Compared with the Furious, the Wasp seemed enormous. This time, Edward felt little of the anxiety he’d experienced during that first flight to Malta. His confidence was well founded: the new Spitfire left the flight deck with twenty yards to spare. He was leading the third group, the last batch of sixteen to leave the carrier.
A little over three hours later, there was Malta, that tiny floating leaf upon a vast dark sea.
‘Hullo Woody, this is Piper leader,’ he called up over the radio. ‘Permission to land.’
‘Well done, Eddie,’ Woody’s ever-calm voice crackled through his headphones. ‘You’re clear to land. Watch out for little jobs. There are a few around.’
‘All right, Woody.’ Edward glanced around him. The aircraft in his group seemed to all be there. Away to his left he saw a number of enemy fighters circling menacingly. Some more were wheeling in a low-level dogfight with some Spitfires further inland. Edward breathed in deeply. German and Italian radio chatter suddenly filled his ears. Someone shouted ‘Break!’ and he turned to see several of his group peeling off to engage the 109s. Well, I’m coming in, he thought, and circling Hal Far, turned to land. The airfield, like Takali, was littered with wrecks and bomb damage, but a rough landing strip had been cleared, marked with painted oil cans and flags. He throttled back, lowered his undercarriage, and watched the ground hurrying to meet him. A slight bump and he was racing along the runway. Blue and orange tracer raced overhead then a 109 roared passed, guns rattling, followed moments later by a Spitfire. An erk ran up to him, jumped onto the wing and frantically pointed him towards a blast pen of sand-filled petrol tins some way beyond the main airfield. Edward taxied into position, and cut the engine. As he stiffly eased himself out of the cockpit, ground crew had already jumped up onto the wing, rocking the Spitfire from side to side. Men swarmed around. The gun ports were open before Edward could jump onto the wing, and long belts of bullets and cannon, were being passed up, their brass casings glinting in the morning sun. Soldiers carrying four-gallon petrol cans hurried over. Edward jumped onto the ground and saw a replacement pilot was already waiting.
‘She’s all yours,’ Edward told him, running his hands through sweat-drenched hair.
‘How’s she flying?’ the other pilot asked.
‘Perfectly. Got me back here all right.’ Edward smiled, patted the man on the back, and then hurried back towards dispersal. Planes were taxiing to their blast pens, while the last few still airborne came into land. The noise of the engines was deafening, the dust from the prop wash clouding the airfield in a thin haze. In the skies above, aircraft continued to wheel and turn, guns chattering. At dispersal, Edward met the Luqa station commander as the last Spitfire came in to land.
‘That’s the lot,’ he said. ‘Some of the Takali lot are already airborne again, you know.’
‘Really?’ said Edward. ‘That’s great news.’ So Woody and Butch’s plan was working.
Raids appeared over the Island throughout the rest of the day. Edward flew again just before six o’clock, one of thirty-three Spitfires scrambled to intercept a formation of Italian bombers and Macchi fighters. He’d never seen so many Spitfires heading into battle before, and he grinned to himself to see such a sight. He never even fired his guns, the raid dispersing before he could join the fray. Landing back at Takali, he found Butch in jubilant mood. Only four Spitfires had been lost en route to Malta, and a further four during the day, but there were still well over fifty fit and ready for battle. ‘Tomorrow,’ grinned Butch, ‘we’re going to cause merry havoc.’ The others were no less buoyant; the change in confidence was overwhelming.
‘This is more like it,’ Harry said to him, ‘don’t you think?’
‘Definitely.’
‘For the first time since we arrived on this damn place, it seems as though we might actually be able to make a difference. If they do send over their gliders, they’re not going to know what’s hit them.’
They sat on a rock outside the wrecked dispersal hut, and smoked Lucky Stripes bought from American sailors on the Wasp. Activity hummed over the airfield. Pristine Spitfires and battered Hurricanes filled the blast pens, soldiers and erks scurried from one pen to another; the sound of banging, metal on metal, resounded across the hot dusty field. Edward even saw a group of erks laughing; there’d been a short supply of humour recently.
‘I wonder what they’ll fling at us tomorrow,’ said Harry.
Edward flicked away his cigarette butt. ‘I hate to think.’
The whole squadron was on standby from dawn – for once there were enough aircraft for both flights. Squadron markings had even been painted on the fuselages. At dispersal, mugs of tea and a chunk of hard bread. Someone had made a number of armchairs from petrol cans with rugs thrown over them. Edward and Harry sat in two of them, mugs resting on the arms. Edward watched strips of pale grey spread out across the eastern sky. The colour changed to pink, then yellow and finally burnished orange as the first rays of sunlight lifted over the hills and flooded across the Island.
‘It’s going to be hot,’ said Edward.
‘Hm,’ said Harry, looking forlornly at his bread.
‘Not hungry?’ Edward asked.
‘No – for some reason I’m not at all.’ He winced, and breathed out deeply, lips pursed. ‘Have my bread if you like.’
Edward took it gratefully. He’d quickly got used to the more normal daily diet Gibraltar and the Wasp had to offer. A day back on Malta and his stomach could not stop grinding.
By the time the sun had fully risen, Harry had disappeared to the latrines more than once and was wincing almost constantly.
‘You’ve got the Dog, haven’t you?’ said Edward.
‘I don’t know, but it’s bloody painful,’ said Harry. ‘My guts are agony.’
‘You can’t fly like that,’ said Edward.
‘I’ll be fine.’ Harry clutched his stomach.
‘I’m getting the MO.’
‘No, don’t,’ said Harry, but as Edward got up he made no further effort to stop his friend.
The Medical Officer asked him a few questions, pressed his fingers onto Harry’s stomach. Then he felt Harry’s brow. ‘Malta Dog,’ he said at length. ‘You shouldn’t fly.’
‘I’ll be all right, honestly,’ Harry protested. The MO called over Pip. ‘Harry here’s got the Dog,’ said the MO. ‘He needs to get to bed.’
‘Pip, I’ll be fine, really,’ said Harry.
‘Harry, tell me honestly, what would happen if you farted at 15,000 feet?’ Harry looked sheepish. ‘Remember that someone else will most likely be flying the plane after you. Think about them a moment, will you?’
Harry raised a hand – all right, you win. Pip turned to Edward. ‘Eddie, you’re taking over ‘B’ Flight until Harry’s better. All right?’
‘All right, Pip.’
The MO turned back to Harry. ‘Stay here for the moment, and I’ll get you back up to the Xara Palace as soon as there’s a bus going up.’
Pip and the MO wandered off. ‘Bloody hell,’ muttered Harry.
‘They’re right, though,’ said Edward. ‘Overdo it now and you’ll end up at Imtarfa like Tony. Sweat it out and you’ll be fine.’ He got up, wandered over to the nearest blast pen and smoked another of his Lucky Stripes. He felt impatient. Everyone knew this was going to be a big day. His stomach was churning, waves of nausea rising up his throat. Where the hell are they? he thought. A glance at his watch. Twenty-past nine. Soon. He wanted to get on with it.
Twenty minutes later the field telephone rang. Bandits on their way, two squadrons from Luqa scrambled. Edward kicked the ground as a multitude of sirens rang out across the Island.
A few minutes later, the phone rang again. This time 636 Squadron were to scramble too. Large formations of bombers were heading towards the harbours where the Welshman had yet to leave. That familiar feeling: a tremor down the spine, a heaviness in his stomach, and Edward was dashing to his aircraft. Minutes later, in a flurry
of dust and roaring engines, the two flights hurtled across the rough airfield and up to meet the attackers. There was no time to climb high into the sky. Instead, Edward led the flight straight towards the harbours to catch the bombers as they came out of their dives. A thick shroud of green-grey smoke covered Valletta and Grand Harbour; above it, countless dark puffs of ack-ack fire dotted the sky. Stukas and Ju 88s peeled off and dived through this hail of steel, some disappearing with trails of black smoke behind, others reappearing like ghosts from the smokescreen moments later. Higher still, Spitfires were wheeling and pirouetting with the escorts of 109s. For once the contest appeared to be even.
Edward called ‘B’ Flight into line astern then one by one, they peeled off and dived on the bombers as they flew out over Sliema and towards the north of the Island. Edward picked out a Junkers 88, dived down until he was beneath it then pulled back hard on the stick, and opened fire at its silvery grey underside. His tracer seemed to hit and he saw the aircraft shudder, but then another Junkers screamed over his head so close that he nearly collided again. He cursed, then banked hard and felt the blood drain from his head, and his vision start to cloud. As his sight returned and he felt the weight of negative gravity lift from his chest, he spotted a lone Stuka and turned towards it, only for a Hurricane – of all things! – to attack it head on. A puff of smoke, then flames erupted with lightning speed from the engine and the Stuka disappeared into the sea.
Edward flew out over the Mediterranean to try and gain height. All cohesion had gone in the brief and tumbling melee. He watched a parachute drift past. The man – a German, he thought – waved. Edward thought of Zulu. I should shoot him, he thought, but knew he wouldn’t. Instead he waved back.
He climbed to twelve thousand, turned so that the sun was behind and scanned the skies. Fighting was still going on over the harbours, puffs and trails of smoke still peppering the sky. To the south, he could see a group of four 109s. Evidently they hadn’t seen him, so he dived once more, the Spitfire shaking and screaming as he did so. At the last moment, they spotted him; he could hear them shouting to break over his headphones, but one was more sluggish than the others and Edward latched on to it. The Messerschmitt swayed in and out of his gunsight, gradually becoming larger. He hovered his thumb above the gun button. Allowing his target to drop slightly to allow for the fall of bullets, he hovered his thumb a moment more then pressed down. The Spitfire shook and he watched white smoke appear from the engine. Edward pressed down again. A second of fire then nothing. Shit! he cursed. Out of bloody ammunition! The 109 banked, then turned over on its back and dived. A controlled dive? Edward couldn’t tell. By the time he had swooped himself and looked for the stricken Messerschmitt, it was gone.
Edward was one of the last to land, and for once he was not harried by enemy fighters, nor was the airfield littered with bomb craters. His shirt was drenched with sweat, and his eyes stung with fatigue. And yet he felt exhilarated as he clambered out of the cockpit, past a row of Spitfires, gleaming and clicking as their engines cooled, and hurried over to dispersal where the Intelligence Officer stood with Butch. The others, he could tell, felt the same way, as they gabbled, all talking at once, some re-enacting their own personal battles, arms outstretched as they described how a Stuka or Junkers had plummeted into the sea. Lucky claimed to have seen no less than twelve enemy parachutes drifting down into the sea, while Laurie had watched two 109s crash, one near St Paul’s Bay, the other at Naxxar. Nearly every pilot made claims.
‘So you damaged a Junkers 88, and got a probable 109,’ said the IO eventually to Edward.
‘Yes – but the smoke from the 109 was white. Coolant – he wouldn’t have made it back.’
‘Hm,’ said the Intelligence Officer, ‘nevertheless, until proven otherwise . . .’ He let the sentence hang.
Edward shrugged. ‘Whatever.’ He didn’t care. A hand slapped him on the back. ‘Christ, that was some scrap,’ said Lucky. He whistled. ‘Wasn’t that something? Boy, there’ll be some long faces in Sicily right now.’
Edward grinned. ‘Perhaps they’ll all go home.’
‘Well, maybe they will.’
They did not, as it happened. They returned twice more that day, but on both occasions there were plenty of aircraft to meet them. By the time the sun set again, sixty-five enemy aircraft had been either damaged or destroyed and the defenders had won the biggest victory since the Island’s war had begun. So Butch had been right all along, Edward thought to himself. It really was about having more Spitfires.
That night in the mess at the Xara Palace, bottles of Scotch were produced – Baggy Bagshawe announced he had kept a supply back for just such an occasion – and everyone drank, sang, and made innumerable toasts. Soon Edward was retching as much as Harry, not because he was stricken with dysentery, but because he was the drunkest he’d been since leaving England two-and-a-half very long months before.
Malta – June, 1942
St Paul’s Bay in the north of the Island. The whole squadron had been stood down for two days and sent up to the rest camp there – a villa looking out to the sea, with a lawn that ran down to the rocks. There was even a small wooden jetty with a couple of brightly painted rowing boats moored alongside.
It had been a long walk there, but the moment he stepped onto the sweeping lawn and saw the shimmering sea beyond, Edward knew it had been worth the effort. The contrast with the dust and mayhem of Takali, the ugliness of the countless wrecked aircraft and piles of stone was so great that for almost the first time since he had arrived on the Island, he felt as though he had found a haven sheltered from the war.
Edward slept – on a day bed in the garden, beneath a large sweetly scented jasmine, where the shade offered protection from the sun, but not from the heat. Later, with the sun only slowly beginning to drop, Harry nudged him awake. ‘Let’s take a boat out,’ he said. ‘Cool off a bit.’
Edward rubbed his eyes, sat up and wiped the sweat from his face. ‘All right,’ he said. They ambled down to the jetty, the wooden boards almost burning their bare feet. Some others had already taken one of the boats out, but the other, a vivid blue with two eyes painted at the prow, was still lashed to its mooring.
‘D’you know,’ said Harry as he unsteadily clambered onto the boat, ‘this is the first time I’ve been on the water since I’ve been here. Nearly four months it’s taken me. And I’ve always loved the sea. All that swimming in Cornwall when we were first at Perranporth – it was fun, wasn’t it?’
‘A lifetime ago,’ said Edward. He untied the rope, stepped aboard and pushed them gently away from the jetty. Beneath them, the water was clear. Small fish weaved languidly between the dark rocks, glinting silver in the sun. He sat back, letting his arms and feet trail in the cool water. ‘These past four months feel like a lifetime,’ he added.
‘Yes. Yes, they do. I miss England.’
‘Well, we’ll probably be back soon. Then we’ll get proper leave. Bliss. You’ll see Kitty again.’
‘If she hasn’t forgotten about me.’
‘Course she hasn’t.’
‘Nearly two months and I haven’t heard a word.’
‘Come on, Harry, you know what the mail is like. Next week you’ll probably get twenty all at once.’
‘Yes, I’m sure you’re right. She must have been writing, mustn’t she?’
‘Of course.’
Harry seemed to brighten, then he said, ‘D’you remember our perfect day? The one we dreamed about in Canada?’
Edward smiled. ‘Of course. The Ritz, long baths and a fabulous dinner. And girls.’
‘Well, when we get back I think we should finally do it, don’t you? We’re bound to get a decent amount of leave.’
‘And we’re not spending much money – at least apart from what I’m losing to those card sharks.’
‘Exactly. Even Malta has some plus points.’
Edward was thoughtful for a moment, then said, ‘But not many.’
‘No.’ Har
ry scooped up some water and splashed it on his face. ‘You’re right, you know, it does feel like we’ve been here for ever. Which is why we should indulge ourselves when we get home.’
‘All right – it’s a deal.’ Edward closed his eyes for a moment and felt the heat of the sun’s rays bear down upon his face. Harry might have been pining for Kitty, but Edward still envied him. ‘I wish I had a girl to go back to,’ he said suddenly. ‘Don’t laugh, but I hate the thought of something happening to me before I’ve had the chance to – well, you know.’
‘Add that to the list of things to do when we get back,’ said Harry. ‘There’ll be lots of willing punters in London. Think of all the men that are away. Many more girls to go round.’
Edward opened his eyes. ‘I hope you’re right.’
‘Look, Eddie, I’m sorry,’ said Harry. ‘I’ve been banging on about Kitty and moping around. Thoughtless of me.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘No, I mean it. I’ve been a bore and rather self-centred of late. And I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. Anyway, what are friends for?’ Edward suddenly clasped each side of the boat and began to rock it from side to side.
‘Hey, stop that!’ said Harry, but as he did so he lost his balance and fell into the water. Edward lost sight of him, and as the water settled again, peered over the edge. He could not see him. Seconds passed. For just a moment, he began to worry, but then the boat lurched, Edward fell backwards, and Harry, from the other side, was pulling him into the water too.
‘Christ!’ said Edward as he cleared the surface once more, ‘you had me worried for a moment.’
‘Well, it’s a good job I’m such a wonderful swimmer. That’ll teach you to push me overboard. Mind you, it’s beautiful once you’re in.’ He turned onto his back, and paddled lazily around the boat. ‘Look at that sky, not a cloud, not a single aeroplane. How on earth can we be at war?’
A Pair of Silver Wings Page 23
