Ghost Force

foot-long Ark Royal, the modern successor to the first Ark Royal, which carried fifty-five guns as the flagship of Lord Howard of Effingham against the Spanish Armada in 1588.

Somehow, even without one shred of knowledge of naval history, the Defense Minister felt like a little boy in the presence of the man who operated that towering modern fortress at sea, moored on the other side of the harbor.

'Yes, it was a rather difficult time for the government,' replied Peter Caulfield. 'You see, strange as it may seem, we are incredibly concerned about loss of life in our armed forces, particularly in a potential war zone such as this in the South Atlantic, which holds just about nothing for us.'

'Oh, I don't know,' interrupted Admiral Palmer, amiably. 'I think there's something to be said for honor. The Navy's built on it, you know.'

Slightly embarrassed, feeling rebuked, Britain's Minister of Defense said quickly, 'Of course I understand that, Admiral. But even with our honor at stake, do you really wish to see perhaps two or three hundred of our best troops killed or wounded, essentially for nothing?'

'My dear Minister,' replied the Admiral, 'we do not enter any conflict counting our dead before anything happens. We expect to enter a conflict and win; to misquote General Patton, we don't intend to die for our country. We anticipate making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.'

'Yes, yes. Quite,' said Peter Caulfield. 'That's the way you must think…'

At that moment an orderly came into the room bearing hot coffee in a silver pot on a silver tray. There were three china cups and a plate of cookies.

'I'll pour,' volunteered the Admiral. 'Thank you, Charlie.'

'This is very kind,' said Peter Caulfield. 'And I shall do my level best to have this over in a very short time, so you won't have me for lunch…'

'Come now, Minister, we're all on the same side in the end. I would be most hurt if you were not here for lunch…'

'Well, we'll see how things turn out. But, as you know, I have a very specific purpose here. I am compelled to ask you whether the Royal Navy believes it possible to sail to the South Atlantic, fight off the Argentinian Navy and their quite formidable Air Force, and then put a sizeable land force on the beaches somewhere on the Falklands, and fight yard by yard for the territory? That's my question.'

'Do you want my personal opinion or my official response?'

'Let's start with the official response.'

'Very well, Minister. I, and all my officers, are loyal servants of the Crown. If the Parliament of Great Britain decides we must go and fight for those islands, we'll go. It's not our place to argue the toss whether it's worth it, even whether it's right. We have all taken the Queen's shilling, as it were, for most of our service lives. If we are asked to go out and earn it, possibly the hard way, then so be it.'

'Captain Reader?'

'Same.'

'And your personal view, Admiral?'

'We have a rather greater chance of defeat now than we had in 1982, and even that was a bit of a close-run thing.'

'And your principal reason for that view?'

'Oh, definitely the loss of the Harrier FA2, Minister. With that, we always had a chance in the air. Now we do not even have a fighter aircraft.'

Peter Caulfield nodded. 'And may I ask the commanding officer of our aircraft carrier the same question?'

'Again, much the same, sir. Except to add that Ark Royal is a quarter of a century old. She's tired, she's feeling her age. Every time we go out we return with some operational defect. This time it's her starboard driveshaft. May need a new one.

'It's a very distant war for an old lady. Eight thousand miles down there, and if she goes wrong, we'd be in shocking trouble, thousands of miles from a garage, in bad weather and under constant enemy attack.'

'But you'd still go if you were asked?'

'Yessir.'

Admiral Palmer stood up. He poured himself a little more coffee, and said, 'Minister, it's how we were all brought up. It's what I call the Jervis Bay syndrome. That was an old fourteen-thousand- ton passenger ship converted into an armed merchant cruiser for convoy escort in the North Atlantic in World War Two. They mounted seven old six-inch guns on her deck.

'She was commanded by Captain E. S. Fogarty Fegen RN. And one morning they came in sight of the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. Instantly Captain Fegen ordered the seventeen-ship supply convoy to scatter, and, in an action he must have known was suicidal, he turned his ship to engage the enemy.

'It took the Scheer about thirty minutes to lambaste and sink the Jervis Bay, by which time the convoy had vanished, far and wide, over the horizon. When rescuers turned up that evening to pick up survivors, Captain Fegen was not among them. They gave him a posthumous Victoria Cross for that.

'It was the same with Lt. Commander Roope VC, of the Glow-worm, also in World War Two. In desperation, with his ship on fire and sinking beneath him, he turned and rammed the big German cruiser Hipper. Took her with him.

'That's what we do, Minister. We'll fight, if necessary to the death, just as our predecessors did, just as we've been taught. And should, one day, our luck run out, and we should be required to face a superior enemy, we'll still go forward, fighting until our ship is lost.'

Peter Caulfield took a few moments to compose himself after that. He stood up and walked to the sideboard to refresh his coffee cup, and he did not turn to face the two commanders because he did not wish to seem so affected.

But he was. And all he could manage was, 'Then you will not declare the Royal Navy unable to sail to the South Atlantic to fight for the Falkland Islands?'

'No, Minister, I will not say that. Not on any account. And neither would any other Admiral who has occupied this office during the last two or three hundred years.'

'However bad it may look? However the odds are stacked against you?'

'No, Minister. The Royal Navy will not refuse to go. Jervis Bay sacrificed herself to save the convoy. If, of necessity, we must do the same, to save you and your boss, we will not refuse to go.'

CHAPTER FIVE

Peter Caulfield vacated Portsmouth Dockyard shortly before noon and headed straight back to Downing Street. Which was significant only because he missed lunch with the Chief of the Defense Staff, Sir Robin Brenchley, and the First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Rodney Jeffries, who arrived in Portsmouth in a staff car directly from Whitehall.

Peter Caulfield had made a sensible move in leaving before lunch. Because the following two hours would be as grave and depressing as the late afternoon of October 21, 1805, when Admiral Nelson died on the lower deck of HMS Victory at Trafalgar.

The two Admirals, one Captain, and one General were after all discussing the total demise of the Royal Navy, and the likelihood of possibly the worst defeat in the history of Britain's Senior Service.

'We don't have much,' said Admiral Palmer. 'So, do we take everything down there, and leave just sufficient here to fight another day? Or do we just say the hell with it and take the lot?'

'We have so little, I'm afraid we'll have to take the lot, the whole Navy,' said the First Sea Lord. 'If it's anybody, it's everybody. We don't have fifty destroyers and frigates anymore, we have only eighteen, and three of them are in refit. We hardly have enough to provide a proper escort for the carrier.'