Tidal Rage by David Evans (best big ereader .TXT) 📗

a starlight spangled tunnel with a moving escalator to take the guests to the club.

The band had requested Sebastian, as he could mimic John Lennon nearly perfectly, and did a fantastic rendition of Imagine. He followed this with Penny Lane in the unusual voice of Paul McCartney in his camouflaged northern England accent. What the band had also requested was that Sebastian sit at the rear of the group, as they did not want to turn it into the Sebastian show, which was always a possibility.

Simmie Lan was a South Korean businessman who drank too much and thought his money could buy him anything. He was the cruise pest, waving his money around and pestering female guests. He wore dark, round glasses on his lean, bony nose and puckered-in face.

All Sebastian saw was Mona in the nightclub and Wan gripping her bottom and kissing her, and then they were gone. He thought they had left to complete what they had started. At that time, her fate was sealed. What Sebastian did not know was that Wan just jumped in and went for it, hands on bum, tongue in the mouth. After a moment, a stunned Mona had pushed Wan off and fled the club with the lusting Wan after her. She turned on the escalator as Wan hurled himself at her drunkenly and she brought her right knee up to his thin, wasted groin. Wan collapsed instantly in agony, groaning, his hands clutching his precious testicles.

Later during the evening performance, Sebastian played Elton John’s Circle of Life from The Lion King, a favorite of Mona’s. Sebastian cast a glancing smile at her at the back of the crowded bar. She had no idea that Sebastian had witnessed what appeared to be a groping in the club. As per usual, she walked meekly to the piano to hand in her requests on a paper napkin. Sebastian deftly handed her one back. It read, ‘Don’t tell anyone, and hand this back to me later. Will meet you at Brandon Road, Stanley, at 10 am tomorrow. Bring walking gear.’

Half-hour later she returned the napkin with, ‘Can’t wait.’ Sebastian then played another Elton John song, Norma Jean, the relevance of the song lost on her.

Mona hardly slept all night with the excitement; she believed this could be the start of something wonderful. This, she thought, could be a new beginning in her life. She fantasized that she could just as easily create computer games from her powerful laptop on any ship she would follow Sebastian around on. Surely these entertainers could bring spouses on board.

The fantasies expanded, and before long she was pleasuring herself, which made the fantasies appear realer. When eventually morning came, she studied the port of Stanley on the Falkland Islands guide and found Brandon Road. It was several streets back from the 1982 war memorial, an easy twenty-minute walk, and off the beaten track.

The Falkland Islands, as the residents and its British protector call it, or Las Malvinas, as the Argentines proclaim it as their own, had seen a short but brutal war fought in the spring of 1982. It had been a British Protectorate since Britain had exerted the right in 1833. Stanley, named in 1845 after Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for the Colonies, was the only town on the island, with a population south of three thousand inhabitants. Stanley was the next port of call.

Sebastian hired a moped from the local hire shop just opposite the East Jetty Pier where the tender had brought him from the anchored ship some mile out in the harbour. He had ensured he had also taken two helmets. A driving license was not required, just cash and a credit card imprint in case of damage.

The majority of the cruise passengers queued at the tour buses to take them to see the gentoo penguins that frolic off the shore, or the smallest species type in the world, the rare rockhopper penguins, in a colony along the Berkeley Sound. Sebastian navigated through the throng and saw several of the guests walking along Ross Road to the memorial, those that were too set in their ways to pay the inflated tour prices. There was no one around when Sebastian picked up Mona, and insisted she wore the helmet.

***

It rains or snows in the Falklands for 250 days a year, and the wind chill from the wind and gales swept up from the Antarctic make the island inhospitable if you are not equipped with the right, heavy-duty outdoor clothing. Ned Jones knew this, as he had been here in 1982 fighting; at first against the poorly equipped conscripts, and later the better equipped and trained regular Argentine soldiers.

It was after the bloody fight at Mount Longdon. They were facing a heavily fortified Mount Tumbledown, the last hill stopping them from recapturing Stanley from the Argentine invasion force. The advance area had been mined heavily, as had a large part of the surrounding area.

Battalion headquarters knew Tumbledown was held by regular Argentine troops, and they had gun placements all trained on the advancing British troops. The Argentines expected that out of the attacking force of four hundred British troops, half would be dead or dying after the attack. The one advantage was the Argentines never put their ranking officers in the field or line of fire; they were all back in Stanley enjoying beer in one of the town’s three well-equipped pubs.

The British commanding officer had other ideas. The projected death count was too much to pay, and the political ramifications back home would have been severe. Between his forces and Tumbledown, where the Argentines had occupied, the Argentine junior officers had deemed a little hill called Sapper Hill, as a non-strategic point, and not worthy of troops.

The commander had the seventy Royal Marines who had initially fought off the Argentine invasion in Government House. He had been captured by