Air Strike

by Richard Townsend Bickers

  Ferugino flung up his hands. “Excuse me, sir, but I have never seen this cousin, Tommasso Pienze. Why should his Commanding Officer help me? Even less, why should he help Sarti? I tell myself... excuse me, sir... we have helped Tenente Yule, so perhaps his Commandante will help us... but I have no claim on the Americans.”

  “I think it would be worth your while to go and see them. They aren’t bound by as many restrictions as we are. They are very practical people, and even though their regulations may say otherwise, they do whatever they want to. They have the old pioneering spirit still. Besides, blood is thicker than water and your cousin would surely help you; and Private Sarti.”

  “Perhaps, sir. But now we are very tired. We have walked a long way. If you don’t mind, we will go and look for my cousin in a few days.” No point in moving on, Ferugino was thinking, until he had explored every possibility for exploiting his present situation: if he left here without getting his hands on the contents of the quartermaster’s stores it would be a disgrace. Time enough to move on to the Americani then.

  Yule looked at Tustin. “I think it would be a good idea to let Major Corrado know the situation, Tusty. Perhaps you’d send him a message tomorrow. I want to do what’s best for these two chaps: after all, we do owe them for getting Toby back.”

  Vincent said “For what that’s worth.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Major Pete Corrado felt as he had when, at the age of sixteen, he was summoning his courage to lose his virginity: he ached for the event, feared the actual committing of it and longed to have it done with. Now he was on the brink of assuming the burden that he knew would be placed on him by Dr. Bottai he was in a blue funk yet in a frenzy to get to grips with it and put it behind him. There was a difference: when he had dreamed of his first seduction it was with the intention of repeating it frequently; but he had no wish to have to do again whatever the capo was going to demand of him.

  Tustin, having minutely interrogated Sgt. Ferugino, telephoned Corrado’s battery. As they had done in the desert, in far more difficult conditions, Air Formation Signals had wrought wonders with the telephone system. Corrado’s regiment, being part of the anti-aircraft defences for the area, was linked with the rough and ready Operations Room at the airfield. Sgt. Pienze had visited the squadron a couple of times to help Warren with the purchase of supplies but the latter had found him a discomforting companion. Although he did not suspect the American’s Mafia connection, he was constantly made uneasy by his swaggering, bullying manner when dealing with local people. It was also disconcerting that he could not understand what Pienze said when he spoke Italian. The demeanour of the farmers and shopkeepers towards Pienze was resentful and truculent, but whenever someone was more than usually difficult Pienze would say a few crisp words that changed him into a fawning, though still resentful, puppet. This made Warren even more uneasy. He had told Pienze not to come back again. This, Tustin thought, was a pity, for he would have liked to confront the American with his cousin. His lawyer’s training suggested that Pienze was a bad man; and he dismissed Ferugino as a snivelling little sneak-thief, despite whatever he was alleged to have done to help Toby Yule. A meeting between them in his presence would have given him the chance to see their nefarious alchemy at work on one another and report his conclusions to Wing Commander Intelligence at H.Q. It would also have been a good way to get rid of Ferugino, whom he didn’t want hanging around the wing. As for Sarti: he reminded him of a racecourse pickpocket and the sooner the squadron rid itself of him the better. He confided some of his suspicions to Crab, who nodded sagely and muttered something about “nasty pieces of work” and “the C.O. has a misplaced sense of obligation towards anyone who does the squadron a good turn”, and “young Toby was certainly taken for a ride without knowing it: that precious pair would have sold him to the Germans if they could have got money for it”, and some further rancorous observations.

  Tustin did not feel it would be good form to take Ferugino with him without Corrado’s permission, and for his own reasons he did not wish to ask for this.

  Corrado greeted him with the gushing effusiveness he found so odious. The battery was not in action, indeed had not fired a round for forty-eight hours: the Luftwaffe kept clear of this bit of sky and when enemy aircraft did appear they did so singly or in small numbers, to be dealt with most effectively by the R.A.F. and U.S.A.A.C.

  Corrado’s glad-handing and smiles were wasted on the dour Tustin.

  “Have some cahfee,” he invited, and that was about the only point in his favour; Tustin enjoyed American coffee, particularly after the vile brew that was served in British messes, and had never relished the incessant mugs of tea the squadron brewed: tea, for him, was something one drank only at 4 p.m. Presently Corrado said, encouragingly and for the tenth time, “Good to see you, Tusty.”

  Tustin said, “Sgt. Ferugino, the chap who helped Toby Yule to escape, prompted by yourself and your Technical Sergeant Pienze, turned up at the squadron last evening.”

  “You don’t say! Why didn’t he come here? You know Tommy Pienze’s his cousin.”

  “Precisely. Frankly, we’re not too keen to have him hanging around: the ration situation and so on is awkward. We’ve told him he ought to go home to Sicily, but he isn’t keen on the idea. And he’s got another man with him, a Private Sarti.”

  “Yeah, I heard about him from Toby. Sure, I guess we can fix him up. After all, he is an artilleryman. We can take care of his sidekick, too.”

  “Sidekick?” Tustin raised his eyebrows in assumed ignorance.

  “You don’t go to Western movies? I mean his buddy.”

  “Ah, his friend. Good show. Well, we don’t want to appear ungrateful for what he did for young Toby, but we’ll move him along as soon as we decently can.”

  “No sweat. I’ll have Pienze pick him up any time you say.”

  “Thank you. I think perhaps the C.O. would like to hang on to him for a couple of days, to try to persuade him to go home, in his own best interests. The C.O. has very strong feelings about anything that affects the squadron and he feels indebted to Ferugino. If he can’t convince him, he’ll at least want to show gratitude by providing him with board and lodging until he’s found his feet. He won’t force him to leave and come to you.”

  “If it’s O.K with you, I’ll send Pienze over to talk to this guy Ferugino and invite him to come and visit with us.”

  “I think that would be a sound scheme”

  So did Corrado, whose mind was busy with ways in which he could make use of Pienze when Raffaele Bottai disclosed his nefarious requirement.

  After Tustin’s departure he summoned Pienze, who stood chewing a cigar and looking ruminative while Corrado talked. The latter’s final admonition was, “So you get him here, O.K.? Make damn sure he doesn’t waste any more time with those Limeys. Hell, we can pay the guy as well as fix him up with gear and chow and a place to sleep. The British won’t give him any money. We gaht plennya dough. We already gave the son-of-a-bitch a fistful and a loada shoes, back in Sicily. He knows we can pay, and he’ll sure as hell find out mighty soon the Limeys can’t.”

  “I get yer.” Pienze rolled his cigar from one corner of his thin-lipped mouth to the other with a quick flick of the jaws, hands in pockets. “Guess I’ll go visit with my cousin tomorrow morning.”

  “You do that. And remember what I told you: no excuses; we need that guy, so, however you do it, bring him here.” Corrado’s expression was as ugly as his tone.

  *

  The pilots sat on the coarse, sparse grass under the shade of a clump of walnut trees, outside the Operations caravan. It was hotter and dustier on the airfield than at the domestic site and they were grateful for the shelter from the mid-day sun. Tustin and the wing’s Army Liaison Officer had hung maps on the side of the trailer to facilitate the briefing. Headquarters had ordered a high priority air strike at short notice.

  Tustin faced the audience with his usual mixed feelings. He felt
he was making his best contribution to the war when he had the chance to exercise his skill in presenting a cogent and concise briefing on an especially important and complicated operation. This pleased him. At the same time, knowing what was in store for his young comrades, and that he could not share their risks, depressed him. He knew very well that immense tension lay beneath their surface nonchalance; that the air of apparently casual interest they wore hid many anxieties: the worry lest they fail to spot some landmark or pick up some movement of the enemy’s that would abort the strike; the worry that their own troops had unknowingly advanced beyond the bomb line; the worry that the terrain around the target turned out to be different from what they had been told or shown in aerial photographs; the worry that some essential point had been omitted from the briefing. Basically there was the ever-present dormant worry about survival itself.

  He explained. “The final offensive in the drive for Naples, which began on the 23rd, achieved the beginning of the end, as it were, this morning: British 10th Corps reached Nocera, on the plain across the other side of the Sorrento Peninsula, from where the rest of the advance on Naples will be across comparatively flat ground.”

  It was 28th September, and Vincent was heard to mutter that the pongoes must have taken the wrong turning somewhere, if they couldn’t cover a few miles in less than five days.

  Tustin continued. “As you know, we’ve been concentrating on preventing enemy reinforcements from Rome and Naples reaching the battle area, and on blocking the withdrawal of the enemy from the battle area as we’ve gradually pushed them back. Now, with the fall of Naples imminent, the enemy are pulling out from there and it’s our task to hinder them. The target this time is a bridge on the main Naples to Capua highway, where the road crosses the railway lines. It’s a particularly important place because the road forks at Aversa, and the railway also forks just to the east of it. Damage to the bridge will impede both convoys and trains. Your route will be to the east of Vesuvius, directly over Nocera.” He tapped a point on one of the maps, a few miles due east of Pompeii. “Straight on to Acerra, then a westward turn towards the target.”

  The route would take them past Pomigliano airfield on the outskirts of Naples, and other notorious flak areas. There were many questions, which Tustin and the Army Liaison Officer answered with much detail. Then O’Neill took over to give them instructions on formation and method. Finally, he said: “In the squadron war diary this will go down as ‘Operation Camorra’.”

  “Operation Termorrer, sir?” asked Vincent. “I thought it was terdye.”

  “Camorra, you clot, We’ll be operating over the notorious and infamous Zona di Camorra. Surely even you know what that is, Vince?”

  But no one did.

  “I’ll explain to you when we get back. There isn’t time now. All right, you lazy lubbers, get into your cockpits before I take a whip to you.” They knew from their C.O.’s turn of phrase that, for some unknown reason, he was in high good spirits. They went to their aircraft wondering what had got into the Boss.

  The explanation was simple. O’Neill, although thick-headed and impulsive, possessed an innate linguistic ability which was the product of his cosmopolitan heredity. The Russian aristocrats of his mother’s family boasted the nineteenth-century Tsarist affectation of talking French among themselves. After the Revolution they had been scattered all over Europe. On holiday visits to relations in various parts of the continent, throughout his life, Fiver had acquired a considerable knowledge of both languages and countries. It pleased and amused him to score points off his more parochial, if often much more intelligent, brothers in arms, by a matter-of-fact display of his eclectic esoteric knowledge. Finding it difficult to learn most things, and consequently not knowing very much, he was always inordinately gratified when he did know something that most other people didn’t.

  On their way to the dispersal line Yule asked Warren, “What’s this Zona di Camorra?”

  “From what I remember of my European history,” Warren replied with his usual touch of sententiousness, “the Camorra is a criminal organisation which exists only in the Naples area.”

  “I see.” Yule, however, did not sound as if he did. “Then what’s that got to do with us?”

  “Nothing, I should think. It’s just Fiver’s way of trying to add some interest to the op.”

  Vincent said, “It’s going to be interesting enough trying not to attract the attention of every flak gunner between here and the target, without any bits of folklore on the side.”

  “They’ll be all confused,” Yule assured him. “The Kittyhawks and Warhawks are going to be in the same area: Jerry won’t have time to shoot at everyone.”

  “Jerry won’t be confused: he’ll be alert, with so much stuff flying around.”

  “You’re a great comfort to us,” Warren told him. “Nothing is ever as bad as you make out it’s going to be.”

  “Ah, but don’t forget this time we’re going to the Zona di Camorra.” Vincent pronounced the words in an exaggerated parody of an Italian accent, and grinned. It was Fiver’s many foibles that endeared him to his squadron as much as his personal indestructibility and apparently total fearlessness.

  Vesuvius was smoking away as usual on their left hand side as they flew towards the front line. The plume of smoke at its summit was an inseparable component of their daily picture of the Bay of Naples. Out at sea the hump of Capri and the more distant profile of Ischia gave them a moment’s distraction as they briefly wondered how soon they could expect to spend some leave on one of them. They saw the ruins of Pompeii on one side and Nocera on the other, and the familiar sights of artillery, tank and infantry battle directly beneath.

  From the photographs of their target the attack was going to be made difficult by two factors. To destroy the bridge with direct hits, the greatest certainty could be achieved by dive-bombing. This was subject to inaccuracy resulting from many causes, but if bombs could be dropped accurately the results were the most devastating. To launch their bombs from a low-level horizontal approach as they did against tall buildings would give a higher hit probability but with less certain effects. Both techniques were susceptible to enemy interference and vagaries of the atmosphere. Neither was straightforward, in this instance, for several topographical features and buildings caused further hazards.

  Fiver had been uncompromising at briefing. “We’re not going to let the landscape or air turbulence interfere with the attack. We’ll press on regardless of either: but if anyone actually flies into something, he’ll be posted.” He let them laugh at this before continuing. Anyone who flew into anything wouldn’t have to be posted away. He’d be dead. “The tactic is going to be to disperse the flak. We’ll operate in two flights. I’ll lead, followed by A Flight. We’ll do a standard dive-bombing run except that instead of both flights being on it, it’ll be A Flight only. And we’ll separate and come in simultaneously from two different directions, north and south, by sections. B Flight will attack at low level, from east and west simultaneously, also in separate sections.” He elaborated on precise timing and breaks, so that each section would leave the target by a different route and at a predetermined height. They would re-form over a village to the east which was dominated by a big church with a seminary adjoining. Nobody was very keen on this pattern of attack because it was far too vulnerable to collision risk, but it would unarguably divide the attention of the flak gunners and provide some interesting and nerveless flying. Only a squadron in which all the pilots were very experienced could afford to take such risks.

  They were used to flying in a formation of thirteen. Even the most superstitious among them were reconciled to it, although perhaps they consciously invoked their various mascots and totems before take-off. Fiver led whenever he could, and rather than deprive one of the Flight Commanders of leadership of his flight by taking it over, he tacked himself on to the front of the formation. In the old days when they operated as interception fighters he demanded a high enough servi
ceability from his engineering officer to enable a fourteenth Spitfire to tag along behind and high above the squadron as weaver or tail-end Charlie. Not because he acknowledged any shibboleths or ill omens, but because an alert and highly skilled pilot in that position was well placed to warn of approaching enemy fighters and to bounce them if necessary.

  O’Neill’s repertoire of tactics was inexhaustible. A natural feral instinct which marked him as a born predator took the place of imagination or a high I.Q. Fiver O’Neill was an instinctive survivor and anyone who fought him was a lucky man to escape with his life.

  Yule, Warren, Vincent and Sampson were all in the flight that had been detailed to attack at low level. When the whole formation had passed Naples, leaving it some miles to the left, O’Neill ordered B Flight to dive to 1,000 ft.

  They levelled out over a vineyard covering several acres, then flew across a wide spread of arable and pasture, over a fine-looking house that stood on a knoll surrounded by citrus and apple orchards, bounded by a narrow river. From the large-scale map on his knee Yule identified the estate as Le Siepi. It meant nothing to him but he was to remember it later.

  The flak was reacting to the Spitfires’ presence with more vigour than accuracy. O’Neill and A Flight were weaving and switchbacking high above B Flight, while the latter, hurtling past the enemy guns before the artillerymen could bring them to bear precisely, were also zigzagging.

  Sweat poured off the pilots in the lower formation. It was not enough to leave timing and navigation to the Flight Commander. The success of this sortie depended on timing to within five seconds of precision. Flying at 300 mph. it was a narrow margin but the most they could spare if their approaches were to be properly co-ordinated. Yule cursed as beads of moisture trickled over his goggles, but resisted the temptation to push them up on his forehead. Goggles were a protection in a burning aircraft and he had seen friends in hospital as witness to what happened to the faces of pilots who did not keep their goggles over their eyes in action. When Fiver called for the dive, on the R/T, Yule glanced up and saw seven Spitfires winking in the noon brilliance. The bridge leaped into view a few seconds later. Fiver screamed down the sky vertically and Yule looked up again just in time to see two bombs leave their racks: black blobs holding the line of the aircraft’s plunge. He had no more time to spare for spectating. Formation flying was enough to make a pilot lose a couple of pounds in sweat without the added strain of combat. The first few bombs fell close to the bridge and the last pair hit it fair and square. The air was a turmoil of diving, soaring Spitfires and, now, of debris. The first section of B Flight, Yule part of it, swept in. The bridge looked much lower and longer than he had expected. One end sagged, with a great gap blown in it. His Flight Commander soared over a fraction of time before his bombs struck: they found the central girders of the superstructure. Yule saw his own bombs hit as he wheeled away, risking a glance over his shoulder, rash but irresistible. He had done himself, and the squadron, proud: both bombs struck the bridge, one on a pillar, the other at the top of an arch, bringing a long section of roadway down.