The house that the Misfits had been allocated was a four-storey building made of yellowish limestone, built in the Baroque style sometime in the nineteenth century, on the northern outskirts of the town, near the two anti-aircraft batteries that were manned by locals. A man in a black cassock was waiting for them on a bench outside the door, in the pool of light from the single candle set out to guide the pilots. They had seen him around the base accompanied by a group of locals who had brought food and other supplies, but he hadn’t approached them, dealing instead with Drake as always.
‘Father! Good evening.’ Drake shook the man’s hand warmly. ‘Let me introduce you.’
‘No need, Lord Drake; we all know who the Misfits are.’ The priest gave the pilots a small bow. ‘In the name of all the Maltese people, welcome, and thank you for coming to our aid. I am Father Bugelli and I am the liaison between the local councils and the RAC at Hal Far. If there is anything you need, then all you need to do is speak to any of my parishioners on the base or at my church in the town, St. Peter’s, and they will know how to find me.’
Abby gave the man a smile and a nod. ‘Thank you, Father. We will.’
The priest returned her smile warmly. ‘I will leave you in Maria’s capable hands,’ he gestured at the now open door, where a young woman, the housekeeper, was waiting, ‘but first,’ he held out the small cloth bag, which had been slung over his shoulder. ‘A gift, to ease your sleep. A couple of bottles of the wine we make on the island.’ He winked. ‘It’s not French, but it’s drinkable.’
The Misfits chorused their thanks as the man gave them another small bow, then, whistling to himself, wandered down the road in the direction of the church they had passed a couple of minutes before on their way through the town.
Derek snatched the bag from Abby and pulled out the bottles of wine. He held them up to the light of the lantern, inspecting them with a hungry glint in his eyes. ‘I’ve heard of Maltese wines, but never had the chance to taste them.’
Abby reached out and took them back. ‘Well, we have a chance now. But first, let’s see where we’re staying.’ She looked in the direction of the housekeeper who smiled widely and beckoned them in.
The house was far more than they needed, boasting traditional Maltese balconies overlooking the sea, its own tiny private beach down some steps carved into the rock cliff on which it stood, a well, and a wine cellar, unfortunately empty, where it was possible to take cover during air raids. The ground floor was entirely taken up by two large rooms, a dining room and a sitting room, one on either side of the entrance, both with impressive views over the sea. The other three floors of the house comprised mostly of living quarters, making it seem almost like a hotel, and even with the temporary addition of Drake and Tanya to the ranks of the Misfits there were more than enough rooms for the pilots to have one each and still be a few left over for when the rest of C flight arrived. When they questioned Maria about it she told them it belonged to a wealthy and numerous family who had been on holiday in England when the war broke out and hadn’t been able to return. They had, however, after hearing of the aerial defence of their island, sent a message volunteering its use as a home for the pilots.
The bedrooms all had adjoining bathrooms, something that most of the pilots took immediate advantage of. The water came from a well under the house and was pumped up to a cistern on the roof by a clockwork device which worked on the principles of an Archimedes’ screw. There was plenty of it for baths and showers, but unfortunately it wasn’t hot; the water heater used oil and there wasn’t any to spare. The Misfits didn’t mind too much, though; compared to what they had encountered in Vaenga, the lukewarm water was almost a luxury.
The bedrooms had been cleared somewhat for the pilots, but there were still signs of the occupants and, judging by the decorations and the large bed with lace mosquito nets, the one that Gwen chose on the third floor for her and an indifferent Kitty had belonged to a young married couple.
Gwen dropped her bag just inside, then turned to the American and folded her arms around her, not giving her a chance to avoid her.
Kitty’s anger towards the people that had left Hawk out in the open had been perfectly understandable, but she hadn’t been so blinded by rage that she couldn’t see they had no choice in the matter, that to save the aircraft would have put everybody underground in danger. She had thrown herself into the work that Abby had assigned her and the other pilots, keeping herself too busy to think or feel, but the anger had still been there, simmering away.
Gwen just held her, without saying anything, until she felt the stiffness start to melt away and the woman’s arms lift and hug her back.
Eventually, she broke the silence. ‘I’m so sorry, Kitty.’
‘I know.’
It would take a long time, and maybe a new aircraft, for Kitty to get over the loss of something which had been almost as much a part of her as a limb, but in the meantime, Gwen resolved to have a word with Giuseppe and get him to find something for her.
Half an hour later, after the pilots had had time to settle in, they met back downstairs in the dining room, where Maria had laid out a few snacks, mostly fish-based, as well as enough glasses for everyone to sample the wine.
Derek had decanted the wines before going to find a room and he declared them ready to drink, but before he could pour, Scarlet pulled a large bottle of whiskey out of a bag and plunked it on the table. ‘For those who need a proper drink.’ She grinned at Mac. ‘Irish whiskey. The best in the world.’
Mac snorted, not impressed, and when she leaned across the table to pour some for him he put his hand over his glass.
Scarlet frowned at him. ‘Aw, c’mon, now, Mac! I was only joking!’
Mac smiled to show he hadn’t taken offence and shook his head. ‘Thank yer, Scarlet, but I’m not touching a dram while we’re here. I made a promise.’
‘Bloody hell! Who made you do such a thing?’
Scarlet turned to glare at Abby, who held up her hands. ‘Don’t look at me. I just told him not to be drunk in the air.’
‘I promised meself, lass.’ Mac said, quietly. ‘I needed to mek a change and that’s all I’ve got ter say about it fer now.’
Scarlet blinked at him, surprised, but then shrugged. ‘Good. At least this way there’ll be enough for the rest of us for once.’ She held up the bottle. ‘Who wants some?’
In the end, only Derek, Gwen and Abby had wine, the rest, with the exception of Mac, who poured water from the carafe on the sideboard, chose the whiskey.
Once everybody had a full glass, they paused, though, and looked to Abby.
Abby stared into the glass of deep red liquid in her hand for a moment before lifting her head and gazing around the group, a determined look in her eyes. ‘We put a lot of ourselves into our aircraft, but they are not what makes us Misfits - it’s the people around this table, the ones we left on the Arturo, and the ones in England waiting for us to come back who do that. Yes, we’ve been hurt and our ability to take the war to the Prussians has been hurt too, but we’re still alive and we’ll bounce back from this. I’ve already checked and there are construction facilities at Luqa, so when the supplies arrive we can start building new aircraft.’
She shook her head when faces lit up at this news. ‘Don’t get excited yet; the facilities are very basic so it will be very slow going - it might be months before we’ve all got our own aircraft. Meanwhile, though, I’m sure we’ll be able to play around with the spare Spits; there’s plenty to go around.’ She lifted her glass. ‘So, let us drink to the aircraft we lost today. To Sable, Raptor, Swift, Hawk and Dove. They did what was asked of them and more. But let us also drink to the aircraft to come; may they bring even more fire and destruction to our enemies than their predecessors.’
She drank and each of the pilots took a moment to reflect on her words before doing the same.
‘What are we going to build, though, Boss?’ Bruce asked, his voice slightly hoarse from the whiskey.
‘Are we going to make them all like Excalibur? I mean, she’s a wonderful machine and it would certainly be effective, but if we all had the same aircraft we’d be like a regular squadron.’
‘I assume you five would like machines that suit your style of flying rather than Gwen’s?’ She met the eyes of the pilots whose aircraft had been destroyed one by one, receiving nods from each. ‘Well, you’re not going to have much to do until the convoy gets here, so I suggest you grab some paper and start drawing.’ She gave Gwen a wink. ‘But if they don’t come up with anything decent we’ll just make them keep flying Spitsteams.’
Monty spluttered, appalled at the idea that he wouldn’t be able to design a “decent” aircraft. He coughed as his whiskey went down the wrong way and doubled over, wheezing and gasping for breath. Scarlet laughed as she began banging him on the back and he tried to wave her away, but she avoided his feeble efforts and continued until he got enough breath back to round on her. ‘Bloody hell, woman! I don’t know what’s worse - you or your whiskey! Where did it come from anyway? And how did you manage to bring so much with you?’
Scarlet shrugged and looked around the table. ‘I just left the ammunition for one of my guns behind; I thought we could do with a few things and it’s not as if I ever get to shoot at anything anyway.’
Abby gave her a wry smile. ‘I’m very glad you did, but we could probably have done with that ammunition...’
Chapter 4
The second day of fighting was much the same as the first and the three Misfits flew six sorties, with much the same results.
At the end of the day they were exhausted, but none of them for a moment considered handing their aircraft over to anyone else. Mac was especially tired, but for the first time since Muscovy he looked almost like his old self.
The grounded pilots hadn’t been sitting idle while their fellows were in the air. Not only had they made a start on ideas for their new aircraft, but they had also gone out to the “Graveyard”, as it was known. The Graveyard was a fallow field, not too far from the airbase, where the wreckage of all the Prussian and Italian aircraft that had crashed on the island had been brought, at the request of Sky Commodore Hughes, and it was from those aircraft that much of the material the Harridans had been repaired with had come. The Misfits had gone out with Gertrude Forrester, who knew where the best preserved aircraft were, and had begun salvaging what they could, in case the parts on the Arturo proved insufficient to construct their new machines.
On the third day, Drake and Tanya rejoined the defence.
Since they were flying with new pilots and so few aircraft, Abby decided to dispense with the Badger callsigns for the time being, apart from her own as Badger Leader, for clarity when contacting the ground and other squadrons and instead use the pilots’ nicknames. That meant that Drake was Digger, Gwen, to her chagrin, was Goosy. However, they weren’t exactly going to call Mac “Mad Mac”, so he remained simply Mac, and Tanya had stated unequivocally that she did not have, or want, a nickname and insisted on being called “Tanya”.
The fitters had used the two days to full advantage and repaired as much of the damage to the Harridans as they could. They had even used some of the small reserves of paint available to make them look a little more respectable. However, the British aircraft were put to the test in the very first sortie of the day, when they were swarmed by three whole squadrons of MU9’s and Tanya’s Harridan proved lacking. It was still not quite as manoeuvrable as it should have been, due to a fault the fitters hadn’t been able to trace, and she wasn’t able to fight her way clear. She did her damnedest and bagged two, but was forced to bail out when her tail was all but shot off. She was picked up off the coast by a fishing boat, wet and extremely annoyed, but unharmed.
The others fared better, each of them sustaining only minor damage, but for the first time they were beaten back before they could get close to the bombers harassing the island. They were unable to strike at the bombers during the rest of the day either, and it seemed that the Misfits were doomed to fail in their defence of the island right from the start, but on the fourth day everything changed - with the convoy less than two hundred miles away it was now in easy range of the bombers and fighters on Sicily and the enemy diverted their efforts from Malta to attack it.
The British ships had known that they would face an attack from the air eventually, but they were completely unprepared for its ferocity - the Italians had known of the approach of the convoy for days, plenty of time to divert more than a hundred bombers to the Mediterranean, along with several squadrons of fighters, and it was these aircraft which made up the majority of the first raid.
The Sea Harridans from the Heart of Oak and the Arturo had been scrambled at the first sign that the raid was heading their way and intercepted it some miles from the convoy.
They were completely outmatched.
Despite having new aircraft which were much better than the Italian fighters and ideally suited to the role of convoy protection, the naval pilots lacked experience. They managed to bring down quite a few of the attacking aircraft but suffered heavy losses in return and were unable to prevent the bombers from reaching the ships.
Thankfully, conventional bombers are notoriously inaccurate in naval engagements, especially when flying at the heights that the Italians insisted on. Only three bombs of the hundreds dropped hit their marks, the rest dropped harmlessly in the sea. Of those three, the damage from two was relatively minor and didn’t do anything to prevent the ships from continuing. The third, however, hit one of the smaller transports which, like most, was a civilian vessel roped into the war effort and was unable to withstand the hit. It sank quickly, taking with it an invaluable cargo of food and half of its crew.
The Italian bombers weren’t the only threat, though. While the main force of Prussian undersea boats was engaged elsewhere - in the Atlantic attacking convoys bringing supplies from America, or harassing shipping around the British Isles - two were in the Mediterranean and they coordinated their assault with the bombers. They were forced off by destroyers, but only after they had launched a salvo which destroyed one of the hydrogen tankers in an explosion which rocked even the largest ships and dealt the Arturo a glancing blow below the waterline.
A trio of Italian undersea boats joined the attack as well, but they were so inept that the British didn’t even realise that they were there and they slunk away, back to harbour, their entire load of torpedoes expended to no effect.
It was the single flight of obsolete torpedo bombers, only six of them, that did the most damage in that first raid, though. Two were destroyed by anti-aircraft guns while they were lining up the attack, but the rest put their torpedoes in the water only a few hundred yards from the Heart of Oak, the largest and most valuable target in the British fleet.
The bombers were destroyed as they tried to pull up, two by Sea Harridans and two more by anti-aircraft guns, but there was nothing that could be done about the torpedoes in the water.
Three scored solid hits and water began pouring in.
It was immediately apparent that the carrier was mortally stricken and the captain gave the order to abandon ship. As lifeboats began plunging from the decks into the sea the huge ship began to list heavily to one side, hampering the efforts to launch.
Explosions rocked the ship as cold sea water reached still-hot boilers, ripping her open, accelerating the process and less than two hours after the first torpedo had hit, the huge ship, pride of the British fleet, slipped beneath the waves and disappeared forever.
The Misfits could see the smoke from dozens of miles away and knew they were too late.
The Italians had been quite sneaky and had stayed too low to be seen from Malta until they were well on their way to the convoy. The Misfits had been ready and waiting and were in the air almost as soon as they were spotted, but even so, the raid was already finished by the time they caught up and all that was left for them to do was try to take a modicum of revenge for the destruction
that had been caused.
The four remaining aircraft had been reorganised into two pairs after Tanya had been shot down. Of the three single-spring fighters, Excalibur’s performance best approximated that of Mac’s twin-springed Jaguar so she was moved onto his wing, while Drake flew with Abby.
At first, Gwen had found the change extremely disconcerting. Her instincts had screamed at her that it was a mistake to separate her and Abby; they had flown together in combat so many times that they could read each other’s intentions before even a single control was touched, complementing each other so well that it multiplied their effectiveness, as well as allowing them to survive through situations that would have killed anyone else. Mac had surprised her, though, and over the course of the previous day she had come to appreciate the opportunity to learn from someone new. The Scotsman was an extremely experienced pilot and just as cunning a warrior as the leader of the Misfits, but his tactics were vastly different, suited as they were to his faster, less manoeuvrable machine. Gwen had found that they suited Excalibur almost as well, though, and had adapted quickly, but she still didn’t quite have the same connection with him as she did with Abby. The day before, that had proven to be a bit of a problem with the Prussians, who were good enough to exploit a weakness and make life even harder for the already beleaguered Misfits, but they weren’t facing the Fleas that morning.
The Misfits approached the returning Italians from the east with the sun directly behind them. It was a trick that the Prussians had used against inexperienced British pilots in the early days of the war and their erstwhile victims now used it to the same effectiveness against their allies.
To the Italians, it was as if the Misfits appeared from out of nowhere and they scattered in panic as the cannon of the British aircraft ripped through even the thickest Duralumin of the deep red aircraft. The carefully ordered formation disintegrated further as many of the bombers found themselves suddenly having to take evasive action as several of their colleagues lost control surfaces, engines, or in one case almost an entire wing, and flew into their paths.
The Maltese Defence Page 8
