoulders and shook him gently.  “We owe those Americans thanks for getting you home safe.”  Albert smiled, having learned that no British submarine had been near enough, and, that the American president—an admitted Anglophile—had insisted on lending a hand.  “Well, let us celebrate your safe return.  Come.  We will have some lunch and tea,” he said, and then muttered under his breath: “And perhaps a warming drink or two.”  Albert felt a bit frightened by his father’s joviality and familiarity, all of which felt forcefully exuberant.  King Edward put his arm around Albert as they left the Drawing Room for the Gallery.  Light streamed through the tall windows.  The grey stone of the Gallery seemed warmer than Albert remembered, but the patterned carpet, as hypnotic as ever.  King Edward and Prince Albert turned into the Corridor, then through the tall, intricately carved double doors that led to the Dining Room.

It has its own sky
, Albert thought of the Dining Room’s vaulted ceiling.  Although he had eaten and played in the room many times before, the paneled, portrait-laden walls had never stared at him so, the heights had never taken his breath away, and the carved wood had never made him wonder of the craftsmen who had spent a decade putting it together with chisel, flutters, gougers, parting, and veining tools.  Albert was, as he realized in that moment, a changed man.  He looked down the long expanse of the dining table and its gauntlet of chairs.  The room had its own horizon and the table seemed to taper in the distance.  Albert sighed as doors were thrown open at the far end of the Dining Room.

An attendant entered and announced: “Your Majesty.  Your Royal Highness.  Presenting Governor Moody and the Joneses.”  In walked the governor, Annie, and Linda.  The attendant bowed his upper body and head, and then closed the door as he retreated.  Both ladies were dressed in summer dresses, visions of flower-covered beauty.

Linda and Annie quickened their steps toward Albert.  He threw his arms up in a V and brought them down to embrace Annie as she jumped up at him.  Governor Moody did a dignified stroll over.  His suit was crisp, and his hair trim and groomed.  He bowed his head as he approached the King.  King Edward offered his hand and Governor Moody shook it.

“Your Majesty, I have spoken with the PM.  Despite the fact that Argentine forces now hold the islands, and they walk its land and smell its air, we
will
get the Falklands back.”  As usual, Moody wasted no time.

“Yes, yes.  Of course we will.  Your Excellence, Governor Moody, I must thank you; Thank you for delivering my son back to me.”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Moody said, but quickly turned his attention to Albert.  He smiled broadly.

Here was the boy he had seen so distraught, so tortured, now being hugged by two lovely ladies, and with a beaming smile that stretched his face to new lengths.  When Annie and Linda finally released the young Prince, Governor Moody went to him and shook his hand.  Then he pulled Albert in and gave him a hug, too.

“I’m proud of you, Albert,” Governor Moody said.  King Edward seemed to take notice, a mix of surprise and jealousy on his face.  Attendants entered with steaming pots of Darjeeling and Earl Grey tea, as well as sandwiches—cucumber and butter, tomato and cheddar, salmon and country pâté.

“Tea is served,” was announced.  They all approached the vast table.

“An airplane could take off from this thing,” Linda said as she adjusted Annie’s chair.  The little girl placed her chin on the thick wood.

Before Albert sat, his father took him aside, and, as if embarrassed by the admission, said: “I am proud of you, too.”  He then embraced Albert, his last remaining son.  While the hug was not strong and did not pull Albert in tight, Albert used the moment to rest his head on his father’s shoulder, to close his eyes, and feel as though he was finally home.  He felt his father gently push him back, as though saying: ‘Control yourself.’  Albert straightened up, gave the well-practiced terse smile of royalty, and made for the table and the afternoon tea that had been set by the attendants.

◊◊◊◊

Albert squinted to see through the clouds of dust that danced about.  They twirled in pillars that climbed skyward.  Albert smelled baking bread, and though the sun was blinding, he found he could look right at it.  Filled with diamonds, the sky sparkled.  Despite the wind, Albert could only hear his own deep breaths as he walked.  He climbed over the lip of a hill and looked down upon Jugroom Fort and the Afghani village.

Donnan and the little girl stepped out from the hut beside the burnt-out wreckage of the missile-torn SUV.  Donnan was in his flight suit and the girl wore a long, colorful dress, a piece of cloth wrapped about her hair.  She carried a teddy bear.  Both looked at Albert for a moment.  Then, both smiled and waved.

Albert gasped awake and sat up.  He breathed heavily and found himself drenched in a cold sweat.  The tick of the clock was deafening and rain drops pelted the old window pane.  Balmoral was surrounded by a moonless night that made the shadows in Albert’s room especially dark.  Albert looked to the large chair that occupied the corner of his bedroom.  He was certain there was someone seated upon it.  Exhausted, he ignored the vision, and laid his head again on the cool, silk pillow cover.

There was a knock at the chamber door.  A muffled voice asked Albert if he was okay.  It was Linda.  She knocked again, and pushed the door open.

EPILOGUE: GRITTED TEETH

"
The British won't fight
.”—General Leopoldo Galtieri

C
omodoro Rivadavia Military Air Base was abuzz with activity.  Fighters—Fighting Hawks, Mirages, and Pampas—flew south to form combat air patrols over
Las Islas Malvinas
.  Transports, too, moved supplies and troops there.  Dr. Amsel and President Valeria Moreno awaited the arrival of the jet bearing the body of Vargas and other casualties of the invasion and initial occupation.

Amsel nudged the wheels of his chair to better view the preparations of the honor guard and band.  He closed his eyes and thought back on all the men he had witnessed marching proud and clicking heels.  As passionate as they had been, their passion did not always win wars.  Valeria adjusted her dress and shifted her high-heeled stance.  She had wanted to be a veterinarian, to care for the animals she had loved so, but her father had clipped the wings of such thoughts, and pushed her to his world.  Amsel felt momentarily sad for his little
leibchen
, however, his narcissistic mind would not allow such compassion to linger for long.  There, on the wind-swept tarmac, Amsel decided he would do anything—anything—this time around for victory.  He spotted the approach of the Fokker F28 Fellowship utility transport.

The F28’s twin engines, mounted either side of its T-tail, whined as the jet nosed up and prepped for landing.  The aircraft had
Fuerza Aérea Argentina
painted atop the short row of windows that lined its fuselage.  Coffin after coffin filled the F28’s cylindrical cabin.  Each was flag-draped, and each awaited family to cry over them, and for their nation to welcome them home.  Inside one of the plain, wooden boxes rested Major Ezequiel Vargas.  The F28 settled onto the runway with a puff of smoke from its wheels.

As he watched the small transport jet roll out, Dr. Amsel swore: Prince Albert, his family, and his country would soon all pay dearly.

◊◊◊◊

His Majesty’s Ship
Queen Elizabeth
—the lead in a new class of British aircraft carriers—took shape in the dry dock of Scotstoun shipyard on Glasgow’s River Clyde.

Queen Elizabeth
was a multi-colored montage of individual superblocks, a Lego kit of individual pieces that comprised compartments, pipes, wires, and purposes, and that would become the United Kingdom’s largest warship.  Over 70,000 tons when afloat,
Queen Elizabeth
stretched longer than the Houses of Parliament, used more steel than Wembley Stadium, and sported towering islands both fore and aft of her immense flightdeck.  Two men—both old friends—strolled along a steel walkway overlooking the docks, quays, and workshops of the shipyard that was building these new goliaths.

Admiral Sir Reginald Nemeth was the Royal Navy’s First Sea Lord and Chief of Naval Staff.  In uniform, he was, despite his age, in obvious good shape, the product of daily workouts and morning runs.  Sir Reginald was also very angry; angry at the bean-counting bureaucrats that left Britain with a gap in carrier power.  Despite this gap, Admiral Nemeth swore that Argentina would regret her decision; a decision made with more heart than mind.  He would lean the full weight of an old first-world power against an enthusiastic, if misguided, second-world one.  The other man, the one strolling beside Nemeth, sashayed with his hands clasped behind a crooked back.  He, too, embodied anger.

Although a shadow of his former warrior-self, he, too, would fight.  He was many gin bottles away from the youth he had been, and—despite the condition of the flesh downstairs—the membrane upstairs was as formidable as it had ever been.  Having traded his Royal Navy uniform for a herringbone Armani suit and big paychecks, he was director of British Aerospace’s Systems Surface Fleet Solutions, the division of the company that built aircraft, munitions, and defense systems; a company that was one of the principal providers of hulls for the Royal Navy.  Today, however, his suit hung in a locker, and instead, he had clothed himself in blue coveralls.  Despite the downgrade of his physicality, this man stood as strong a patriot as ever, perhaps even more so. He focused on one goal: the recapture of the Falkland Islands.  Both men wore white hard hats, more symbols of safety than a desire to be safe.  After all, times were desperate and thus required desperate measures.  Despite superficial differences, both men called themselves mates.  They had known each other since the Second World War, when both were young engineers working on ‘Q-ships,’
heavily armed merchant vessels that, with weapons concealed, would lure German submarines into making surface attacks.  These wolves-in-sheep’s-clothing then opened fire.  Having faced impossible odds before, these men took stock of their current position.

A former adversary had recaptured a far land that had been fought over before, a land that had taken blood and treasure to keep in the fold.  However, they were both certain of one thing: this land was worth both these things again—the fight and the treasure—and the loyal citizens that tilled its soil and fished its seas deserved even more so.  The two men paused on the high steel of a walkway.  They surveyed Scotstoun shipyard.  Beneath their perch was the 229-foot cargo ship
Moon Breeze
.

The dry-docked ship was a beehive of activity.  Her black freeboard and white superstructure were being painted haze grey, her white waterline and red bottom: black.  Gantries traversed the ship’s beam, slinging plates of steel to be welded to a trussed frame that stood proud of her decks.  Branched black towers were being mounted atop her bridge.  They held domed and flat arrays, each with tendrils of wires waiting to be connected.  While this occurred, old familiar allies were mustering too, and their support was in transit.

◊◊◊◊

USNS
Fred W. Stockham
plied the waves of an Atlantic squall.  She dove into troughs and climbed the wave faces to the crests, crashed back down and plunged into the seas, a wash of milk-white foam rushing off her bow.

An American container & roll-on/roll-off support vessel,
Stockham
made way as fast as the sea-state permitted, pushing on toward the sunrise.  Black like the deep ocean water, and covered with cranes and hoists, her 900-foot length rode up and over the latest pile of water.  She slammed back down. 
Stockham
’s hull creaked as her bow plowed in and parted the water.  Her steel ribs vibrated under the torment.

Activity in the ship’s hold hummed as the hull’s steel frame quivered like a tuning fork.  Within the cavernous space were row upon row of shrink-wrapped aircraft.  Toward the ship’s stern, sailors braced themselves against the roll of the ship’s hull.  They peeled back the cover from one of many airplanes that were aboard.