There was not yet light in the sky, but the darkness was not as black as it had been. Reeve didn’t have any more time to waste. He pointed the rifle at the man, guessing that a dagger wouldn’t suffice to scare someone who gutted fish. The old man put up his hands. Reeve told him to start hauling the boat out into the water. The man did as he was told. Then they both got into the boat and the old man slid the oars back and forth, finally finding his rhythm and working them strongly. There were tears in his eyes, not just from the wind. Reeve repeated that he wasn’t going to kill the man. He just wanted to be taken out to sea.
The farther out they got, the safer Reeve felt on the one hand, and the more exposed on the other. He was beginning to have doubts that such a small boat could get far enough out into the ocean for any rescue ship to make a rendezvous. He took out the metal cylinder which contained the beacon and twisted off its cap. The beacon was simple to use. Reeve switched it on, watched the red light start to blink, and placed it on the tiny bench beside him.
The fisherman asked how far they were going. Reeve admitted he didn’t know.
“There have been rumors of gunfire around the airport,” the old man said. He had a voice thick with tobacco use.
Reeve nodded.
“Are you invading us?”
Reeve shook his head. “Reconnaissance,” he told the man, “that’s all it was.”
“You have won the war, you know,” the man said without bitterness. Reeve stared at him and found he believed him. “I saw on television. It will all end maybe today, maybe tomorrow.”
Reeve found he was smiling, then laughing and shaking his head. He’d been out of contact for seventy-two hours. Some mission, he thought. Some bloody mission.
They began to chat quite amiably. Maybe the man did not believe a smiling man could kill him. The man spoke of his youth, his family, the fishing, about how crazy it was that allies like Britain and Argentina, huge wealthy countries, should fall to war over a place like the Malvinas. The conversation was pretty one-sided; Reeve had been trained to give away nothing. When he spoke, he spoke generally, and sometimes he did not answer the old man’s questions.
“This is usually as far as I go,” the old man said at one point.
“Keep going,” Reeve ordered.
The old man shrugged. Later he said, “The sea is getting rough.”
As if Reeve needed telling. The waves were knocking the little boat about, so that Reeve held on to the side with both hands, and the old man had trouble keeping hold of the oars. Reeve held the beacon securely between his knees.
“It will get rougher,” the old man said.
Reeve didn’t know what to say. Head back into calmer waters? Or stay here and risk being capsized? He didn’t know how long it would take for someone to pick up the beacon’s signal. It could take all day, or even longer if some final assault were taking place on the Falklands. Nobody would want to miss out on that.
In the end the old man made up his own mind. They re-treated to water that was choppy, but not dangerous. Reeve could see land in the far distance.
“Will other boats come out this far?”
“Boats with engines, yes.”
Reeve couldn’t see any signs of activity on the water. “When?” He was forming an idea. He would make it look like the little boat was in trouble, and when one of the motorized boats came to help, he’d use his rifle to take command and head out farther into the South Atlantic.
“When?” The old man shrugged. “Who knows? An hour? Two hours?” He shrugged again.
Reeve was feeling the cold. He was wet and seriously fa-tigued. His core temperature was dropping again. He asked if the old man had any clothing on the boat. There was an oilskin beneath Reeve’s seat. He put that on and immediately felt more sheltered from the stiff breeze. The old man signaled that there was food and drink in the canvas bag. Reeve rummaged and found bread, apples, chorizo sausage, and a bottle of something which smelled evilly of alcohol. The old man took a swig of this, and told Reeve he could eat what he liked. Reeve ate one apple and half a peppery sausage. The old man pulled the oars in and laid them on the floor of the boat, where they sat in two inches of water. Then he lifted up one of his rods and started to tie bait onto it.
“Might as well,” he said. “While we’re here. Do you mind me asking, what are we waiting for?”
“Friends,” Reeve told him.
The old man laughed for some reason, and baited another rod.
An old man fishing from two lines, and another man huddled in a tattered yellow oilskin. That was the sight that greeted the rescue party.
Reeve heard the engine first. It was an outboard. He scanned the waves, but it was behind him. He turned his head and saw an inflatable dinghy scudding across the foam. It had no markings, and none of the three men in it wore distinguishing uniforms or insignia.
Reeve aimed his rifle at the boat, and two of the men onboard aimed their rifles back at him. When the two vessels were twenty feet apart, the man steering the dinghy asked a question in Spanish.
“What are you doing here?”
“Fishing,” the old man said simply. He had rolled and lit himself a cigarette. It bobbed in his mouth as he spoke.
“Who are you?” the man on the dinghy demanded.
“Fishermen,” the old man said.
Now the man commanding the dinghy stared at Reeve. Reeve held the stare. The man smiled.
“You look like hell,” he said in English. “Let’s get you back to the ship.”
The debriefing took place while the Argentine garrison formally surrendered on the night of June 14. Reeve had been given a thorough physical by a doctor, then was allowed to eat, sleep, and clean up-in any order he liked. Mike Rose, 22 Battalion’s CO, was not on the ship. Reeve was debriefed initially by three of his own officers, and again later by a couple of spooks. There would be a further debriefing next day.
They asked about Jay, and he told them the truth. They didn’t like that. They made him go over the story several times, probing at various details like dentists seeking a pinprick of decay. Reeve just kept telling them the truth. It didn’t go any further. A senior officer came to see him, one on one.
“You’ll be up for a commendation,” the officer said, “probably a medal.”
“Yes, sir.” Reeve didn’t care a damn.
“But the regiment doesn’t air its dirty linen in public.”
“No, sir.”
“No one’s to know about Jay.”
“Understood, sir.”
The officer smiled and nodded, unable to keep the relief off his face. “You’ll be looking forward to a bit of R & R, Gordon.”
“I want out altogether,” Reeve told the officer, quietly but firmly. “Out of the regiment and out of the army.”
The officer stared at him, then blinked. “Well, we’ll see about that. Maybe you should take some time to think about it, eh?”
“Yes, sir.”
But Reeve knew he wouldn’t change his mind.
Days and weeks passed. Jay never appeared-in Chile or anyplace else. He was eventually presumed dead, though the Argentine military authorities denied capturing him or killing him. It was as if he really had vanished in that puff of smoke, leaving nothing behind but a snatch of a badly whistled children’s song.
A song Reeve had hated ever since.
And a man he’d hated with it.
TWENTY-TWO
