Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands (10 page)

“Albert Talbot,” Vargas snickered.  “Crown Prince of the United Kingdom.”

As a member of the forces that had occupied Argentinian land and killed Argentinian sons, Albert was Vargas’s chief quarry for the campaign.  That the Prince was on
Las Islas Malvinas
proved that Argentine preparations for war had gone unnoticed, that their deceptions had worked, and that the British considered another attempt to seize the islands by force as highly unlikely.  Capturing the Prince would be Vargas’s royal prize, the ultimate leverage, a tool of barter worth the return of
Las Islas Malvinas
to the republic once-and-for-all.  However, Vargas’s mission did not include desecration of graves.  He was, after all, a soldier.  Carefully, Vargas returned the British pilot’s helmet to its perch.  One of his team approached and reported.

“
Mayor
,
no se encontró ninguna señal de el piloto
.”  There was no sign of the pilot that had obviously survived the crash.

“
Extenderse
,” Vargas ordered his men to spread out.

Vargas spotted a boot print in the dirt.  His trained eyes then scanned a circle around it.  He saw a pressed tuft of grass where a man had lain.  Vargas moved to it and crouched.  He looked for the next telltale, and found it in a rock that had been kicked over, moved from the depression within which it had sat for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  Vargas picked up the rock.  He lifted his flashlight beam to float over a nearby crag. 
Defensible, protected from the wind.
 
That is where I would be
, Vargas thought.  He signaled to two of his men, who ran over.  Vargas swung his Star Z-84 submachine gun up to cover the two Argentinians advanced toward the cliff.

◊◊◊◊

“Shit,” Albert muttered.  He could feel the approach of an enemy in the primitive stem of his brain.  The fatigued, though otherwise rational part of his mind, wondered wishfully if Argentine prisoner camps were as famous for steak as the rest of the country.  He chuckled mirthlessly.  He looked to his pistol, and then to the grenades.  He had an idea.

Albert found a small slab of rock, placed it in the entrance to the grotto, and wedged a grenade beneath it.  He pulled the pin, but made sure to keep the weapon’s safety lever from springing.  He quietly collected his items and placed them in the rucksack.  As he did so, he carefully avoided his little trap.  He scurried out of the hole.

Wrapped in pitch-black night, Albert made his way along the cliff, away from where he heard pursuing footfalls.  He balanced along a spit of rock and tucked into a vertical crevasse.  There was a flash and a bang.

Albert peeked around the lip of rock.  He saw smoke billow from the grotto.  Two enemy soldiers had thrown in a grenade that would stun anybody inside, and with a nod to Vargas and then one another, stormed the grotto.  A muffled explosion told everybody there that they had triggered Albert’s grenade trap.  Within the confined grotto, the over-pressure and shrapnel had been lethal.  Outside, Vargas swore and waved away the resultant smoke.  He waited a moment and then entered.  The slaughter he saw within was evident on his face when he reemerged.  Frustrated, Vargas looked around.  This time he caught sight of Albert’s head.  Summoned by the explosion, other soldiers had arrived, too.

Clinging precariously to the cliff wall, Albert fought against his concussion-diminished balance.  The rocky beach was not far below.  So, when Albert lost his footing and grip on the nearly sheer cliff-face, he fell backward onto his rucksack.

The impact forced the air from his lungs.  Albert gasped to replace it.  He rolled against the cliff-base and slid beneath an overhang.  He lay in the wet sand, caught his breath there, and then rolled over and up to flee.  Flashlights danced on the beach around him.  One blob of light settled where Albert’s body had left an impression in the pebbles.  From above, came urgent shouts in Spanish.  Shards of spalled rock began to fall around Albert. 
They’re coming down
, he realized.

When he heard voices near, Albert, pistol at the ready, gathered his courage, and stepped out.  Aiming up the cliff, he saw three forms rappelling down ropes.  The gun barked as he emptied it.  Having sent 17 bullets in just a few seconds, he managed to mortally wound two pursuers.  One man fell to a pointed rock, the crack sickening Albert.  The other dangled from the rope that had caught his ankle, and swung dead in the wind.  Before Albert rolled back under the protective space, he caught Vargas’s cold gaze.

Vargas pointed at Albert.  That jabbing digit said: ‘I recognize you; You are mine.’  Albert’s heart pounded from adrenalin.  His hand shook when he tried to seat a fresh magazine in the pistol’s well.  He finally found the space in the grip, smacked the plastic magazine home, and released the slide, chambering the first round.  Albert felt his chest pocket.  The bulge and weight of a grenade was evident.  He heard the helicopter again.  Its engine whined as it spun up and increased power for take-off.  Albert tried to remember if he had seen any armament on the aircraft.  Regardless, he decided he had better find cover.

An eerie silence enveloped the area.  For a fleeting moment, Albert thought that the helicopter had departed the area, and sped off in another direction, but a roar washed this notion away, and the Argentine Huey dropped along the cliff-line.  It dipped its bulbous nose toward where Albert had squeezed into a crack.  It screamed in, and came parallel to Albert’s position.

Albert saw the flashes from the open cabin door.  He heard the ricochet of the bullets that impacted around him, and swore aloud as he tried to stuff himself further into the folds of rock.  He heard a blast from above.  Albert craned his neck to see the source of the deafening sound.  And then, another blast, making his ears ring.  He saw smoke erupt from the helicopter’s engine pod and red lights flashing on its cockpit panel.  Pilot silhouettes played their controls as they nursed the Huey’s single Lycoming turbo-shaft engine.

As a helicopter pilot, Albert could see the movements as frantic.  Most pilot movements were controlled and fluid.  However, these shadows moved with an air of panic.  The smoke and human iterations said the machine had been injured.  The Huey bucked as its problems were compounded by failing systems.  The shadows in its cabin grabbed handholds.  When stable, they shifted the aim point of their rifles.  No longer focused on Albert, they were instead trained on the cliff-top.  One of the rifles flashed.  Albert heard the supersonic zing of a bullet travelling overhead. 
They’re no longer shooting at me
, he thought.  Another form in the Huey’s cabin smacked the head of the rifleman who had fired.  The shooting ceased.

There was another bang from the top of the cliff, and another hole appeared in the side of the Argentine helicopter.  Oil spurted from this wound like dark blood.  Pushed by the rotor wash, the vital oil ran in streaks down the side of the engine cowling.  More red lights flashed on the Huey’s cockpit panels.  The men who pulled its strings knew when to save themselves; when enough was enough.  The Argentine helicopter banked and raced off along the cliff.  As it retreated over the black sea and above the din of waves and the whip of wind, Albert heard a scream of victory.  The voice that delivered it was of a higher pitch.  It belonged to a woman.  When the gusts subsided for a moment, Albert heard the voice again.

“You can come out now,” she shouted.

Wiggling his jammed ankle free, Albert crawled from his hide.  He moved out on a small ledge and saw the silhouette of his savior.  She was petite and had long hair that tossed about in the air that rushed up the cliff.  The curls shifted left and then right as the breeze changed direction.  Her rifle—a .303 British by the look of it—was almost as long as she was tall.  Holstering his sidearm and slinging his rucksack over his shoulder, Albert began the climb to meet his savior.  He pulled himself over the cliff’s lip and stood up straight before her.

“Aethelinda Jones.  You can call me Linda,” she said.  Then Linda squinted.  Her flashlight blinded Albert as it moved about his face.  It paused at his eyes and mouth.  Both had a shape she recognized.  “Do I know you?” she questioned, but she already knew the answer.  Then her mouth opened in amazement.  “My Goodness,” she said, shocked. She knelt.

“Please,” Albert pleaded.  He took her hand and tugged her back up.

“Were…were you in that helicopter that went down?” she stuttered.  Albert caught a glimpse of Linda’s freckled pale skin and big green eyes in the flickering flashlight.

“Yes,” Albert said.  “I think we should turn this off for now.”  He felt her shaking hand and clicked off the flashlight.  “Thank you.  You saved my life.  You could have been killed, you know?” he said.

Linda shrugged.

Albert looked out to the water and the silhouette of the retreating helicopter.  He was thankful they had ceased firing on a woman, even one blasting away with a big bore hunting rifle.  Albert touched her gun’s long, blued barrel, and admitted: “Nice.”

“I have had it since I was a little girl.  My father taught me to shoot as soon as I was strong enough.  You must be hungry.  And tired.  Come.  Let’s go,” Linda Jones insisted.

◊◊◊◊

At the small family farm, the sheep enjoyed more living space than the people did.  Albert saw a cottage that beckoned with a rope of smoke, rising from its chimney pipe, but the weathered barn was at least three times its size.  The cottage had smallish windows that glowed yellow and warm, and a moss-covered stone roof that would keep those within dry and cozy.  Albert and Linda walked along a mud path by a short stone wall.  They passed the barn and the sheep that bleated within.

They rounded a hillock blanketed by a fragrant flowerbed.  Like the flowers, the cottage’s walls seemed to sprout from the very earth; growing as living rock reaching up for the stars.  They moved on to the cottage’s heavy oaken door and the heavy wrought-iron knocker that hung at its center.  The door flew open.  Albert flinched, and his hand instinctively went to the butt of his holstered pistol.  However, when he saw the old man with the shotgun, he managed to stay his hand.  The old man inquired gruffly, “Who goes there?”

“Easy, Dad.  We have a special guest,” Linda proclaimed.  A herding dog—marbled black and white—ran from the house, barking wildly at Albert.

“Eight ball…”  Hearing Linda say his name, the dog stopped barking, flapped his tongue out, and panted with a seeming smile.  Then, with a halo of light about her, a little girl stepped into the cottage’s doorframe.  She clung shyly to her grandfather’s leg.  Albert froze.  He shifted his weight as he examined the familiar vision.  His feet seemed caught in the suction of the muddy ground. 
I know you
, he thought.  He had seen this little one before.  The scene had been a vague fleeting image that hid in the folds of his memory.  But now it had suddenly sprung to his conscious mind like a bolt of electricity.

“Hello,” the child whispered shyly.

“Prince Albert, this is Anne, my daughter,” Linda said.  “And this is my father, Henry.

“Prince?” Henry questioned.  “Yeah.  And I’m the bleeding Pope.”

“Dad, try not to be so rude always.”  She turned back to Albert and her face softened.  Then back to her daughter and father.  “Anne.  Father.  This is Prince Albert.”  Linda performed an exaggerated curtsy with a crooked smile upon her face.  Anne batted her eyes and blushed.

Linda recognized her daughter’s instant fondness.  The glow in her daughter’s eyes spoke of the tales of knights, towers, and dragons.  It was, after all, not every day that a sheep shearer’s daughter met a real live Prince.

“How do you do?” Albert greeted the old man.  Then he crouched and looked at the little girl who squirmed at her grandfather’s side.  “Good evening, Lady Anne,” Albert said to Anne.

“Please, Prince Albert, do come in,” Linda signaled.

“Albert.  Please, just call me Albert.”

“Albert,” Linda giggled as if the privilege of familiarity tickled her.  “Please,” she added, and gestured for the open door.  “
Dad
.” Linda’s bossy tone got her father to lower the twin barrels of his shotgun.  This petite farm girl was obviously in charge.

Albert entered the small cottage, feeling like he had travelled to some parallel universe.  The cottage was far more spacious than its modest exterior had implied, and, he saw, the decorations were traditional English.  The first thing he noticed was the hutch that displayed blue and white plates.  Although not the finest of China, each plate, nevertheless, showed off attractions of Great Britain.

The images were a tourist’s menagerie; A mail-order variety of places.  Each reminded someone of the place where they belonged.  A place beyond sheep pastures, endless empty grasslands, and cold unforgiving seas.  Albert took in the collection: There was the Iron Bridge of Shropshire, Hadrian’s Wall, Stonehenge, Kings College, and the Blackpool Tower.  Finally, on an oval serving plate, framed by three panels, were Buckingham Palace, Balmoral, and Windsor Castles.  Albert grinned and looked over the furniture.

The chairs and sofa, all shrouded by blankets, were brightly-colored and hand-knitted with local wool.  They likely hid the furniture’s tatters and holes that came from years of comfortable use.  One of the chairs was draped in a grey and white blanket.  However, this particular blanket
opened one yellow eye, and turned out to be a very fat, very old cat named Grey Bear.  Awakened, Grey Bear gave a quivered stretch.  With half-closed eyes, he ‘sussed up’ Albert, and decided it was not worth moving.  He circled in place and collapsed again.  Absorbing heat from the small fireplace, Grey Bear drifted off to sleep again.  Albert smiled and continued to look around.

The sitting room’s wallpaper was faded and busy, and most of the paintings that hung there could have been done by the numbers.  Albert rubbed his eyes.  Then he spotted one piece in the collection that caught his interest.  It had sail boats moored off a grass marsh, and, on a beach, a couple shared a picnic beneath an umbrella as a child made castles in the sand.  Albert leaned in to get a closer look.  He saw from the signature that Linda was the artist.