LITMIR.BIZ

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of a tea and coffee machine from the corridors of the MoD than about the disappearance of yet another superbly trained body of fighting men.

      In 1991 my first book, Excursion to Hell, was published. It was my own personal perspective on the Falklands war, and in particular the battle for Mount Longdon. My aim was to give the view of the ordinary soldier, but the government did not want to know the facts of warfare as I and others like me saw it. It was not the sort of book a senior military commander would have written, one that would have been thoroughly vetted by the Ministry of Defence. But the fact is, it did not escape official attention, for fifteen months after its publication they initiated a police inquiry conducted by Scotland Yard.

      I could write a whole book on this painful episode, but what stands out is the tacky way the government handled the affair. The unmistakable message was that only they can call the shots in such matters. However, I believe firmly that the ordinary soldier has the right, just like a general or a politician, to publish his account of that, or any other, war. I object to bureaucrats distorting the facts, contradicting the experience of those who were there.

      Military writers often glorify war. This book is not about glory. It is simply about individuals thrown together in war. My aim has been to write it in such a way that its message is clear to every reader, from the high-ranking civil servant to the ordinary man who has no understanding of military matters. Nor is this book an apolitical study. I ask you to put aside your opinions about the political rights and wrongs of the Falklands and read it as an account, largely in their own words, of soldiers of both sides who fought in that war. It is about their lives before, during and after the Falklands: how they came to find themselves on those bleak islands, what they experienced in battle and what happened to them and their families afterwards.

      In June 1993 I travelled to the Argentinian capital, Buenos Aires, for the first time, in the company of two ex-members of the 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment, and representatives of the newspaper Today. There, in a backstreet hotel, we met on camera two Argentinian veterans of Mount Longdon. The aim of our visit was to show that the soldiers of two formerly warring nations could meet amicably without governmental interference or prompting. It took place at a sensitive time, for an inquiry into alleged war crimes by British soldiers was currently in progress.

      It was while talking with my interpreter that I glimpsed the possibility of a book based on frank discussions between myself and both Argentinian and British Falklands veterans. The unstinting help of Patricia Sarano, of the Argentinian television company Channel 11, was to prove invaluable. I gave her a list of questions for other Longdon veterans. These men she tracked down and interviewed informally, faxing the transcripts to me back in England. Three months later the synopsis of this book was approved by the publisher.

      It was now that my real work began. My research clearly had to extend beyond talking to four or five ex-soldiers. To make things more difficult, as a result of the police inquiry my name was being splashed across the national newspapers every few weeks, so that it became harder to get Paras I had fought alongside to come forward.

      Nevertheless, between October and December 1993 I interviewed five ex-members of 3 Para at great length, noting down every relevant detail of their personal lives. And I spent hours each day pinpointing their exact movements during the battle for Longdon. Over Christmas, after long, hard negotiations with friends in the know, I persuaded a twenty-four-year-old Argentinian living in England to assist me in my research in Argentina. Meetings took place in locations chosen to ensure confidentiality, primarily to prevent either the British or the Argentinian press from getting wind of the planned second trip. This may all sound overdramatic, but during that period certain members of the press were taking every step to probe into my life and hinder me. It is something I shall not forgive. To hell with them!

      I first met Diego Kovadloff through a brief interview I gave to an Argentinian magazine. His impeccable English, his intelligence and his sense of humour forged a friendship between us at once. This young man, fourteen at the time of the Falklands war, was to become a vital link in the chain of production of this book, as his interpreting skills were essential to me. After numerous telephone calls to Argentina we had gained the agreement of a number of Longdon vets to meet us in their own homes.

      On 18 January 1994, after flying via Switzerland and Brazil, we arrived in Buenos Aires to complete my research. I was nervous as I stepped off the plane and I was acutely aware that, knowing no Spanish, I had to rely totally on Diego for what would be a very emotional exchange for both sides. Also, I knew that if just one reporter knew I was there, not only would six months’ work be destroyed, but our Argentinians would be unlikely to assist me. This was all the more probable because they are understandably reserved as far as the Falklands war is concerned.

      How would I react to meeting the soldiers who had played a part in killing my friends? On the other hand, how would they feel seeing their former enemy? Would they focus on the politics of the war? Would they embroider the truth, or just downright lie? A thousand questions raced through my mind as we drove to a secret address in the Argentinian capital. After all, as far as I know, no one has written a book like this, where the author fought the very people he later interviews.

      Buenos Aires has a strong European feel to it, inevitably mainly Spanish although the influence of Italy and Britain is also marked, particularly in the architecture. Cafés and newspaper kiosks lining every main street also gave it a continental European character. But what struck me immediately was the way the people drive. Where possible, they race at high speed along roads with few road signs and then bunch up like racing drivers at the lights, with perhaps eight cars straddling a road meant for four or five.

      Impatient drivers revving up and sounding their horns at the lights are not unheard of in Britain, but they are more like the norm in Buenos Aires. In the suburbs the lights are often ignored completely, and driving along those roads I felt like I was at the wheel of a dodgem car at a fairground. The state of repair of the roads hardly makes for a smooth ride either. After experiencing this and the frantic driving of the locals, I’ve not complained about our roads once since being back in England.

      On the whole I found the people of Buenos Aires honest and polite, and the service in restaurants and cafés prompt and friendly. I was learning about a race of people I had been conditioned to think of as overexcitable and quick-tempered. Our cultures are undeniably different in many ways, but I soon felt relaxed in this lively, round-the-clock city.

      However, in the suburbs of Buenos Aires I saw the stark poverty in which very many of the city’s populace live. They do not have the safety-net of unemployment benefit like Britain’s, and receive next to nothing from the state. It was a common sight to see street vendors as young as six standing on street corners or threading their way between cars waiting at traffic lights. The poverty I saw made me realize how, relatively speaking, everyone is materially comfortable in Britain. We have deprivation in our inner cities, but nothing to compare with what I saw.

      Most of the people living in the suburbs, where I was to interview the Longdon veterans, live in single-storey bungalows consisting of a living room and kitchen in one, one or two bedrooms and a bathroom. They are small compared with the average two-storey terraced house in Britain. Normally a large table dominates the living room, where there is usually also a TV. The occupants sit and talk for hours around this table in a time-honoured tradition of family life.

      The Argentinians pride themselves on eating well, particularly steak and barbecued food. After coffee it is the normal practice to sip a tea called maté from a pot with a spout. It reminded me of the American Indians passing round the peace pipe. The first time I was offered maté I thought it was a drug in liquid form, like hash oil. Nevertheless I liked it.

      The Argentinians I was to interview all lived in Lanus or Bandfield, twenty minutes’ drive from the centre of Buenos Aires. They had belonged to the 7th Mechanized Regiment, an infantry unit, and had been conscripted from the same area, unlike the British Army, in which men from all over the country serve together. We have a voluntary army with a professional structure, whereas the Argentinians operate a system of conscription.

      At birth every Argentinian citizen is given a national identity document which has to be renewed when the holder reaches sixteen. For males

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