Exocet

'I've had enough chicken supreme to last me a lifetime. How about you, Harvey?'

'Oh, it keeps me going as well as anything else, ' Jackson said. 'Food's not all that important. When I was seventeen the food in the guardsmen's mess at the Depot was so awful, I've never been able to take it seriously since.'

Elliot was crouched by the radio and Villiers moved across. 'Everything okay?'

Elliot glanced up and nodded. 'Through in a minute.'

The patrol's task was simple enough: to pick up as much information as possible about Argentinian troop movements in the area. The information would be of the utmost importance when British forces broke out from the San Carlos beach-head.

The equipment Elliot carried was of the latest kind. There was a small typewriter-style keyboard and through this system, messages could be entered and stored in code. When Elliot was ready, the touch of a button was sufficient to send a message of a few hundred words in a matter of seconds. They were on the air so briefly that it was impossible for the enemy to have any hope of tracing them.

Elliot looked up and grinned. 'That's it.' He started to pack his equipment.

Korda crawled out of the fissure with more tea. 'When do we go in, sir? How much longer?'

'Rations for four more days,' Villiers reminded him.

'Which means we can last a week,' Harvey Jackson said. 'Longer, if you don't mind raw mutton. Sheep all over the place. The Argies have been doing very nicely on that diet.'

Before Korda could reply, Villiers said, 'Just a minute. Something coming.'

There was a murmur in the distance that grew louder. Villiers and the others crawled forward cautiously to the edge of the hollow and peered over. They each carried the same weapon, a silenced sub-machine gun.

An Argentinian truck was approaching along the rough track about a hundred yards away, its front wheels spinning on the frozen ground, only the half-tracks at the rear keeping it going.

The driver and the man who sat beside him in the front seat with a rifle across his knees, were muffled up to their ears against the intense cold, scarves bound around their faces.

'Sitting ducks,' Elliot said. 'Even if there's somebody in the rear.'

But the patrol's task was to seek information, not confrontation. Villiers said, 'No, let them go.'

And then the truck slithered to a halt, half-slewed across the track directly below them.

'Watch it!' Villiers said.

They crouched low. The driver jumped down from behind the wheel and Villiers heard him say in Spanish, 'This stinking engine again with the stinking oil that isn't supposed to freeze and turns into lumps instead. What are we doing in this place?'

He raised the bonnet to examine the engine. His friend got out still holding his rifle, and lit a cigarette.

'Okay, ease off,' Villiers whispered.

As they started to slide back from the rim, Korda put out a hand to steady himself. Rock and soil broke away suddenly and slid down the slope to the track below, gathering momentum.

The two Argentine soldiers cried out in alarm. The one with the rifle swung round, raising it instinctively and Harvey Jackson, having no choice, jumped up and cut him down with the silenced sub-machine gun. The only sound was the bolt reciprocating. The Argentinian's rifle flew into the air and he fell back against the truck.

The driver got his hands in the air fast and stood waiting as the four men went down the slope. Korda banged him against the truck, legs spread, and Jackson searched him with ruthless efficiency.

'Nothing,' he said to Villiers and turned the soldier round.

He was only a boy, no more than seventeen or eighteen and frightened to death.

'What's in the back?' Villiers demanded in Spanish.

'Supplies, equipment,' the boy said, eager to please. 'Nothing more, senor, I swear it. Please don't kill me.'

'All right.' Villiers nodded to Jackson. 'Take a look.'

He lit a cigarette and gave one to the boy whose hand shook as he accepted a light. The fear in him was so strong you could almost smell it.

Jackson came back. 'Must be sappers. Lots of landmines in there, explosives and so on.'

Villiers said to the Argentinian, 'You're with an engineering unit?'

'No,' the boy said. 'Transport. The men I took to Bull Cove last night, I think they were engineers.'

Bull Cove was a place Villiers and the patrol knew well. One of their first tasks on arrival had been to survey the area as a possible site to put more troops ashore behind the Argentinian lines when the push started from San Carlos. The cove had proved an admirable choice; well protected from the sea with a deep water channel through a narrow entrance above which stood a disused lighthouse. Villiers had sent in a favourable report.

'How many of them were there?'

'An officer and two men, senor. Captain Lopez. They unloaded a lot of equipment and then the Captain decided he needed some special fuses.' He took a crumpled list from his pocket. 'See, here it is, senor. He was sending me back to base for these things.'

Jackson looked over Villiers' shoulders. 'Kaden Pencils. That's pretty heavy stuff. What in the hell does he want that for?'

To blow up the lighthouse, senor.' the boy said patiently. 'And rocks, also, I think.'

To blow up the lighthouse?' Jackson said.

The boy nodded, 'Oh, yes, senor, I heard them discussing it.'

'Rubbish,' Jackson said. 'Why go to the trouble? It hasn't been used for thirty years. Doesn't make sense.'

'Oh, yes it does, Harvey,' Villiers said, 'if you consider its position on the rocks above the entrance. Bring it down, and you'll efficiently block the only deepwater channel into the cove.'

'Christ,' Jackson said. 'Then we'd better do something about it and fast.' He said to the boy in bad Spanish, 'How far is it from here on this track.'

'Fifteen or sixteen kilometres round the mountain.'

'Only not in this, not any more.' Villiers kicked the half-track. There was a strong smell of petrol and it dripped from the tank in a steady flow, melting the frozen ground. 'You did a pretty thorough job, Harvey.'

Jackson swore savagely. 'So what in the hell do we do?'

Villiers turned and looked up at the mountain towering into the mist. 'Bull Cove's directly on the other side. Say six miles. We'll do it the hard way. You, me, Korda. Leave all equipment behind. Sub-machine guns only. Now you'll find out what all that endurance testing on the Brecons was about.'

They went back to the hidden encampment, Jackson pushing the boy along in front of him. As Villiers stripped his excess gear, he said to Elliot. 'You follow with the boy. Don't bother about this stuff. Just bring the radio and your own gear.'

'Very well, sir.'

'And the kid,' Villiers said. 'I want him to arrive with you. No stories about how he made a run for it and you had to cut him down, understand?'

'Do I look as if I'd do a thing like that, sir?' Elliot demanded.

'Yes,' Jackson said sourly. 'So don't. I'll give you two and a half hours to join us and let you choose an easy route out of consideration to the kid. Five minutes over and I'll have your guts for garters.'

'All right,' Villiers said. 'Let's go, you two,' and he turned, moved out of the hollow and started to run across the hillside.

* * *

It has been said that out of every fifty soldiers who volunteer for transfer to the Special Air Service Regiment, only one makes the grade. The culmination of a savage and punishing selection procedure is the endurance march across the wilderness that is the Brecon Beacons.

The would-be recruit is required to march forty-five miles across some of the worst country in Britain, loaded down with a pack of around eighty pounds and a belt kit weighing another fifteen. His eighteen pound rifle has to be carried because SAS weapons are not allowed slings, so that they are always available for instant use.