Eagle at Taranto (Commander Cochrane Smith series)

by Alan Evans

  Mark grinned and ducked his head to pass in through the doorway. There were two long tables inside and after he and Tim had dragged off their overalls they sat on camp-stools. The atmosphere was thick with dust and tobacco smoke, buzzing with flies. The air crews crowded in around the tables. Patch with his observer, young Midshipman Woodley, husky with tonsilitis but determined to make the flight, the other pilots, Wellham and Cheesman with their respective observers, Marsh and Stovin-Bradford. They breakfasted on tinned sausages, gritty with sand, and stewed tea, brown and strong.

  Mark dug a knife into a four-pound tin of marmalade and smeared a generous helping on a slice of bread. He nudged Tim and asked, “Better now?”

  Tim flapped his hand at the flies, “Much. Give my compliments to the chef.”

  A Royal Air Force officer entered with the report from the Blenheim’s dawn patrol over Bomba. “They’re still there: one submarine, one steamer that looks like a depot-ship, and a destroyer —” He looked down at the flimsy torn from a signal-pad and sucked at his pipe, sending a cloud of smoke to clear the flies from his face and further thicken the atmosphere. “Inshore there’s another steamer and a few sailing craft.”

  Ollie Patch gave his orders, “We could fly straight there, the shortest route, but that’s over enemy country so they’d know we were coming long before we got there and they’d be ready. Besides, it’s a near-certainty we’d run into fighters on the way. So instead we’ll go out over the sea and come back likewise. That means flying at nearly extreme range and there won’t be much fuel to spare, but we should avoid the fighters both ways and have a good chance of making a surprise attack.”

  They left the oven of the mess for the baking heat of the desert strip and walked back out to the Swordfish, a straggle of young men in white shirts and shorts. Mark knew this operation would not be like the raid on Tobruk. “Daylight job,” he said, “so we’ll be able to see what we’re doing.”

  Tim nodded, but pointed out, “And they’ll be able to see us.”

  “You heard Ollie. He’s trying to surprise them by flying in low from the sea.”

  “Stands a chance of working. We might get in before the guns know we’re there.” He glanced at the bombs hanging fat under Ethel’s wings. “Let’s hope we get rid of those bloody things before the shooting starts.”

  A direct hit on one of those bombs would blast Ethel into splinters of scrap metal and shreds of canvas, but Mark was still in cheerful mood.

  Tim said thoughtfully, “We cruise around eighty knots. You have one machine-gun at the front and Campbell has another at the back. I have a pencil. Suppose we’re jumped by fighters. We can’t run and we can’t fight. What do we do?”

  “Duck.” Mark grinned at Tim then called out to Doug Campbell, waiting by Ethel, “Had breakfast?”

  Campbell shrugged thick shoulders, “Just about, sir. Sandy bangers again. Not too bad, though, more bangers than sand.”

  “We’re going after those ships in Bomba Bay.”

  “Aye, aye, sir.”

  They clambered up into the cockpits and at ten thirty the four Swordfish rolled away along the most rubble-free part of the strip and lifted off. Mark slotted Ethel neatly into position astern of Ollie Patch. Cheesman and Wellham, piloting the other two Swordfish, were out on either flank so the four were in a diamond formation with Mark Ward at the tail. They flew low over the sea until they were fifteen miles out, then turned to port to fly parallel to the coast. At only thirty feet above the sea they were hidden below the horizon from any Italian fighters patrolling along the coast.

  Or should be. Mark kept a sharp lookout for fighters, just the same, and reminded Tim and Campbell. Then he was silent, busy with his flying and searching the sky. But still a part of his mind returned to the fragment of conversation from a few days ago: “Cunningham will have to do a Nelson.” Cunningham could not take his ships into Taranto harbour, as Nelson had at Copenhagen, could not even sail within gun range. Leaving aside the threat from the Italian shore batteries, submarines and minefields, he would be in easy striking distance of bombers flying from bases ashore. Closing the harbour would inevitably end in disaster.

  No. The attack would have to be made by torpedo-bombers, but even so there was still the problem of range, shown up by the operation Ward was flying now. The four Swordfish had had to stage at Sidi Barrani to refuel because they could not fly directly from Ma’aten Bagush to Bomba. So Eagle would have to steam close to Taranto, again within easy striking distance of Italian airfields, in order to fly off her Swordfish and land them on afterwards, and that would be suicidal.

  The attack on Taranto might be moving from being desirable to necessary — but it was still impossible.

  At noon, as Katy in Alexandria lay weary but uneasily awake, Ollie Patch altered course and led the flight in towards the coast. They still flew low, at a wave-hopping thirty feet above the sea. The blazing sun cast the shadows of the Swordfish sharp and black, racing along on the rippled surface right under them.

  Mark said into the Gosport tube, “Here we go!” He was intent. There on either hand were the two headlands enclosing the Bay of Bomba that lay ahead. There were the ships, tiny as yet, so that he could not make out which was depot-ship and which destroyer — and Ollie’s Swordfish kept obstructing his line of sight. But he could see that one ship was distant, tucked well inside the bay, the other nearer.

  The Swordfish rapidly closed the gap. Soon Mark could see that the nearer vessel was in fact a submarine, and beyond it lay not one ship but two, moored side by side. The submarine was under way, running on the surface, but she was only moving slowly, with little white water at her bow. The gun forward of her conning-tower was not manned so clearly the Italians had indeed been taken unawares by the torpedo-bombers’ approach low over the sea. They would wake up soon, but as yet there was no flak.

  Now the commander of the submarine had seen the danger and was turning her towards the Swordfish to make her a smaller target. But Ollie Patch had dropped his torpedo with barely three-hundred yards to run and climbed away, swinging to the right. Mark climbed as well but banked to the left, copying Wellham’s turn but steadily lifting above and astern of him. He heard the yell of Tim Rogers: “Hit her!” He knew Tim meant that Ollie had got the submarine but he took his word for it and concentrated on his flying.

  The depot-ship and destroyer were ahead and to the right. Wellham was still moving out to the left, obviously planning to turn soon to run in on the two ships when they were broadside to him and offered the biggest target. Cheesman was far to the right so he was going to attack the ships from the other side. So —

  There was another ship, a small coaster, deeply laden, ahead and close inshore. Mark decided: that one. He levelled the Swordfish out of the climb and flew straight for the coaster. She lay at anchor, motionless and broadside to him. Good. She seemed to be sliding across the sea towards him and still there was no flak bursting near him or anywhere that he could see. It was easy, almost like shooting a sitting bird. Except that Ethel was running at seventy knots and a split-second error in timing could mean a wash-out, not one hit out of the six bombs. And this sitting bird could be loaded with supplies for the Italian army, or petrol to drive them on their way to Cairo.

  Coming up. Steady...Steady...Now! He pressed the button and the bombs fell away one by one. The ship flashed beneath him and there was the shore ahead. He eased back on the stick to climb again and started to turn to the left.

  Tim’s voice came, jubilant. “Two near-misses and one direct hit! Right slap bang into her!”

  So that was that: three out of six had told. Mark answered, “Home, James”. He held Ethel in the turn, the brown earth slowly wheeling beneath the port wing, then eased her out of it to point towards the sea again.

  Tim said, “She’s on fire!”

  Mark could see it for himself: a climbing tower of smoke rising from aft of the coaster’s amidships superstructure — and was that the yellow of flame at
the base of the tower, pale in the bright sunlight?

  Flak! He saw it bursting away to the right and put Ethel’s nose down in a dive, to leave the bay as they had entered it, flying low above the sea. The flak was high now but swinging round onto him; there were bursts above and ahead. He lurched to the left, away from it, and levelled out of the dive. The bursts were off to the right again now. Good enough.

  There was the ship they had bombed, right ahead. As it slid towards him he saw that they would just miss the edge of the smoke tower on this course, and so he held it. For a second his focus widened and he looked for the submarine but did not find it. He thought: Sunk! Wellham was turning away towards the sea — and his torpedo hit: the depot-ship exploded in smoke and flame and a fountain of soaring wreckage.

  Here was the smoke from the coaster, the black column flicking past the starboard wingtip, the ship herself glimpsed below him —

  It felt like a kick from a huge boot as Ethel jumped under him. His vision blurred and he gasped for breath. He never afterwards remembered coherently what happened then. He had blinks of memory, of Ethel nose-down and starboard wing down, sliding. Of fighting her. Of the sea rushing close beneath.

  The sea! Christ! He eased back on the stick and felt Ethel respond and the nose lifted. Gently! His eyes went to his instruments, running over them, checking. They looked all right. He was flying level and low now, some fifty feet above the sea and heading for the mouth of the bay.

  He remembered the others and asked, “Are you two all right?” There was no answer so he repeated his question but with the same result. He gently waggled Ethel’s wings and this caught the attention of Tim Rogers.

  His voice came, sounding breathless: “Sorry. We’d got unplugged and hadn’t noticed. We’ve been tossed about a bit.” Which had pulled their Gosport tubes from the pipe which connected all three cockpits.

  Mark asked again, “Are you two O.K.?”

  “Campbell’s got a bloody nose and my ribs are sore, but that’s all.”

  Mark said, “I think our ship blew up underneath us.”

  Tim’s voice climbed: “Think? I’m bloody sure it did. It isn’t there any more. I’ll swear I was hanging outside by my strap for a second. How about you? And Ethel? I can see a few holes.”

  Mark did not answer for himself. He was sure he was uninjured but he still felt numb, moving like an automaton. He checked his instruments again, ducked his head to peer under the cockpit cowling at the fuel gauge sited some two feet ahead of him. That looked steady: at least they didn’t seem to be losing any petrol. He straightened up and said, “Everything’s working.”

  “Thank the Lord for that.” Then Tim asked, “Does my voice sound funny?”

  “Yes.”

  “So does yours.”

  Mark thought, For the same reason: we’ve both had a hell of a fright.

  They did not talk much after that. Outside the bay they found the other three Swordfish, fell into formation astern of Ollie Patch again and he led them home.

  They landed on the strip at Sidi Barrani to refuel, picking their way between the patched craters. When Ethel was at rest and the engine still they clambered down from the high cockpits in the silence and shimmering heat and stood in a little group well away from the fuelling. Even in just shirts and shorts they sweated in the glare of the sun now that the slipstream was not blasting at them.

  Campbell lit a cigarette and sucked in smoke hungrily. “That was bloody close, sir.” His nose was swollen and there was dried blood on his face and forehead from when he’d been slammed onto the breech of the Vickers machine-gun. He muttered, “I’ve got a hell of a headache.”

  Tim Rogers said quietly, “I thought for a moment we’d had it.” He glanced at Ward. “It beats me how you kept her out of the drink. We’ve never been that close before.”

  Mark shrugged carelessly, “Well, we’re here.” He lifted his wrist as if to look at his watch but really to be sure his hands were not shaking. They were steady. He said, “It was a good show though.”

  Tim nodded. He pulled off his helmet and ran his fingers through his short, sandy hair so that it stuck up in spikes. “A submarine and its depot-ship sunk. And our coaster was full of ammunition, no doubt about that. It wasn’t tins of Italian army issue spaghetti that sent Ethel up like a rocket.”

  Mark remembered the huge kick but then nothing until he had hauled Ethel up from the reaching sea. Had he been unconscious or in shock? Tim and Campbell obviously thought he had pulled off a miraculous piece of flying. He didn’t know about that but it had been a closer shave even than at Tobruk. Disaster was creeping closer all the time. Was there a progression you could plot on a graph, up to some point of oblivion? He told himself that didn’t follow. Some of the operations were routine, like the anti-submarine patrols earlier in the week, uneventful to the point of boredom. He supposed you remembered more clearly the ones that almost killed you.

  This one had.

  They flew on to Ma’aten Bagush and there Mark ordered Doug Campbell to the sickbay, where the doctor diagnosed concussion and sent the gunner to bed. Mark ate in the mess with the other air crew, hungrily. He did not have to talk because Tim Rogers was unwinding volubly. Ward did not want to talk. Back in Alex he’d thought he might not have much time left. Now he’d had the thought confirmed.

  A flight-lieutenant of the Air Force stopped beside them. “Heard the news? You chaps have been recalled to. Dekheila, flying back tomorrow. Stores to be crated during the morning and the Victoria flies in around noon to pick them up.”

  Mark heard himself say, “How about going now?”

  Tim blinked at him, startled, then caught on and looked quickly away. Dekheila was only a truck ride away from Alex, and Mark’s girl was in Alex.

  The flight-lieutenant said, “Well, as it happens, there’s .a major in the Engineers over at the office trying to cadge a lift to Alex. He’s been ordered there in a hurry and doesn’t fancy a drive through the night.”

  Mark took off with the major sitting in Tim’s cockpit and Tim taking the place of Campbell as gunner and wireless operator. Night fell before they reached Dekheila but Mark had only to follow the line of the railway and the coast road. They put on the landing lights for him at Dekheila and he landed neatly and on time.

  He and Tim had brought their kit with them, stowed in the rear cockpits. Mark washed and changed, his face without feeling, like perished rubber under his hands. As he pulled on his shirt Tim ducked into the tent they shared and said, “Ops say, no flying before noon tomorrow at earliest. And there’s a truck going into Alex in a few minutes.”

  “Thanks.”

  Tim sat down on his bed, dug the villainous-looking knife out of his pocket and began to sharpen a pencil. “Heard about the smash?”

  “Yes.” One of the Swordfish at Dekheila had crashed that day. “Bad luck.”

  Tim squinted at the pencil. “Funny. We flew through all that stuff this morning and got away with it, while another poor blighter on a routine flight —” He did not finish but shook his head over the vagaries of chance. The pilot was dead. He would be an entry in Eagle’s log: “Killed in flying accident.” He had been the same age as Mark. Tim said, “Nice chap.”

  “Yes.” Mark thought, For Christ’s sake, Tim, leave it alone. He asked, “Are you coming into Alex?”

  Tim shook his head. “I’ve had enough for one day. I’ll have a drink in the mess because I need it, then turn in.”

  Mark was parched but did not wait. He got a lift in the truck, sitting beside the driver as it rocked along the bumpy road. When the driver set him down Mark made for the nearest bar. He ordered a cold beer, drank it thirstily then called for another. He was about to telephone Katy, then decided against it. He had done with talking.

  She woke from her afternoon nap in the last of the light, rested and alive, saw the sky outside the window red with the sunset and stretched like a cat, sensuous. She pulled on a light robe, chilled a bottle of wine, made he
rself a meal, and drank a glass of the wine while she ate. Afterwards she fixed her darkroom — the bathroom, its window covered with a thick black cloth. She had kept back one roll of film when she gave the others to Bert and now she developed and printed it.

  This was the first roll of film she had taken in the desert, to get her hand in: pictures of a sunset, an arab, the empty, desolate landscape. There was nothing newsworthy in any of them but she was professionally curious to see how they came out. The sunset was an expected disappointment because the film was black and white. She was pleased with the others. In one she had caught Bert, his long lean face turned wrily humorous to the camera. That was Bert to the life. Even the picture he’d insisted on taking of her, was good. Truthful. No fashionplate this, but alive.

  Was that herself? She felt a lot older than the laughing girl in the photograph, but that girl had not been to the fort, had not seen the war up close.

  She left the prints spread in a neat line and went out to the sitting-room. The night was cool now but with the curtains drawn across the windows she was warm enough in her thin cotton robe.

  She was restless, wondering how to spend her evening, shying away from her desert kit that stood by the door, still to be unpacked. It could wait until morning.

  When the knock came at the door she went to it quickly, thinking: Mark?

  Jamie Dunbar stood on the landing, handsome brown face carefully shaved, casually elegant in a lightweight suit. He held up a bottle of wine as he walked in. “Therapeutic. A little of this always helps after an action — if you can get it. A lot of it helps quite a bit more.”

  He closed the door behind him and slid an arm around her waist. “Time to relax. We’ve earned it and there’s a war on. We mustn’t waste these opportunities.” He smiled down at her. “You — look — gorgeous.”

  She was caught off balance, startled, tried to pull away but his arm only tightened around her. She gasped, “Look, Jamie —”