‘What good will that do us if the drongo’s already lost us the war?’ Bruce broke in before Abby could say anything else, once again expressing in his own special way what they were all thinking.
‘I’m sure the King will step in before things can go that far,’ Derek said. He didn’t seem too convinced by his own words, though, and there was silence as each of the Misfits contemplated what would happen if the War Ministry continued to act as it had been.
As always the Navy pilots were a bit lost, not having experienced Cummerbund’s manipulations or apparent malice towards the King and the squadron first hand, and it was Lieutenant Smith who brought the conversation back to its original purpose.
‘When are we going to carry out the raid, ma’am?’
‘In three days - the bomber squadrons need some time to get their machines out of mothballs and ready to fly. Their commander and I both agree that, while it would be safest to carry out the mission at night, if we’re restricted to one raid then we have to go during the day to be sure of hitting the target as hard as possible. We’ve tentatively agreed to go after the last Coalition raid of the day lands, when there’s an hour or so of daylight left. That way they won’t have had time to rewind their fighters and their pilots will already be thinking of bratwurst and beer.’
With a mission to look forward to, the Misfits regained their focus and effectiveness against the Prussian bombers. That didn’t stop tragedy from striking the very next day, though, as Lieutenant Smith, badly injured after being hit by return fire from a Prussian bomber, crashed on landing and was killed instantly. Her remains were returned to the Navy so that she could be buried by her companions, her photo was added to the ones that graced the altar in the cathedral, and a memorial service was planned for her in Father Bugelli’s church.
The two remaining Navy pilots were understandably upset about the loss of their leader; as the only surviving aviators from the Heart of Oak they had grown close, but it didn’t affect their flying at all. If anything it made them more determined than ever to make a difference.
The day before the raid was planned, the weather worsened once more, grounding both sides.
Gwen stood on the deserted airfield, her head tilted up to the sky, feeling the drizzle on her face, not caring how wet she got. The water had soaked into the wool of her scarf and it was beginning to smell, but she didn’t mind; the smell was familiar, it reminded her of home, of her father’s coat when he used to hide her in it, protecting her from the rain while they ran along the path through the woods from the hangars to the house after they’d been working on her latest project.
‘Penny for your thoughts?’
Gwen shuddered, a chill, which had nothing to do with the weather, running through her at the familiar question in a familiar voice, and turned to find Drake standing behind her at the top of the steps of the personnel entrance to the underground base.
He frowned when he saw the troubled expression on her face. ‘Did I say something wrong?’
She forced a smile. ‘No, nothing. It’s just... never mind.’ He obviously didn’t remember asking her that exact same question in Muscovy, not very long before he “died” and there was no need to tell him that it had brought back some very unpleasant memories. ‘I was just enjoying the rain and thinking of home.’
Drake pulled his waterproof closer and hunched his shoulders. ‘I can’t say I miss the rain. Home, definitely, but the rain.’ He smiled at her. ‘I’ll take Mediterranean weather any day.’
‘Just not this day’s, right?’
‘Right. Or tomorrow’s; the forecast says this is going to last a couple of days.’
‘And when are they ever right?’
Drake chuckled, but there was also laughter from behind them and they turned to find Kitty and Tanya huddled together on the steps, beneath the protection afforded by the thick metal trapdoor which lowered to cover the opening during raids.
‘Could you two be any more of a cliché?’
‘Sorry?’ Gwen blinked at Kitty, as much to clear the rain out of her eyes as because she didn’t know what the American was getting at.
‘Two Brits, standing in the rain, talking about the weather. It might as well be a strip in the funnies.’
‘Ah.’
Gwen glanced at Drake, who shrugged. ‘She has a point.’
Tanya poked her head out from under the cover of the trapdoor and frowned at the clouds, but quickly retracted it and swiped her hand across her face. ‘What’s so interesting about the weather? It’s just clouds and rain and snow. We can either fly in it or we can’t. Why would we want to say anything else?’
Kitty grinned at Gwen and Drake before answering. ‘Beats me. I think it’s a metaphor for something sexual. It usually is with the British; they’re very repressed sexually.’
Tanya nodded earnestly. ‘That would explain it - Rudy was certainly quite inhibited when we were first together, but I’m teaching him to be more adventurous.’
Neither Gwen nor Kitty quite knew how to respond to the bald statement from the Muscovite, but Drake’s cheeks reddened and he coughed. ‘Yes... Um... Was there something in particular you two wanted?’
Kitty grinned at him. ‘Change the subject all you want, Rudy, you know Gwen and I are going to have a nice chat with Tanya over a few drinks at some point.’ She laughed as the colour that had so recently blossomed in Drake’s cheeks drained away, leaving him white as a sheet, but took pity on him and didn’t comment any further. ‘We came to get you; Abby’s called a meeting in the hangar in ten minutes. She says she’s got a surprise for us.’
‘Is this about the wagon that arrived about twenty minutes ago?’ Gwen asked. When she’d come up to enjoy the weather, a heavily-laden RAC wagon was just trundling down the ramp into the hangar.
‘Probably.’ Kitty said. ‘She was certainly very excited when she saw it.’
‘Ooh, I hope it’s that tea making machine I ordered from Selfridges,’ said Drake. ‘Corporal Doyle’s tea isn’t bad, per se, it’s alright for you plebeians, but I prefer not to have my Brunel’s Best Blend boiled for half an hour, thank you very much!’
Gwen aimed a kick for Drake’s behind, but he skipped out of the way and ran past Kitty and Tanya and down into the bunker.
Abby was waiting for the pilots by a stack of wooden crates, piled up at the side of the hangar. With her were her fitter, Sergeant Potter, and the chief fitters from both Bruce and Monty’s crews. When the two men saw their fitters standing with her, their eyes lit up and they glanced at each other.
‘Please tell me those crates contain what I think they contain!’ Bruce cried out, unable to contain his excitement.
Abby nodded at the fitters. ‘If you would?’
The three men plied three of the crates with crowbars and the sides flopped down to reveal the contents - shiny new Duralumin panels.
‘The people at Luqa have finished your aircraft, Gentlemen. I told them not to send anything until it was all ready so that it would be a surprise for you.’
Bruce whooped and danced, clicking his heels in the air and flapping his elbows in a rather ungainly display.
Abby watched him for a couple of seconds, then sighed and looked at Monty. ‘Do you have names for them? Colour schemes?’
Monty tore his eyes from the spectacle of his wingman making a bigger fool of himself than usual and shook his head. ‘We haven’t been able to agree on anything,’ he glanced at Bruce. ‘Maybe Chicken would be a good choice for his.’
Abby chuckled. ‘Or Duckling. It doesn’t matter, you won’t have time to paint them anyway if you want to fly them during the mission.’
Bruce froze in mid cavort, his left leg in the air and his arms bent like wings and grinned at Abby. ‘You think they’ll be ready that quickly?’
‘Well, the fitters have got some work to do patching up the squadron’s aircraft, but they’ve all volunteered to spend some of their free time working on your machines.’
Bruce whooped again and
resumed his dance.
‘Bruce, stop that now, please.’
Abby’s coldly serious voice halted Bruce in his tracks, his smiled vanishing in an instant. ‘What’s up, Boss?’
Abby pulled the piece of paper with the message from the War Ministry from her pocket and handed it over to him. ‘Cummerbund ordered us not to rebuild.’
‘Badgers to equip ellipses, stop.’ Bruce read. ‘Request to rebuild denied, stop. Warm.’
The pilots absorbed the content of the message with expressions ranging from disbelief to disgust and more than one swore under their breath.
‘Why the hell are you telling us this now, just when we’re just getting our aircraft, Boss?’ Bruce asked, incredulously. ‘And what are we supposed to do with those?’ He gestured at the crates. ‘Just leave them in their boxes, while we wait for those bloody idiot Ministers to change their minds?’
‘Of course not, Bruce.’
Abby exchanged a glance with Campbell, who shrugged and gave her an “I told you so” look in return. The Sky Commodore had argued against telling the pilots about the message so late in the day, but Abby had insisted, wanting to be honest with her pilots and thinking that they needed to know about Regis Cummerbund’s continuing campaign against them so that they could be prepared when the next attack came.
She looked around her pilots, meeting their eyes one by one. ‘This squadron was founded by me, at the King’s command, and I have a charter somewhere with his name on it that allows me, no, it requires me to find remarkable men and women with remarkable aircraft and ask them to fly in defence of the country.’ She looked pointedly at Monty, then Bruce. ‘If you have aircraft which you have designed yourself and which have been constructed by you or any other British armed forces personnel, in your own time, using resources that don’t belong to the RAC,’ she smiled broadly and patted the Duralumin panel in the nearest crate, created using recycled metals from the Graveyard, ‘but which the Prussians and Italians have been kind enough to donate, then I am well within my rights to ask you to use them.’ The Misfits laughed and she turned to the fitters. ‘Sergeants, there will be no flying today, so you and your crews may take the day off. Dismissed.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ Potter and the other two men smartly drew themselves up to attention, did a quarter turn to the right and marched a couple of steps in unison, just as if they’d been dismissed from a parade. Potter then put his fingers in his mouth and blew a piercing whistle which reverberated around the cavernous hangar.
Almost a hundred fitters, both RAC and Royal Navy, appeared, as if by magic, and swarmed the crates, breaking them open in a frenzy of efficiency, then carrying the contents away to were more men and women were waiting with two support frames, ready to receive them. In less than a minute, the crates were empty and half a dozen airmen and women were clearing up the packaging, placing it aside for later reuse.
Bruce whistled. ‘Like ants on a drop of syrup!’ He looked at Abby. ‘If that’s everything, I’d like to go and help them, please, Boss.’
‘Me too,’ Monty chimed in.
Abby nodded. ‘Alright, but tonight we’re having the sendoff for Mac and Lieutenant Smith.’
The two pilots froze in the middle of running off.
Bruce slowly nodded. ‘It’s about bloody time.’ He gestured to Monty and they jogged away to join the fitters.
Saying goodbye to lost Misfits was usually a very private matter, but with Smith being only temporarily one of them they invited a few select guests to join them for a meal in the house at Birzebbuga .
Abby had tasked Farrier and Drummond with finding out if there were any of Smith’s friends that would like to come and four Royal Navy officers showed up, along with Admiral Myerscough. As well as being the ranking Navy officer currently on the island, the admiral had been Smith’s commanding officer on the Heart of Oak and had known her personally, so it was only natural that he come.
Owen, despite his pain, had been up and moving around the hospital under his own steam for a couple of days. His burns still needed treatment several times a day, but Dorothy Campbell had been able to obtain permission for Wendy to take him into her care for the night, arranging for the dressings and creams that were needed.
The meal passed pleasantly enough, with a couple of the chefs from a local restaurant being paid to provide the food, but it wasn’t nearly as boisterous or lively as Misfit meals usually were.
Once the deserts were out of the way, Abby, as the person who had known Mac the longest, led the silent toast for the Scotsman, before the admiral, who had been briefed on what to do, performed the honours for Smith.
Afterwards, they retired to the sitting room to tell stories about the two pilots, the Misfits listening attentively as they learned more about the woman who had been one of them for far too short a time, and the Naval officers lapping up tales of the Scotsman who had earned his nickname of “Mad Mac” many times over.
Chapter 11
By the time the skies cleared and returned to their usual blue, the British bombers were fuelled and armed.
Since the Spitsteams had arrived, the Prussians had settled into a not-quite rhythm of three raids each day, each within a two or three-hour window - one in the morning, either before or after the Coalition pilots had their breakfasts, one sometime before lunch, then one in the late afternoon, which the British suspected was timed deliberately to spoil their tea. The crews at Luqa and Ta’Kali were ready and waiting, therefore, when the final raid of the day came over and, when the enemy aircraft had flown back out to sea, the ramps to the hangars gaped open and the British bombers streamed out of their underground hangars. Like Smith, Farrier and Drummond, each and every one of the bomber pilots had stepped forward when Sky Commodore Hughes had put out the call for volunteers to join the Hal Far Fighter Force. He had refused to accept them, though, knowing that they would be needed when the time came to strike back, so they were understandably more than eager to finally do their part.
The fitters at Hal Far rearmed and rewound the returning Misfit aircraft as quickly as they could on the airfield then, when everything was ready, Dorothy Campbell gave the signal for the raid to go.
The sound of sixty-four Pickford Nelson medium bombers powering up one hundred and twenty-eight hydrogen-powered engines reverberated around the island, reaching even the furthest corners. It greeted the Maltese people as they emerged from whatever shelter they took during enemy raids and caused a great many of them to look to the sky nervously, wondering if the all clear had come too soon. However, when the upturned eyes found no sign of Prussian or Italian aircraft, the word started to spread, until the entire island was alight with excitement - the British were striking back!
Hans Gruber was in his quarters, ensconced in his armchair, reading through the latest newspaper clippings from the British press while enjoying a glass of schnapps.
Pickings had been slim for a while after Christmas, as the Misfits had almost disappeared from sight. For almost a whole month there had only been the occasional unsubstantiated rumour of sightings and rehashed stories of past missions to keep the hungry British public satisfied. But then they had shown up in Malta and suddenly the newspapers were once again alive with the name Misfit Squadron.
By that time he had known as much as the press, more, actually, so he hadn’t needed the reports, but he’d still enjoyed reading and rereading about how the Misfits had lost almost all of their aircraft on arrival at the island, the press once again reporting things that should have been kept secret. It was rather unfortunate that Mr F Featherstonehaugh hadn’t been allowed to accompany the Misfits to the island; the reports from the pilot, Chastity Arrowsmith, were rather inferior, but he added them to his collection anyway, mentally filing away the few tidbits of a personal nature they contained.
When the alarm klaxon sounded, he was rereading the profiles of the three Royal Navy pilots who had joined the squadron, trying to glean some information that would help him kill them w
hen he got back into the air. He tutted in annoyance and turned up the volume on his gramophone, trying to drown it out with Wagner. He would have to have a serious word with the signal lieutenant; he was becoming far too trigger-happy with the alarm. Only last week the man had sounded it as soon as the fire sensor in the officer’s mess had lit up, instead of doing a little investigation first and finding out that the chef was merely serving Crêpes Suzette.
He turned the music back down, though, when Friedrich, his personal steward burst in.
‘Sir, a raid!’
‘Don’t be absurd.’ Gruber scoffed ‘Have the Maltese landed in their colourful little boats, armed with nets and fishing rods?’
He waved the steward away and turned his attention back to his papers, but the man didn’t move, so he sighed and set them aside. ‘Oh, go on, then, tell me what’s happening.’
‘Italian spotters on the south coast report fifty or so bombers are in the air and heading this way, sir.’
Gruber considered the man’s words for a second, then burst from his seat. ‘Helmet, jacket and goggles, now!’
He didn’t wait for the man to fetch the items, but just ran from the room and down the short corridor beyond. His pilots were in their rooms, changing into their dress uniforms for dinner and he growled at them in passing, making them scramble to catch up with him. He raced through the mess, brushing aside the steward laying the table, sending him flying, and making another fall as he stumbled backwards trying to get out of his way. He snarled in frustration at the bulkhead door, cursing the time it took to open it, then raced through and up the stairs and through the even more frustratingly slow airlock.
While he waited for the room to cycle he ignored the four pilots who’d made it in before he’d slammed the door in the face of the rest and tried to work out where the British could possibly have rustled up fifty aircraft to attack them. They were bombers, so they couldn’t have come from a carrier and he would have heard about another carrier entering the Mediterranean anyway. Alexandria was a thousand five hundred kilometres away, Gibraltar one thousand eight hundred, so they couldn’t have come from their either. There was nowhere else - they had to have come from Malta, but how? The British ships that had survived couldn’t possibly have brought that many in their holds. Not even the Arturo could carry that amount of cargo.
The Maltese Defence Page 17