Now, Alas, the Guns of May

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began. Soviet spy ships had dogged the British armada as it made its slow way down the South Atlantic to the Falklands. In private conversations with Secretary of State Haig, Argentina's Costa Méndez had warned that his country might turn to the Soviet Union for military assistance in the event of a British attack. Haig was unfazed by the threat, but the very mention of possible Soviet involvement added yet another level of possible trouble that might arise from the situation.

Despite the complexities caused by both U.S. and Soviet interests in the outcome, the Falklands showdown remained the oddity it has been from the beginning: a case of 19th century gunboat confrontation in the late 20th century. The last-minute oscillations between peace and war were a product of the very nature of the face-off. Britain's firm conviction throughout has been that only by means of the steady escalation of both military and diplomatic pressure could Argentina be forced to relinquish a prize that it had taken by an illegal armed invasion. As Prime Minister Thatcher, the Iron Lady of British politics, told the House of Commons last week, "Gentle persuasion is not going to make the Argentine government give up what it has seized by force." The broader principle was that anything less than determined resistance to the Argentine invasion would, to use the words of Haig, "condone the use of unlawful force to resolve disputes."

If there was any doubt that the British were prepared to use force decisively to retake the Falklands, it was dispelled on April 25. At dawn's first light, more than 100 members of M Company, 42nd Commando, of the Royal Marines were landed on remote and mountainous South Georgia Island, a British dependency some 800 miles east of the Falklands. By 6 that evening, Prime Minister Thatcher was able to enjoin Britons to "rejoice, rejoice," as she and Defense Secretary John Nott announced the recapture of their first objective in the South Atlantic without a single British casualty. Fighting continued on South Georgia, however, until at least 10 a.m. the following day.

The assault on South Georgia offered the first concrete insight into the ways Britain might fight its difficult war in the Falklands. Even as Foreign Secretary Pym conferred in Washington with Secretary of State Haig on April 22 about a possible diplomatic solution to the crisis, as many as a dozen members of Britain's elite Special Boat Squadron, an ultra-secret frogman-commando unit, had slipped quietly ashore on the island. Their mission was to scout Argentine troop emplacements and estimate the size of the opposing force. The scouts reported that the Argentine troops at the South Georgia harbor of Grytviken, the site of an abandoned whaling station, numbered no more than 44.

On Sunday, as two helicopters ferried reconnaissance units to the 100-mile-long island, the British had a stroke of luck. Some five miles from South Georgia, the chopper pilots spotted the Argentine submarine Santa Fe moving toward Grytviken. The British fired at the sub, a diesel-powered craft built in 1944 by the U.S., with machine guns and rockets. They scored at least three hits on the vessel, which began leaking oil and giving off smoke. The stricken Santa Fe limped into Grytviken harbor to beach itself. As about 50 Argentine troops poured off the vessel, the