Vargas was shoved onto his back. He dropped the radio, and, though he held onto his pistol, it was now pointed at the ceiling. Linda rushed over and stood over him. Vargas’s radio pleaded for a response.
Still conscious, Vargas struggled to breathe, and tried to talk. Only blood bubbles and a gurgle came forth. If he could have been understood, Albert, Annie, and Linda would have heard Vargas say his dead wife’s name. Vargas smiled and began to sweep his gun toward Albert who had begun to get up. Linda’s final shot was to Vargas’s head. It burst like a ruptured cantaloupe and sprayed the hay with red wetness. Linda dropped the smoking gun and dove for Annie. She wrapped her in her arms and whispered words of love in her ears. Annie tried to look at Vargas, but Linda covered her eyes and spoke more whispers of reassurance.
“Is he dead?” Annie asked with the morbid curiosity of the young.
“He will not bother us again,” Linda offered instead of confirmation. Albert went to them both and joined the hug. All three looked up when they heard an engine.
“What now?” Albert asked. He went to the wall to peek out. There, framed by the weathered boards, was the Argentine infantry fighting vehicle and several soldiers. They had crested the hill and now headed toward the little barn. Albert turned back to Linda. From his anguished look, she could tell it was bad news. Linda exhaled hard. Soon, voices, mingled with the ever-increasing mechanical rumble.
“More company,” he said with a sigh. “And that won’t be of any help,” Albert said as he pointed at the pistol on the hay pile. He went to it and picked it up anyway, engaged the safety, and tucked it in his pocket. He returned to his vigil at the wall, and watched the approach of the enemy vehicle. Their little barn stuck out like a sore thumb. It was an obvious point of interest, a place on everyone’s list, it would seem. “Bollocks,” he mumbled.
Albert slid down the wall and onto his bottom. Annie and Linda simply stared at him. Their eyes begged Albert to think of a plan of action. He had none to offer. Annie and Linda jumped when they heard the explosion, and then Annie cried at the gunfire that followed. Albert and Linda held their breath, eyes wide as they awaited the impact of fire, as they waited for rounds to rip through the walls, and to tear into them all. Annie just cried louder and began to hyperventilate. She would pass out soon, Albert thought. Probably better for her. Albert and Linda looked to one another when they heard a shout that could only be English. Albert jumped up and peeked out again.
The Argentine infantry fighting vehicle was burning. A fountain of fire erupted from the vehicle’s upper hatch, and a jagged hole in its side belched smoke. Dead bodies lay scattered about, each grotesquely posed. Forms emerged from the grass. If not for their movement, their camouflage made them all but invisible. Albert saw one of the soldiers lowering a thick pipe from his shoulder. He recognized it as the launch tube for a British NLAW anti-tank weapon.
“Could it be?” Albert wondered aloud.
“What is it?” Linda asked, excited by the look on Albert’s face.
“I think-” He looked out again. “I think we’re saved.” Albert recognized Major Fagan. “It’s Fagan. It’s the SAS.” Albert slid the barn door open, stepped out, and waved.
Seeing a man in civilian clothing, the SAS troop ran toward him with their rifles at the ready. When Major Fagan recognized Albert, his relief was evident. He signaled his men to fan out and encircle the barn. Then, with a big smile, Fagan approached Prince Albert.
“Captain Talbot,” Fagan said as he stomped one foot after the other, and snapped a crisp salute. “Thank goodness you are all right.”
Albert, Annie, and Linda ate everything the commandos could put out. There was peanut butter, jelly, and crackers; franks and beans; and an orange drink full of electrolytes and vitamins. One of the men — a Lieutenant Hayden — folded the food wrappers and made intricate animal shapes. He gave them to Annie. She placed them in the grass and played. Major Fagan told Albert it was time to move.
As they all marched single file across the land, Fagan explained that via a captured Argie radio, they had learned of Albert’s presence in the barn. They passed the burning Marder. Albert buried Annie’s face in his chest so she would not see the dead soldiers.
One of the SAS — a Welshman — began to hum a tune. Soon, the entire SAS troop sang softly as they weaved their way along a cow path:
“May this fair land we love so well/ In Dignity and freedom dwell/ While worlds may change and go awry/ Whilst there is still one voice to cry/ There'll always be an England/ While there's a country lane/ Wherever there's a cottage small; Beside a field of grain/ There'll always be an England.”
They all came over a hill and looked down upon the horse farm. The Argentine surface-to-air missile battery had been blown, and its wreckage continued to smolder in the field. From the hilltop, a trench-line was visible.
The trench had been dug around the farmhouse, and had small sandbag-lined redoubts; ceiling-less rooms excavated from the countryside. Behind the wider main line stretched a smaller, shoulder-width travel trench. It made Albert think of World War I, but also of one-dimensional thinking. If Albert were in an Apache and saw such earthworks, he would spray the area with his rockets to remind the defenders that there were three dimensions to space, one of which was air. However, Albert now moved on the ground, in infantry territory. He suddenly understood the doctrinaire types that had ordered the trenches dug. He saw that part of the trench-line had been filled-in, used to bury those killed when, in close quarter combat, using handguns and grenades, and under the protection of their sniper, the SAS had swept the trench line. Albert could see one neat mound of dirt in the grass. He looked questioningly to Fagan.
“His name was Ravensdale. He jumped on an Argie grenade; saved his mates. I’m putting him in for a Meritorious Service Medal.”
“I’m sorry,” Albert offered. Fagan nodded thanks and walked off to hide the emotion that came with losing a close friend on the field of battle.
Fagan signaled his men to form a perimeter, and then sent a few of them to check the farmhouse and stables again.
Completing this sweep, they commandeered an Argentine troop truck and jeep from the farmhouse garage, and transferred petrol from a tractor.
Albert, Annie, and Linda rode in the jeep with Major Fagan and two others, while the rest of the SAS troop followed closely in the truck. Annie succumbed to the smooth road and vibration of the engine, and fell deep asleep in Linda’s lap.
“Where are we headed?” Albert inquired of Fagan.
“Button Bay.”
A black phantom, the American nuclear attack submarine United States Ship California hovered off the shallows of the Falkland’s Choiseul Sound, just east of Lively Island. USS California, of the vaunted Virginia-class, had recently come out of repair and refit at Electric Boat in Groton, Connecticut. Exercising in the deeps of the Puerto Rico Trench, she had been ordered to race to the South Atlantic. Captained by Commander Max Wolff, California had made a speed course for latitude -52°, longitude -55°, and arrived on station within days.
California had then poked her stealthy electronic surveillance and photonics masts above the rolling surface, and sucked in new orders from an orbiting satellite. Wolff was handed the printout and a cup of coffee. He read them with little reaction, though when he passed them to his executive officer, the man’s brow furled, and he uttered a single word: “Interesting.” Wolff then ordered a stealthy approach to the islands some 120 miles to the west.