At any rate, this news had no relevance whatever to Sam’s immediate problem.
Which was how to defeat – or, at least, avoid losing to – a fleet that out-numbered his by more than fourteen to one.
He had a few, a very few advantages, to partially offset this enormous numerical disadvantage. He had a handful of aircraft, something the Pirates did not have – would not have, until they came up with a better power-to-weight ratio than their inefficient diesel. The heavy guns with which his vessels were armed had greater range and accuracy that those of the Pirates.
And that was it.
He was very much afraid it wouldn’t be enough.
He went on deck in time to witness the launch of the last surviving of the two Puffin A’s fitted for long-range reconnaissance. It was returning to Pemba Island, or in that direction, to find the Pirate fleet and shadow it, taking advantage of its greater wing spread and fuel capacity to loiter for hours at high altitude. Sam knew what it would find: that the fleet of enemy gun-dhows had sortied at first light from Chake Chake Bay and was headed south.
The four RKN vessels in Chole Bay were at short stay, ready for departure at first light themselves, to rendezvous with the other two schooners. Six Puffin dive bombers, fueled, bombed-up, and with a full load of ammo for their guns, waited at anchor alongside Charlemagne. They would be hoisted aboard just before departure, to constitute Charlie’s embarked air detachment. At the moment, the carrier’s deck was busy with the remaining five aircraft. One of the Pathfinders was being hurriedly converted back into a fighter-bomber: the radio-nav system removed, gun re-installed, and the under-wing flare racks replaced with the original bomb points.
Neither Sam nor Dave expected the air/sea battle to last until dark. Win or lose, they both knew it would be over by sunset, therefore a daylight battle and no need for Pathfinders. A Pathfinder would be of no particular use in the land battle for Mafia Island. If they lost the air/sea battle they would eventually lose the island anyway, by their inability to resupply allied ground forces there.
But as much as Dave wanted an extra fighter-bomber, he just didn’t have the skilled manpower to convert both Pathfinders in the time remaining.
They had, however, managed to make one modification to the second Pathfinder, to keep it from being completely useless in a daylight battle: they discovered that, with only a little jury-rigging, they could mount two 250 kilo bombs to the fittings for the fuel drop tanks, for extended range. It could very probably only be used for one strike – it, along with the rest of the aircraft, other than the six to be embarked on Charlie, were to be left behind in Chole Bay to operate from there. No one knew whether the carrier could sequentially recover, refuel, rearm, and then launch, in the midst of a sea battle, more than the six aircraft she had room for on deck. It would require split-second timing; it had never been done before. If it couldn’t be done, then the five Chole Bay-based aircraft might be one-mission planes, forced to return to the bay when out of bombs and ammo and low on fuel.
Why, oh why, hadn’t acted immediately on Dave’s idea to improvise some kind of seaplane tender? Any merchant vessel would do, so long as it had sufficient capacity for munitions, spares, and fuel, and berthing for aviation ratings. Soet Melissa would have been ideal, since she was already fitted out with fuel tanks. As it was, the crews of the aircraft left behind, assisted by Soet Melissa’s crew, might just possibly be able to re-arm and re-fuel from her, with much jury-rigging and by sheer sweat and muscle, but it would certainly take a long time – perhaps too long for these aircraft to have any critical impact on the battle.
He made a strong effort to put these considerations out of his mind. What was done, was done, and they would have to go to war as they were.
He was helped in this effort by the unexpected arrival of Marie Girard on deck.
“Why, Marie!” he cried. “What brings you topsides at this ungodly hour? It’s only just gone four bells!”
“I couldn’t sleep, Sam – all this commotion on deck, right over my head. And I’ll confess, too, that tomorrow’s – today’s – coming battle is much on my mind. I got up and checked everything in sick bay to be sure we’re ready for tomorrow’s casualties, que Dieu accorde they be few.”
“Indeed. But you’ll need to be well-rested, Marie. I suggest you nap in the morning watch, while we’re sailing to meet them.”
“You should take your own advice, Sam. You look very tired, yourself.”
“Oh, I intend to, Marie. An early breakfast, or maybe call it a late supper, then forty winks for me while you do the same. Plans are made, everyone has their orders – nobody will need me for hours – if I stay on deck I’ll just be in the way.
“An idea – Marie, why don’t you join me for the meal? Just a light snack, plus a glass of rum – it’ll set us right up for our nap. Only the two of us – all the other officers are too busy.”
Girard gazed intently at Sam for a moment, but he seemed to mean only what he said – she detected no hidden meaning behind his words. She then felt ashamed of herself for suspecting his motives.
“Of course, Sam. Thank you. What time?”
“Say, six bells?”
“Oh-three-hundred, then.” She was secretly proud of herself for remembering how to convert bells into time – and to also use the naval twenty-four-hour clock. Her struggle to become a nautical creature had not been an easy one. However, rather to her disappointment, Sam didn’t seem to notice this progress.
Nineteen
Promptly at first light, Ritchie called Sam, bringing him a cup of fresh coffee. He had been awake for a few moments, rising immediately from a deep, refreshing sleep to full alertness at the muted sound of the MG set and the clanking of the pawls on the anchor windlass. This was The Day, as everyone had begun to refer to it, the capital letters clearly heard; Die Dag. La Journée. The Day. Three ways to say it in Kerguelenian patois.
Sam had only to put on his shoes and don his hat, having turned in all-standing, so he was on deck within a minute of being called, coffee mug in hand.
His conversation with Marie over their shared meal, a few hours before, had been cathartic for Sam, part of the reason he had slept so well. They shared the tragedy of losing spouses to the Pirates, but this shared experience was unbalanced in one way; Sam had known Bill Ennis far longer than Marie, known him well as his oldest friend in the service, but Marie had known Maddie, Sam’s late wife, hardly at all.
She kept him talking for the best part of an hour, relating how he had met Maddie when he was a cadet and fell for her on the spot; how he lost a coin toss to his best friend and had to stand by and watch him woo and wed her; the death of his friend; Maddie’s background; how she moved to Nosy Be on behalf of her family’s business – every detail.
He found this one-way conversation painful at first, but Marie persisted with her questioning, and by the end of their meal he had felt a great burden lifted from him. He realized he had long needed to share his grief and sense of loss with someone, but had kept it bottled up, for fear of betraying a weakness. Marie was certainly the last person he would have chosen, given their history; she turned out to be precisely the right person. He wondered if she had realized how great his need had been.
Once topsides, he found as expected that Charlemagne was motoring out of the channel between Chole Bay and the Indian Ocean; a tricky channel, without local knowledge. She was led by Albatros, with Mr. Mooney, her navigator, and a pilot for these waters, at the conn.
A glance aft told him that Charlie was followed closely by Hornet, followed in turn by Joan of Arc, then Emma Lee. He could also see, being left astern, the five aircraft staying behind, moored in a cluster to a makeshift raft at anchor, near Soet Melissa.
The engineering detachment of the Reunion force had put the raft together at short notice, complete with awning, chairs, and a supply of food and drink, when it occurred to Dave that he couldn’t leave their aircrews to simply sit in their cockpits in the tropica
l sun for however long they would be on the water there. The soldier-engineers had done an excellent job despite the rush, and the squadron now owed them a party – after the battle, of course -- complete with lots of Navy rum.
Waiting in their cockpits, or now, on the raft, meant instant readiness for takeoff, so waiting aboard Soet Melissa seemed less tactically expedient.
It would have been the worst of luck to voice the obvious: that the party was contingent on most concerned surviving the battle.
Todd Cameron approached, and said, “Commodore, a radio signal from our recon plane says the Pirate fleet sailed at first light, too.”
“As expected. Thanks, Todd.”
Once Joan had cleared the channel, Sam ordered Form Delta – the schooners ahead of the carrier, in line abeam, and just within signaling distance of one another and Charlemagne – and ordered the task element to motor-sail at Charlie’s best speed, shaping a northerly course to pass Zanzibar to the east. They would rendezvous with Task Element 1.2 – schooners Wasp and Scorpion – off Dar es Salaam creek, to re-form Task Force One, the first time in months it would operate together as a unit.
The wind was out of the south-east, between ten and fifteen knots. This put the relative wind, while motor sailing, on Charlie’s starboard quarter – which, given her rig and her double-hulled design, was just about her best point of sailing. The downside was that, as this course brought the relative wind farther aft than the true wind, it actually slightly reduced its force on Charlie’s sails.
Sam strolled forward, out of the Flag Box, approaching Captain Murphy, who was standing at the windward rail opposite the wheelhouse.
“What d’you think, Ben – might we go a touch faster under sail alone, with this force four breeze on the quarter?”
“Ag, nee, Commodore. You’ll recall that she’s got half the sail area she had as a round-the-worlder. She’s faster under power on any point of sailing in anything short of a strong breeze – a force 6, at least.”
“Well, you know her better than I do, Ben.” Sam walked back to the Flag Box, admonishing himself for interfering in Murphy’s realm as CO of the vessel.
When he raised his telescope to view each of the schooners, he noted each in turn lowering the upside-down black cone, shown forward, that signified a vessel underway under both power and sail, and thus bound by the anti-collision rules for a powered vessel. They had clearly found that they didn’t need their engines to keep pace with Charlie. Good – that would conserve much fuel.
His gaze lingered on the Albatros, his old command; a charming view, with courses, drifter, square topsail, and all staysails set and drawing well. Indeed, all five schooners were lovely sights. They brought to mind a phrase he often heard from his first skipper, on his initial voyage as a cadet: A ship is the most beautiful work of man’s hand, the captain would murmur to himself as he looked up at the rig of his schooner with all sails set.
“What speed are we making, Todd?” Sam asked.
“About nine and half, Commodore.”
“As of when?”
Todd looked at his watch. “Two minutes ago, Commodore. I’ve got the new Mid checking every six minutes.” The “new Mid” was Esterhazy, seconded from Charlie’s midshipmen’s berth when Todd finally confessed that he needed more help. Esterhazy was a “salt fish” – that is, an aspirant for a line commission, not in aviation or one of the staff corps. Sam thought he needed still more assistance – at least a lieutenant, also of the line – but he was waiting for Todd to realize that.
Sam did the math in his head. The Pirate fleet was beating, with the wind on its port bow, but since the breeze was steady, probably not needing to tack. He thought they were probably making roughly the same nine or nine and a half knots as his little force. This meant that they would meet somewhere off the southeastern coast of Zanzibar island at around mid-day – always assuming the wind remained steady in direction and force.
Sam’s mind turned to an exercise that had occupied it obsessively since the discovery of the Pirate fleet: how the air-sea battle between the two forces might develop.
He did not think the Pirates could possibly have towboats for so many gun-dhows, so the great majority of enemy vessels would be fighting under sail alone. This was a certainty: no motor vessels were with the fleet at Chake Chake Bay, and the Zanzibaris had built no more – Dave and his fighter-bombers had seen to that, destroying all on the stocks a-building, and so damaging the yards that they were not yet back in service. This was one advantage the RKN enjoyed.
They had found no evidence that the Pirates had built another zeppelin, or more than one, and the aerial searches had been exhaustive. Yet, as Dave had pointed out, there was a helluva lot of African bush between Mafia and Pemba. The Zanzibaris could very well have sited a location for building and then basing a zeppelin outside of the area of the main they had searched – but still within easy flight to the coast. The fact of the arrival of more than a hundred gun-dhows from outside of the sultanate made it clear that Zanzibar could now draw on resources from the greater Caliphate. How they might have moved inland the tons of material and hundreds of workers, through many miles of trackless bush without being detected, remained a mystery – but the Pirates had proven unexpectedly resourceful before now.
He and Dave had agreed that the possibility of at least one, and possibly more, Pirate dirigibles existed. Hence, the special bombs and tactics the squadron had developed for attacking them.
What Sam and Dave both feared the most was an aerial attack on Charlemagne while she was in re-fueling and re-arming her air detachment after a strike. She would be nearly defenseless then – with so few schooners, he couldn’t afford to station one near her as an AA vessel; all had to be engaged with the Pirate gun-dhows.
Not that their AA had proven at all effective against Fat Boy.
Charlie must never be left vulnerable to an attack from the air, then. The solution Dave arrived at was to launch anti-shipping strikes of no more than four Puffins at once, keeping on board two aircraft armed with the anti-zeppelin bomblets. When the four-plane strikes began their return, the airship hunters would launch and orbit the carrier while the strike force was being serviced.
There remained the issue of how best to utilize the five aircraft left back at Chole Bay: one dive bomber, one Petrel, and two Pathfinders; the surviving Puffin LR was now shadowing the enemy fleet in its southward movement; what it did when it reached bingo fuel state depended on the circumstances at that time.
One of the Pathfinders was converted to the standard Puffin-B dive-bomber; the other modified to carry two bombs, but no gun. He had four combat aircraft in Chole Bay – two dive-bombers, one single-seater level bomber, and one level bomber with a capacity of only two bombs. He could use them to support Charlie’s missions, to support Landry in resisting the inevitable ground invasion of Mafia Island, or in some combination thereof. Unless they could somehow be fitted in between Charlie’s servicing of her six Puffins, they were one-mission planes.
And that highlighted an oversight that, in retrospect, was appearing increasingly glaring. If they won, it would be simply a lesson-learned for the post-battle review, and no harm done.
But if they lost – well, should he survive, his career as a naval officer would certainly be at an end; any inquiry staffed by French Port politicians would be looking for a scapegoat, and they wouldn’t have to look far. The fact that he was vastly out-numbered wouldn’t matter.
He put that out of his mind as a needless distraction. He probably wouldn’t survive a lost battle, anyway – he certainly wasn’t going to surrender.
Todd Cameron interrupted his pacing. “Commander Schofield wants you on the phone, Commodore.”
Sam walked to the Commodore’s chair, climbed up into it, and donned the sound-powered phone headset hanging from one arm.
“Yes, Dave?”
“Commodore, our eye in the sky reports that the Pirate fleet is proceeding southwards as before. He also
reports approaching bingo fuel state, and requests permission to return to Mother. Over.”
Radio procedure seemed silly on the sound-powered phone system but it was necessary because one had to depress a button on the mike or handset to talk – and that cut off the other station.
“Dave, I assume that this is leading up to a request to launch a strike, because Charlie obviously can’t service the Puffin LR with all six cradles filled. Over.”
“That’s affirmative, Commodore. The alternative is to send the LR to Chole Bay, which means, effectively, that we’ve lost her services – and we really need her up there. Over.”
“OK, Dave. Make it a four-plane strike then. Some more attrition will be helpful. Over.”
“Thanks, Commodore – wilco! Schofield out.”
The Commodore’s chair was a recent innovation given courtesy of Ben Murphy and Charlie’s carpenter’s crew. It was elevated, to give the Boss a better view of the entire sweep of the carrier’s deck, tall enough for him to see over the wheelhouse, padded for his comfort, and wired for the sound-powered phone system, giving him opportunities for private conversations with the captain of the carrier and the CO of the embarked air detachment, as well as access to the rest of the stations on the system. It was located near the center of the flag box, next to the staff watch officer’s rostrum. It was comfortable enough to nap in, if he felt it necessary to keep the deck for extended periods.
Once the Commodore’s chair was built and fully fitted out, two more, highly similar, Captain’s chairs had been built, one on each side of the combined wheelhouse/chartroom structure, allowing the CO to keep to his accustomed place on the windward side of the quarterdeck.
Sam imagined that the idea for the captain’s chairs occurred first to Murphy, but the commodore’s chair was built first, that being the proper order of things. Captain Murphy was nothing if not politic.
Assault on Zanzibar: Book Four of the Westerly Gales Saga Page 39
