Assault on Zanzibar: Book Four of the Westerly Gales Saga

by E. C. Williams

  “Anyway, two things soon became clear: Dar es Salaam Creek had filled up again with re-re dhows; and they had somehow gotten the word that the task force was under way, because Utukufu was in action almost the minute the moon had set. The new electric searchlight our engineers had kludged together for her was a tremendous help, according to Mister Coetzee, although he wished it was more powerful.

  “Inevitably, there were leakers; every single one of those dhows – and there must have been more than a dozen – had apparently surged from the creek at sunset so’s to be in position by moonset. Commodore, it was obvious as hell they had good intel about task force movements. There’s no other explanation!”

  “I agree, Chief”, Kendall replied. “I think Stone Town must have had some warning, too, although not so far in advance or they would have sailed out all their operational gun-dhows to meet us. We’re devoting all our counter-intelligence resources to finding the source, which has gotta be right here on Mafia. I’ve radioed Lieutenant Dallas, on Nosy Be, to come up here TDY to help us track it down.

  “But go on with your report, Chief.”

  “Well, Utukufu intercepted six dhows, Mister Coetzee reported. Sank two, damaged two, which got away in the dark, and sighted two which managed to elude him.

  “Four dhows closed the beaches around Ras Mkundi, and fired on my guys from seaward with their guns as well as small arms. They launched boats full of armed fighters on their offshore, unengaged, sides, which then pulled as hard as they could for widely dispersed points on the beach, covered by very heavy fire from the dhows. It was a target-rich environment for my gunners, especially the SLAR men and the one-inch riflemen, but the continuous fire from the dhows forced ‘em to keep their heads down, mostly, and all the boats but two successfully landed their fighters – all that survived our small arms fire, that is. We engaged ‘em on the beach, and killed ten or a dozen, but most quickly vanished into the bush.

  “Then the dhows moved down the east coast maybe a couple of miles – we lost sight of ‘em in the dark – apparently to toss barrels over the side, the usual containers for arms and supplies, tarred to make ‘em waterproof. I thought of sending a detachment hurrying down the beach to intercept them, but I didn’t know how far they’d have to go, or how many more dhows I’d have to deal with. When daylight came, we found the remains of at least a dozen broken barrels along the beach, about two and a half miles south of our position. Clearly, the Pirates recovered whatever they held.

  “Over on the west coast, two smaller dhows, single-masters, closed in through the shallows as far as they could and put fighters over the side to wade ashore. Our canoe-borne askari tried to engage them, but both dhows had bronze cannon – not the usual three-inchers, smaller, maybe one-inch or inch-and-a-half – and, loaded with canister, they made short work of the canoes, driving them off with heavy casualties. Both dhows landed all their embarked fighters with their supplies, but only one got away clean. The other went aground in the shallows, and was busy kedging herself off when Utukufu, summoned by the canoe men with repeated red flares, showed up and put paid to her just as she floated free and was recovering her kedge anchor.

  “The land action ended then. As I said, I estimate – just a guess, really – that at least a hundred fighters got ashore. I’m also thinking they landed enough supplies to make ‘em independent of further resupply for some time.

  “Only thing left to report is the butcher’s bill. I lost three of the Landing Party KIA, seven wounded. CSM Richburg of the Nosy Be cadre lost one of his non-coms. Hardest hit was the Mafia Askari contingent, with seven dead, eleven missing presumed dead, and sixteen wounded. We need to talk later about pensions for the widows of these men who died bravely, and the men whose wounds are disabling.

  “And one last thing: Lieutenant Coetzee sent his regrets that he couldn’t attend this conference. He and I agreed that Utukufu should continue her patrols north of the island for the time being.

  “That concludes my report, Commodore.”

  “And the conference, gentlemen. Remember, I want your written reports within twenty-four hours. Staff will study them and circulate a digest for your consideration, and preparation for a further, more in-depth lessons-learned conference. Carry on.”

  The group stood to attention with a great clattering and scraping of chairs, then began to leave the wardroom, talking in hushed tones among themselves.

  “Oh, Dave: A word before you go,” Kendall said.

  “Sir?”

  “A bit of good news amongst the gloom. We have a tentative ETA for Commodore Bowditch at Hell-ville. He will update it daily from now on, and wants you to meet him on the day he arrives, if possible. He made a point of specifying you as his pilot – I think he wants to use the time in the air to get a full briefing from you on the air action over Stone Town, so he’ll be up to speed on arrival.

  “He’ll anchor in the outer harbor to facilitate a quick getaway. He’s very anxious to rejoin the task force.” But not as anxious as I am to get this monkey off my back! Kendall thought to himself.

  “Aye aye, sir. I’ll make sure a Puffin is ready to fly on short notice.”

  “Thanks, Dave. See you later.”

  Schofield turned without a word and left the wardroom, shoulders slumped. I hope he can lift himself out of this funk soon, thought Kendall. If he doesn’t, I’m going to recommend to Sam that he be relieved. We need someone like the old Dave to re-build the air arm, not this sullen, withdrawn version!

  Now began a period of tension and desperate combat for the task force. Ashore, Landry’s motley force of seamen-gunners, askari, and village home guardsmen was constantly in action against guerillas who, newly reinforced and re-supplied, showed a new willingness for open battle.

  At sea, the schooners tried to stop the new surge of corsairs out of Zanzibar, bound southwards to step up the war on Kerguelenian shipping, but to little avail. The Pirates, aware of RKN losses, and having noted its new shyness about air attack, had begun leaving Stone Town in groups of three or more; the task force, with but two schooners and no offensive air capability, could only pepper them with 37mm fire from out of enemy range, and then watch helplessly as they sailed serenely onward, sometimes damaged but not seriously enough to abort their cruise.

  The Mafia Utukufu and the canoe men were also frantically busy every night, and sometimes even in daylight, trying to stem the surge of small dhows bringing more fighters to join the battle for Mafia Island.

  It seemed to Kendall that the RKN was on the verge defeat.

  He sent urgent radio signals ordering Scorpion and Wasp to abandon the shipping protection patrol and rejoin the task force at best speed, and begging the Governor of Nosy Be and the President of Reunion to send troops to Mafia. In the latter messages, he stressed the importance of the island to the security of theirs. He was aware that by thus appealing directly to these heads of government he was in grave violation of protocol – he should have routed the requests through Government House on the Rock, which would relay them through Kerguelen’s diplomatic representatives on the allied islands. But he could always plead the urgency of the situation, and a simple sailor’s ignorance of such diplomatic niceties.

  It was a pleasant surprise when he quickly received positive answers from both Nosy Be and Reunion. However, both, sensibly enough, cautioned that it would take some time to muster the troops and arrange their transportation to Mafia Island.

  Even battered Mauritius, having apparently intercepted Kendall’s signal, volunteered a small number of militia men, with the caveat that it would be unable to offer transport or any logistics support for them. Kendall suspected, cynically, a desire to gain a cadre of trained and combat-hardened troops at his expense. Still, they were bodies with rifles, so he accepted the offer graciously. How he would get them from Mauritius to Mafia he didn’t yet know.

  The day and the hour finally arrived for Dave Schofield to leave for Hell-ville to pick up Commodore Bowditch and return. K
endall met him beside his Puffin as ABMs were hooking it up for launching over the side, and handed him a small but surprisingly heavy bundle wrapped in sailcloth.

  “Dave, this is for Commodore Bowditch’s eyes only – it’s a report bringing him right up to the minute on operations, in case he wants to use the flying time to get up to speed on his way back. It’s weighted, so it’ll sink – throw it over the side if you should ditch, or if for any other reason it’s in any danger of falling into enemy hands. Got it? That’s important, Dave – it shows us in all our weakness, and if the Pirates read it they’d mount a large-scale attack at once, and we wouldn’t last five minutes.”

  “Roger that, Commodore; I got it – no worries.”

  “Off you go, then. Aller avec Dieu.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Dave answered with a salute, and turned to climb into the aircraft.

  Kendall had distinctly mixed feelings as he watched the Puffin taxi to the end of the buoyed runway on the surface of the bay, turn and make its take-off run, then lift, soar, and finally disappear to the south. He was already feeling the burden of command beginning to lift. At the same time, he dreaded his de-brief with Sam Bowditch – had he done all he could? What was coming his way, praise, or condemnation? He would know in half a day’s time.

  Dave Schofield felt almost cheerful as he gradually climbed past ten thousand feet. For one thing, he was at the beginning of a long flight, which he always found relaxing. For another, he was testing a new system that had exciting implications for aviation: on-board oxygen, to allow pilots to fly at higher altitudes without the danger of hypoxia.

  Dave had worked with Mister Patel and Charlie’s marine engineers, with radio advice from the engineers at RKN French Port, to jury rig this first, experimental system. The oxygen, generated from water by electrolysis, was in a cylinder that lay on the floor of the cockpit under Dave’s legs. A hose led upward to a small mask that fit over his nose. When he needed oxygen, he would bend down and crack the valve on the cylinder (which had begun life as a bomb casing).

  The protocol for the experiment was highly structured: Dave was to climb gradually to no more than twenty-five thousand feet, in stages of two thousand feet. He was to note his physical sensations at each stage. He was to begin using supplemental oxygen at twelve thousand feet, at the lowest valve setting, regardless of the presence or absence of symptoms. As soon as he noticed any symptom, he would increase oxygen, then note down altitude and valve setting.

  They had taken into consideration the dangers of conducting this experiment on the flight to pick up Commodore Bowditch, rather than one on with two pilots, one as a safety backup. But they had only three airplanes in service, and couldn’t spare either a plane or the fuel for a long flight dedicated just to this experiment. The test was, of course, to be one-way; there was only one rig, for the pilot, and oxygen enough only for the flight to Nosy Be.

  The experiment was a success, Dave thought: he reached 25,000 feet with the oxygen valve cracked only to the half-way point. As expected, the Puffin airframe and engine became more efficient at this altitude than at her previous ceiling; speed increased significantly, the engine tone sounded smoother to Dave, and, although he had no way to measure fuel efficiency in flight, it seemed to him that the needle on the fuel gauge dropped barely at all.

  It was bitterly cold at this altitude, of course, but Dave wore sweaters and long underwear under his flight suit, a sheepskin jacket over it, and a sheepskin lined leather flight helmet. He would have to shed some of this for the return flight, at lower, warmer altitudes.

  He tried to evaluate his physiological state with rigorous objectivity and concluded that all his human systems were nominal; he had no trouble breathing, no headache or confusion, and certainly no euphoria. But he was a bit more cheerful than he had been in days, and he put that down to his pleasure in the success of the new system, and in simply flying, which he had loved from his first balloon ascension on Nosy Be.

  As the canister emptied, he opened the valve further until, with Mount Lokobe in sight, just before he began the descent toward Hell-ville harbor, he ran out of oxygen. He made a quick note to the effect that some sort of automatic regulator was necessary – the frequent bending over and reaching down to adjust the valve would be dangerously distracting for a pilot engaged in anything but straight and level flight in clear weather. And wasted a lot of the oxygen, because its flow was continuous, even when he exhaled.

  As he alit on the water’s surface in the outer harbor, he noticed a two-masted schooner of a very rakish, un-mercantile design. A small boat put out from her side and seemed to steer to meet him; she appeared to be the schooner Commodore Bowditch had bought into the service for his voyage north.

  As the Puffin idled to a stop, her engine just turning over, Dave could see that the Commodore was in the boat. The boat came alongside the plane on the starboard side, and a seaman tossed a line up to Dave. He used it to pull up a short section of pilot ladder, and make it fast to a rail of the observer’s seat. The Commodore then leapt up the ladder hand over hand, clearly anxious to be on his way, and cast off the line.

  It shocked Dave how much Bowditch appeared to age since he had left for the Rock. His face was drawn and newly-lined, and set in a grim expression very different from its usual cheerful aspect. There were streaks of gray in his coal-black hair that Dave had not noticed before. He could only suppose that these were the effects of grieving for his wife.

  “Welcome back, Commodore…” Dave started, and Bowditch interrupted him with a terse “Thanks” before he could go on with more such remarks.

  “What’s this?” Bowditch said, picking up the bound package from the observer’s seat so he could take its place.

  “It is an up to date report by acting-Commodore Kendall on the status of the task force in the aftermath of the recent assault on Stone Town. I assume you’ve received radio reports of the battle itself and…”

  “Of course. Why’s it so heavy?”

  “It’s weighted with lead, sir, so I could throw it over the side if I had to ditch. Commodore Kendall said if this fell into Pirate hands, it would be disastrous.”

  “Okay. I’ll read, you fly. Let’s get going.”

  “Aye aye, Commodore.” Dave revved up the engine and turned into the wind for the takeoff run.

  As Dave flew back north toward Mafia Island, Bowditch was silent, engrossed in Kendall’s report; his fear of flying apparently gone, or too interested in what he was reading to be afraid. When he had finished carefully reading it to the end, he turned back to the beginning and read it again. Then he tied it back up in a neat, seamanlike manner and tossed it out of the cockpit, watching as it fell straight into the sea. He stayed silent for an hour after that, lost in thought.

  “Dave, I’d like your picture of the battle, from the aviation viewpoint,” he said suddenly, startling Dave after the long silence.

  “Aye, sir. Well, I’ll begin with the planning stage…”. Dave went on to describe the air attacks in vivid detail, describing the damage inflicted on the boatyards, the harbor godowns, and vessels alongside and at anchor in the harbor. He became angry as he related his losses in attempting – and failing -- to take out the harbor battery, which he described as futile from the start, and a waste of lives – notably that of Bill Ennis -- and planes, not to mention two motor-gunboats. His implication was very clear: Ennis’s incompetence had turned success into failure.

  “Commander Schofield, post-action reports are for the object of learning lessons, not assessing blame! Bill’s plan was sound, based on the information he had at the time. If he had managed to penetrate the harbor he could have wreaked catastrophic damage on those vessels and godowns your airplanes did not destroy. Too, you might ask yourself why your planes proved so vulnerable to AA fire from the battery while sustaining no losses from equally heavy AAA guarding the harbor and the boatyards. And why your recon flights did not turn up the existence of defensive three- or four-inch guns mount
ed on the battery’s AA hulk.

  “So, no more aspersions on the competence of a brilliant officer who fell gallantly in battle, if you please!”

  Dave was shocked, humiliated, and embarrassed; aware, too, that the Commodore had hit upon sore points about the performance of the air arm. He had remembered too late, as well, that Ennis had been the first officer chosen by Bowditch for the infant Navy, and had quickly became the Commodore’s best friend as well as his right arm.

  Red-faced, Dave began to stammer apologies, which Bowditch rode right over with an order: “I want an objective written report from you on the lessons learned from this latest action about tactics, armament, and employment of aircraft in this war. I want it on my desk by 0800 tomorrow. Is that clear, Commander?”

  “Yes, sir. Aye aye, sir.”

  Not another word passed between the two for the rest of the flight.

  Darkness had fallen when they arrived over Chole Bay, and the buoys marking the taxi way were lighted. A boat had put off from Charlemagne on sighting the Puffin’s lights, and Commodore Bowditch boarded over the starboard side with full honors.

  After seeing his Puffin safely eased into its cradle, Dave went below to his cabin after asking the officer’s mess steward to send down a tray, and started work on a complete revision of his after-action report on the attack on Stone Town. As tired as he was from the long flight, he knew he’d get little sleep that night. The Commodore’s scarifying lecture had made him realize, though, that he probably deserved the deprivation for his self-absorption, self-pity, and blame-casting ever since the raid, for which he was now thoroughly ashamed.

  “No need to apologize, Al,” Sam said. “You and Bill have done, essentially, just what I would have done. The fact that you weren’t fully successful in this last attack is just due to the fog of war – bad luck, and the lack of one small but vital piece of intelligence. I’ve re-calibrated Dave Schofield, and I think we’ll see a more positive and open-minded attitude from him in future.”