'It's Not Right to Let Things Go Back to the Old Ways'
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Before the final British assault in 19S2, Royal Marines advance from Teal Inlet on their way to Stanley. A rticleand color photographs by Nicholas Dean Just before the war, when I last visited the place, about the most traumatic event that Stanley was likely to ex perience was the arrival of a rare cruise ship, bound to South Georgia, loaded with amateur photographers and bird watchers. For a few hours the 1,100 inhabi tants of Stanley felt uncomfortably crowded on their ‘It’s not right to own turf. Souvenir hunters swarmed local shops in search of postcards, penguin T-shirts and Falkland Islands postage stamps, while pub regulars growled at let things go back the intolerable intrusion on their privacy. Some shops simply closed up until the last launch had returned to the waiting liner. to the old ways’ All that has changed, probably forever, but anyway until the present large British garrison departs—and that may be years from now. The Anglican cathedral is still in place, of course. So are the weathered hulks of a few old sailing vessels, relics of the days when Stanley was a port of refuge for square-riggers in the Cape A year and more after Argentine invasion, Horn trade, which still sit forlornly in the shallows, even their later days as wool warehouses over. (See Fred Falkland Islanders are at last getting Strebeigh’s article, Smithsonian, September 1981.) used to the challeriging business of change But today, ships and small military craft buzz to and 50 Clutching a plastic helicopter and a warlike Ben Coekwell, 8. of Fox Bay East can look forward lrawing, and sporting a “British Genius” button, to a life probably far different from his father’s. I Challenge and change in the Falhlands fro like water beetles. Helicopters clatter overhead dangling cargo. As I came ashore (by landing craft, the only transport then available) the jetty seemed packed with uniformed figures. There are still about •1.000 British troops in the Falklands, roughly twice the total civilian population, and quiet little Stanley is often awash in soldiery. You see them queuing up at the foot of a jetty to buy overpriced candy bars at Des Pecks Philomel store, strolling in khaki twos and threes, and saluting each other, which they seem to do a lot, 01 just rumbling about in huge army trucks (read “lorries”) which, only 18 months after hostilities ceased, have pounded the town’s few miles of paved roads into interlocking potholes. Anyone who knew the islands before (as I did) and goes back to visit friends (as I have just done) will naturally find people still much preoccupied with lecollections of the fighting. The war swept the Falk lands out of what was in many ways an idyllic, wind swept, woolgathering past and into an’ uncertain future. Yet Falklanders today are also looking ahead, making plans as they never did before, because the islands' future promises to be richer and fuller of opportunity (as well as more hectic and dangerous) than the past ever was. The house was shelled by “friendly” fire My hosts this trip are John and Veronica Fowler. When I first met them back in 1979, John was head master of the Darwin school outside Goose Green, where some of the heaviest fighting of the war later occurred. Before the war, though, the school was closed and they moved into Stanley. Now John is Superin tendent of Education there, busy trying to keep the schools running properly under trying conditions. Veronica’s time is now largely taken up with two ex tremely bright children. Rachael, 3. and Daniel, born a few weeks after the Argentine landings in April 1982. The Fowlers are in temporary quarters. Their old house, on the west edge of town was hit by “friendly” British fire in a celebrated but tragic incident that wrecked their kitchen and killed three island women who had taken refuge there. (John and Veronica suf fered slight shrapnel wounds; the children, safe in an impromptu shelter made out of a large wooden side board, books and tea chests filled with peat, went blessedly unscathed.) Despite some close calls, the three women were the only civilian fatalities in a war that cost 1.032 British and an estimated 2,000 Argen tine killed and wounded. The Fowlers’ present house, a spacious bungalow, has a guest room, which they offered me. It was no casu Veronica Fowler’s house was hit and three people al offer, either, I discovered. There was an acute hous died, but Daniel, 1 i/o, and Rachael, 3, went unharmed. ing shortage in Stanley then. The military constantly 52 p considered, Falklanders bear remarkably little ani mosity toward the Argentines-perhaps because the war turned out well, perhaps because “the Argies” (except for their air force) proved such hapless war- riors, as well as being, almost until the very end, highly unthreatening occupiers. The first weeks after the Argentine takeover were pretty relaxed, though the Argentine commanders caused consternation by changing the traffic laws so that British Falklanders (at least any who owned one of the islands’ 371 cars and trucks) suddenly found themselves trying to drive on the right-hand side of l the street. Islanders had considerable doubts about the value of the pesos they received in recompense, but they found the Argentines punctilious in matters of private property and claims for damages. After the British armada set sail for the Falklands, and especially after the first British air raid on the airport, the hours of darkness in Stanley became tense and harrowing. Nervous Argentine patrols fired at practically any sound. By Argentine order, if Falklanders so much as peered out a window at night, they risked being shot at. But nothing entirely eradicated the musical-comedy Welcoming penguin belongs to Des Peck who owns aspect of the war. According to a story current in Stan Philomel variety store near Stanley's main jetty. ley, with great stealth and under cover of darkness the Argentines cut down a section of the tall board fence that runs around an empty lot on Ross Road (Stanley’s main street), just west of the Falkland Islands Com pled with civilians to spare space for rental to soldiers, pany s West Store. Behind it, also under cover of dark- at least until the three new prefab Swedish barracks ness, they installed a machine gun. But came the going up near the airport were fully assembled. dawn and the section of fence was back in place. Every Like other islanders, John and Veronica cope sen- night thereafter, down came the fence, so the gun sibly with everyday details of postwar living. A huge bunker dug by the Argentines in the backyard of their bungalow has been converted into a flourishing vege table garden. We drink our instant coffee from Argen tine Navy mugs left behind by the hastily departing enemy. These days, too, when Veronica gets a chance to lounge around at all, she lounges in a pair of blue pajamas left behind by a smallish Argentine officer. 1 Bizarre supply shortages do occur. On any given week the local stores may be out of anything from lighter fluid to onions, depending upon what the soldiers have been buying a lot of, or upon which huge container from Britain hasn't yet been unpacked from the jumble of crates down at the docks. As usually happens in garrison towns, resourceful hostesses tend to invite a military acquaintance for a home-cooked meal, casually mentioning that dinner might be im proved if he brings "a few onions.’’ A bit ironically, the garrison has its own excellent bakery and army bread has become a local delicacy. At least with a visitor from the remote outside world like me, people still tend to “dine out” on stories about Fox Bay East Postmaster Ken Halliday is already the war. Many recollections are lighthearted. All things branching out, raising vegetables and poultry for sale. 53 ! I ; ! could have a range of unrestricted fire. Each day, back it went in place, covering the gun and thus, presum ably, allaying Falklanders’ fears. Needless to say, this whole performance was supposed to be—and of course wasn’t—a great military secret. Emma Steen, who runs the boardinghouse where 1 took some of my meals, left Stanley for the countryside during most of the troubles. When she got back there was an antiaircraft gun in her flower garden. But it was ■ what the young Argentine soldiers had left behind that touched her. “In the yard by the bunker," she recalls, there was a collection of Dinky Toys which we had not seen before, in a sock with some money. That’s how young some of the conscripts were!” Nick and Sheila Hadden were living in a friend’s house near the tiny sheep settlement of Fitzroy. Shortly after the British advance from Goose Green, the Had dens were awakened by two Argie noncoms who wanted to borrow their Land Rover and rejoin their outfit in Fitzroy. It was a cold night. Sheila offered them a cup of coffee—on condition they leave their guns outside. They agreed. Afterwards, they drove off happily toward town. What the two soldiers didn’t know was that the British troops were already in Fitz roy, and the island's old, crank phone system was still working. Nick rang up Fitzroy and the two noncoms were taken prisoner. Gurkhas that go bump in the night Fooling the Argies is a fairly common theme. After the invasion the population of Goose Green, 11-1 peo Rainbow, frequent sight in the showery Falklands, ple, was herded together at gunpoint, forced into the arcs u p from damaged superstructure of Sir Tristram.