The Maltese Defence
Page 4
Gwen slapped her on the arm. ‘That’s not funny.’
‘I know, sorry.’ Kitty grinned, completely unrepentant, despite her apology. ‘Seriously, though, I really don’t know how they’re coping.’
‘I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’
‘I don’t know; the amount of supplies we’re taking with us, it’s not as if we’re going to be short of anything for a while.’
‘I’m not sure the drink will last very long.’
Kitty laughed. ‘No! At least not if we allow Mac anywhere near it.’
The two fell silent at the mention of the Scottish member of the Misfits. He hadn’t been the same since they’d left Muscovy; the death of his lover at the hands of a traitor had sent him into a self-destructive depression which not even his long-time friend, Lady Penelope Bagshot, had been able to bring him out of. To make matters worse, since the Arturo had sailed, he had spent half his nights trying to pick fights with equally drunk naval officers.
‘Abby’s never going to let him continue drinking so heavily in Malta.’
‘And she shouldn’t.’
‘Don’t you feel sorry for him?’
‘Of course I do, but grieving is one thing, drinking and flying is another, especially in combat; he’s going to get someone killed and it won’t be the Prussians.’
Neither of them knew what else to say and Gwen took the opportunity of the brief pause to change the subject, not wanting the mood to sour completely. ‘How did the poker go last night? Are there any officers on the ship with any money left?’
Kitty smirked, Mac temporarily forgotten. ‘Not many.’
Gwen sighed. ‘Be careful, please; I don’t want you being ambushed in a corridor late at night and thrown overboard by irate sailors.’
‘I’ll try to make sure to leave them with the shirts on their back. But don’t get angry with me - I’m doing it for us.’
Gwen leaned back to frown up at her girlfriend. ‘How is you fleecing unsuspecting naval officers possibly for us?’
‘Well, I thought that we could use my winnings to repair your Zeppelin.’
Gwen craned her head to give Kitty a kiss, which the American returned with soft lips. When she eventually pulled back, she reached up to cup the blonde’s cheek. ‘That’s very thoughtful, thank you, but you know neither of us need the money.’
Kitty grinned lopsidedly. ‘I know and I haven’t actually taken any money yet, just IOUs. I wasn’t really planning on cashing them either; I just want to make the biscuit bangers sweat a bit.’
Gwen laughed and gave her another quick peck, then snuggled deeper into her side and turned back to the view.
The Rock had almost disappeared below the waves now, only its summit was still in sight, with the radar towers and the sinister silhouettes of the two huge guns, which were capable of firing far into Spain or at targets across the channel in Africa.
A hush fell over the flight deck as everybody stopped what they were doing to watch, as if it were some momentous occasion that couldn’t be missed. Then, when it was finally gone there was a collective exhalation, almost like a sigh, and the naval personnel began to make their way below in dribs and drabs. As passengers on the ship, the two Misfit pilots had no duties to perform and there was no reason for them to go down into the metal corridors of the ship just yet, but the others had to get ready to go on duty - it was almost noon and time for the change of watch - and the Misfits were soon on their own, apart from the group of mechanics performing routine maintenance on the Sea Harridan fighters at the stern.
To the delight of the Arturo’s pilots, the newer, more powerful and better-armed fighters had been brought on board while they were in Scotland to replace the American Hammond Martinets that the ship had carried previously. There were also four, doubling the carrier’s previous compliment of two, but it was still a pitiful amount when compared to the more modern carriers in the British fleet, which could carry fifty or more aircraft and didn’t have the problems launching that the Arturo had, with only one aircraft lift. One of those carriers, the HMS Heart of Oak, was escorting the force and would provide the main air defence when the convoy came under attack, which it inevitably would. The Arturo, meanwhile, had been relegated to a more cargo-carrying capacity. It would have been an unsupportable indignity for the venerable old ship, which had an illustrious history dating back to the First Great War, if it weren’t for the fact that among the cargo was Misfit Squadron - the Arturo’s association with the squadron gave her a prestige that placed her among the most famous of the Navy’s ships, despite her rapid decline into obsolescence.
There was no land in sight anywhere now and for security and secrecy there wouldn’t be for the ships of the convoy until it reached Malta, so the eyes of the two women naturally turned towards the other behemoth sharing the sea with the Arturo, The Heart of Oak. It was only half a mile away and they had a clear view of the eight Sea Harridans in neat lines on the flight deck, about to go on patrol.
They watched them take off one by one, their powerful, but short-ranged springs and the new hydromatic airscrews invented by the boffins at Hawking giving them more than enough acceleration to get them to flying speed before the deck ran out. It was a far quicker operation than it was on the Arturo and in minutes they were all up.
The two women watched them until they were out of sight, but then Gwen gave a sigh and sat up. ‘I suppose we’d better go down soon; we’ve got that briefing, remember?’
‘How could I forget?’ Kitty continued to stare out to sea, her blue eyes bright in the stark sun. ‘I’ve enjoyed these last weeks too much...’
‘Even the bit where we were almost killed by Prussian spies?’
‘Yes, I even quite enjoyed that, in between the bouts of extreme terror,’ the American’s lips twitched up at the ends, but only briefly. ‘But always in the back of my mind I knew that we were going to have to get back into the thick of things at some point. I thought it would be the same as before, that I would just be able to jump in Hawk and take to the sky as I always have, but now the time has finally come I find I’m... I’m...’ She blinked, as if surprised by what she was going to say. ‘I’m scared. I have something to live for now, a reason to survive and I’m afraid of losing it.’
‘Join the club,’ Gwen nodded earnestly, ‘but we both know that if we run away from this, from our friends and our duty, then we will no longer be the people who fell in love with each other.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
Gwen reached up and turned Kitty’s face towards hers. ‘Besides, we’re Misfits and the Prussians wouldn’t dare to shoot us down.’
Kitty laughed and allowed Gwen to pull her into a kiss.
Since the briefing was only for the Misfits, Abby decided to have it in the lounge of the quarters they’d been assigned rather than moving to one of the far less comfortable briefing rooms. The pilots were joined by the first officer of the Arturo, Commander Twining, as the representative of the Navy, and Sky Commodore Dorothy Campbell, who had been given overall command of the air defence of Malta by the King, due to her familiarity with the Misfits.
The sofas and armchairs had been rearranged in a semicircle around a couple of corkboards and Abby sat in an armchair next to the boards, watching her pilots getting tea, coffee and snacks from the table in the corner. They were laughing and joking as always, but she knew them well enough to read their tension and nerves in the slight tremble of a hand, or the stiffness in a gesture. She didn’t blame them; the task ahead was gargantuan and fraught with more danger than even their mission to Muscovy. She didn’t even blame Mac when he topped up his coffee with something from a hipflask, although she resolved to have a word with him about it before the night was over; what happened on the ground was his business, but she couldn’t have him drunk in the air, where people depended on him.
She waited until everybody had settled down and had enough time to eat at least a couple of biscuits before she stood up.
‘Al
right then, people, I know you already know why we’re going to Malta, but I’m going to bore you with it once more, just in case anybody slept through the previous eight or nine times.’
There were groans from just about everyone and Abby grinned. ‘Don’t worry, it’s the short version this time - I’m not going to make you sit through another hour-long lecture.’
‘Good, because we have food and we’re not afraid to use it.’ Owen picked up a sticky bun and cocked his arm back.
There was laughter and not a few of the pilots called out for him to throw, but he just stuck his tongue out at Abby, then stuffed the entire fist-sized pastry into his mouth, making his cheeks bulge horrendously.
Abby laughed and shook her head at his antics, but then took a deep breath and waved for the pilots to calm down. They did so quickly and she took a deep breath before launching into the short speech she’d prepared at Dorothy Campbell’s insistence. ‘Malta is the largest of the three major islands which make up the Maltese archipelago, the other two are Gozo and Comino. While there are army garrisons and coastal defence guns on the two smaller islands, it is on Malta itself where most of our forces are concentrated and where the three airbases, Hal Far, Luqa, and Ta’Kali are situated. The island is seventeen miles by nine miles and it would be insignificant in the grand scheme of things if it weren’t for its location - slap bang in the middle of the Mediterranean and astride the main shipping routes. Consequently, it has been hotly contested by just about every sea-faring race through the ages, from the Phoenicians, to the Carthaginians, to the Romans and now us, and we’d quite like to hold onto it because from there we can pretty much stop the Coalition from supplying their forces in North Africa while making sure that we can at the same time. It also serves as a base for our undersea boat fleet in the Med as well as having a pretty decent harbour for our friends in the Navy, or so I’ve been told.’
She nodded at Commander Twining, who returned the gesture.
‘Now that’s out of the way, here’s the plan for tomorrow...’
‘Tomorrow, Boss? Won’t we still be about a thousand miles away from Malta?’ Bruce, the squadron’s resident Australian, turned to squint suspiciously at Commander Twining. ‘Unless this rust bucket is able to go a mite faster than you’ve been letting on this whole time.’
Abby rolled her eyes. ‘Ignore him, Commander; he tends to speak first then let his brain catch up later.’ She gave the Australian a withering look. ‘Yes, Bruce, we’ll be a little less than nine hundred miles from Malta when we take off and that is precisely why I had you all doing those long-range efficiency tests - we are going to launch as soon as we can, at extreme range, with dual springs.’
Commander Twining spoke for the first time. ‘We’ve lost a lot of shipping in the Mediterranean recently, and with the fine weather there is no way we’ll be able to make it to Malta without being spotted. The captain thinks, and Sky Commodore Campbell and Group Captain Lennox agree, that we can’t risk the ship being sunk while you’re still aboard.’
Abby nodded. ‘This is a risk we’re going to have to take.’
‘But... Nine hundred miles, Abby?’ said Owen. ‘That’s easy enough for me, Wendy and Chalky, but A and B flights will barely get to the island at that kind of range, even with dual springs. If you get lost...’
‘We’re not going to get lost, Owen, everybody here has more than enough navigation experience - or did you think I sent you off on those tests individually because I didn’t want you bumping into each other?’ Abby turned to the large scale map on the first of the corkboards and ran a finger along the thick red line marked on it. ‘Malta is almost due east from our starting point, but most of the territory we’d go over in North Africa if we flew a direct route is enemy-controlled, so we’ll be staying away from the coastline until we reach the northernmost point of Tunisia. From there it’s a two hundred and fifty mile straight run and we have the island of Pantelleria one hundred and thirty miles out to give us another reference point. I’m confident that we’ll make it easily enough.’
She paused and looked around, gauging the mood of her pilots. There was apprehension and doubt on many faces at the daunting prospect of such a long flight, which, despite her positive words, really was pushing their luck somewhat; there was no room for error and a strong headwind would mean a couple of the less tension efficient aircraft, namely Hummingbird and Swift, might not make it. She wasn’t done, though, there was more bad news to come.
‘Now, the reason why I wanted this briefing as late as possible before takeoff is because I was hoping that the situation would change, but it hasn’t, so I’m afraid that C flight, with the exception of Hummingbird, will not be coming with us.’
‘What? Why?’
Wendy’s voice rose over the rest of the protests from the C flight pilots who had suddenly found themselves excluded from the mission.
Abby waved her hands to calm them. ‘Don’t worry, this is only temporary! The latest hydrogen shipment didn’t make it, which means there is barely enough on the island for basic necessities and there is nothing to refuel your aircraft with.’ She let that information sink in before continuing. ‘All I’m saying is that you won’t be coming with us tomorrow - there are two tankers with this convoy, but that doesn’t mean we have fuel to waste, so your aircraft will remain in their crates here on the Arturo and be delivered with the Spitsteams four or five days from now.’
The three pilots grumbled, but nonetheless slumped back into their seats in acceptance.
‘Right, back to tomorrow. Because we have no spring tension to waste, we won’t be forming up over the carrier like we would normally. Instead we’re going to stagger take-offs a bit, with the slower aircraft of A flight going first and B flight following. Somewhere east of here we’ll form into two flights and should arrive over the island at more or less the same time. Prussian raids have been more or less constant, so it goes without saying that we need to get down to rewind as soon as we can so that we’re ready to go up again as quickly as possible.’ Abby pointed to a sheet of paper on the board next to the route map. ‘This is the order of take-off. As you’ll see, the aircraft are already in the correct order in the hangar so this should be a straightforward exercise. Having said that, though, if anything does go wrong and somebody gets into trouble, of any kind, you are to leave them and that is an order; we do not have the spring tension for any monkey business.’
There was more muttering and grumbling at that, but it quietened quickly; they could all see the logic behind her command, even if they didn’t like it.
Abby turned to the map of Malta which almost completely covered the second board. She tapped the southern end of the island with a finger. ‘This is our destination - RAC Hal Far. As I said before, it is one of three airfields on Malta, the others are Ta’Kali here and Luqa here. Now, if you get into trouble and have to put down, those are about the only places to do so on the whole island so make sure you memorise their locations. Forget about landing in a field like we used to in England, the fields on Malta aren’t big enough and they’re surrounded by stone walls - you try putting down in one of those and you’ll have a nasty surprise. If you can’t get to an airfield then bail out or ditch in the sea, do not try to land anywhere else.’
She looked at the pilots one by one, making sure they understood, then waved at the photographs of their new home, pinned next to the map.
‘The Italians bomb Hal Far just about every day, but the people there have a very efficient repair team and it’s never closed. At the south end of the runway, uh...’ she searched the photos briefly until she found the one she was looking for. ‘...here, there is an underground hangar. A steel ramp goes down into it and during air raids it is closed to protect the aircraft and repair facilities within.’
‘We’re not going to have to bloody live underground as well, are we, Boss? I was looking forward to a bit of sunshine after Muscovy! I’m so pasty white someone asked me if I was a Pom the other day...’
Abby shook her head, trying desperately not to laugh herself at the much-needed levity. ‘No, Bruce, we don’t, although if you interrupt one more time I’ll damn well pitch you a tent down there.’
‘Alright, Boss, I’ll keep it shut from now on.’
‘Thank you. To answer your question, we’ll be billeted in a requisitioned house in a nearby town called, uh,’ she consulted the map, leaning in to peer at it, ‘Birzebbuga.’ She struggled to pronounce the name and ended up making it into something that sounded quite rude. She realised what she’d done and smiled at Bruce, who had opened his mouth to comment, but stopped himself just in time. ‘Nothing to say, Bruce? You wouldn’t like to comment on the name of the town?’
The Australian shook his head vigorously.
‘No? Doesn’t Birzebbuga sound a bit, I don’t know, funny to you?’
Bruce clamped his lips firmly together, fighting a snigger and shook his head again, while tears streamed down the faces of the rest of the people in the room.
Abby just continued to stand with her hands on her hips, staring at Bruce. She was tempted to repeat the word again, but decided to have pity on him. Besides, the sooner the briefing was over the better - there were too many preparations to be done for the morning to waste too much time on teasing the Australian. She nodded. ‘That’s what I thought.’
She turned back to the corkboard and returned to the briefing, ignoring Bruce’s loud exhalation behind her. ‘Luqa and Ta’Kali are home to four squadrons of medium bombers, Pickford Nelsons, which have been grounded since the Italian attacks began, but Hal Far is reserved for the fighter squadron. They have just been given the official designation 261 Squadron, but everyone still calls them the “Hal Far Fighter Force” which is what they were known as before. They received a dozen Harridans the last time Arturo paid them a visit, but after six months of hard fighting they are down to three...’