But Sam had one more issue he wanted to raise, one that had been preying on his mind all through the meeting, and he raised it over their after-dinner coffee. “Dave,” he said, “We won't use incendiaries at all on this raid. Bomb up with HE instead, and focus only on ships, not shoreside targets.”
Schofield reddened, and replied, “Why not, Commodore? We can do a lot more damage with incendiaries, and the cargo in the godowns is just as important to the Zanzibaris as the ships.”
“I want to absolutely minimize the extent of collateral damage to homes and shops, and civilian casualties. Even if your bombing is a hundred percent accurate, the fires could easily spread from the warehouses to residential districts.”
“But the Pirates didn't care about civilian casualties when they raided Mauritius and enslaved women and children! And they would have done the same to Nosy Be, if we hadn't intercepted them! They don't care about our merchant seamen, who are civilians too!” Dave's voice had risen in anger, and there was a murmur from the captains, half agreement, and half shock at his direct challenge to Sam.
“We're not them, Dave. And I won't let us become them. You have your orders, Commander: high explosive bombs; only ships as targets. Understood?”
“Aye aye, sir. HE, and only ships to be targeted.” But there was still a note of sullen defiance in his voice. Bill Ennis, bless him, tactfully changed the subject.
“Dave, I think I can safely say that everyone here – everybody in the task force, for that matter – is dying to learn more about your new planes, their capabilities and so forth. With the Commodore's permission, could you brief us on them?” Sam nodded in approval, and Dave perked up, obviously happy to talk about his new toys.
“Well, sirs, as you all probably noticed, the new ships arrived in two flights of two, three days apart. Although they're a variation on the Petrels, Mr. Rao decided that the changes were radical enough to justify a new designation – they're called 'Puffins'. They're two-seaters, with dual controls, and the pilot and co-pilot -- or observer/gunner -- are seated side by side. They're significantly faster than the Petrels, top end, and have a larger ammo capacity for the gun; otherwise their armament is the same as the Petrels.”
“What about your four new pilots – are they fully trained?” asked Ben Murphy.
“All four are fully qualified pilots. Their experience in long-distance, over-water flying, gained in the delivery of the planes, will be useful. But Mister Rao didn’t train them in combat tactics. He assumed that we'd rather do that ourselves, since we're the ones with first-hand experience of flying in combat. And he was right about that. But we've been training intensively as a squadron since their arrival, and they've come along very well.”
“Will you fly them operationally with two pilots? I mean, aside from pilot training, what's the utility of them being two-seaters?” This from Al Kendall.
“It's tough for one guy to fly the Petrel at low altitudes, strafe, and line up for a bomb drop all at the same time. The Puffin can divide these duties between its two-man crew. I think the second-seaters should train as gunner/observer/bombardier first. Then, once qualified, train as pilots on-the-job. It’s obvious that two pilots in a Puffin in combat would be a good thing.
“Also, the Puffin has allowed us to come up with a new skip-bombing attack method. The two-plane strike team approaches the target vessel on each bow, both strafing during the approach. No matter which way the target vessel turns, it can't escape. And bows-on minimizes the attacking aircraft's exposure to defensive AA fire, because only the gun or guns in the bow can be brought to bear.”
“But you're not going to skip bomb ships in Stone Town harbor, are you?”, Sam interjected. “I thought the plan was level-bombing from altitude.”
“Right, Commodore. And the Puffins have an advantage there, too. The number two guy can focus on bomb aiming and release while the pilot concentrates on flying straight and level. In fact, the Puffins have consistently out-performed the Petrels in level bombing practice despite the Puffin crews' relative inexperience.”
“You're not going to use every plane we have in the Stone Town raid, are you?” asked Christie.
“No, Mike. The Commodore has ordered me to leave three planes aboard the Charlie, for her defense, and in case – Dieu ne plaise – we lose every one of the raiders. One Puffin and two Petrels will stay behind. Three Puffins will make up the raid element, and I'll fly the remaining Petrel in command and over-watch, to evaluate results and attack targets of opportunity once the Puffins have dropped and left the AA envelope.”
The tone of the group become sober and thoughtful as everyone present considered the unpleasant possibility that the raiders would not survive. Not wanting the conference to end on a down note, Sam switched the topic to the logistics of the raid, and they argued for a while about details. They reached a consensus on some, and others could be worked out by the staff, or aboard individual ships.
He then adjourned after coffee, and the captains returned to their vessels, this time debarking from the port side. Sam had had enough pomp and ceremony for one day
Sam had ordered the captains to wait until full darkness to begin heaving up short. He wanted Mafia Island to go to sleep with the task force peacefully at anchor, and only notice its absence the next morning. He knew there were Sultanate spies on the island, and probably at least one radio the landing force had failed to find.
The staff timed their departure to have the leading vessel – Joan of Arc – arrive at the south-west passage at slack high water, thus assuring greatest depth and least current. The rest of the task force followed, all vessels under power alone. But once all four were out of the bay and well east of the island, Sam signaled “stop engines” and “make all sail conformable to weather”. They had plenty of time to sail to the point selected for launching the raid, and he was anxious to conserve fuel.
They had consumed most of their reserves by the time they had arrived in Chole Bay, and then sucked the Emma Lee dry without filling their tanks. Until Emma Lee completed her voyage to Hell-ville to load fuel and stores, and return to Chole Bay, the task force – ships and planes alike – would have to conserve every drop.
The good news, which had arrived by radio the week before, was that, thanks to intense Kerguelenian diplomatic efforts, the islands of the Kerguelenian diaspora had at last signed on to a formal defense pact, which assessed the costs of the Navy equably, on a population basis. This effectively doubled the financial resources available for the war effort, previously borne almost entirely by Kerguelen, Reunion, and Nosy Be. (Mauritius, still recovering from the devastating effects of a massive Pirate raid, could not yet make a significant contribution). This, in turn, meant that availability, not budget constraints, now limited the Navy's fuel consumption. A consequence of the Navy's adoption of water-jet propulsion was a doubling of the market price of palm oil distillate; this prompted a big jump in investment in palm oil plantations and distillation plants, but the new plantations would need a few years to come into full production. Until then, the stuff would stay expensive and in short supply.
Sam paced back and forth in the “Flag Box”, worrying about the upcoming strike on Stone Town, and what would follow. He did not intend for this raid to be a one-off; he thought repeated blows would be necessary to keep the Zanzibaris off balance, and focused on defense. Hitting dhows while they were in harbor would reduce the number at sea and raiding Kerguelenian shipping. And from their new base in Chole Bay, the task force could interdict corsairs on their way to and from their cruising grounds.
But he knew that the Sultanate would not – could not – tolerate the RKN presence on Mafia Island for long. And, if he were the Zanzibari commander, he knew just what he would have to do about it. Indeed, it did not take deep strategic thinking to see that the enemy's new main objective in the war must be to re-take Mafia. How and when they would strike was the question. He knew it wouldn't be long coming.
A bustle of activity for
ward interrupted is reverie. Aircraft were readied for launch. One by one, the engines of three Puffins and a single Petrel were started and run haltingly to full power, then throttled back to warm up to operating temperature. The planes were hoisted over the side at the precise time predicted for civil twilight, where each idled away from the vessel's side to make room for the next. When all three Puffins and Schofield's Petrel had launched, they taxied away into the wind at full power and lifted off at precise thirty-second intervals, each climbing in a wide circle toward their operational ceiling. They quickly disappeared from Sam's view in the pre-dawn gloom, and he sent a brief prayer in their direction. He reflected that this was the first time he had prayed since his wedding. Then the prayer had been merely pro-forma, part of the wedding service. Now it was fervent and heart-felt.
Chief Warrant Gunner Francois Landry stared around him in shock, appalled by the devastation of the little village. The huts, constructed as they were of dry thatch, had gone up like bombs when set alight, leaving nothing but circles of smoking ash. The worst part was the bodies that lay about, many horribly hacked and slashed, many just small bloody bundles – children. The sight of the latter provoked powerful feelings of mixed sorrow and rage.
On first reports of smoke and gunfire, Landry had led a detachment of riflemen at the double from the Landing Force headquarters on Chole Bay. They arrived out of breath and too late – the unfortunate village, a settlement of African slash-and-burn farmers who had migrated from the mainland in recent memory, was burned, its population slaughtered, and the raiders had disappeared into the jungle, all in the time it had taken Landry's gunners to race the three miles up the coast to the site.
This was the second blow in one week. The first had been the report from an African fisherman that a small dhow had approached the northern coast in hours of darkness, lain off in the surf, landed men and heavy bundles. This had reportedly occurred seven or eight days before. And now this.
It was plain that the island's resident Arabs, who had scattered into the bush on the arrival of the task force, and whom he was engaged in hunting down, had organized themselves into some sort of guerrilla resistance, were in contact with Stone Town, and had been supplied with arms and ammunition by that dhow.
“There may have been survivors who hid in the forest!” shouted Landry to his detachment. “Fan out in groups of two, see if you can find any eyewitnesses.”
He looked around for Gunner Ajali, his interpreter and main source of intelligence about the island. Ajali was a native of Mafia, and returned as a volunteer with the original Scorpion when it returned from its reconnaissance mission from Zanzibar and Mafia. The big man stood a few yards away, gazing about and weeping openly and unashamedly at the sight, his chest heaving with great sobs. Landry approached him and put an arm around his shoulders.
“We'll get the bastards who did this, Ajali. No worries there, see. We'll get 'em!” He paused, then added more gently, “Did you know any of these poor people? Were any of them related to you?”
Ajali wiped his eyes and replied, “No, Chief. My village is on the other side of the island, so I didn't know anyone here. But there are so few of us on the island that we all feel like family.”
One of the gunners interrupted them with a shout. “Chief! We got a survivor here!” A couple of gunners in jungle green led a young woman, holding an infant, out of the bush. Her eyes were round with shock and fear, and she burst into tears when she caught sight of the bodies of her neighbors and relatives.
“Pull yourself together, Ajali. We've got work to do,” Landry said in a quiet voice. In response, Ajali stifled his sobs, dried his tears, and drew his shoulders back. “Aye aye, sir,” he said, in best Navy style, and approached the terrified woman – young, barely out of girlhood. He spoke to her in soft Swahili, soothingly, and repeatedly gave her gentle pats of reassurance on the shoulder. He also managed to settle the crying baby, and soon had it smiling at the funny faces he made. She gradually calmed, and began to respond to his questions. Landry had picked up some Swahili, the lingua franca of this part of the African coast, but they spoke too fast for him to follow, except for a word here and there.
After a long exchange, Ajali nodded and turned to Landry. “She is very lucky, sir. She was in the bush, with her infant on her back, to collect some firewood for her cook fire. She says her husband is a fisherman, and he is out on his canoe now – great good fortune for this child, for he still has two parents. But these dead people were her relations, either by blood or marriage.” Landry glanced at her face, which now bore no trace of girlishness but only a tremendous grief.
“She didn't see much. She said she was gathering firewood when suddenly there was shooting and shouting, and clouds of smoke arose. She hid, in great fear for her baby's life, and got only a glimpse of the raiders.”
“Could she tell if they were Arabs? Or Africans?”
“They were definitely Arabs, sir. And she thinks she recognized one of them – the former master of this village, their landlord.”
Landry considered this. The Pirates’ slaughter of unarmed villagers sent a message to the islanders. The Arabs left on the island were pursuing the only practical strategy open to them: terrorize the settlers into withholding all cooperation from the Kergs. The timing of the raid, the very day of the departure of the task force for the attack on Stone Town, could hardly be a coincidence. The Arabs could not be sure how long the task force would be gone, but probably hoped to finish off the occupying forces – Landry's detachment, numbering no more than forty riflemen, as many as the ships could spare, given that they might be sailing into combat – before the fleet's return, presenting Bowditch with a fiat accompli.
Chief Landry considered his options. From a purely military point of view, the sensible course was to fort up and hold off the Arabs until the return of Taffy One. He knew, while the Arabs probably did not, that the force would return within two days, three at the most. Concentrating his men and digging in would negate any advantage in numbers the Arabs might have, and allow him to make the most of the Kerg superiority in weapons, marksmanship, and fire discipline.
Landry knew that he was almost certainly out-numbered by as much as two-to-one. Recent intelligence compiled from interviews with the African settlers suggested that the Arab population of Mafia was larger than they had first believed: perhaps five hundred or more. In a community of that size, there would be about one hundred males of military age.
But going on the defensive would leave most of the islanders, all those he couldn't round up and concentrate in a defensible location in a hurry, at the mercy of the Pirate raiders. And, anyway, Landry wasn't the kind of man to hunker down and wait for help. He turned to Ajali and barked a series of orders.
The raid element, collective call sign “Lightning”, had climbed to near its ceiling of twelve thousand feet when dawn broke with its usual tropical suddenness, followed closely by sunrise. Visibility was good: it was a mostly cloudless day with only a few small, scattered fair-weather clouds. Dave Schofield flew his Petrel astern of the triangle formation of the three Puffins, and a bit higher. At this altitude, it was bitterly cold, and he was very glad of his multiple layers of long underwear and sweaters under his flying coveralls, topped by one of the new sheepskin jackets they had ordered especially for aircrew from Kerguelen, and which had just arrived on the Emma Lee.
Dave hoped the pilots of the Puffins were having no problems flying them. Over the vociferous objections of the delivery pilots, he had replaced them in the left-hand seat – the “command” seat – with combat veterans, minimally “re-qualified” on Puffins by dint of several days of dawn-to-dusk flying and bombing practice. The two airplane types, being variations on the same air frame, with identical controls, should have been an easy transition for them. And the veteran pilots had as right-seaters the three most experienced of the delivery pilots. But the Puffins were heavier and faster than the Petrels, and thus had differences in their handling charac
teristics.
The Puffins were carrying more than double the armament load of a Petrel: Two 350 kilo bombs. Because these bombs had thinner walls than the hundred-pounders, they had a higher proportion of high explosive to total weight, and so were much more powerful than just the weight difference would suggest. The armorers estimated that one exploding under water within a cable’s length would damage a wooden-hulled vessel; within one hundred yards the damage would sink the largest dhow.
To compensate for the extra weight the Puffins carried no ammo for their one-inch cannons. Their mission was simple: to fly straight and level in formation over the shipping at anchor in Stone Town's harbor, and drop from five thousand feet. Then climb as rapidly as possible to ceiling and return to the Charlie. Dave's job, as strike commander, was to shepherd them to the target, note the effects of their bombing, take out the Zanzibari observation balloon if it was aloft, and expend his bombs and ammo on targets of opportunity, such as cripples or fleeing dhows.
Flying time from the launch position to the point where the southern point of Zanzibar first became visible in the early morning light was a matter of minutes. Dave lost a bit of altitude, flew just head of the formation, waggled his wings to get their attention, and turned away toward the north-east. The strike was under strict radio silence until the first bomb dropped or the first AA round fired, whichever came first. Two minutes later, Dave banked sharply to the left and turned back toward the island, leading the formation out of the sun. They made landfall – “feet dry” in pilot slang – at Chwaka Bay, and flew for ten minutes over the island itself, gradually losing altitude to drop from twelve thousand to five thousand feet by the time they arrived over the target. Below them, the land was green, lush, and still, the sun not yet clear of the horizon. Small, low, puffy white clouds dotted the landscape but without much hindering their view of the surface.
Assault on Zanzibar: Book Four of the Westerly Gales Saga Page 9
