Free Crown Jewel: The Battle for the Falklands by Peter von Bleichert

longing for a hot cup of tea, Albert made conversation.
    “How have you been holding up?” he asked Donnan.  With these spoken words, Albert immediately felt his concentration and depth perception sharpen, and the hypnotic effect of speeding over white-capped waves diminished.
    “I’m all right, mate.”
    Albert should have known he would get nothing from the rock-of-a-man seated before him.  While he full well knew Donnan suffered under the burden of their shared memory, the Scotsman had a way of keeping it in, burying it, drowning it in liquid forgetfulness.  A beeping interrupted Albert’s thoughts.
    “Air search radar off to the left,” Donnan read the computer warning.
    “Give me a heading,” Albert ordered.
    “Two-seven-nine.”
    Albert threw the Apache over onto its side.  He pulled away from the shoreline and started out over deeper, darker water.
    “Computer has classified the threat radar as a Thales track-while-scan,” Donnan announced.  On the horizon, a silhouette appeared.  It was small and dark-grey; a military vessel.
    “Looks like a patrol or guided-missile boat.  Definitely not one of ours,” Donnan said.
    “Yes,” Albert grunted.  He was focused on piloting.  Donnan zoomed in on the target with his imaging system.  He scrutinized the contact’s profile.
    A high mast jutted from the vessel’s block of superstructure, topped by a big onion-shaped dome.  Then, as the boat turned toward them, a deck gun became discernible.
    “Jammer on,” Donnan said as he activated systems that would confuse the enemy transmitter.  Albert increased speed.  “I take it we are engaging?”
    “Warm up the Hellfires,” was Albert’s answer.
    “Roger.  Longbow spinning up.  Hellfires coming online.”
    The target vessel picked up the Apache’s electronic emissions.  Realizing it was being tracked, it lofted canisters full of zinc-coated fiberglass chaff.  The canisters bloomed over the boat and formed radar-reflecting clouds.  Despite the attempted deception, Donnan had already acquired a fix on the target’s hull.  They saw a puff of smoke from the boat’s deck gun.  The Apache shook as the shell air-burst just behind and to the side of them.
    “Weapons free,” Albert declared.
    Donnan wasted no time.  The Apache bucked with the shift in weight as the missile left its rail and fluttered across the water.  Firing and forgetting, Albert broke for the cover of shore.
    The Hellfire bounced millimeter-wave radar off the Argentine guided-missile boat.  Skittering across the water, the missile zeroed in on the reflections, and flew itself directly at the target’s center of mass.  Moments later, the Hellfire slammed into the superstructure of ARA Gómez Roca .
    Most of those on Gómez Roca ’s bridge died fast as the vessel’s superstructure became an abstract flaming metal sculpture.  After a secondary explosion, Gómez Roca started to roll.  In the distance, as the small Argentine vessel began to sink, the black Apache hugged the coast and sped north-west.  Albert would use the sharp rocks to hide his radar signature from roving fighters and enemy search radars.  The helicopter soon crossed a spit of land.
    The Apache broke the spit and sped over Bonners Bay.  Pokers Point was off to the left.  The aircraft zoomed over Blue Beach British War Cemetery where 14 Falklands War casualties were forever interred.  Both Albert and Donnan saluted as they passed over the stark isolated place.  Turning north, the Apache raced over heaving ground.  It flew on toward a collection of small, white structures astride a harbor.
    “There,” Donnan said and pointed.  He could see Port San Carlos.  Immediately apparent were grey vessels tied up at the town’s single jetty.  Several landing craft had beached themselves past the settlement’s breakwater, too.
    Smoke rose from the harbor’s warehouses.  Assault troops swarmed over the area like angry ants.  On the hills above, British