Phoenix Squadron by Rowland White

Author:Rowland White [White, Rowland]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781446422397
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 2011-06-29T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

RICHARD CORKRAN WAS IN his sitting room at Airport Camp drinking whisky with the Second Secretary. Since Sir John Paul’s departure, Allan Hird had been the senior British diplomat in BH. He’d been due to go out for dinner, but Corkran’s whisky proved rather too good to leave. Hird phoned to make his excuses. Later in the evening there was a knock on the door.

‘Excuse me, sir, is Mr Hird here?’ It was one of the soldiers from the Signals detachment. When a FLASH signal came through from the Foreign Office, after connecting his earlier phone call, they’d known exactly where to find him. Hird stared at the piece of paper, then shared it with Corkran. The crucial words were: ‘GUATEMALAN ATTACK MAY BE IMMINENT’. Corkran read it with disbelief.

‘What do you think your lot mean by imminent? Next month, next week or tomorrow?’

After thinking for a moment, Hird replied, ‘They could mean tomorrow.’

‘In that case we’d better get moving.’

The two men hurried off to wake Colonel Shipster, Commander of the British Honduras Garrison HQ. Corkran worried that Shipster, the Senior Officer, would try to get involved in the operational control of the Inkerman Company. In fact, he did just the opposite. The experienced old campaigner knew the value of leaving Corkran to run his own unit. He invited the young Major to give his own orders and promised that he and his small staff would do whatever they could in support. With Shipster’s blessing, Corkran left to summon his orders group.

The Sea Kings of 824 NAS clattered in to rejoin Ark Royal in harbour. In Flyco, familiar, well-rehearsed RT exchanges filled the airwaves as the incoming pilots flew in over the cranes, wharfs, jetties and basins of HMS Drake, Her Majesty’s Dockyard, Devonport. Each of the dark-blue helicopters flared in turn before settling on to the main undercarriage at one of the six marked landing spots on the flight deck. Below the roar of the engines and the throbbing wumph of the main rotors, a constant stream of humanity toiled up and down gangplanks to load Ark with stores for the voyage – the unmistakable activity of a great ship being made ready to sail. Bar the arrival of the helicopters, its rhythm had barely changed in centuries. Ark was fuelled to just 91 per cent to keep her draught shallow enough for her to move safely out to sea above the bottom of the channel.

An hour and a half after the last of the eight helicopters landed, John Roberts was piped on board. Already briefed in detail by Ark’s Operations Officer, Commander Mike Cole, about the ship’s programme over the months ahead, the affable Captain was looking forward to getting out to sea again. There were exercises with the US Navy off Norfolk, Virginia, then a trip further north for a rare visit to New York, where Ark Royal was due to moor for a week in the Hudson River, just upstream from the QE2 pier. Then it was on to the Atlantic Fleet Weapons Ranges again for live weapons training.

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