Inhalt

FALKLANDS DEADLINE

by
Ed Zaruk

PROLOGUE

SOUTH ATLANTIC- EAST OF ARGENTINA
13 DECEMBER 1939

Kapitän zur See Hans Langsdorff glanced at the chronometer: 5:56. Dawn. His steady gloved hands held up a pair of Zeiss binoculars while he studied the masts of two ships appearing over the horizon, 27 kilometres away.

As Commander of the Admiral Graf Spee,

Germany’s lone sea raider in the entire South Atlantic, he had played the sly fox well, eluding the hounds while almost half the British Fleet chased him across the ocean in an unsuccessful hunt to bring his ship to bay.

His second in command crossed the bridge to stand at his side. “Herr Kapitän, the warship has been positively identified as the heavy cruiser Exeter

.”

“Well, that’s the first surprise,” Langsdorff said. “I had expected a light cruiser as the escort. Still, it’s better than a battleship.” He wondered what else about the intelligence report would be wrong. Confident his eleven-inch guns could handle Exeter, he focussed his binoculars on the merchant ship steaming beside her, wondering who she was and why she needed to be sunk.
“More masts appearing to port,” Kapitän Kay said, pointing left.
Turning, Langsdorff readjusted his binoculars. With four ships to keep track of, he knew his ship would not come away unscathed. Fighting down the urge to slip away into the vast Atlantic and begin the long voyage home, returning men to their sweethearts, and some to tiny sons or daughters they had not yet seen, he issued an order he knew would condemn men to death. “Give me flank speed, and run up the Battle Ensigns, Herr Kay.”
Picking a telephone receiver off the console, he spoke to his Fire Control Director. “FregattenKapitän Ascher.”
“Yes, Herr Kapitän,” came the distorted voice back to him.
“You have a visual sighting on the merchant ship?”
A pause. Langsdorff could picture Ascher taking a final look in the great range finder, bringing the twin images together in its polished lenses.
Ascher’s voice came down the line, calm, confident. “Yes. Two salvos. That’s all we’ll have time for.”
Looking out the bridge windows, Langsdorff watched Exeter speeding towards him. “You know the Admiral’s instructions, FregattenKapitän.”
“The new radar has confirmed the range.”
“Very well. Open fire at one hundred and ninety-seven hectometres.”
Langsdorff noted the horizon was still tinged red when, twenty-one minutes after sunrise, the range closed to 19.7 kilometres, and big guns shattered the morning peace, hurling three shells into the South Atlantic sky.
Pulling back the top of his glove, Langsdorff looked at his watch, its time burning into his mind: 6:17 a.m. So this is how a naval engagement between warships begins, he thought, hoping it would be worth the cost. Once the smoke and acidic fumes cleared the bridge, he focussed his binoculars on the merchant ship. A flash and two columns of water leaping skyward from the ocean surface were hidden when Exeter

, having closed to the extreme limit of her eight-inch guns, opened with all three turrets. The merchant ship was turning in Exeter’s

smoke, he needed Ascher’s second salvo away. Confident the ranging radar would feel through the murk and touch it, Langsdorff let out his breath when the guns fired a second time.
Rolling black smoke billowed across the horizon behind Exeter

. A brief smile crossing Langsdorff’s lips disappeared when incoming shells exploded, sending hot steel scything into his men. Target corrections straddled Exeter

as the two smaller cruisers, Ajax and Achilles, their first shells falling short, searched for the range. Seventeen minutes into the action Langsdorff saw his eighth salvo disable one of Exeter’s

forward turrets. The appearance of 'Not-Under-Control' balls proved a small victory, for the two light cruisers, closing from the east, were now endangering his flank. He ordered the big turrets swung in their direction to help the smaller side guns keep them at bay.
Returning them to Exeter

, Langsdorff left Ascher to concentrate on the warship and noticed her second turret had ceased firing, giving hope that she’d withdraw. Torpedo wakes crossing the water revealed the cold-blooded tenacity of her British captain as he pressed the battle home with his diminished armament. When the last gun ceased firing and she turned away trailing a cloud of smoke, Langsdorff silently congratulated her captain. He’d fought well.

___________________

Across the sea in Exeter,

Captain Bell stopped listening to reports of damage coming in: flooding compartments, guns disabled, men killed and dying. Commanding his ship from the After Conning Position was difficult enough when the steering-order transmitter and telephone were working. Without them, he stood in an information vacuum.
The pristine order of his ship had been destroyed by one accurately fired shell from the Graf Spee

that struck the upper front turret. Ricocheting splinters had shredded the bridge, cut up communications cables, and killed most of his officers including the navigator and his plotting crew. The men either side of him now lay dead at his feet. Stepping over them, he issued an order to the helm, then picked up a telephone. Neither responded. Communication with the engine room was gone, leaving no alternative but to abandon the bridge. Dashing out, he wiped blood from his eyes, realizing for the first time he’d been wounded in the face.
Within five minutes of arriving at the aft position, Captain Bell had established a chain of messengers handling his orders and pressed the battle forward, being rewarded with a direct hit below the German raider’s funnel. Under withering fire and a rain of splinters, damage control crews were losing men and the fight to keep his ship alive. The Graf Spee

, in command of the battle with all her guns intact, continued to systematically turn his ship into scrap. Thinking of the lives it had cost to come this far, Captain Bell forged ahead, prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice.
The ocean, which for so many years had carried the British Navy to victory turned against Captain Bell as in-rushing seawater shorted out all electrical power to the rear gun, leaving him defenceless. Gripping a bulkhead, he watched the Graf Spee turn away from certain victory as Ajax

and Achilles

chased her over the western horizon.
Taking a pair of binoculars, he scanned the sea to his east, frustration and anger surfaced when, except for a drifting black haze stretching to the horizon, he found it empty. Without wireless contact there was nothing more he could do. Turning his crippled ship toward the Falkland Islands, Captain Bell set course for a safe haven. Exeter

had survived the Battle of the River Plate.

1982

ONE

Howard Wingate watched a dark green Jaguar pull into his drive and park. Two men got out, their tanned faces looking out of place on the east coast of England after a dreary winter. Each stood behind his car door scanning the surroundings with a certain precision Howard recognized as belonging to military men. After what happened forty years ago, Wingate wondered how they stumbled on to him, but had no doubt about the lengths they would go to get what they were after.
Stepping back from the window, Wingate briefly considered his options. Stromness House was a two-story manor facing the North Sea and he was on the top floor. If he stayed here he’d be caught like a rat in a bilge. His only route of escape was a single set of stairs, its landing in sight of the front entrance.
The two men stepped away from their vehicle and split up, one walking to the old coach entrance, while the other, left hand in his coat, cast wary glances about the property as he circled out back. Time for the rat to run; Howard dashed to the wooden stairway, racing down it two steps at a time. Hearing the door chimes, he cursed himself for being so careless. Over the years, as the threat had diminished, he’d become complacent, often leaving the front door unlocked after the post arrived. Bounding off the last step he saw the doorknob turn, then the familiar creak of hinges as the front door opened past the halfway mark. He shoved the cellar door, allowing it to strike the wall as he started through the opening.
A shout in the entrance was followed by splintering wood as the back door gave way. Howard quick-stepped down the steep stairs one at a time, slamming against the lower door, was through and closing it before anyone appeared at the top landing. Spanish voices drifting down from above were cut mute as the door latched shut. They were most definitely Argentineans.
Turning on a light, Howard searched the musty cellar until he found what he was looking for. Turning off the light, he stood motionless. It had been ages since he’d held a flensing knife in his hands. Remembering how easily the hockey-stick shaped tool sliced through tough whale hide on the cutting floor at Leith Harbour, Howard felt confidence blend with his raging adrenalin. A sliver of light appeared under the door before him. He waited, both hands gripping the long wooden handle. Muscles tensed while he listened to steps creak as both men descended the narrow stairway.
The door opened, casting a beam of light to his left. Howard drew back the flensing knife, tightening his grip as the first man stepped through the door. Calling on strength borne of fear, he slashed across the silhouette six feet away opening the man’s chest as the blade, cutting through cloth and skin, dug into bone before slicing into the right arm. Blood spurted from a severed artery followed by a piercing cry of pain. Howard watched disbelief appear in the man’s terrified eyes as he grabbed for his cut arm, parted tendons no longer able to hold the pistol in his hand. Raising both arms to the skin peeled open across his chest he tried to stem the flow of blood seeping from the entire wound. Falling back against his partner in the confines of the lower landing allowed Howard his one and only chance to flee.
Feeling his way through the darkness, he made for the cellar exit as the injured man continually wailed in pain and thrashed his legs in agony. Outside, breathing hard, his heart pounding, Howard paused, searching in his pocket for the car keys. Finding them, he crept around and opened the garage. Slipping behind the wheel of his Triumph, he reversed out, changed forward, tearing up the grass as he swerved around the Jaguar, then accelerated out the drive.
Entering the yacht club parking lot, Howard Wingate looked for an empty stall near the water and parked. He sat staring in the rear mirror, his hands sweating in spite of the cold as they rested on the TR 7's steering wheel. Beyond the breakwater, white caps curled on the tops of waves driven by a Force 4 wind. Good sailing, he thought getting out. Seized by the urge to run, he mentally calmed himself before starting off at a brisk pace along the wooden pier, occasionally glancing behind, expecting to be followed, puzzled when he wasn’t. Looking out over the North Sea, friends from his whaling years came to mind. He’d slip away to Norway.
Alone on the dock, he untied the front line of a Waverley 29 he’d purchased to teach his nephew how to sail in his teenage years. Better days, he reflected, tossing the line on deck and releasing the stern. Stepping into the short companionway, he took a last look ashore. Nothing. Good. He opened the cabin door.
“Buenos dias.” The voice startled Howard as a set of hands grabbed his arms and pinned them behind. In the dim light before him stood a man of medium build, dark complexion, the hint of indigenous blood. From a face etched with lines of cruelty, eyes intense with confidence borne of absolute power, appeared to laugh at him. “Señor Wingate, let us do business.” The man nodded and Howard felt his arms released. “All I ask is the return of a document my government lost in nineteen thirty-nine.”
“In return for what?” Howard asked.
“Why your life, of course,” he said, developing a sardonic smile.
The man was a poor liar, and inklings of the military’s dirty war against its own citizens confirmed to Howard he’d become one of the disappeared ones. Men had died for what was now securely locked away. “I don’t have it.”
Howard grunted as a fist drove the air out of him. Bending over, he sagged to his knees, then felt his head snap back. Blocking his field of vision was the cruel face of the Argentinean, eyes like black pits with no bottom.
“Where is it?”
Howard shook his head between gasps.
“You’ll find I’m not a patient man,” the Argentinean said, dragging Howard up the companionway, across the deck, and dropping him on the pier. “Once more. Where is the Falklands Document?”
Howard said nothing. A hand shoved his face into the cold sea. Holding his breath, he resigned himself to the inevitable when his lungs gave out. Bubbles of air trickled up his cheek. He swallowed water, then started choking and gagging. His head was jerked back.
“Last chance.”
Coughing, Howard spit out salt water. “Bugger you.”
“Doesn’t matter,” the man said, shoving Howard Wingate’s face back in the cold sea.
Squirming sideways, Howard looked at the shimmering surface inches above him. The last thing he noticed was a crucifix hanging from a heavy, gold chain around the Argentinean’s neck.

TWO

The executive offices of the Compañía Ballenera Argentina, a modern structure of green-tinted glass and black onyx, rose eighteen stories into the Buenos Aires sky. On the top floor, from a large office bounded on two sides by plate-glass windows, Luis Lopez looked down on the chaos that passed for traffic in Buenos Aires, savouring the moment. As Chief Executive Officer he ruled over a financial empire that had started with a whaling station on South Georgia Island seventy years ago and had grown so large its name had been changed to CBA International. Its tentacles reached into the heart of the Argentine government. Lopez was on a first name basis with each member of the military junta. Two of those three men sat behind him waiting while he stared down at the lights of the city.
Seated in a green leather chair to Lopez’s right, smoking a cigarette, was Admiral Jorge Anaya, a vain man, intent on breaking the nation by lavish spending on the Armada. His counterpart from the Fuerza Aerea, General Basilio Lami Dozo, lacking enthusiasm for today’s meeting, had not been invited. Public opinion didn’t warrant it.
Two chairs over, a glass of whiskey in his right hand, sat Presidente de la Nación, Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri, leader of the junta and political figurehead of the inept military rule that, in Lopez’s mind, was losing touch with the people. Sitting in his shirtsleeves, enjoying the comfort of the deep-padded chair, and Lopez’s liquor, Galtieri displayed a relaxed self-confidence that belied the pompous man Luis knew him to be.
Touching a button that electrically closed all the curtains, Lopez turned in the subdued lighting, addressing both men from behind his huge desk. “Gentlemen, as we speak, CBA’s newest salvage barge is approaching South Georgia Island.”
“Yes, but will it arrive on the nineteenth?” Admiral Anaya asked.
Lopez waved the question down. “We wrote severe penalties and large bonuses into the towing contract with Sterling Salvage and Marine. I have every confidence it will be delivered on time.”
“Good.” Anaya tapped his cigarette, allowing its ash to fall on the thick carpet. “The fleet auxiliary Bahía Buen-Suceso is in position to deliver Davidoff’s men and our soldiers when it arrives.”
Constantino Sergio Davidoff was a man more attuned to Lopez. He liked the fast-talking Argentinian with Greek roots who was into scrap-metal salvage, big time. CBA first had done business with him when the company was cutting up the old whaling fleet. He’d found buyers in the Philippines that had not only made the company money, but also had enriched everyone’s personal bank accounts. Davidoff had been the only man Lopez recommended to the junta when they came to him with this venture, and he let it be known that without him, there would be no deal. What concerned Lopez, were the military men involved.
“Who’s heading the operation?” Lopez asked.
Galtieri finished his drink. “Vicecomodoro Alexandro Seville is the man looking after our interests. Special Forces, loyal, completely trustworthy. I have every confidence he will get the job done.”
Lopez had met the man personally and taken an immediate dislike to him. CBA security had supplied a handwritten report about his involvement in what was emerging as the country’s ‘dirty war’. The desaparecidos, young people taken in the night, tortured, then killed. No, Lopez thought, that wasn’t the right term for drugging someone and pushing them out of an aeroplane over the ocean. Disposed of, came to mind. By men like Seville. No wonder the junta’s popularity was falling.
Davidoff, who stood to make thirteen million dollars tearing down the old whaling station at Leith Harbour, knew how to do business with CBA, and by extension, Lopez. The figure was paltry compared to what the junta would gain financially from the venture. Seville answered only to the two men before him. Lopez didn’t trust any of them.
“And this other matter?” he asked, settling into the chair behind his desk and gesturing between the two military men.
Admiral Anaya thumped a fist on his knee. “April second. Everything is in motion.”
“It will be a great day for Argentina.” Galtieri pointed a finger to the ceiling, continuing in his false oratory voice. “Las Malvinas son Argentinas.”
Luis Lopez knew the chant. Galtieri had diverted the population from more pressing issues with it. But now the mothers of the disappeared ones were marching in the streets, and Galtieri had to come up with something spectacular to restore public opinion. Invading the Falkland Islands was his solution. “What if Britain responds?” Lopez asked.
“What can they do?” Anaya asked, then answered his own question. “They have one broken-down old icebreaker. We have the finest fleet in South America.”
“A military victory is easy,” Lopez said before looking at Galtieri. “Turning world opinion in our favour may not go as well.”
“Why not?” Galtieri said. “The Americans will support us.”
“Against the British?”
Shaking the glass in his hand, Galtieri ignored the liquor sloshing out of it. “They have no right to be in Las Malvinas.” Wiping his hand, he then drained the glass. “The invasion is necessary to secure our operation on South Georgia Island.”
“What if the Falklands Sovereignty Lease-back Document should surface?”
Galtieri’s face contorted in rage. Jumping up he took a step toward Lopez and shouted so loud spit flew from the corners of his mouth. “There is no Falklands Sovereignty Lease-back Document.”

THREE

Walking into the office of Harwick and Price, John Wingate interrupted a political conversation between his uncle’s solicitor and a Salvation Army Major.
“Ah, Mister Wingate.” The solicitor gestured toward one of two empty leather chairs. “Please,” he said, waiting for John to make himself comfortable. “So glad you could make it.”
Making it, as the elderly man had said, involved a flight from Port Stanley, waiting two days in Buenos Aires for a seat on Aerolineas Argentinas, then an overnight stay in Miami before crossing the Atlantic. “Sorry it took so long.”
The solicitor put on a pair of reading spectacles. “Well now that you’re here, shall we begin?”
John nodded agreement.
Taking up a folder, the solicitor extracted a sheaf of papers, placed them on his desk, then ran a hand over the documents as if flattening them. “As you know, your uncle appointed me executor of the estate.”
“I didn’t,” John said.
“Over twenty years ago. I’ll read the will.” Picking up the papers, he began, “This is the last will and testament of me, Howard Wingate...
John, weary from his trip and feeling the heat of the room closing in, found himself only half listening through the preamble but was brought up short when hearing the solicitor read, “My financial portfolio, I do leave to the Salvation Army.” The man stopped, then peering over his spectacles at John, said, “It is valued at sixty-nine thousand, four hundred and thirty seven pounds.”
Fair enough, John thought. It was the old man’s money. He had the right to give it to charity.
The solicitor took up reading from the will again. “The property known as Stromness House and all its contents I do give to the Salvation Army for their use exclusively.”
John leaned forward in his chair. “What!”
The solicitor held up his hand. “Mr. Wingate, please.” A look of disdain crossed the man’s pudgy face before he glanced at the Salvation Army Major, sitting to John’s left.
“So what do I get, the sailboat?”
“I’m afraid not. That is included in the residue of the estate.”
“And that goes to..?” John glared at the Salvation Army Major.
“A foundation for the local library.”
“So I inherit nothing.”
Giving John the look of a disciplining school master, the solicitor picked up a page from his desk. “A codicil dated August twenty-eight, nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, gives you one thousand pounds and the contents of the centre drawer of the writing desk in the drawing room of Stromness House.” He set the papers down and took off his spectacles.
“That’s it, then? You mean to tell me, my uncle brought me all the way here simply to open a drawer?”
“So it would appear.”
“And this gentleman,” John gestured to the Major, “gets everything else?”
“Mr. Wingate,” the solicitor’s voice turned stern, “I drafted the will as your uncle requested it. I doubt anyone will know the motives behind his actions. And, no, this gentleman is only one of the beneficiaries.”
The Major addressed John, ice in his voice. “I might add, sir, that the estate does not come to me personally.”
“I may just contest this will.”
“I’d advise against that, sir,” the solicitor said. “ Not being a direct descendant of the deceased, you would be treated as equal with the other beneficiaries and have to reveal the contents of the drawer. I’d think seriously about that.”
Folding his arms, John sat back.
“Additionally,” and here he produced a document-sized manila envelope from the file folder, “Howard Wingate has requested, that in your presence, this be produced and delivered to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.” He handed it to John to examine.
Holding it in both hands, John read the words, EXCHEQUER OF BRITAIN - CONFIDENTIAL - PERSONAL, in faded black ink. The same confident printing was penned in the bottom right-hand corner, CHANCELLOR’S EYES ONLY. When he turned the old envelope over, its orange wax seal caught his eye. The outline of a whale with a flag superimposed on it was quite unlike anything he had seen before.
“You are both witnesses to the fact this envelope was produced,” the solicitor said, taking it back. “I shall see that it’s sent by overnight courier.” He set it aside for delivery to Britain’s top financial minister.
“What’s in it?” John asked.
Pointing to the envelope again, the solicitor tapped the word confidential. “It appears we’re not privy to the contents. In fact, there is nothing more of interest to you.” He leaned back, giving John a look signalling the meeting was over.
Feeling much like a schoolboy having been chastised by the headmaster, John stood up.
“There are some papers for you to sign, Mr. Wingate. My secretary has a cheque for a thousand pounds to cover your expenses. I presume you will be leaving Castle Cove shortly.”
“I may.”
“Well, thank you for coming. Before you leave though, you must open the centre drawer in the drawing room desk.”
Seeing his business was concluded, John left the room, closing the door with more force than necessary.
The pleasant manner of Harwick and Price’s elderly secretary drained away John’s frustration as she had him sign a number of documents. Giving him a cheque, she took a key out of an envelope and held it out. “This will unlock the center drawer...”
“I know, to the desk in the drawing room.” Right away John felt bad snapping at the woman. Slipping the cheque in his billfold, he accepted the key, thanking her graciously before leaving. Closing the heavy door, he stood outside a moment before stepping into the afternoon drizzle. So this was his inheritance, he thought, looking at the key in the palm of his hand. Outside of a birthday card he received every year, he hadn’t spoken to his uncle since leaving school. The house he really had no use for and could understand why his uncle had given it away. It was the money he’d accumulated that intrigued him. Their family had come from poor roots and John couldn’t remember his uncle having a job. Sixty-nine thousand pounds, and he’d flown John from the Falkland Islands to see it given away to charity. John shook his head and, placing the key in his pocket, stepped down to the pavement. Walking the cobblestone street that fronted the ocean past shops and businesses whose priorities lay beyond that of a dead sailor, he wondered what was so important that his Uncle Howard had brought him halfway across the world to unlock a drawer.

FOUR

Built beside a cliff on the east coast of England, Stromness House was an old Victorian manor with a spectacular view of the North Sea. A gray overcast, turning dark in the east as afternoon faded, cast a melancholy mood over John Wingate. Standing in the salon before an enormous stone fireplace, he pieced together what little history he knew of his Uncle Howard. He’d come to Castle Cove in nineteen forty-nine but had spent five or six seasons in the Antarctic, whaling for a big company operating out of Leith Harbour on South Georgia Island. At the close of each season he had returned to England until finally he’d quit and settled in at Stromness House. And that was about all John knew of the man’s past.
John looked about the room filled with memories of an uncle who’d made time in his life to teach his only nephew how to sail in his teen years. After tomorrow John would, like him, never see this place again. He wondered what the Salvation Army would do with it. Probably make it into a home for troubled boys or something.
Abandoning the thought, John rubbed his hand over a rosewood bookcase with its National Geographic magazines dating back to the thirties, recalling the evenings he’d spent after a day sailing with his uncle looking through their pages in front of a crackling fire. His fingers touched the glass doors, their etchings of storm-tossed seas and scenes of men in small boats hunting whales with hand-held harpoons reminding him of the stories his uncle had told. He’d given him Herman Melville’s Moby Dick as a present on his twelfth birthday.
John took the key out of his pocket, watching it glow in the subdued light, feeling its warmth, his Uncle Howard’s hand in his. Instead of sending it post, he’d brought him eight-thousand miles across the Atlantic. Why?
Stepping into the drawing room where dreary rain and low clouds filtered a sombre gray light through tall windows, John felt drawn to a battered oak desk that looked like it had came off one of Nelson’s ships at Trafalgar. Turning on a table lamp, he settled into his uncle’s maroon-leather chair, resting both hands on the worn arms. Stacked together above the desk were copies of Jane’s Fighting Ships spanning four decades. On a green felt cover rested a fountain pen, a steel ruler, and two pencils with sharpened tips. Directly in front of him was the centre drawer, the only one with a lock.
“Well, Uncle,” John said softly, “let’s see what you have for me.” He unlocked the drawer which slid open to reveal a single item, an old photograph album, its red leather faded with age.
Shoulders sagging, John sat back, closing both eyes and letting his head fall against the chair. What had he expected, a drawer full of money, maybe? After a moment he ran a hand over the red leather, thinking... His uncle had given everything to charity, except this photo album. John felt like shutting the drawer and leaving until he realized nobody else would have known about the album. “You would have to reveal the contents of the drawer,” the solicitor had said, as if equating it with sixty-nine thousand pounds. John lifted his inheritance out of the drawer.
The first few pages contained family photos, one of John’s uncle holding him as a baby, a few from their sea adventures to the South Orkneys. Pages that followed held pictures of ships. First was the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. There were three views: one of her moored in a harbour, a second lifted from a book that contained all her statistics, the third an enlargement of her as a wreck in the waters off Montevideo, smoke billowing from her burning hulk. Following this were snapshots of Exeter, Ajax, and Achilles, accompanied by a map of the naval battle. Howard Wingate’s printing showed through the picture of Exeter. John turned the back up. Heavily pencilled were the words, BRITISH SURVIVOR OF THE RIVER PLATE ENGAGEMENT.
So, this was all his uncle had left him, pictures of old naval history. John turned the last page. There were two pictures and a small envelope with Overseas Continental Bank, London, typed on it. While looking at the photo of a grounded merchant ship, the picture opposite caught his eye. On an enlarged black and white photo were four warships engaged in battle. The room became chilly. John could feel his uncle’s presence, touching him as he ran his fingers over the glossy photo. Writing showed through this picture too. He lifted it out of the album. On the back, faded block letters read: BATTLE OF THE RIVER PLATE - DECEMBER 13,1939.
John turned the photo face up, examining it in detail, then leaned back again and closed his eyes, rubbing them with both index finger knuckles. Questions flooded his mind. Answers were slow to come as he mentally reviewed what he’d learned about these ships from stories about the Falklands and a trip to Montevideo.
The Admiral Graf Spee, was a German commerce raider in the South Atlantic at the beginning of World War Two. She’d taken on three British cruisers off the coast of Argentina and all but sunk Exeter before running for safety in Montevideo. Allowed only seventy-two hours in the neutral port, the Graf Spee had been scuttled in the Rio de la Plata.
John put the numbers together. Four ships had been engaged in the fighting as Cumberland was laid up in Port Stanley. Opening his eyes, John once more looked at the picture. It was taken from the stern of a vessel close to Exeter, with two British cruisers in the distance, and another ship in the background discharging its main guns. Five ships had been at the Battle of the River Plate! John didn’t know all the details of the battle, but he was certain there were only four ships involved.
Trying to come up with a reason why his uncle would have created such a hoax, John drew a blank. Drawing on his experience as a professional photographer, he could find no evidence of the photo being re-touched.
Reaching behind and, massaging the back of his neck, he stood, then, picture in hand, walked to one of the many windows overlooking the North Sea. He found himself staring into the gloomy afternoon, watching waves breaking white against the rocky shoreline below, thinking.
Five ships. This information was his sole inheritance and something his uncle must have considered more valuable than the estate. John felt he could trust the handwritten words on the reverse of the photo. Nagging at the back of his mind was the thought that something was missing, and stare as he would at the fog-shrouded sea, it held no answers.
Returning to the desk, he held the photo under the lamp. It showed a section of rail and part of a flag. John tilted the photo under the light, trying to clarify the image. It wasn’t the Union Jack. Not enough stripes, he could only make out three. This ship was obviously a merchant vessel. The flag! John sat bolt upright when it struck him. What was an Argentinian ship doing in the middle of a naval battle?
John waited for his excitement to calm. Settling back, his mind flooded with new questions: What ship was it? Why had his uncle never spoken of it? Was he on it?
No answers. John put the photo back into the album and picked up the beige envelope with the Overseas Continental Bank’s London address on it. Turning it over revealed an orange wax seal with the same symbol he’d seen earlier on the envelope being sent to the Exchequer. Studying it with a magnifying glass, he could see the outline of a whale, within its body was a flag comprised of three horizontal stripes. Centered in the middle stripe, a small point that looked like the sun reminded him of the Argentine flag seen more and more in the Falklands. Why did everything lead to Argentina?
When John opened the envelope, a safety box key with the number 9713 stamped on it slid out.

Falklands Deadline

is now in print and can be purchased from your favorite online book store

It is also available as a PDF download from the books page on my website.

www.EdZaruk.com

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