Moment in time -1982

THE FALKLAND ISLANDS, SOUTH ATLANTIC - 12th June 1982 

THE SOUND OF the tracer passing overhead jerked him back to consciousness. Opening his eyes, he found them full of stars as he lay on his back gazing into eternity. The sodden earth and the slashing sleet carried on a numbing wind had saturated his battledress. Yet, Carlos Rega was oblivious to the icy rawness around him. Beads of sweat stood out on his forehead from the agony of his injuries. Damaged nerves in his lower limbs were sending painful signals to his brain that something was terribly wrong. Fighting the pain that wracked him, he tried to sit up but could not. Apprehensively, he moved his hands slowly down his thighs until the realization struck him.  His left leg below the knee had been blown off; the protruding bone and torn sinew marked the point of departure. Somehow, his bloody stump felt oddly unreal to the touch. Daring to explore further, he thankfully found that his other leg, his right leg, was still intact. However, there was a large hole in the calf of it into which he easily slid his fingers.

"What had happened?" he asked himself. 

Then he remembered the brilliant flash of white light and the earth heaving up into his face. It must have been an anti-personnel mine but whose? The British had neither time nor reason to lay mines because they were the attackers, not the defenders. He must have strayed into one of his own minefields, he concluded. Alone now, waiting to die, he cursed himself for being a fool, and he cursed the sergeant that had pointed him in this direction to start with. Had the man not known that the area was mined? Probably not, Carlos reasoned, judging by the confusion that he himself had observed since his arrival that afternoon. 

His watch was still working although its glass face was badly cracked. Glancing at it, he saw that it was just past twenty-three hundred hours. He wondered what Eva would be doing in Buenos Aires at this very moment. Probably she would be in bed for she rarely stayed up late. Was she thinking of him, probably, he decided. He knew then that he didn’t want to die in this desolate, rocky, barren, treeless land, which only sheep could appreciate. Now that he had seen the place, he couldn’t comprehend why the military junta had launched the invasion in the first place. He recalled the excitement in Buenos Aires the day General Leopoldo Galtieri, the Junta President, announced that Argentina had taken the islands back from the British. 

“After all!”, the people concluded, “hadn’t they rightfully belonged to Argentina anyway?”

Carlos was only a young man of twenty-three, and yet he had not been quite as enthused as most others of his generation at Galtieri’s rhetoric. Having spent three years in England studying electronics, he had come to know and like the English. He had even learned to speak fluently in their tongue. The British race, he knew from his interest in military history, were a proud people who had fought in some of the most significant wars the world had known. The British Army was a formidable one, made up of professional soldiers, whilst Argentina had mostly sent conscripts to hold these islands. In addition, the British were powerful foes if they felt a matter of principle was at stake as in this case.  Carlos had been certain they would try to retake the islands, and his fears were now a fact.  British troops had already landed in San Carlos Sound and were rapidly advancing toward Port Stanley. Thousands of frightened young men, including men of his unit, were out there somewhere in the darkness waiting to confront them.

As a lieutenant, newly arrived at that, his place was with his men. What had possessed higher command to send him forward alone without some prior knowledge of the ground over which he would be travelling didn't seem relevant anymore.  Nor was the object of his mission which was to use his knowledge of electronics to establish what type of equipment the British were using. 

"It was a pointless task anyway!" he concluded as he lay there. Even if the British had obligingly left some electronic equipment lying around for him to observe, the information he brought back would be useless because they had no countermeasures. It was like finding out how big a hammer someone was going to use on your head. Would it really help to know whether the hammer was a big one or a small one if you had no helmet anyway? 

"And they call themselves 'army intelligence'", he thought contemptuously. Now, here he was lying out here waiting to die because fools were in command.

The icy rain had stopped and so thankfully had the pain in his legs. He gazed at the multitude of stars that dotted the night sky and was no longer afraid. Slowly but surely, he knew that he was slipping away and his thoughts turned to Eva again. How would she react when she heard the news? He remembered the disquiet he had seen in her eyes when Galtieri had first spoken to the nation. Darling Eva would have been his wife in just three more months. Now, they would never marry. Tears filled his eyes at his loss. She was too beautiful to be alone for long, of course. Eventually, someone else would take his place. Such was the nature and order of things. Would that man love her as much as he did? How could he not?

The sound of someone squelching towards him over the sodden grass broke through his thoughts. Without thinking, he instinctively shouted a warning, “Minefield!” and the shadowy figure approaching him immediately stopped and ducked down.  Seconds passed and then the dark spectre began inching towards him but on all fours now. With a sinking heart, he then saw that the man was a British soldier, young, big, and powerfully built. The soldier’s face was blackened for night action and he was travelling light. No pack, just a lightweight high-velocity automatic rifle slung over his back and a menacing-looking knife clenched between his teeth. Trying to defend himself against this man in his present state would be pointless, Carlos knew, even if he had the time to draw out the holstered pistol on his belt, which he didn’t.  He was dying anyway so it might as well be quickly done. Better a speedy death than the lingering one that only moments before had been his lot.

The man reached him and Carlos closed his eyes waiting for the thrust that would finish him. It never came. “Do you speak any English?” the man whispered. The voice had a friendly reassuring ring to it.

Carlos opened his eyes and looked into the other man’s eyes before replying, “Yes, I lived in England for three years!”

“Good! Well, my friend, we’ve got to get out of here. Your chaps have a machine gun nest somewhere over there...” he said pointing off to the left. His smile was that of a mischievous boy rather than a killer as he continued, “...and I’ve been out here looking for it! I’ve also been out here looking for you!” He grinned again. "I followed your footprints.” A shudder went through Carlos as he realized that if he hadn’t stepped on the mine, this young man would have probably killed him anyway. Carlos was a line soldier, not a commando as this man obviously was, and would be no match at close quarters.

The man spoke again, “I heard the explosion some minutes ago and thought I’d follow through to see what the noise was all about.” 

He was still smiling as he said it, and Carlos realized incredulously that his companion was treating this war as one big game. Not in a fearful way but rather as some sort of adventure. He knew there were such men but he had never met one before. He had only read about them. Fearless men that did extraordinary deeds either being killed in the process or winning themselves medals or both. Carlos also knew then that this youth would not kill him. To kill a man in battle is one thing, to kill a man in cold blood when that man is defenseless is something else. Few men can do it without any qualms. Some will do it if they have to and suffer remorse for the rest of their lives, and some men will not do so under any circumstances. Carlos had no illusions that in battle the British soldier before him would not have hesitated. However, there was something in this boy’s eyes. An obvious love of humankind that didn’t quite equate with his present occupation. The soldier’s words as he sheathed his knife confirmed Carlos’ assessment of him.

“Your legs are in a bad way, I’ll see what I can do!” With that, the soldier reached inside one of the pouches on his webbing and pulled out a small sealed plastic bag containing a hypodermic needle and a phial. “Morphine!” he explained as he went to work.

The man seemed to know his stuff, Carlos surmised as the soldier attended to his injuries. Carlos flinched occasionally as both legs were injected and various dressings applied. As the British soldier’s gentle, competent hands went about their work, Eva’s face swam before him, and Carlos felt suddenly optimistic, almost euphoric. Finally, after three or so minutes, the young soldier appeared satisfied.

“Much pain?”

“It’s not too bad!” Carlos answered trying to be brave as most young men do when in the company of other men.

“That should do you until I get you back to our lines!”

Carlos became uneasy then. “No! Leave me here so my comrades can find me in the morning. You’ll never make it out otherwise!”

"They'll find a dead man if I leave you here!" the British soldier replied. "You've lost too much blood already! If you want to stay alive, you’d best come with me!”

“But how are you going to get out of here", Carlos asked. "This is a minefield, you know!”

“Well, actually, I didn’t until now!” the man responded.  “Was that what you yelled out? I thought you were yelling for your mother!” He then winked at Carlos and added, “Whatever, I owe you one! It could have been me lying here.” Then he winked again at Carlos and the warmth of that gesture and the confidence the man exuded made Carlos’ spirits soar.

“Don’t worry about our getting out!” the British soldier continued.  “I’ll go back using the same route I took to get in. Fortunately, the wet ground will assist us. I was following your footsteps coming in so  I’ll use the same foot marks going out again.” He paused for further consideration. “It’ll be tricky though, so you’ll have to keep perfectly still while I’m carrying you. If I fall with you on my back, we might both be taking a trip we haven’t planned on!” There was that grin again. “Oh, and one other thing, no noise! That machine gun is still out there and your men will be shooting at both of us if we make ourselves heard.”

Carlos nodded in agreement and marvelled that he was now beginning to believe that he might survive. The other man’s self-belief was that infectious. The soldier adjusted the rifle slung across his back, and then he reached down and placed his hands under Carlos’ shoulders. “I’m going to pick you up now”, he whispered. “Brace yourself and try to keep quite!”

Carlos felt himself being lifted easily and was amazed at the young man’s strength as he found himself draped across the other’s broad shoulders.  Slowly, silently, the soldier, burdened by the weight of Carlos, began to retrace his steps. A few minutes passed and then the night sky was suddenly lit by tracer fire. Somewhere, a firefight was taking place. Until then they had been lucky because the blackness had swallowed them up, but now they were clearly exposed against the horizon. Both waited motionless and frozen for the sudden shock of gunfire that must descend on them but nothing happened. Then the night was still and dark again.

Carlos quietly exclaimed in relief, “Je.. Sus!” The man carrying him added quietly, “Amen to that!”  They waited there for a few more seconds and then the soldier trudged slowly on.  More minutes passed and Carlos could only marvel at the young man’s toughness and physical fitness. Loss of blood and fatigue set in before long, however, and Carlos gradually slipped into unconsciousness.

When he awoke again, Carlos found himself lying on a stretcher in a small field station, basically, a large tent, with three other stretcher cases, all British soldiers, for company. A medical orderly arrived at Carlos’ side and examined his dressings. A good-humoured dark little man in his middle twenties, when he found that Carlos spoke English, he said, “Don’t worry! We’ll get you to a hospital as soon as possible. This is only a transit point where we assess and provisionally treat the wounded.” He then grinned as he said,  “We kill them later in our field hospitals!”

Two humorous and kindly men in one night, Carlos thought and both were his enemy. Further, both his foes seemed to share something else in common. An abiding confidence that the final victory would be theirs. If Carlos had doubted it before, he did not doubt it now. The man was speaking to him again. “Someone did a fine job patching you up!”

Then Carlos remembered and replied, “The soldier that brought me in? Where is he?”

“You mean Lieutenant Lewis?  He couldn’t stay! Our soldiers are rather busy at the moment!”

“I didn’t have the opportunity to thank him!” Carlos whispered, more to himself than the other man.

“He said he’d get in touch with you when the battle’s over. To see how you are, that is! He also told me to take special care of you because you have a date with Eva!”

“Eva?” Carlos repeated and then remembered.

“The Lieutenant said you kept repeating her name over and over while you were unconscious.”

Carlos suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude; the tears flowing freely down his face.

“Rest!” the orderly said sympathetically and gave Carlos’ arm a slight squeeze before he made his way to the next stretcher case.

Carlos, utterly exhausted by his ordeal, soon fell asleep and dreamed of his beautiful Eva. He was back in Argentina and she was in his arms.  There was a third person with them, his newly found friend that had given him back his life.