Land of Fire (17 page)

"How does the captain think it was brought aboard, this device?" I asked.

"During replenishment back in the UK most probably. There aren't many other moments when an outsider gets access to a sub. That's a matter for the security people. It was probably just luck that it detonated when it did. The point is the damage is serious but not critical. The reactor is unaffected but power is reduced. We can still make it back to the Falklands."

"And the mission?" Doug said. "Do we abort?"

"That's up to us. We are a mile from the drop-off point now. The captain is prepared to surface to let us off but he says he can't promise to remain on station indefinitely to bring us out again. The possibility of damage to the steam plant means he must return home for repairs. He can't hang about here waiting for us. If we choose to go ahead, we'll be on our own. No backup, no exfiltration."

I looked at Doug. "In short, it means a walk-out like last time."

We could talk and vote on this but it was Jock's decision. The SAS is more democratic than most units in the army but at the end of the day it is a fighting force. We obey orders. If the damage to the submarine was deliberate, that made it all the more urgent to put a recon party ashore to find out what the Argentines were preparing.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

I could hear compressed air hissing into the tanks, indicating that Superb's black conning tower was rising out of the waves. The submarine continued to surface, pumping water ballast out. A seaman opened a hatch in the base of the tower and clipped it back, and a sudden draught of cold air struck my face. The sub's casing diver stepped out on to the deck and beckoned to me to follow. He wore a dry suit with a tiny LED torch strapped to his head with a red filter so as not to destroy our night vision. It was his job to prepare the Gemini inflatables for release and guide us into them.

The lighting was almost invisible a few metres away. With all the spray and water in the air we were pretty much undetectable. Our sonar wasn't picking up any noise, but there could be a boat lurking out there with its engines off. We didn't dare turn on our radars for a sweep for fear of alerting the Argentines. That was why the captain was keen to float us off quickly and get the hell out of here.

I trod out carefully on to the casing. Waves were slapping up against the submarine's smooth hull, flinging up sheets of spray that drenched us instantly. It felt bloody freezing and I was thankful for my survival suit. The crew had rigged rails to help us, with safety lines clipped to stanchions in case anyone fell overboard. The lines were a mixed blessing: if, say, a helicopter materialised out of the night, then the sub would have to crash dive, and anyone who didn't have time to cast off his line would be dragged down with it.

The two Gemini boats were stored in wells in the submarine's deck casing, their engines encased in dry-bags. The engines were silenced the exhausts ran out underwater which reduced speed but cut noise by a hell of a lot. Running silent we could sneak up on a beach at night and not be heard by anyone a hundred yards off.

It was a complex procedure extracting the boats from the deck wells in the darkness. The casing diver opened the gas-bottles that automatically inflated the air cells, then stripped the dry-bags from the engines, fitted them on and screwed them down. Next our kit was loaded in and strapped down, with important items like guns and paddles secured by lines. Then the boats were slid off one at a time and the engines started. An officer leant down to give us a last-minute weather report. Sea conditions were deteriorating. The sooner we got started the better. Jock was checking the GPS heading. On a night with no stars and heavy seas it was vital to get properly orientated at the start. In this case we were being advised to offset to the north by a few degrees to avoid finding ourselves carried down into Rio Grande by wind and currents.

It was lucky we had Kiwi on the team. His parent unit was the Royal Marines and he had originally qualified with their Special Boat Service. The SBS train off the west coast of Scotland in all weathers, practising exit and recovery from submarines in deep water or parachuting with canoes into open sea and paddling in to the shore. They think nothing of thirty-mile non-stop paddles. Tonight's operation would be a piece of cake to Kiwi. The incredible thing about him was that he'd been the runt of the litter; he had three brothers all bigger than him. What a family. Dave was twenty-four and the nicest guy you could meet. Was it the Maori blood in him that made him simply indestructible?

The GPS fix put us about eleven miles out. GPS has made life a lot easier for special forces it showed us our position down to the nearest metre. The captain had brought us closer in than he had promised, which was decent of him. That meant a total distance to the shore of around thirteen miles, allowing for tide effect. I doubted we'd be able to average more than about eight knots, so we could reckon on being in the water for an hour and a half to two hours. We were aiming for a landfall in a sheltered lagoon protected by a sand bar across the entrance. From there, if all went according to plan, we would strike inland to rendezvous with the agent sent to meet us about three kilometres behind the beach.

It was a chilly few minutes, getting ourselves sorted out, making sure our weapons were secure. The waves slamming against the sub's hull were kicking us up and down through four and five metres. Josh clambered into the lead boat with me and Kiwi. Nobby Clark and Doug were following behind with Jock. Finally we got the signal from Jock in the second boat to say they were all set. I had a torch with a green filter and flashed back acknowledgement, then cast off the warp holding us to Superb's side. Kiwi let the engine have some juice and we pulled out from the lee of the hull into open water. We were on our way.

It was a wild trip. We were riding waves the size of houses. The official definition offeree seven on the Beaufort scale is for wind speeds up to thirty-four knots, with heaped seas and white foam from breaking waves blowing in streaks. Four metres is the average wave height. The extreme peaks can spike the graph at anything from fifty to a hundred per cent higher. In fact, wave-height depends on the fetch that is, the distance over which the wind has travelled. Distances in the South Atlantic are vast. Antarctic storms can generate swells that measure half a mile or more between crests and reach thirty knots. They hit the Falkland Islands as breakers fifteen metres high.

The skipper had told us that he would wait at the departure point for two hours exactly. If we got into trouble on the run-in and had to abort before reaching shore, then we could turn around and signal for him to pick us up. It was immediately evident however that putting about in these seas was a complete impossibility. If we turned broadside on to one of these waves, we would broach and be flipped end-over-end, buried and broken. We had no choice but to keep on going.

We were all wearing heavy-duty survival gear. And we were frozen. The cold numbed my limbs so it was all I could do to hang on in the boat. Josh was a hooded silhouette barely discernible across the thwart in the darkness and spray. I was thankful we had an SBS man along. Kiwi was gripping the tiller bar and peering through the spray into the waves. God knows how he could see in the darkness, but he steered us effortlessly up the rollers and down the other side. The only way you get through the SBS selection course is if you enjoy this kind of life. Kiwi had told me that the R.A.F helicopter rescue hate the SBS, because they are always getting called out by civilians who've seen some mad swimmers miles out at sea in a storm and when they get there it's the SBS who wave them away and carry on happily with their exercise.

The SBS are responsible for the protection of oil platforms in British waters. Not a single UK rig has ever been attacked by terrorists, which is a testimony to their fearsome reputation. Nowadays they work closely with the SAS, and there is no finer body of men.

We'd been running twenty-five minutes. The cold was numbing even through my survival suit, and the waves caused a constant jarring. I tried to concentrate on our various exit options. Walking out had been tried the last time and was not the ideal option, as we had learned to our cost. The best bet seemed to be to have a helicopter slip in over the border under the radar net and pick us up. Maybe with all the oil exploration going on in the area it was unlikely that a single chopper flight would excite too much attention, and with luck by the time they scrambled an aircraft to investigate we would be back over the border into Chile. It would only be a short flight and the six of us could pack in tight. Our equipment might have to be ditched, but that's a penalty of clandestine ops.

Then I thought about the landing. Waiting for us at the RV point inland was supposed to be a British guide who would lead us to the base. I wasn't too happy about relying on local help it's too easily infiltrated by the other side. Jock seemed content, though.

Rio Grande intrigued me. Last time the mission had been called off at the start and we never got near the air base. It would be interesting to see what the de fences were like. What would London's response be if we did find evidence of an invasion being planned? A strike by Tornados was one option but would be tantamount to a declaration of war and the Americans might exercise a veto. The same went for a Tomahawk missile attack. Which left assault by special forces as the only viable alternative. It could be a rerun of the Falklands campaign of twenty years before.

I uncovered the luminous dial of my watch; we had been travelling for forty minutes. That put us half-way to the coast. The waves were getting shorter and steeper which was an indication of shelving water. Somewhere up ahead of us the rollers would be breaking along the surf line, dumping their energy in one final explosive burst. I could sense Kiwi peering ahead to try and spot any patches of whiteness.

A larger-than-usual wave surged underneath us. It was so steep it felt like riding the side of a mountain the dark slope loomed over us and for several seconds I thought we would topple back and slide under. Then at the last moment we topped out and burst through the crest. I caught a brief glimpse of lights scattered in the darkness ahead. That was the shore, less than a mile away at a rough estimate. The lights were grouped over to the south, which was where Rio Grande ought to lie. We were coming in dead on target.

At about 600 metres we had to slow for our run-in. Although it was after midnight there was still the possibility of some vessel creeping along the shore making a night run into Rio Grande, or even of guard boats patrolling the coast. Our muffled engines would be inaudible except at very close range, and we were so low in the water we would be hard to spot. We were aiming for a point about five miles up the coast from the mouth of the river, where a sand bar broke the force of the waves. According to the chart, there was a narrow gap allowing access to a shallow lagoon behind with a shoreline of sand dunes backed by scrub -ideal for concealing the boats.

We began crabbing up the shoreline towards our objective. It was slow going because we were moving against the current. As we drew nearer we made out the sand bar as a line of broken water about half a mile off shore. The entrance was intermittently visible as a dark gap, two-thirds of the way along. Huge waves were pounding the breach here, and shooting the gap was going to be exciting.

We were about 400 metres off when Jock's boat flashed a covered light at us to signal that it was in difficulties. We drew alongside and Jock shouted that their engine was playing up. There was a brief discussion, and it was decided to tow the other craft in behind our boat. We wallowed uncomfortably in the heavy seas for several minutes while tow lines were exchanged and made fast. To lighten the disabled boat, we transferred Nobby Clark across into our craft, leaving only Jock and Doug behind. It was exhausting work, having to seize moments between huge waves then cling on while the sea swept over us, but finally we got Nobby aboard. Jock and Doug would do the best they could to steer with paddles, while we towed them into the lagoon.

As soon as we had tethered the boats we set off again, with our craft straining beneath the increased load. As we neared the narrow entrance to the lagoon the battering from the rollers breaking across the sandbar increased. Our boat was tossed about like a chip of wood. Josh and Nobby and I clung on for our lives. The engine was roaring; the prop shaft and exhaust exposed as they bucked and rolled in the boiling surf.

And then I saw it away to the south, a fast-moving shadow that momentarily obscured the lights dotting the blackness in the direction of Rio Grande. It was moving fast against the wind, and heading in our direction. I caught a momentary gleam of metal and glass and yelled to Kiwi, "Helicopter!"

He snatched his attention from the waves to follow my pointing arm. It was flying without lights, which could mean only that this was a military machine. Skimming the coast, it would pick us up for certain if we entered the lagoon.

Kiwi pulled the tiller bar over, and his huge hands fumbled for the controls as he cut the engine, killing the give-away wake we were trailing. All four of us cowered down in the lead boat,

keeping our faces hidden. Jock and Doug were doing the same. Without engine or paddles we were at the mercy of the sea. At any moment we could be swept against the sandbar and smashed to pieces by the pounding surf. Water hammered us with brutal force. We were caught up in a maelstrom, struggling to maintain our grip on the boats. I fought to keep my head clear but there was so much spray and water in the air it was next to impossible to breathe. I couldn't see where the helicopter was any longer, but for the moment my only concern was to hang on.

Then I lifted my head for an instant to snatch a look upward. The helicopter's silhouette was hovering over the lagoon. Had it spotted us?

There was no time to think about that. Another series of rollers crashed down on us. Something heavy struck me in the back, knocking the remaining breath from my body and catapulting me over the side. Dragged down by the weight of my equipment I was whirled away into the sea. Kicking out frantically, I fought my way back again, thankful for my life vest as I clawed for the side of the boat. My first breath was a gulp of spume that set me retching, but I managed to get an arm on to one of the sponsons and clung on with all my strength. A moment later a huge hand came out of the darkness and grabbed me by my harness and hauled me bodily aboard. Kiwi must have seen me go and pulled me out.