A log fire was lighting in the grate in the dining room and the table was set for ten or twelve people. Señora Canetto came bustling into the room with a jug of iced water; she, too, had been changed by the invasion, her movements were jerky and busy and her face was flushed. She said she had been so worried about me when she read an anti-English article in La Nación or Clarín or one of the magazines. She thought that it was a time for people to stick together and she was glad I was in the house. Soon, a number of men in their fifties arrived, old colleagues of Señor Canetto’s from his days in the military academy, and then an older man, a retired general whose name I vaguely recognized. The ex-general exuded a dignity and gravity which affected us all as we sat down at the table, like actors in a great and noble tragedy.

Señor Canetto addressed the ex-general formally after we sat down. Señora Canetto was not at the table, and she did not appear again that evening. There were only men at the table. Señor Canetto thanked the ex-general for joining us, explained that everyone here could be trusted, and asked him what was going to happen now in the aftermath of our capturing the Malvinas. The ex-general spoke slowly as though he had learned his lines only with difficulty. He was enjoying the attention. He said that there were things which the British and the Americans did not know: the Argentine air force and navy were equipped with the most up-to-date weapons. No flotilla would have a chance of getting near the islands. He believed that secret and informal negotiations between the British and the generals were already taking place, with the United States government acting as intermediary, and this would result, within a week or two, in the flotilla’s turning back and the British agreeing that Argentina could take full control of the islands at a future date to be determined, with the British and Argentinians sharing power in the meantime. He understood, he said, that the British did have a strategic interest in the islands, because of possible resources in the Antarctic which they would lose any claim to if they ceased to control the Malvinas, and he believed that the Argentinians would offer them one of the smaller islands in perpetuity as an outpost. But the main point he wished to emphasize was that the British could not win a military victory.