Another cold morning in May 1982 - We are in a group of ships steaming off the Falklands Islands waiting for the 'morning run' of the Argentinean aircraft.

After several days of the same, their early presence almost feels monotonous, as in between the waves coming in you can hear the lads on watch sharing a joke, having fun and basically taking the piss out of any 'grunter' (officer) they see..... Just a normal day out at sea...............

On this particular day, we're on the bridge.... It's pretty full, lots of 'goofers' making some excuse to be on the bridge; just so they can be the first to run down between decks to sprout off the early dit of "you never guess what" or "I heard it straight from the horses mouth".................

Anyway, back to the bridge........ Besides the goofers, we have the Captain, OOW, Navigator, a Midshipman (for some reason or another), The Yeoman, and other bridge official personnel...

On the port wing staring out of a pair of binoculars looking for anything and trying to look important is the Yeoman, one of the ships king jokers, a small in stature Petty Officer but big on laughs. As he peers quietly through his pair of bins, up crouches his big mate and an equal joker, the Buffer (Chief Boatswains Mate) and says to him in a low voice "What you lookin' at TC" (real name altered)... Without taking his eyes from the lens, TC casually replied "Nothin', it's too bloody quiet this mornin'. Take it from me, it's goin' to be an empty day".

With that the Buffer picks up a pair of binoculars and standing quietly next to TC imitates the casual stare out of the window.......

After several uneventful minutes, a shout from the gun lookout above breaks the eerie spell. "RED 090 FAR AND LOW, TWO AIRCRAFT ,SLOW MOVEMENT".

Immediately all eyes carrying binoculars (every bugger by now) run over very noisily to the lonely place where the Yeoman and the Buffer are stood. Seconds tick by until someone shouts "GOT 'EM, RED 90, TWO SMALL DOTS OVER THE HORIZON". Comically, all heads move in sync together until one by one up pops a shout "Oh yes, I see them" or "don't they look small" etc etc.. Meanwhile, back to our two comical pair, the Buffer lazily looking through his bins says casually to TC "They look almost stationary, not movin', just gettin' a bit bigger.... I wonder what poor bugger they are goin' for"....... Equally TC replies "No idea Buffs, lets take a look".

With that our comical duo casually walk over to the other side of the bridge, put their binoculars back up to their faces and quietly stare out to sea......... an empty sea, a very empty sea.........

Immediately, something sinks in the minds of our duo and together they slowly put down their bins, stare at each other, turn around to the other side of the bridge where everyone is still looking and shout in unison "SHIT, THEY'RE COMIN' FOR US"........................

Pandemonium breaks out as all of a sudden the bridge becomes a 'whacky races' theme.. Bodies rushing here, there and everywhere. Orders are shouted, some sounding as if spoken in Swahili.

Meanwhile, immediately below the bridge is the Operations Room, full of radar, sonar and missilemen, manning headsets and staring into brightly lit screens in a dark and quiet environment......

As I stood in my quiet surroundings, looking up towards where all the noise of feet bounding all over the place was coming from, I remember saying out aloud "why do we need all this expensive equipment. If we want to know where the enemy is, just get them above to do a bridge run!!