The Maltese Defence

by Simon Brading

  Before Abby could finish her sentence she was interrupted by a shout from Chalky, who was watching the attack from forty thousand feet, ten miles away. ‘Badger Leader, I have incoming enemy fighters! Repeat, incoming enemy fighters! Fifty plus aircraft, fifty miles north-west of the convoy at angels twenty.’

  ‘Acknowledged, Eleven.’

  Even as Abby replied to Chalky, Gwen was running the numbers and she had no doubt that everyone else was as well: the enemy fighters were only a few dozen miles from the Nelsons, while the Misfits were on the far side of the convoy from them - they would never return in time to prevent them from attacking the bombers and even if the Nelsons turned for home immediately, the enemy would catch them easily.

  There was a chance to save them, though, and, even as Gwen realised how, the radio crackled.

  ‘Badger Leader, this is Gladiator Leader, we are turning to engage the enemy. Request you engage the Pigs, then escort the Nelsons, over.’

  ‘Roger, Gladiator Leader. Go get them.’ The strain in Abby’s voice left it perfectly clear that she didn’t like it, but had come to the same conclusion as Gwen that it was the only solution. ‘Trafalgar Squadron, start your run now, we’ll clear the field for you.’

  ‘Roger, Badger Leader, we’re on our way.’

  ‘Right then, Badgers, let’s make some bacon as quick as we can, then go help the Spits. Everyone pick a target and go after them individually. Stay low, remember they are lighter armed on the underneath, and use cannons only; save your machine guns for the incoming fighters. Happy hunting.’

  The Misfits turned hard, back towards the convoy, their wingtips only feet above the water, and got their first good look at the results of their previous efforts.

  Smoke was rising from both Javelins and both were looking decidedly low in the water, but more importantly lifeboats were streaming away from both - there would be no more fire from them. Without a word, ten very relieved pilots gently pulled back on their sticks and each gained at least a hundred feet.

  Gwen chose her target, then searched for Kitty. She immediately found her; the American had sneaked up on her and was tucked in behind her wing, as close as she could get without actually climbing into the cockpit with her.

  The American slid up her tinted lenses, revealing her eyes in their goggles, and gave Gwen a wide smile, then blew a kiss.

  Gwen laughed. She wished they could exchange a few words in private, but she only had that luxury with Abby and she had to be satisfied with just returning the kiss.

  They were approaching the convoy now so, with a last regretful smile, they pulled away from each other and concentrated on their target.

  While the Misfits had been attacking the Javelins, the rest of the convoy, apart from a couple of the escort destroyers who had moved to pick up the survivors, had just kept steaming as they had been and the Pigs, the Cittadelle Volanti, were still floating above the slow-moving cargo ships.

  Gwen slotted lenses in place to get a better look at the curious beasts.

  It was easy to see why they had been named “Flying Citadels” by the Italians. Their grey hulls were made up of rectangular steel panels, which looked quite like the stones of a castle, and the protruding anti-aircraft guns were each protected by thick armour, shaped like battlements. To cap it all off, enormously long banners, the colours of the army divisions stationed on the airships during the First Great War, streamed gaily in the wind of the huge machine’s slow progress through the air, flying from the gun emplacements they had serviced, and might still do for all she knew.

  At the same time, it was clear why the British had called them “Bristly Pigs”; the hulls, instead of being the familiar, sleek, long tube of the common Zeppelin-type airships were short and fat, almost exactly the shape of the animal that could be seen on many farms in England, and, by the looks, they probably handled about the same.

  It was hard to believe that these airships had ruled the skies above the battlefields of Belgium and France during the first eighteen months of the previous war, but they had, and Gwen remembered reading about them in Aviation History class at school. By all rights they should be in a museum and she hoped that the Italians had a few more lying around somewhere, because after she and her fellow Misfits had finished with them, they wouldn’t be in such good condition any more.

  The Pigs didn’t open fire until the Misfits were a couple of miles away - it seemed that the Italians hadn’t upgraded the weaponry since they had been mothballed, just like the grey hadn’t been replaced by the red and gold livery of the Legione Aerea’s fleet.

  The fire from the Pigs was nothing like as intense as what the Javelins had been able to lay down, but it was comparable to what could be encountered over a Prussian airfield and it would have been a mistake to underestimate it. Scattered anti-aircraft fire had already been coming from the screening ships and Gwen had already been carrying out evasive manoeuvres, but she increased her zigzagging movements, throwing herself dizzily from side to side as she closed the gap at full throttle.

  She dipped down to the sea, out of the arcs of most of the anti-aircraft batteries, just before she came into range, but then almost immediately pulled up again.

  The Pig filled her vision, impossible to miss, but merely spraying it and hoping for the best wouldn’t bring down such a large and heavily armoured aircraft. However, the experts at Luqa had found the designs for the airships buried in the archives at the airfield and discovered that the airship had all of its gas in only two bags, so if one of them could be deflated, it wouldn’t be able to hold itself aloft.

  Excalibur juddered and decelerated noticeably as Gwen opened fire with her cannons. She kept her sights fixed on a point just above the small gondola where the pilot sat and saw the steel disintegrate under the concentrated fire. She hoped that two seconds of fire would be enough to break through to the bag, because that was all she could give it, as she was forced to push the stick forwards again or risk a collision.

  The gondola flashed past, only inches away, and she instantly put Excalibur onto her wing, banking away, looking for her next target.

  Farrier’s dark blue Spitsteam flashed past in the opposite direction and she lined up on the Pig that the woman had just come from.

  There was a loud scream over the radio, quickly cut off, and Gwen immediately put Excalibur into a sharp turn and searched the sky for the source.

  She was just in time to see a huge splash as an aircraft hit the water near to one of the cargo ships.

  ‘Did she get out?’

  ‘Did anyone see...?’

  ‘What happened...?’

  Too many Misfits started speaking at the same time to distinguish individual voices, but Gwen could only stare at the boiling water, trying to catch a glimpse of the wreckage, wanting to see what colour it was, dreading it being...

  ‘Gwen? Gwen? Are you alright? Answer me!’

  Kitty’s panicked screams drowned out the other pilots and broke through to Gwen. She tore her eyes away from the sea and took a shuddering breath. ‘I’m here, Kitty. Who was it? Who went in?’

  ‘It was Chastity.’ Derek’s voice was colder than it usually was. ‘She managed to get out, but only a second before she hit the water. I don’t know if she survived, I can’t see her.’

  ‘Get your heads back in the game, Badgers!’ Abby bawled at them with her best parade voice. ‘We have a job to do! Worry about Chastity after we’ve taken down these things; the Nelsons are counting on us!’

  Gwen clenched her teeth and pulled a maximum rate turn back towards the Pig to carry out the run she had aborted.

  A few of the Italian airships needed numerous attacks to bring them down, but eventually the last one sank almost gracefully to the sea and quickly disappeared beneath the waves.

  Only then could the Misfits spare a thought for Chastity.

  ‘Leader to Six, take Four and search the area around where Five went down.’

  ‘Roger, Leader.’

  �
�Everybody else, regroup; we’re going after those fighters.’

  The squadron formed on Abby and climbed, passing over the incoming Nelsons, following Chalky’s directions towards where 261 Squadron were going up against the enemy fighters.

  To everybody’s relief, Derek radioed in shortly after they left the convoy behind.

  ‘Leader, this is Six.’

  ‘Go ahead, Six.’

  ‘Chastity’s on board one of the motor launches picking up survivors from the Pigs. She doesn’t seem too hurt.’

  ‘That’s a relief, thank you, Six. Come and join in the fun when you can, please.’

  ‘Roger, Leader.’

  The Spitsteams had engaged the fighters, which turned out to be Italian, some thirty miles from the convoy, heading them off before they got anywhere near the Nelsons. They were outnumbered quite badly, but the Misfits weren’t too concerned; the Italian aircraft they’d been facing were nowhere near as good as the Spitsteams, nor were the pilots any great shakes, and 261 Squadron should be able to more than hold their own until reinforcements got to them.

  It wasn’t until they got closer and were able to listen in to the panicked shouting and occasional agonised scream that was 261’s comms that they found out they couldn’t have been more wrong.

  ‘Five, you’ve got one on your six! Break, break!’

  ‘I’ve.... aargh!’

  ‘I’m hit! I’m hit!’

  Gwen switched off the channel quickly, not wanting to hear any more, but she couldn’t help but slot lenses into place and she watched the dogfight, trying hard to analyse it clinically, even as she felt for each and every one of the British pilots she was forced to witness being shot down.

  She frowned; even though she couldn’t see them very clearly, she could tell that the Italian machines were of a design that she didn’t recognise. They were longer and thinner in profile than the stubby fighters they’d been up against previously and seemed to be at least comparable in performance to the Spitsteams, possibly even superior to them, and the pilots looked like they knew how to use them well.

  ‘Gladiator Squadron, this is Badger Leader, we are thirty seconds out, break off and head for home.’

  ‘Roger, Badger Leader. You heard her, Gladiators, disengage!’

  Only five Spitsteams were left to dive away from the melee, but at least a dozen of the fighters followed them down.

  The Spitsteam was extremely good in a dive, reaching speeds that were unheard of in any other production aircraft due to its aerodynamic design, and it was clear that the remaining British fighters were slowly outpacing the Italians. One of them took several hits before getting out of range, though, and spun away.

  Of the sixteen aircraft which had taken off that morning, only four escaped west back towards Malta. However, there were at least half a dozen silver glidewings floating towards the distant sea, where a scattering of fishing boats were discreetly waiting to pick them up when the Italians had gone. Gwen was also very pleased to see that there were at least ten golden glidewings accompanying them down.

  For a moment it looked like the remaining twenty or so Italian aircraft were going to turn to engage the Misfits, but suddenly they banked sharply and dived away to the north, towards the Italian mainland, fleeing in the face of the legendary British squadron.

  ‘Looks like the bloody Eyeties don’t want to dance, Leader.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Seven, I had noticed.’ There was a brief pause, but then Abby made the only decision she could under the circumstances. ‘Let them go, our job is to cover the Nelsons.’

  The Misfits turned and headed back towards the convoy, where smoke was already pouring from half a dozen stricken ships.

  Chapter 19

  As the day went on, soggy and bedraggled pilots from 261 Squadron were brought to Hal Far in ones and twos, but finally, after the sun had gone down and no more were forthcoming, they were forced to face the fact that they had lost five of their sixteen pilots. There were plenty of spare aircraft to replace the ones that had been destroyed, but pilots were another matter and the squadron would be undermanned until another convoy could be sent.

  The bomber squadrons had fared better, losing only two aircraft, but, because they had to make their torpedo runs so low, both entire crews, ten men and women, had been killed.

  The Misfits, on the other hand, seemed to be leading very charmed lives and, to everybody’s surprise and relief, Chastity was delivered to Hal Far that evening. She had gotten out of her aircraft almost unharmed and been rescued fairly quickly by a launch from a destroyer, suffering only a few fairly deep scratches on her cheeks and chin from when her canopy had exploded, hit by a cannon round from the Pig she’d been attacking. She had barely gotten dry and warm, though, before the destroyer was struck by torpedoes and sunk from under her, plunging her once again into the cold water. This time she didn’t come through her adventure unscathed; when the ship lurched she had been sent crashing into a bulkhead and had broken her nose. It was a small price to pay for her freedom, though, because she had finally been rescued by a fishing boat which had been picking up survivors and, in the chaos, the fishermen had been able to hide her and, after they had delivered their catch of Italian sailors to one of the last remaining destroyers, they had carried her home to Malta.

  The losses of the Spitsteam pilots was offset to a certain extent by the success of the raid. Chalky stayed up as long as he could, watching the evolution of the efforts of the Legione Marina to save its ships, and reported that, by the time it was too dark for him to see, both Javelins, one battleship, two destroyers and eighteen cargo vessels had been sunk, with fires raging on a further three cargo ships and one destroyer.

  It was an impressive bag for a single raid and the only thing that had been stopping the British from carrying out another and completely destroying the convoy was the lack of torpedoes available for the Nelsons. The dearth of supplies meant that explosives were scare once more and there hadn’t been sufficient to make enough for a second go at the Italians. Thankfully, the Royal Navy were there to cover the RAC’s deficiencies and undersea boats intercepted the convoy that very night, sinking another six cargo ships, the last battleship and another destroyer, which left only half a dozen cargo ships to deliver their badly-needed supplies to the coalition forces in Libya.

  Without any more torpedoes, the RAC would be able to do very little to prevent any other convoys from making their way across the Mediterranean, but the Coalition didn’t know that and, as the weeks went by, there was no sign of any further convoys. The mysterious fighters weren’t seen again either, and the Italians showed no intention of moving more forces onto Sicily or continuing the assault on Malta.

  Things became exceedingly quiet all of a sudden, but Chalky kept flying his patrol; the British wanted no more nasty surprises.

  Another British convoy made its way through a week later and, although again the majority of the supplies were destined for Alexandria and Crete, stocks of explosives, hydrogen and food were delivered, along with another fifty Spitsteams to replace 261 Squadron’s losses and one hundred and fifty Harridan Mark IIC’s with forty-five pilots to fly them. Not including the Misfits, the RAC presence on the island was now three full fighter squadrons - a reinforced 261 Squadron and 185 and 126 Squadrons equipped with the Harridans. There were now sufficient forces on Malta to defend it effectively and it seemed that Misfit Squadron’s job was done, however, there was no word from the War Ministry on when they might expect to go home.

  By all accounts, the war in Greece was going well, with the combined British and Greek forces pushing back the invading forces, but in mid-April, an undersea boat returning from Alexandria reported that the Crimson Barons had been spotted over Greece, supporting a large-scale invasion by the Prussians.

  While the Misfits were relieved that they wouldn’t have to face the Barons any time soon, they felt sorry for the men and women in Greece, who would find their lives a hell of a lot more difficult all of
a sudden.

  The Misfits took advantage of the quiet to relax and recover. They flew two training missions a day to keep their combat edge, but that left plenty of time in between to swim in the sea from the beach near the house in Birzebbuga, or play cricket on a pitch marked out on the airfield, watched by cheering locals, some of the new pilots having sneaked some equipment into their baggage.

  They had good food, excellent wines, plenty of rest and as much tea as they could drink. It was idyllic and they could almost forget that there was a war on.

  Then, a week into May, all hell broke loose.

  The day started the same as so many others had previously.

  Chalky got up in the darkness and hurried to the airfield. He stuffed a couple of bacon sandwiches in his mouth, washed them down with a mug of tea, then picked up the picnic basket that the cooks prepared for him every day. He hopped into Vulture and was in the sky just before dawn for his daily patrol.

  Some hours later, the rest of the Misfits emerged from their rooms and drifted down the road to the airfield for a late breakfast and the first day of the inter-squadron cricket tournament that Campbell and the other base commanders had arranged. To make the tournament last as long as possible, each base was providing several teams and it was going to be a round robin, with all the teams playing each other in one day matches. It was promising to be an exciting first day, with the Hal Far Fitters XI taking on the Luqa Aircrew 2nd XI and then, time permitting, the Misfit XI would face the Arturo 3rd XI.

  The Luqa team won the toss and elected to bat, so the Hal Far Fitters took the field. Right from the start it was clear that the fitters were superior, with some particularly good leg-break bowling from Sergeant Potter, who had taped the arms of his glasses to the side of his head so they wouldn’t fall off.

  At eleven, when the teams came in for a tea break, it wasn’t looking good for the Luqa team, who had lost six wickets for only fifty-two runs, although their current pair were putting up a valiant defence and had scored more than twenty runs between them in the last five overs. However, after the restart, a revitalised Potter and some inspired medium pace from one of Kitty’s fitters soon put paid to them and the lower order collapsed, adding only fifteen more runs until they were finally all out for sixty-eight.