What not to smuggle into Argentina

COMMENTARY

Travelling home from the Falklands, an RAF officer accidentally carried the one souvenir he should never have taken into Argentina. The reception he received was not the one he expected.

By Leo Collins, Senior Editor Product Operations

IF Argentines are said to hold Brits in a ‘chilly’ regard, then those in Santa Cruz are supposedly as cold as the heaving South Atlantic towards which this remote Patagonian province glares. Barely 300 miles to its east lie the Falkland Islands or, if you’re in Argentina and have any sense, Las Islas Malvinas.

In 2017, I briefly lost my senses, thanks to one forgotten photograph.

I had just spent six months doing remarkably little on that windswept archipelago. As a 27-year-old RAF officer, I was proud to do my duty in a far-off land.

Yet after spotting my millionth penguin, the moss-hued monotony of defending the gateway to Antarctica was becoming relentless.

Aside from the on-base bar and gym – and the occasional trip to Port Stanley to sample the local views on Argentine ‘beef’ – there wasn’t much to do.

So, while most people scurry towards the next RAF Voyager bound for Brize Norton at the end of their deployments, I boarded the weekly flight from Mount Pleasant to Punta Arenas in Chile. Craving adventure, I intended to thread my way home via the claw-like peaks of Patagonia.

But here’s the thing: doing so meant having to cross into Argentina – specifically Santa Cruz.

For a British military officer in Argentina to claim that those islands are anything other than Argentine would not just be controversial; it would constitute a diplomatic incident.

Proximity also sharpens memory. In Santa Cruz, they really do feel close enough to matter. Evidence of the emotional impact of that brief but bloody war in 1982 is strewn everywhere: graffitied road signs, faded murals and haunting monuments to the 649 men and boys who never came home.

And I was about to enter this province – with evidence of my own.

Shortly before my departure, my team and I took a group photograph outside the British Forces South Atlantic Islands HQ building.

In this photograph, my lanky frame juts above the others, while my unfocused grin suggests I dispatched one can of weak lager too many the night before (we knew how to pass the storm-lashed wee hours).

Fast-forward two weeks, and an unshaven RAF officer sits on a knackered bus at the Chilean border waiting to enter Santa Cruz – with that photograph foolishly stuffed and forgotten in his rucksack as an operational keepsake.

After crawling past the first checkpoint, our transport wheezed to an abrupt halt. The Argentine guard who clambered on board to check our bags looked no older than 25, and he could not have been less enthralled with his responsibilities.

Sullen and brooding, he got to work. Inspecting hungover tourists for contraband in deepest Santa Cruz was clearly not what he signed up for. After a sharp nod, he gestured for my bag.

I could suddenly see what was about to happen. His gloved hand burrowed through the contents of my rucksack and, as I feared it would, gently began to remove the photograph. He briefly fixed me with two joyless eyes before turning to the picture. He drank in every controversial detail: our British uniforms; the islands’ outline on the HQ building; the massive Union Jack; that dreadful grin.

As a serving British officer who had been instructed not to discuss the islands with any Argentines (ever), I started to wonder if a charming attempt at cultural naivety would save me from the inbound awkwardness.

I assessed it wouldn’t.

The guard pointed at my face in the photograph before curtly asking:

‘Sos militar?’ (You’re military?’)

‘Sí,’ I replied.

Patting his uniform in a slow and deliberate manner, he quietly explained: ‘Yo también.’ (‘Me too.’)

A heavy pall of silence fell between us. Suddenly, he grinned with a warm familiarity. Handing me the photograph, he turned to go. His inspection was done.

But then he stopped.

By now rain had started to pepper the grubby windows, pricking the silence inside the bus.

Glancing back with impish (and beautifully feigned) curiosity, he inquired in perfect English: ‘Did you know those islands are actually Argentinian?’

It was my turn to smile.

‘Sí,’ I replied.

As the bus lurched away, relief washed over me.

Yet I was mostly embarrassed; my supposed adversary had revealed himself to be a bored and wry-humoured young soldier.

Before slipping sheepishly into Argentina, I always thought about the campaign in 1982 with a quiet sense of patriotism. I still do.

But now whenever I look at that photograph, I see two uniforms – and I respect both deeply. I keep it not as a trophy of my deployment, but as a reminder of the gloved hand that passed it back.

The game of posturing becomes a little tedious after one has shared a quiet joke with the ‘other side’. I’d sooner contest the bones of an asado than those of a chapter now closed.