A Mighty Endeavor

by Stuart Slade

  There were three roundels under Marijke’s cockpit now. The Italians had responded to the destruction of the reconnaissance flight and its escorts by sending a formation of Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero bombers to hit the Buna base. Ground observers had spotted the formation and passed the warning. Four Tomahawks were airborne and waiting for them. It had been a massacre; one that Bosede had felt slightly ashamed about.

  The Sparviero had been 50mph faster than the Hawker Fury; its immunity to interception made the Italian crews careless. Never having been under serious attack before, they had little idea of how poorly-defended their aircraft were. The SM.79 was armed with a single fixed machine gun forward, another flexible gun in the dorsal position and one more gun in each of the two beam windows. They were completely blind from below and behind. The Tomahawks had swept in from that angle. Their six guns gutted the Italian bombers. Not one survived.

  This flight was different. There were eight Tomahawks in 2 Squadron now and the South African Air Force was on the offensive at last. The second flight had arrived back from Mombasa with its new aircraft. Convoys of trucks loaded with spare parts and supplies had arrived at Buna, turning the airfield into a fully-equipped fighter base.

  The eight remaining Furies had been relegated to ground attack work, equipped with racks for four 20-pound bombs under each wing. They were spread out underneath the Tomahawks; their target was the Italian troops north of Buna. It was the start of the campaign to drive the Italians out of Kenya and Somaliland and, eventually, liberate Ethiopia. Bosede knew the outlines of the plan. Its first objective was to ruin the morale of the Italian troops. Shooting down eleven aircraft in less than a week had been a good start.

  Even better, a second Tomahawk squadron was also entering the game. They were a Rhodesian outfit whose four aircraft were further east, escorting some Ju-86 bombers hitting one of the Italian forward airbases. Soon, the Italian pilots would learn that if they wouldn’t come up and fight the new South African fighters, they would be bombed out of their bases. The battle was changing. The desperate days when the Italians ruled the skies seemed a long time ago.

  Bosede glanced down. The Italians were dug in around a road junction some 15 miles north of Buna. It was their foremost position; one that was isolated by distance and the almost non-existent road system in this part of Kenya. Unfortunately, it was also in the way of the planned offensive and removing it was a vital preliminary. Far below, the two remaining flights of Hawker Furies in 2 Squadron sweept into the attack. Bosede imagined he could hear the flat crack of the vicious little 20-pound Cooper bombs, but his eyes were scanning the sky for Italian fighters. Sure enough, he saw them as they approached the beleagured outpost.

  “B Flight. Bandits approaching from two o’clock; Angels Five.” By agreement, B Flight would handle these fighters. A-Flight remained high up, guarding against the same kind of ambush that had caused an entire flight of CR.42s to die under the guns of the Tomahawks.

  The aircraft below were CR.32s. That hardly surprised Bosede; it had become quickly apparent that the Italians were short of fighters. It hadn’t seemed that way when he’d been flying a Hawker Fury and the CR.32s and 42s appeared to be everywhere. Now that they were as outclassed as he had once been, they were rare sights. According to intelligence, the Italians had a large number of Ro-37 and Caproni reconnaissance aircraft, but few fighters and only a handful of bombers.

  The CR.32 pilots spotted the diving Tomahawks early and turned to flee. Bosede held his breath. If the Tomahawks set off in pursuit, the Furies would be left unguarded. B Flight knew their duty though. With the CR.32s in full retreat, there was no need to go chasing after them. The Tomahawks pulled out of their dive and climbed back to rejoin A Flight.

  Infantry Detachment, Granatieri di Savoia Division, Buna Front, Kenya

  Sergeant Gasparo Bonaventura dived for cover as aircraft swept overhead. It wasn’t supposed to be this way at all. Other people were supposed to get bombed. All around him, the men of his detachment were finding nooks and crannies in the rocks to protect them against the fragments from the bombs. Intellectually, he knew the bombs had to be tiny; the old biplanes couldn’t carry any really significant bomb load. When they went off, they were the loudest things he had ever heard. Fragments zinged, ricocheting off the boulders that made up the perimeter of the outpost. They gave good cover against fire from outside, but they trapped the fragments from the bombs and caused them to buzz around inside the laager.

  “The perimeter. Quickly.”

  His call went out as the biplanes arched away to make another run. There was a reason why this outpost had been positioned here. There weren’t many roads in northern Kenya and none of them were much good. Two of them joined just below the low rise the outpost was sited on. This was the most forward of all the Italian positions on the front. ‘The point of the tip of the spearhead’ his Captain had described the position, before taking off to somewhere safely to the rear. If the enemy were to move in this area, they would have to come through this point. Bonaventura’s job was to see them making the attempt and warn the main defensive positions further north. What they did afterward was unspecified, but he had a feeling it would not end well for him.

  Cautiously, he glanced around one of the boulders and looked at the road below. It was as he had feared; a small column of trucks had already pulled up and were unloading their infantry. What shocked him were the number of small, four-wheeled armored cars that were with them. He could count at least six. They were a problem. His men only had their Carcano rifles, without a single weapon capable of defeating armor. Bonaventura was forced to duck again. The biplanes had returned and their twin machine guns were strafing the little outpost.

  When he could watch again, the situation had deteriorated badly. The infantry had spread out and were making their way up the slope. Even worse, the armored cars were following them. One stopped. There was a brilliant flash from its left-hand side. A heavy bullet struck a rock, barely a meter from his head. The rock split wide open. Fragments spalled across the gap and slashed at his face.

  If that is a Morris down there, and it surely looks like one, then it has a Bren gun and a Boys antitank rifle. Just what are we supposed to do now?

  “Open fire!”

  The order was almost an automatic response. A feeble patter of fire resulted from it. The infantry attacking them to took cover, but that was hardly a good thing. There were Bren guns down there. They started to put short bursts into his position. His men only had a single light machine gun between them, a Model 30. Bonaventura was rather surprised to here it snap out a burst in return. He was not, though, surprised when it jammed. He heard the crew cursing as they tried to clear the weapon. They will be lucky; once they jam, it takes hours to clear them. Oiled cartridges indeed! Which idiot thought that was a good idea?

  The Brens obviously had no such problems. Every time one of his men fired a rifle shot, a Bren would lay down a quick burst in reply. Then the infantry would dash forward while his own men took cover. Every so often, there would be another flash from the armored cars. Another heavy bullet would go whining off the rocks. Bonaventura squirmed around and looked behind his position. Sure enough, the South Africans had worked around his flanks and sealed off his position. That’s it; nobody is getting away from here.

  It was almost as if the South African commander had heard him. The shout from below was labored and the Italian pronunciation was terrible, as if the man was reading from a note he had been given. The awkward, mispronounced words echoed around the rocks.

  “Soldati italiani, la posizione e senza speranza. Abbiamo carri armati e supporto aereo, e vi sono piu numerosi. Non c’e disonore nel cedere a tale forza superiore. Nessuno deve morire oggi.”

  Italian soldiers, the position is hopeless. We have tanks and air support, and we are more numerous. There is no disgrace in yielding to the superior force. No one should die today. Bonaventura shook his head. The officer below spoke terrible Italian
, but he was right. There was nothing more to be achieved here today. “Everybody; cease firing and put down your rifles.”

  He sighed, took off his scarf, fixed it to his bayonet and waved it in the air. The South Africans closed on his position. As they did so, he stood up, his hands raised. They jumped into the little redoubt and quickly took possession of the weapons his men had placed on the ground.

  “Do not worry about the machine gun. I never had the damn thing fire more than three shots in succession.”

  The South African officer looked at the Breda, shuddered slightly, and nodded. “You have no casualties?”

  Bonaventura looked at his men. Some had scratches and cuts from flying rock fragments, but that was all. For all the bombing and firing, nobody was seriously hurt. That was a miracle to be thankful for. “None. Thank God.”

  The South African smiled and nodded. “My men, also; not one with a hurt worth speaking of. Indeed, we should thank God tonight for his providence to us both.” He paused for a second and looked around. “What were you supposed to be doing here?”

  “Warning of your advance.” Bonaventura suddenly realized he had no idea how he had been supposed to get the message back. “They never told me how. They just left it to me.”

  The two men exchanged long-suffering looks; both were all too familiar with being given orders but not the equipment needed to carry them out. “Come on, Sergeant; bring your men down. We’ll give you a ride back in our lorries.”

  Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, London, United Kingdom

  “Where is Mersa Matruh?” Lord Halifax was most confused by the geography of North Africa.

  “It’s here, of course.” Butler strode arrogantly towards the map of Egypt on the wall and stabbed his finger towards the western section. Then he stopped and started to search the area for the town in question, Watching him, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir John Dill, permitted himself a slight smile of amusement. It was obvious to him that Butler had no real idea of where Mersa Matruh really was. Dill timed his intervention to a nicety.

  “Arabic is a very hard language to transliterate, you know. We all had terrible problems with it at the College. Here you are, RAB; it’s called Marsa Matrouh on this map.”

  “My God; it’s only 90 miles from Alexandria!” Halifax was appalled at how far the Italian Army had penetrated.

  “Oh, no; it’s closer to twice that. But don’t be deceived by distances, Prime Minister.” Dill had an earnest, helpful tone in his voice that appeased Halifax and set Butler’s teeth on edge. “The really important detail here is the lay of the land. See how this ridge angles towards the coast? Well, south of that ridge is a pure undiluted hell called the Quattara Depression. An impassible wasteland; the only water comes from marshes so salty, they make seawater taste sweet and the ground is quicksand under a hard crust. A man can walk on it one moment, then break through and drown in sand the next. The area is riddled with scorpions and venomous snakes. The temperatures hits far over 100 degrees in the day and drop to freezing at night. There’s no way anybody can run military operations there. An army might go in there, but it’d never come out.

  “Anyway, the ridge that marks the northern edge of the Depression closes on the coast and it forms a funnel. As an army advances eastward, that funnel compresses it, making it harder and harder to deploy the troops available. It becomes very easy for a small force to defend itself against a much larger one. Also, there are no ports here. The supply line stretches all the way back to Tobruk, Benghazi and ultimately Tripoli. As an army advances eastward, it becomes harder and harder to support. Everything, even water, has to be brought forward from ports hundreds of miles to the rear. But, as the opposing army retreats eastward, it gets closer and closer to its port of supply, Alexandria and the Suez Canal. So, it gets stronger and stronger as the invading army gets ever weaker. Eventually, a point of balance is found where the invader simply cannot advance without a massive supply injection. That is the point Marshal Graziani has reached now. He needs a great injection of supplies before he can advance. He needs to bring those supplies up and stockpile them close behind his lines. That will take weeks or months. Only then will he be able to advance on Alexandria.”

  “So we have time to negotiate an agreement.” Butler sounded satisfied.

  “We have better options than that.” Halifax was looking at the map intently. “Much better options. We have an opportunity here to reestablish our authority and stamp our mark on the situation. General Dill, you say Graziani is at the end of his tether and cannot attack our positions in Egypt without great risk, yet we are in a secure position ourselves, well-defended and well-supplied?”

  “That is correct.” Sir John Dill was fascinated by the change that was coming over Halifax while he watched. The man was swinging from servile appeaser to school bully within a moment. Quietly, Dill wondered what he would have done if the campaign in France had gone just a little bit more favorably.

  “And General Wavell is determined to hold fast?”

  “He is.”

  “Then it is up to us to support him. Herr Hitler has said that this is a matter between us and the Italians and that how we resolve it is of no interest to the German nation. So, if we are in such a secure position, it makes sense to use it to gain the best terms that we can from Senor Mussolini. Yes, that is the way to go. Sir John, telegraph General Wavell and advise him that we will be guided by his opinions on the situation and he can count on our support.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  Family Room, Bang Phitsan Palace, Bangkok, Thailand

  “I don’t understand why.” Achillea took a drink out of her bottle of beer and sighed.

  “Perhaps because, when you took your last boyfriend out for a country afternoon, you rode him into the ground, outshot him on a skeet shooting range, out-fenced him, arm-wrestled him for the restaurant bill and won, and finished off by drinking him under the table.” Igrat surreptitiously winked at Suriyothai.

  “But, I just…”

  “On a first date?” Igrat’s voice was incredulous.

  Suriyothai burst out laughing. That segued into a fit of coughing as the beer went up her nose. She delicately wiped her eyes and put her own bottle down. Quietly, one of her attendants checked it, saw it was empty, and replaced it with a full one. It was very hard to stay sober in a Thai party. “So, Achillea will be helping you with courier runs from now on, Iggie?”

  Igrat thought for a second. “Perhaps. I’m trying to find qualified couriers to help me out, but it’s harder than it seems. I thought Nell would be perfect, but she isn’t hard enough. I set up a little test and she allowed herself to be bullied into handing a package over to an assistant rather than the person it was destined for. I’ve found some outsiders who qualify for the routine stuff; a couple of them are pretty good, but I’ve struck out with couriers for family stuff.”

  “I got my package through and gave it to the right person.” Achillea sounded aggrieved.

  “You did.” Igrat admitted that readily. “But the whole point of this job is to avoid confrontations, rather than to go looking for them. And you must remember spoken words exactly, not paraphrase them. That way, if they are misunderstood, nobody can blame you.”

  Achillea looked upset and took another drink out of her beer. Suriyothai looked at her sympathetically. “Igrat’s work is harder than it seems, I think. So, Iggie, what are the developments in Washington?”

  When Igrat spoke, her voice was flat and uninflected. To the initiated, it was the sound of Phillip Stuyvesant in briefing mode. “The U.S. cabinet, as a whole, is sympathetic to Thailand, but Cordell Hull is violently antagonistic to you. Why this is, I do not know, but his mind is set on the matter and he will not listen to argument on that or on any issues related to it. There was a major confrontation between the State, Treasury and War Departments on this issue. Treasury and War took note of the intervention of India on your behalf and suggested that a further investi
gation of the position adopted by your country was merited by their favorable counsel. Cordell Hull tried to shut them down and close off the avenue of approach but Treasury would not countenance this and forced him to re-open the issue. Cordell Hull will be visiting Thailand soon. You should prepare for him and show him where your true interests are placed, but do not forget you are dealing with a person who, if not an avowed enemy of yours, is something very close to it.”

  Suriyothai sighed. The adverse relationship with the United States was the greatest single roadblock to her plans, and she honestly could not understand why it was there. “One person has so much power in your government? To block the desires of the rest?”

  “Where that man is Cordell Hull, yes.” Once again, Igrat’s voice dropped into a near-perfect facsimile of Stuyvesant’s. “Cordell Hull is an intimate of FDR and greatly trusted by him. He is a man of firm beliefs and opinions and does not easily change his mind. You would do well to recall the St. Louis incident in 1939 where his advice caused almost 900 Jewish refugees to be sent back to Germany. He did try to persuade Cuba to accept them, but when that failed, he would not retreat from his decision that they should not land in the United States. He uses his close relations with FDR to by-pass any government decisions that he does not like. Snake, even getting him to come and visit you is a major achievement. Do not waste this opportunity; for you will not get another.”

  Igrat looked up and her voice snapped back to her own husky tones. “Snake, I’m going to break a rule here and give you my own impressions, alright? I’ve met Cordell Hull, and he struck me as being one of those people who is too proud and arrogant to change his mind once it is made up. He won’t change his mind about you, but he might be persuaded that his opinion of you is of lesser weight than his opinion of the situation out here. Show him, however much he dislikes you, the alternatives are much worse.”

  “That makes much sense.” Suriyothai noticed that Igrat had finished her bottle of beer. “There is more beer on the way.”