The Maltese Defence

by Simon Brading

  While the Muscovite went straight to her aircraft and began clambering over it with her fitters, Drake slowed and stopped a few feet away from his, not because he didn’t desperately want to do the same, but because there was something he had to take care of first.

  Gertrude Forrester was standing in front of the aircraft, her hands on hips, gazing at the grey machine, smiling.

  ‘Well, Sergeant? Will she do?’

  Forrester started and blinked at him, surprised. Her smile immediately disappeared, replaced by her usual dour expression, but it was too late; he had seen it and she knew it. She sighed and shook her head, then gave him a wry smile. ‘Yes, sir, she’ll do.’

  Drake grinned. ‘Come on then, show me around.’

  Forrester gave him another smile, which made her seem much younger and almost carefree, but then it was gone as she got down to the serious business of showing the pilot around her aircraft.

  Drake and Tanya had listened to Bruce and Monty’s reasoning for why they liked to have identical aircraft and had decided that they were going to do the same. They had begun designing a fighter around a Hawking cage, something that Drake insisted on, having had his life saved by it twice already, but, no matter how many drawings they had done, it had always come out looking quite like a Harridan. They wouldn’t have minded too much because they both loved the aircraft, but they had known full well that it could be improved on and had enlisted Gwen’s help to do so, knowing she had always wanted the chance. Their aircraft were the result of that collaboration and in the end bore only a passing resemblance to the Harridan, with an elongated and sharper nose, a fuselage that lacked the distinctive hump and wings that were more similar to those of a Spitsteam.

  Campbell came to meet the Misfits as they sauntered up to the flight line. She grinned and jerked her thumb over her shoulder. ‘Looks like the children are happy with their new toys.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you be?’

  ‘Of course!’

  ‘And we’ve got some toys to play with too.’ Abby nodded towards the tubes hanging beneath the wings of fighters. She raised her voice. ‘Drake! Guseva! When you are quite finished!’

  Drake and Tanya quickly hopped down from their aircraft and rather sheepishly joined the rest of the squadron.

  ‘What are you calling them and how are you painting them?’ asked Abby.

  Drake looked at Tanya who shrugged with one shoulder as a signal for him to speak for them both.

  ‘They’re called Lion and Wolf,’ he said, ‘to honour our pasts. And as for the colours - no pink, thank the fates.’

  There were chuckles from the Misfits, who all looked at Gwen, who tutted and shook her head.

  Drake waited for quiet before he continued. ‘We’re going to use the standard camouflage pattern, but in colours that mean something to us as well.’ He gestured to the aircraft in turn. ‘Wolf will have white and grey camouflage and I was going to use red and yellow on Lion, but with red being such a complicated colour right now I’ve decided on a lovely regal purple instead.’

  ‘Ouch!’ Bruce said, wincing. ‘It hurts just thinking about that. It’s not too late to go with the pink...’

  ‘I think I’ll pass, thank you,’ Drake said, winking at Gwen.

  ‘Any word on when everyone else’s machines are coming, Abby?’ asked Derek quietly.

  Abby shook her head. ‘Sorry, Derek, it doesn’t look like they’re going to be coming any time soon; Luqa only finished these for us because they were already pretty well advanced, but with the bombers operational now, they can’t afford to devote their time to making our aircraft, although they have told me they wish they could. It looks like the rest of you are going to have to go without for the foreseeable future.’

  With the arrival of Wolf and Lion, only Derek, Chastity, Kitty and Farrier were still flying Spitsteams. Farrier of course wouldn’t have an aircraft constructed for her because she was only temporarily a Misfit. She had already been reassigned to the Arturo and would go with her when she sailed.

  ‘Right then, I’m sure that Rudy and Tanya are dying to get in the air and frankly so am I, so let’s get to work.’ Abby changed the subject before people could start to feel too sorry for themselves. ‘As some of the more eagle-eyed among you may have noticed, we’ve all got Wendy’s thingamabobs on our wings.’ She looked at the big woman. ‘Have you come up with a good name for these things yet?’

  ‘I’m thinking Peas in Pods.’

  ‘Peas in...’ Abby trailed off and stared at Wendy, who nodded sincerely.

  There was an awkward silence as the pilots tried to reconcile Wendy’s name with the bombs and the tubes they were carried in. Admittedly, they were very much like peas in a pod, but the name really didn’t do their potential destructive power justice.

  Wendy laughed. ‘You should see your faces! I’m only joking! The tubes under the wings I am calling Pods, but the munitions I’m calling meltbombs.’

  Abby shook her head. ‘You do know I’m your commanding officer, right? And it’s not a good idea to tease me?’

  Wendy gave her a half smile and shrugged. ‘What are you going to do? Make me stop developing weapons for you?’

  ‘Actually I was thinking I might ground you.’

  Wendy laughed again. ‘Ground me? But I’m not flying...’ She stopped speaking suddenly as she realised what Abby was implying and looked from her to Campbell and back again. ‘Do you...? Is...? Can I...?’

  Abby nodded. ‘Dreadnought has been cleared for operations and so has Bloodhound, whenever Owen is ready to take her up.’

  Wendy nodded gratefully. ‘Thank you, I’ll let him know. I’m sure he’ll be over the moon.’

  ‘As soon as you can put your machine back together and equip her with torpedoes and or meltbombs you’ll be joining us for the raids on enemy shipping.’

  Wendy rubbed her hands together gleefully. ‘It’s about bloody time I got to have some fun!’

  Bruce rolled his eyes. ‘Oh come off it, half the island has heard the “tests” you’ve been doing every day for the last month or so. You can’t tell me you haven’t been having fun.’

  Wendy grinned at him. ‘Ah, but some things are so much more fun in the air...’ She paused deliberately and turned to look at Chalky. ‘Isn’t that right, Charles?’

  While the Misfit fighter pilots trained with the new weapons and Scarlet aided Wendy with Dreadnought, Chalky continued to watch for enemy ships. After the destruction of the first convoy, it was more than likely that the Italians would start giving Malta a wide berth as they tried to reinforce and supply their forces in North Africa, so he was now flying a route of more than five hundred miles in order to cover all possible shipping lanes. First thing in the morning he went west to within sight of Tunisia, where he deployed his balloon and hovered to look up and down the coast with the powerful lenses on his cameras to make sure that no ships were sneaking along the coastline of Africa. After a few hours, when he was sure there was nothing in the offing, he flew east, back to the island, where he changed course slightly to the north, in order to inspect the shipping lanes off the coast of Greece, one of Britain’s few remaining allies.

  The Italian and Prussian forces in North Africa were under considerable pressure from the British and were in desperate need of supply, but, even so, it was a whole ten days since the last convoy before Chalky spotted the next one. The reason for the delay was immediately apparent, though; the Italians were putting all their eggs in one basket and sending a large convoy with as large an escort as they could. They weren’t trying to sneak past either, but were taking the direct route to Libya, relying on force rather than stealth to get them past Malta - an understandable tactic given that the convoy was far too big to effectively conceal.

  It had only been four days since the Misfits had come back from their time off and to Wendy’s disgust, Dreadnought was not yet ready to fly, but the other pilots and aircraft were.

  The Misfits had mastered the technique required to
drop the meltbombs in the first few hours of practice, but Abby had insisted that they continue to train. However, after the first day of serious, focussed, and extremely tiring work, she allowed them to relax a bit and make a game out of it.

  A target, less than five yards across, comprised of concentric rings like an archery butt, was painted on the airfield, and the Misfits took it in turns trying to hit the bullseye. To make things interesting, their scores were added up and the prize for the overall winner at the end of each day was to be served breakfast in bed the next morning by the lowest scorer.

  Bruce was the clear loser the first two days. His scores weren’t bad and he never missed the target by much, but he never quite managed the accuracy of the others; his talents definitely ran to other things than bombing. He ended up having to serve Chastity breakfast one day, which he didn’t mind one bit, but Monty the second. His subordinate and wingman made the most of the opportunity to lord it over his leader, demanding that he call him sir, serve him with a tea towel over his arm and that he bow before he left the room.

  Bruce took it in his stride with a smile, but after he had performed his duties he informed his wingman that he would be getting his own back that day.

  It looked like the Australian would make good on his promise, as an inspired Bruce scored bullseye after bullseye and an increasingly nervous Monty lagged well behind the others. However, he was ultimately denied his chance for revenge when Chalky’s alert came in at lunchtime and further training was cancelled indefinitely.

  Abby, Campbell, Scarlet and Chalky were called to Luqa to analyse the photographs and prepare an assault plan after lunch and the rest of the Misfits drove to Luqa after dinner that evening for a briefing with the combined RAC forces.

  It was a far less festive occasion than the last time they had visited the base as a squadron, but they were made no less welcome. This time they were met on the airfield by the base commander himself, who shook their hands before leading them down into the enormous hangar and through it to a briefing hall that was easily large enough to hold several thousand people. Like the one at Hal Far it was sparsely decorated, with bright lights overhead and the same green walls and maroon carpet. The Misfits immediately saw that the wooden chairs were identical as well and remained standing as long as they could, remembering exactly how uncomfortable they were. Abby, Scarlet and Chalky had done their jobs and they joined them now. Scarlet and Chalky had plates full of sandwiches, which they shared with anyone who was still peckish after dinner, but when Bruce asked for a swig of Scarlet’s beer instead she told him to “bog off” and downed the rest of it in one go, to laughs from the bomber crews gathered around, discreetly watching them.

  The Misfits were among the last to arrive, so they didn’t have long to wait before the senior officers mounted the dais and the briefing was called to order.

  When everybody sat down, the Misfits got their first clear view of the corkboards on the raised platform at the front of the room. They had been expecting to see blown-up photographs of the convoy, but were surprised when there were only the same maps as they had at Hal Far on the boards.

  While the rest of the officers took their seats at the side of the stage, Dorothy Campbell remained standing, and, when everyone was settled, she used a microphone, set up at the front of the stage, to address the room.

  ‘Evening, ladies and gentlemen. As you may have heard, we have some work for you to do - a new and much larger convoy has left Italy and is steaming southwards. We’re obviously going to attack it, but before we get into details of the plan, I’ve asked Captain Hewer to give us an idea of what we’re going up against.’

  Campbell nodded to Hewer, who smiled back as he stood and moved over to take her place, ignoring the microphone and just raising his voice.

  He nodded to a woman standing next to a projector in the central aisle of the hall and the woman bent and cranked a handle on the machine. A soft ticking noise began and a light started to flicker behind its glass lenses. The overhead lamps were then turned off one by one, until the room was in darkness, apart from the beam of light shining onto a white canvas screen on the wall at the back of the stage.

  ‘Oh, goody! I hope this one’s got that Gruber chap in it; I like him! Lovely hair!’

  ‘Lieutenant Walker!’ Campbell called out from her seat after the jeering at Bruce’s comment had died down. ‘Don’t make me come down there and put you over my knee!’

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  There was more laughter, but it was quickly replaced by an expectant silence when the first images came on to the screen.

  One of the improvements Chalky had made to Vulture over the Midwinter period was the addition of a movie camera. Unlike the gun cameras that were sometimes fitted to fighters, which resulted in very poor quality images because of the small size of the camera and the vibration of the fighters, Chalky had been able to requisition and install a Hollywoodland-quality one. He had fit it with lenses of his own design and the resulting images were almost as clear as if he’d been hovering just overhead in one of the camera Zeppelins they used for the bigger-budget flyvies.

  It was an impressive bit of camerawork. First, the entire convoy was held perfectly framed, giving the audience a chance to take in its sheer size and see for the first time that the sleek grey shapes of the ships, with their wakes streaming out behind them, shining brightly in the sunshine, were accompanied by the white lozenges of airships. After a few seconds the image magnified smoothly, homing in on the lead vessel so that it filled the entire screen with enough detail not only to identify its type, but also read the identification number on the bow. The image held for a few seconds, then there was a slight break before the next vessel was shown; Chalky had evidently stopped recording while he swung the camera onto his next target, preventing the sickening swoop that was typical of less expertly shot surveillance movies.

  After a few minutes the reel on the projector clattered as it ran out of film and the technician switched over to static display mode, bringing up a photograph of the convoy in its entirety as Hewer began to speak.

  ‘The maritime convoy is made up of thirty-six cargo vessels of varying types and ten military vessels. The cargo vessels are lightly-armoured and most are unarmed, however a few have small-calibre anti-aircraft guns mounted on their fore and aft decks. There are two battleships and six destroyers, but they are there to tackle ships and undersea boats and have very little in the way of anti-aircraft weaponry, so they shouldn’t be too much of a bother to you either. No, it’s these blighters that you’re going to have to worry about.’

  The technician brought up a photograph of a wide ship, bristling with guns, all of which were pointed skywards.

  ‘As far as we know there are only three of these in existence and two of them are with the convoy. They’re called Giavellotto, or “Javelin” anti-aircraft ships and are relatively new, having been built only a few years ago. So, unlike the majority of the Italian fleet, they are not obsolete relics of the last war. They are dedicated to naval air defence and are typically armed with forty of the latest ack-ack guns and another forty thirty-seven millimetre cannon, both of which are capable of engaging targets at up to twenty-five or thirty thousand feet.’

  Hewer looked over his shoulder at the photograph still being projected and held his hand up to cast a shadow on it. ‘As you can see, the top deck is completely clear of any obstructions, apart from safety rails - there are no funnels, no masts and no bridge to get in the way of the guns, meaning that each of the eighty guns has almost a full hemisphere in which to target enemy aircraft, down almost to sea level.’

  He let the information sink in for a few seconds before he continued. ‘These aren’t the only threat you’ll be facing, though. Commodore?’

  Hewer stepped back and Campbell took centre stage again. ‘Next photograph, please?’ Campbell waited for the next image, that of a large airship, to click into place before beginning. ‘There are twelve of these with the ships. T
he Italians call them Cittadelle Volanti - “Flying Citadels” - although we used to call them “Bristly Pigs” back in the last war. They are far larger than the airships that dropped bombs on Malta at the start of the siege, but are still several orders of magnitude smaller than Bertha. They are single-hulled and have twenty-eight anti-aircraft cannon emplacements which are concentrated mostly on the top or sides, with only four mounted underneath. The guns are of a lesser calibre than those mounted on the Javelins and are much shorter ranged, having been designed to counter much slower and lower-flying aircraft. Unless they’ve been replaced, of course, which is a distinct possibility. The Pigs were phased out towards the middle of the Great War, as aircraft technology advanced and they were rendered completely useless in the offensive role for which they were intended, but Captain Hewer and I agree that they are an inspired choice for the job of convoy defence.’

  The photograph changed back to one that displayed the whole convoy and Campbell used her hand like Hewer had to point to the airships ringing the ships. ‘Unless the wind picks up, we expect the Pigs to maintain this formation - low, in a circle around the supply ships, but inside the screening ships, as a secondary line of defence after the Javelins. Lights please.’

  Campbell waited for the light level to slowly come up, giving everyone a few seconds for their eyes to adjust before she went on.

  ‘Now that you know what the enemy has, here is the mission plan. Aviator Lieutenant Isaacs will take off at oh four hundred hours tomorrow so that he will be in position to spot the convoy at first light. By that time the convoy should be somewhere between one hundred and one hundred and fifty miles east of Malta, but he will relay the exact coordinates to us so that when the rest of you take off at oh six hundred hours you’ll have a precise heading. Arrival over the convoy will be staggered, with two minute intervals between the groups. Misfit Squadron, will go in first and use their new weapons on the Javelins. Once they’ve had their chance, 261 Squadron will go after the Pigs. Then, when 261 are fully engaged, the Nelsons will go in with their torpedoes to attack the supply ships, ignoring the screening battleships and destroyers as much as possible. I leave it up to the individual squadron commanders to decide how best to carry out their tasks, but they will be given precise timings for when to start their runs. However, we all know that these things never work out quite as well in practice as they do on paper, so Group Captain Lennox will have command in the air and the authority to make changes as circumstances dictate.’ She turned her eyes on Abby. ‘There’s no need for me to tell you how vital your role in the battle is, but I’m going to anyway - if those ships are left untouched they will annihilate the Nelsons. So, if you can’t knock them out then that’s it, mission’s over and you pull everyone out. Understood, Group Captain?’