bay, which in turn was within the five-mile-wide Many Branch Harbor. He knew it would be impossible to see them from the air, and even from the south they must surely have been completely hidden.
To find SEAL Assault Team One, an Argentine search helicopter would need to be flying about fifty feet above the ground, very slowly, southwest of them, heading northeast. And even then it would be touch and go. The chances of a pilot finding exactly the right height, speed, and direction were, in Rick's view, negligible. Unless, of course, someone had told him where they were.
At 1030 it was still silent in Many Branch Harbor. No fishing boats. No boats of any kind. Although from the bluff, Brian Harrison reported a couple of trawlers heading north up Falkland South, maybe two or three miles from their little bay.
At 1030 in Mare Harbor, however, things were not silent. Lt. Commander Stafford's twelve limpet bombs, stuck on the warships' hulls, below the waterline, for'ard, midships and aft, all detonated together with a dull underwater
When Argentinian naval personnel looked again, staring through the spray and billowing smoke, they were unable to comprehend what they were most certainly observing. Four warships, calmly moored on the jetties, with no enemy on the horizon, ablaze from end to end. And the skies were completely empty — no one had dropped a bomb, never mind four bombs.
Officers gathered together and quickly leapt to the alarmingly false conclusion that someone's Navy had lambasted the ships with guided missiles, well-aimed guided missiles at that.
But no one had seen anything, no dart-shaped winged killer with a fiery tail hurtling out of the skies. And these ships must have been hit by more than one missile apiece since all of them were ablaze in three different places. Great fires were raging below the foredecks, huge flames and billowing black smoke were surging upward from the engine room area, and one of the frigates looked as though its stern was blown clean off the hull. This was a big multi-hit, carried out by forces who knew precisely what they were doing.
But whose forces? The surrendered Brits, what was left of them, were limping home.
And if it was not bombs or missiles, then what was it? The gathering of Argentinian naval officers, still staring in disbelief at the torrid scene of absolute devastation in the harbor, were totally baffled. Nonetheless, they moved into action, trying to organize stretcher parties to evacuate the wounded, trying to connect fire hoses to aim at the ships, which were growing hotter by the minute.
They were also trying to work out how quickly to evacuate the entire area when the first fire blazed into one of the ships' missile magazines and unleashed the kind of power that could swiftly knock down a town, never mind a few stone buildings in a scarcely used harbor.
As a matter of fact, the scene was much like that which faced the British in February, when their 1,400-ton lightly gunned patrol ship
And on the subject of death, Lt. Commander Stafford's men had caused a lot more of it than Rick Hunter's team, and they made Douglas Jarvis's skirmish on the mountain look like kids' stuff.
There were crews of at least twenty-two officers and men resident in each of the warships, some on watch, some asleep, some working on maintenance in the engine rooms. A total of only nine survived the savage blasts, the ramifications of which would be heard around the world.
By 1100, there was virtual chaos in the Argentine military headquarters at Mount Pleasant, as commanders tried to make sense of the barbaric unprovoked attacks on their bases by an unknown enemy. Just the previous day, the Marine Major Pablo Barry had flown in for a visit, and the entire officer community, on sea, air, and land, was now looking to him for guidance. Major Barry had, after all, been the commander who conquered the damn place in the first case.
But he was as bewildered as any of them, and, generally speaking, was greatly concerned that the enemy, whoever the hell it might be, would probably be considering flattening the only Argentine military base on the Malvinas they had not already eliminated: that is, the very ground on which they stood.
The news from Pebble was plainly terrible. But the news from Mare Harbor was much worse, given the heavy loss of life. Major Pablo Barry stared out at the airfield in silent rumination. Lined up were Argentina's all-conquering Skyhawks, Daggers, and Etendards, the most dangerous air combat force in South America. And he did not have the slightest idea at whom to unleash them.
The entire situation was, in his opinion, extremely unnerving. Here they were being smashed to pieces by an enemy who was refusing to identify himself, an enemy they could not see, nor even discern. Only one thought evolved in his mind:
Major Barry now knew that someone had done something very similar to the fighter aircraft at Pebble. The question was, who? Which country hated Argentina so badly they would do such a thing? And did it all have anything to do with the sheep stealers up at Port Sussex? And, if so, where the hell were they? Why had they not been found? And where was the missing patrol? Major Barry had about a thousand questions and no answers to any of them.
But shortly after noon, someone provided him with just one answer. Luke Milos, wandering among his sheep up in the high pastures above his house, had found the Jeep, and all four men inside had been assassinated, shot to pieces, dozens of bullet wounds. What's more, they had been dead for at least three days, probably since Sunday night. The Goose Green garrison had a medical team up there already and were towing the Jeep out, bringing its grisly cargo back in body bags.
On the face of it, the Argentine military had now been slammed three times, and Major Barry considered it inconceivable the three were not, somehow, connected. Although what the sheep stealers had in common with possibly two highly trained groups of Special Forces…well, heaven alone knew the answer to that.
But the Major was aware the sheep stealers were very possibly a British SAS assault team trapped, and surviving, on East Falkland after the surrender. Were the bombers of Pebble and Mare somehow connected? Did Great Britain have an ally who was prepared to fight on when all seemed lost?
None of it stacked up for the Major. And deep in his soldier's soul, he sensed the perpetrators of these atrocities had already left. They did not, he pondered, come in by air or road. And they did not land on the Falklands in a surface ship. Therefore they must have come in by submarine, and if they did, they'd most certainly gone. He considered a massive air and shoreline search by Argentina's military forces to be a waste of time. Except for the sheep stealers, who may be still in residence.
They might be caught, if a search was concentrated for long enough in the correct place. And if they were, that might shed substantial light on the source of the other two attacks. Argentina was still in control of several hundred British prisoners of war, and that gave them some heavy leverage.
The key was to catch the sheep stealers. That was Major Pablo Barry's opinion. And the Marine Commander, conqueror of the Falkland Islands, was very certain about that.
But, judging by the events of the morning, it was entirely possible the entire airfield was mined and seeded with timed limpet bombs like Mare Harbor and Pebble. The Major advised a general evacuation to the outskirts of the area, with all personnel warned to stay away from the airfield.
He also decided that a search of Pebble Island was a total waste of time, and that the helicopters of Goose Green and Mount Pleasant should all return to the Goose Green garrison and launch their search for the SAS men from there.
