Despite the early hour, all the Misfit Squadron fitters were in the hangar, even the ones whose aircraft weren’t flying, as was a bleary-eyed Dorothy Campbell, who’d apparently had a few too many drinks in the mess the night before, trying to drown her sorrows over the death of another of her friends. There were also quite a few Navy mechanics hanging around, although none of them really seemed to have much to do, and even Captain Hewer popped in briefly to wish everyone good luck, before hurrying back to his post at the bridge.
The pilots ran through final checks with their fitters and then, while a few last turns were put on the springs, they gathered around Hummingbird, which would be the first to take off.
Everything that needed to be said already had been, so Scarlet merely gave Abby an ironic salute, hugged Gwen and Kitty, then flashed everyone else a cheeky smile, before clambering into her aircraft. The gyrodyne’s overhead rotor was at full speed in seconds, creating a gale within the hangar which rocked the nearest people back on their heels and then the Irishwoman was gone through the hole in the side bulkhead.
The pilots watched as Hummingbird slowly built up forward speed, gradually pulling ahead of the Arturo, but then Scarlet switched to horizontal flight and the machine accelerated, quickly disappearing from sight and the pilots dispersed to their own aircraft.
Launching the other eight aircraft was a much longer and torturous process than it was for Hummingbird. It involved taking one of them up to the flight deck with the single lift, waiting for it to taxi to the stern, turn, and take off, before the process could be repeated with the next in line. It was necessary, though; the carrier harked from a time when the aircraft it carried flew a lot slower and therefore needed far less of a takeoff run, which meant that multiple aircraft could just stay on the deck. The Misfits needed every inch of the flight deck with the extra weight of dual springs, though, and it was only due to the new hydromatic airscrews that B flight could take off at all.
Eventually, after almost an hour, all the aircraft were in the air, strung out in a long line at ten thousand feet that stretched over more than a hundred miles, but as time passed the line slowly contracted until somewhere off the north coast of Algeria, the four aircraft of each flight joined up.
Scarlet had a head start of almost a hundred miles on the rest of the aircraft, but she was caught and passed after just over an hour, by first A flight, then B flight. It took three hours for B flight to catch up with A flight, though, and by that time Malta was in sight. Or rather the mayhem that was the airspace over the island was in sight.
A crackle in the ears of the pilots announced that they were in range of the fighter controller based at Hal Far and then a soft but authoritative woman’s voice filled their ears. ‘Badger flight, this is Haven control, we have you in sight. Welcome. Please be advised that there is an air raid in progress, repeat, air raid in progress. Advise holding off your approach for one hour. Over.’
‘Haven control, this is Badger Leader. Thank you and acknowledged. Standby, please.’
Abby immediately switched over to the squadron channel. ‘All Badgers, report.’
‘Badger Two, I’ve got one quarter tension.’
‘Badger Three, I’ve been on reserve for a while, Leader.’
‘Badger Four, same here.’
‘Badger Five is going on reserve now, Leader.’
‘Badger Six here, I’m on my last ticks, Leader, situation critical.’
‘Badger Seven. Um, I’ve got a wee bit left on my main springs. Mebbe a tenth.’
‘Badger Eight. I’ve got one half tension on my reserve springs.’
Abby took a few seconds to assimilate the information. All the while, the island was coming ever closer and the black cloud over it was resolving into wave after wave of bombers, the grey and green Prussian FU88’s and HO111’s which had been seen so often over England accompanied by much less familiar dark red and gold Italian machines.
‘Alright, we have no choice, we have to take our chances landing. Badger Six will be first down, followed by Eight, Three, Four, then Five, in that order. Badger Five, you coordinate things. Take channel three, we’ll take four. Two, Seven, we’re going to stay up as long as we can to cover them, but as soon as we get low on tension we land. Everyone understand?’
As soon as the acknowledgements had finished coming in, Abby switched back to the Maltese frequency. ‘Haven control, this is Badger Leader. Be advised, we are landing. Repeat, we are landing. Over.’
‘Negative, Badger Leader...’
Abby cut the woman off. ‘Haven, we land or bloody ditch. Which would you prefer? Over.’
There were a good few seconds of silence, before finally a different, harsher woman’s voice come over the radio. ‘Badger Leader, we cannot guarantee the safety of your aircraft. Land if you must, but do so at your own risk.’
‘We have no choice, Haven. Be ready for us. Badger Leader out.’
‘Leader, Five here. The Prussians have never been very good at bombing, I’m willing to take my chances on the ground. We can rewind for five minutes and then get back into the air with at least some tension and help out.’
‘Roger, Five. Get everyone down, but don’t take any risks. Get into that underground hangar of theirs and wait it out. We’ll be there when we can.’
‘Roger, Leader.’
‘Good luck, Five.’
‘Thank you, Leader. You too. Landing aircraft, form on me. Switch to channel four.’
There were a series of clicks as the five aircraft which were running low on tension switched radio frequency, then silence as the three pilots who were left, Abby, Gwen and Mac, watched them drop slowly away. None of them said what was on their mind: that they weren’t sure who had the most dangerous task - the ones who were landing through the heavy bombardment or the ones who were left to take on the combined Italian and Prussian forces.
‘Right, then,’ said Abby, ‘let’s go and get the attention of a few Fleas.’
Gwen tore her eyes away from Kitty’s red, white and blue aircraft with difficulty and followed Abby as she climbed towards the enemy.
Dozens of bombers were already heading back to Sicily, their payloads dropped, but there were enough still on their way to make life difficult for the landing aircraft if they decided to target Hal Far and any that the three Misfits could destroy or ward off would increase their chances of survival.
‘Badger Leader, this is Falcon Leader. Two aircraft joining on your three o’clock high.’
Gwen all but leapt in her seat at the familiar voice and she turned her head to look up so quickly that she felt her neck crack.
She immediately spotted the two Harridan fighters above and to her right, but had to slot magnifying lenses in place over her goggles and look twice before she believed what her eyes were telling her.
The Harridans were a mismatched mess; there was barely any sign of their original paintwork, but instead they were a patchwork of colours, as if they had been repaired with whatever had been at hand, including - by the looks of several panels in strange shades of green, grey and dark red - enemy aircraft. Gwen also noticed that the lead fighter had a single long cannon barrel poking out of the front of its right wing with an improvised bubble allowing it to fit, that the fuselage of the second fighter had been crudely modified to hold the canopy of an MU9, and the spring of the leader had a squared-off, Prussian look about it.
One thing both fighters did have in common, though, were an inordinate number of victory markings on their flanks, with Italian eagles mixed with Prussian crosses and, curiously, they both had names painted on their noses, just behind the airscrews - Hope and Faith.
However, while the aircraft were battered and shabby, the pilots were in worse shape and Gwen couldn’t help but gasp when the Misfit aircraft reached the same altitude as the Harridans and she caught sight of her old friend, Rudy Drake. He was almost unrecognisable, emaciated, with sunken cheeks and prominent cheekbones, his eyes a dull, almost lifeless blue
in black pits. The only way she knew for sure that it was him was the cheeky half smile he flashed in her direction and the voice when it came over the radio again.
‘Nice aircraft, Goosy. Who’d you steal it from?’
Gwen laughed, but she couldn’t think of a witty rejoinder in the face of his skeletal appearance.
Thankfully, she was saved from the necessity by Abby. ‘Let’s leave the happy reunion until the job’s done, please, people.’
‘Roger, Badger Leader. Falcon flight is yours to command.’
‘Welcome, Falcon and thank you. I take it you heard our comms?’
‘Affirmative, Badger Leader.’
‘Then you know we have to protect Hal Far as long as we can. I plan to attack the group of eighty-eights at one o’clock; they seem to be heading for the south end of the island, but you know the situation better than I do, so if you have another suggestion let’s have it.’
‘Negative, Badger Leader, that’s as good as any other plan.’
‘That’s what we’ll do - we’ll ignore the fighters as much as we can and try to give those bombers a bit of a scare. Pick your targets and engage. Happy hunting, everyone.’
Gwen smiled grimly at Abby’s words - there was no shortage of targets to be had and she was looking forward to seeing what Excalibur could do.
She’d had plenty of chance to test the aircraft’s limits during the exercises Abby had insisted on running over England during the week or so after New Year’s. She’d even had a chance to have a few mock dogfights with the other members of the squadron and had found that Excalibur was every bit as agile as Wasp had been, if not more so. Mock dogfights just weren’t the same as being in actual combat, though, and she was also quite interested to see what effect the four cannons and six machine guns she’d been able to equip her machine with would have on the Prussian bombers.
She lined up on one of the large enemy machines, an Italian heavy bomber, leaving the leader to Abby, and flicked the safety off her guns.
‘Bandits, nine o’clock high. Coming down.’
Gwen didn’t recognise the woman’s voice, but figured that it was Rudy’s wingmate. She spared a quick glance upwards to find the enemy fighters, instantly concluded that they were too far away to make any difference to her first pass, then returned her attention fully to the targets that mattered.
She opened fire slightly earlier than she would normally have done, knowing that the enemy machine would be within optimum range by the time the slow-moving cannon rounds closed the gap. Almost as soon as she had squeezed the trigger she had to let it go again, though, as the bomber filled her windscreen, but she had just enough time to see cockpit glass shattering and gaping holes appearing, as if by magic, in the machine’s nose before Excalibur rose up and over it, missing the vertical stabiliser, with its ostentatious golden roundel of SPQR surrounded by a laurel wreath, by inches.
She smiled, deeply satisfied, as she pushed her stick forward again and found her next target already lined up. For the first time in many years she had an aircraft that felt like an extension of her, like it was reacting to her thoughts even before she moved her hands and feet.
The enemy formation was so big that she could have kept going in a straight line and used her entire load of ammunition on bomber after bomber, but even as she’d been attacking her targets, half her mind had been on the fighters diving on them from above and, after she had poured fire into her third target, she had to turn to face them.
Excalibur was on her wing in an instant and the G forces piled on as the stick came easily back into Gwen’s lap. She yelled to keep the blood in her head as her flightsuit, designed to help with just such stresses, proved completely inadequate to the task. The turn was so tight, though, that it was done in an instant and she was rolling out of it before she had even expelled a quarter of her breath.
She snatched a shot at a pair of MU9’s as they flashed past her, but then rolled Excalibur onto her back and nudged the rudder to rake another bomber with cannon fire.
‘Leader, this is Seven. Switching to reserve spring.’
‘Copy, Seven. Disengage when you can.’
‘Roger.’
‘Two, what’s your status?’
‘Still got a good few minutes on my main, Leader.’
‘Bloody hell, that aircraft is something else, Two.’ Abby’s voice cut off momentarily and out of the corner of her eye Gwen saw Dragon firing on a bomber. The big aircraft’s port side engine flared and it began dropping out of the formation. However, despite her success, there was a note of frustration in Abby’s voice when she came back on the air. ‘I’ve been running on reserve for a couple of minutes. I’m going to have to leave you, sorry.’
‘No problem, Leader, I’ve got this.’
Abby laughed as she destroyed one last bomber, but then Dragon inverted and pulled into a vertical dive towards the island, now almost directly below.
Gwen banished her wingmate from her mind and turned back to the job at hand. A quick glance at her instrument panel told her that she had less than half of her cannon rounds left, but with how little tension she had left in her main spring she didn’t need to worry about conserving it and immediately set about finding some lucky Prussians to give it to.
She put Excalibur into a shallow dive which took her under the bomber formation and brought her airspeed racing up. In the mirror above her head she caught glimpses of several Prussian fighters following her down, but she pulled up well before they could get in range, sending cannon fire into the belly of one bomber and putting several of the large aircraft between her and her pursuers.
She led the fighters on a wild goose chase in and out of their companions for a minute or so, never giving them a chance to get a clear shot at her, but then bomb bay doors opened all around her, releasing black death on the island below and the bombers dipped their wings and turned for home, leaving her exposed.
With her spring tension now critical and no point in attacking the bombers any further, Gwen turned Excalibur in her sharpest turn yet, sprayed her attackers with her remaining ammunition, scattering them, then dove for the southern end of the island, pushing her throttle to the stop and giving Excalibur her head.
The airspeed indicator was just reaching five hundred miles per hour when there was a heavy clunk. At first she thought it was some kind of structural failure due to the high speed and was about to start pulling out of the dive, but then realised it was just her main spring announcing that it was finished powering her. She pulled the throttle back to minimum, switched to the reserve, then pushed the throttle forwards again, but not quite as far as before, wanting to keep at least a little tension back in case she had to divert to a different airfield.
She glanced back at the airspeed indicator and was shocked to find the needle had gone past its maximum of five hundred and fifty miles per hour and was firmly against the stop. Most aircraft began to creak and squeal in a dive as the forces acting on their wings built up, but Excalibur hadn’t so much as groaned in protest and there had been nothing to let her know she’d been going so fast.
She laughed, exhilarated; she hadn’t had a chance to test Excalibur in a full dive before, there had just been too much else to do - it looked like she was going to have to challenge Kitty to a race; the American was so proud of the performance of Hawk, especially in a dive, but she was in for a bit of a surprise.
The altimeter was racing towards five thousand feet and she gently began to pull out of the dive, all the time looking for any Prussians who might have followed her down. She found none, but didn’t stop her search, just in case. What she did find were two Harridan fighters on a similar course to hers, a few thousand feet above her. She throttled back and levelled off, steering towards them, letting them sink down towards her.
‘Falcon Leader, this is Badger Two. I have you in sight. Nice to see that bucket of bolts is holding together.’
‘What can I say, Badger Two? The Hawkings know how to make something
that lasts. Even if it does fly like a brick.’
‘You’re just jealous of my lovely new aircraft.’
‘Are you sure it’s yours? I mean, it’s not very pink is it?’
Gwen laughed. ‘I’ve missed you, Digger. I’m rather glad you’re not dead.’
‘Funnily enough, me too.’
Gwen pulled up onto Drake’s wing, on the other side from his wingmate and glanced across. He was already turned towards her, smiling, and, now that she was closer, she found that he didn’t look quite as bad as she’d thought. He was still terribly thin and his eyes had black rings under them, but he wasn’t nearly as skeletal and unhealthy as he’d seemed at first glance before the fight.
They were close to the southern end of the island now and Gwen searched the ground for the airfield.
It was easy enough to find, not because there wasn’t much island to search, or that she knew exactly where to look, but because it was wreathed in black smoke.
She slotted lenses in place to take a better look, wanting to see if there were any obstacles she needed to avoid on landing, but instead was confronted with a terrible sight that made her heart skip a beat. ‘Oh, no...’
The all clear had been sounded only minutes before, but teams were already out repairing the airfield. They could do nothing about the aircraft of Misfit Squadron, though, which for some reason had been out in the open during the raid and not safely tucked away in the underground hangar.
The aircraft that Derek had led in to land because they were low on tension had each received at least one hit from explosive ordnance and in most cases two or three, smashing cockpits, tearing off wings and twisting fuselages. That would probably have been enough to put them out of action permanently, but, to add insult to injury, the pieces had been liberally sprayed with cannon rounds and it more than likely wouldn’t be possible to salvage anything from them, not even any Duralumin panels. Several of the nigh-on indestructible spring casings had also been cracked open by direct hits and there was razor-sharp brass ribbon everywhere, tangled with the twisted metal that was all that was left of the beautiful machines. Needless to say, none of them would ever fly again.
The Maltese Defence Page 6