“Annie…and Linda Jones?” Albert huffed, exasperated by their absence and unknown fate.
“Who are you?” grey beard asked.
“Captain Albert Talbot. We have to find them.”
“Talbot? Albert Talbot.”
“Prince Albert Talbot?” Grey beard’s scowl became squinted as he studied Albert’s face.
“They cannot be far,” Albert urged.
“Far enough. But we will catch up, don’t you worry. Captain Talbot, I am Gubbins. This is McGregor,” he pointed to another. McGregor was a stick of a man decked out in plaid flannel; “Calvert,” the young blonde-haired man nodded; “Fairbairn,” this one looked gin-soaked with a web of blue veins tattooing his face and red nose; “and Sykes,” this last man was a six-foot-four pile of muscle with just a hint of moustache. “We’re ‘The Warrahs.’ Partisans. Like in ‘82, we will fight until no foreign soldier walks our land.” Albert looked them over. Other than young Sykes, the men looked like they belonged in a pub recounting old tales over a pint, not walking about a combat zone. Albert decided, however, he would not underestimate them, or judge them by their age or looks.
Pleasure,” was all Albert could say as he took a moment to soak it all in, feeling weak in the knees.
“Captain Talbot,” Gubbins said: “I believe you are now in command.” Gubbins looked over Albert’s civilian clothes. “Last I read you were in Afghanistan, am I right?”
“Yes. I’m a pilot. I fly a helicopter.”
“What are you doing out here?” Gubbins asked. Albert did not answer. Gubbins smirked, and added: “Shot down, then, eh?”
“Linda saved me,” Albert said and surveyed the grasslands. He was eager to follow the trail.
“Yes. She called this morning. She told me everything. Sounds like you owe her a debt.”
“I do. I have to get her and Annie back. Then I need to get to Mount Pleasant.”
“We need to check on Henry — Linda’s father — at the farm. Then we’ll help you get back to your base.”
“He’s dead,” Albert shook his head.
The men looked sad. Then they got angry.
“Right, then. So long as we kill as many Argies as we can along the way, we are with you.” The men acknowledged his statement with nods and grunts.
“Do we need to bow before you?” Fairbairn asked sarcastically.
Albert shook his head, and, to deflect talk of his status, asked: “What is a Warrah?”
“It’s an animal. A cunning and ferocious fox native to the islands,” Styles replied. Albert liked the answer.
“We have a truck at my farm, It’s the next one over,” McGregor offered.
Keeping within the hollows of hills and among the folds of land, Albert and his new-found mates set out for McGregor’s house.
An old pick-up truck pulled a trailer full of hay along the road, winding between boulders jutting from the grass. McGregor drove. The truck rounded another hillock and slowed when a road obstruction became visible.
“Checkpoint,” McGregor mumbled with disdain.
The Argentinians had set up a series of crates to slow approaching vehicles and force them to weave among them. A tent had been set up beside the road and a troop truck with a pintle-mounted machine gun watched over all. A soldier manned the weapon and swept it toward the pick-up as it drove his way. Immediately, when they saw the approach of the old truck, other soldiers that manned the position snubbed out cigarettes and raised rifles to the ready. McGregor passed a red and white sign that ordered ‘HALTO;’ stop in Spanish. He pressed the brake pedal. The brakes squeaked, and the old truck coughed and threatened to stall.
“Buenos dias, señor,” the soldier greeted McGregor when he lowered the truck window. McGregor nodded hello. “Papeles. Uh…papers.” McGregor fished out his vehicle permit, his license, and his passport. The man examined them and asked: “¿A donde vas? Where are you going?”
“To a sheep farm outside Darwin. I have a load of hay for them.” McGregor gestured back toward the trailer he hauled. The soldier signaled one of the men to check the load. McGregor shifted in his seat.
“You must pay a fee to use this road: 50 pounds sterling,” the Argentinian said as he leaned back into the truck’s window.
“Sterling? I have only Falkland Pounds. Anyway, I’ve already paid for this road. Every year I pay for this bloody road. It is called, ‘taxes,’ mate.”
“You paid those to the occupiers, to London. From now on, you will pay your liberators in Buenos Aires. Today, señor, you will simply pay me.” McGregor wanted to draw the Beretta .380 hidden at his side and put a bullet between the eyes of ‘his liberator.’ Instead, McGregor smiled and stole a peek at the side-view mirrors. He saw a soldier take out a knife and begin to stab the bales of hay stacked on the trailer.
“¿Señor?”
“Yes, yes, I will pay,” McGregor declared and looked into the rear-view mirror.
“Yes, I know you will. Or, I will be forced to seize your vehicle and trailer.”
The soldier probing the hay caught the tip of his knife on something.
“Jefe,” he called out to his superior. “Algo esta adentro.”
“You have something inside your hay?” the soldier asked McGregor. “Por favor, you will step out now, señor.”
McGregor shuffled across the seat, and used the cover of his motion to grab the pistol. He swung it up and fired a shot at the chest of the soldier. With that gunshot, the trailer’s hay bales erupted. Automatic fire sprayed from within. Like a jack-in-the-box wound to its limit, Sykes popped out the top. He immediately chucked a grenade into the bed of the Argentine troop truck. The resultant explosion lifted the soldier up and out, and splayed him on the cracked blacktop. The Warrahs’ truck began to roll again, and, before Sykes closed the wood and chicken wire-framed hay hide, Albert peeked out.
The Argentine troop truck was on fire and dead enemy soldiers were scattered in a circle. The truck sputtered and drove off, its trailer of hay in tow.
A familiar Huey helicopter came over the hill, hugging the ground. Its rotor chopped the moist air, and pushed the ground fog away in swirls. Even though the Huey still had the holes Linda had made with her rifle, it had been repaired inside. A man leaned out from the aircraft’s cabin. He braced himself against the door and pointed when he saw the checkpoint, the very one that had failed to respond to headquarters’ radio calls.
Vargas tuned to his pilot and yelled above the whine of the Huey’s engine: “Ayi estan.”
Vargas’s gunship circled the area in a wide arc. The gun that pointed out of its cabin declared ownership of the area within which all were subject to prosecution.
“Estan muertos,” one of Vargas’s team noted the obvious: Everyone at the checkpoint was dead. The Huey’s pilot hovered over the adjacent field, and then set the helicopter down on its tubular skids. Blades of soft green grass were pressed beneath their hard steel.
Soldiers exited the aircraft and fanned out. They knelt and brought rifles up to their shoulders. One by one, Vargas went to each of the checkpoint’s dead Argentinians. He felt their necks for a beat. Finding none, he became ever more angry and frustrated. He got on his radio to request a new detachment of men to collect the bodies, and take over the position. This miserable dirt road, barely noted on most maps, had become the escape route of his game. Clenching his teeth, Vargas spotted and picked up bits of hay scattered along the roadside. He twirled his hand in the air and his men pulled back to the Huey, jumped in, and, hanging their legs from the cabin, took to the air again.