Abby nodded, but her reply was drowned out in a wave of protests from the bomber crews.
Campbell held up her hands for silence, but had to wait for a good twenty seconds before she got it. ‘We all know how important it is to our people in Africa that convoys like this don’t get through and I know you all want to have a go at it, but if the Misfits can’t knock out the Javelins first, then there’s nothing we can do. The boys and girls in the undersea boats are already poised to do their bit and we’ll just have to let them get the glory this time. There will be more chances later, I assure you.’
Voices were raised in complaint once more and Campbell glared at the culprits. ‘No!’ Her magnified voice drowned out the protests, but the subsequent squeal of feedback stopped them completely, causing most people to wince. ‘This is non-negotiable! I hope it doesn’t come to it, but you will return to base if told to do so and I will personally make sure that anyone who disobeys never flies again. Squadron Leader Dunstable.’
‘Yes, ma’am?’ The man in charge of the Spitsteam squadron stood.
‘If Group Captain Lennox falls in the assault on the Javelins, you will assume command and make sure that everyone else is brought home safely. Understood?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
As the squadron leader took his seat again there were a few discontented mutters, but no more arguments.
Looking around, Gwen could see from their faces that, while they didn’t like the Sky Commodore’s decision one bit, they at least understood it. She just hoped they would obey it, otherwise the defence of Malta might well be brought to an abrupt end.
‘Good.’ Campbell nodded in satisfaction, then looked around the room. ‘Right then, does anybody have any questions?’
Abby put her hand up and the Sky Commodore pointed at her. ‘Yes, Group Captain?’
‘I have a question for Captain Hewer, ma’am. Captain, you said that the guns on the Javelins can target almost to sea level. What does that mean exactly?’
Hewer moved to the front of the stage before answering. ‘According to the information we have on these ships, the barrels of the thirty guns in the lower, outer ring are thirty-six feet above the sea and cannot depress below the horizon.’ Hewer smiled. ‘Why? Are you thinking of flying under that?’
Abby nodded earnestly. ‘Yes. Unless anyone has a better way of attacking them?’
Hewer blinked at her, then turned to look at the men and women sharing the stage with him. When none of them said anything he turned back to her and shrugged, giving her a wry smile. ‘Looks like they haven’t. Best of luck to you, Group Captain, and watch out for the wave tops!’
Abby grinned. ‘Thank you, Captain.’
There was silence in the wagon on the way back to Birzebbuga, as the pilots contemplated the task ahead of them and it lasted until they gathered in the lounge of the house to hear Abby’s plan of attack for the morning.
‘Eighty anti-aircraft guns... That’s a hell of a lot, Boss.’
Abby grinned. ‘There could be a thousand of them and it still wouldn’t matter if they can’t target us.’
‘You weren’t serious when you said we would fly underneath their guns, were you?’ Farrier scoffed and looked around, obviously expecting the other pilots to support her, but when they all just smiled knowingly her eyes widened and her voice rose about an octave. ‘But we’d have to be on the deck as soon as we were within range! That’s five or six miles! We can’t possibly survive that low for that long; if there’s a rogue wave or a gust of wind we’d just hit the water! Hell, if we sneeze we’ll probably end up in Neptune’s grasp!’
‘I’d rather rely on my own skill and that of my pilots than face those guns.’ Abby said calmly. ‘The only other alternative is to fly to them maximum height then dive at top speed, but even then we’d be under fire for almost a minute and they’d have to be very unlucky not to hit any of us in that time.’ Her expression turned hard and she looked around, meeting the gaze of her pilots one by one. ‘Having said that, this is a volunteer mission only. Anyone who doesn’t feel up to the challenge can join the Spitsteam squadron in the attack on the Pigs.’
Her eyes came to rest on Farrier and her eyebrows raised questioningly.
There was an awkward moment as the young woman blushed in shame and looked away, shaking her head, but then Bruce tutted, breaking the tension and rolled his eyes. ‘Blimey, Abby, you’re as melodramatic as Gruber. Of course we’re all bloody in, so just hurry up and tell us what the plan is so that we can go to bed!’
Chapter 18
The Misfit aircraft, weighed down with Wendy’s weapons, slowly climbed towards the rising sun, following Chalky’s directions. It had been dark on the ground when they had taken off, but the higher they had gotten, the brighter the horizon had become until suddenly, at ten thousand feet, they had broken into sunlight. Darkened lenses were brought down on helmets, but they weren’t nearly enough and the pilots had to squint against the glare every time they looked ahead, straining to catch their first glimpse of the convoy.
Gwen looked past Dragon to where Kitty’s Spitsteam, which the American had found already painted for her on her return from Sicily, was on Abby’s other wing as Badger Three. The group captain had changed the squadron formation and reassigned callsigns, then split it in two, allocating one of the Javelins as a target to each five-aircraft half. Gwen had been extremely relieved to hear that the American would be staying with them; in a fight that was going to be this tough she didn’t want her out of sight for even a second.
‘Badger Leader to all Badgers, we’re ten miles out. Looks like the Javelins are still fore and aft of the convoy.’
Gwen cursed when she realised that she had gotten distracted. She dragged her eyes from the red, white and blue striped Spitsteam and peered over Excalibur’s nose and down at the convoy. Even with her lenses in place the ships were still little more than grey rectangles with the thin white cones of their wakes stretching out behind them, but it was easy to distinguish the two Javelins, with their much wider beam, on either end of the untidy clump of merchant ships.
Any doubts the Misfits had over whether they had been spotted or not were dispelled when the first black clouds of ack-ack fire burst in the air at least a mile in front of them.
‘Three here, Leader. Those came from the outlying destroyer. I saw the flashes of their guns.’
‘Thank you, Three. Looks like we’ve made them nervous.’
‘Just wait until they see what we do next.’ Bruce chuckled.
‘Indeed, Seven.’ Abby said. ‘All Badgers, prepare to dive on my mark.’
Abby drew the moment out for a few seconds, unnecessarily as far as Gwen was concerned, and she glanced across to find her wingmate grinning, her excitement evident, despite the calm of her voice.
‘Mark!’
Gwen’s stomach, or rather the bacon sandwich and mug of tea she had ingested an hour before, made its presence known as the Misfits nosed over sharply, going from level flight to a forty-five degree dive in an instant.
It was none too soon, either; Abby had judged the distance to the convoy very finely and, just as they manoeuvred, both of the Javelins were lit up brightly.
Seconds later, the air where the Misfits would have been erupted in black smoke, which was instantly ripped to shreds by the passage of heavy calibre cannon rounds.
‘Cutting it a bit fine, weren’t we, Leader?’
Derek’s dry voice brought a smile to Gwen’s lips, even as she concentrated on the rapidly plunging altimeter and the dark sea, seemingly so close below.
‘Perfectly calculated, Six.’
‘Uh, Boss, I think they’ve worked out what we’re doing.’
Bruce’s comment puzzled Gwen for a second, but then a bright flash and a puff of black, accompanied by the ping of metal striking Excalibur, startled her and she realised that the barrage from the Javelins had not only been following them down, but had caught up with them.
‘Damn, Hewer
said the guns wouldn’t be able to traverse that quickly. All Badgers, follow me.’
Gwen fought to keep up as Abby pushed her stick forwards once more, steepening the dive almost to the vertical.
The airspeed indicator on Gwen’s instrument panel surged upwards, even as the altimeter began to rotate alarmingly fast, counting down the feet to the unforgiving sea below.
If before it was going to be a risky proposition, pulling up from a moderate dive only a few feet above the waves, now it was going to be almost suicidal and Gwen spared a thought for Drake, Tanya and Farrier, who were stuck in standard issue flightsuits and would have no help resisting the extreme G forces they would have to pull. The move had taken the Italian gunners by surprise, though, and the deadly black clouds were once again bursting safely above them.
The altimeter passed five thousand feet, spinning dizzily, and Gwen had to fight the urge to jerk her stick back, her survival instincts, yelling at her that it was already too late, warring with her piloting ones, which calmly insisted there was still plenty of time.
‘That should be enough. Whenever you feel like it, Badgers.’
Unlike a normal squadron, where everybody was flying the same type of aircraft with similar characteristics and capabilities, the performance of the Misfit aircraft varied widely, especially with the addition of the heavy weapons under their wings slowing them and changing their flight characteristics. That was why they had practised this manoeuvre so many times and that was why Abby had to let everybody judge for themselves when they needed to pull up.
The Spitsteams were first and from Gwen’s perspective it was as if they had reached the end of an elastic and rebounded into the sky, even though they were still descending at a tremendous rate. She watched Kitty’s aircraft for a second, but then forced herself to concentrate on her own flying.
She had tested Excalibur extensively in England before embarking and knew perfectly well how quickly she could pull out of a power dive, exactly like the one she was in. She had never done it under such extreme conditions, though, and also had no idea how the battle damage she had sustained since then, or the piece of shrapnel that had just hit her, had affected her aircraft’s performance.
She decided to play it safe and gave herself an extra two hundred feet to carry out the manoeuvre, doing it rather more gently than she could have. Even so, she was the last of the Misfits to pull up and when she had levelled off above the sea she was well out in front of everyone else and she throttled back to give everyone else a chance to catch up.
Abby was first to come into her peripheral vision and as Gwen tucked Excalibur in on Dragon’s wing she spared a split second to glance over at her.
‘Mac would have enjoyed that, Leader.’
‘Yes, he would, Two. Yes he would.’
There were murmurs of agreement from many in the squadron, but then silence fell as they each concentrated on just staying alive.
After a single glance at her altimeter Gwen pointedly ignored it and fixed her gaze on the horizon instead; the needle was wavering slightly with minute changes in air pressure, going from one side of the nought to the other in an extremely disconcerting manner.
Thankfully, the Mediterranean was normally quite placid and weather conditions in the last few days had been very good, so there were almost no waves to worry about, but even so, every so often a freak convergence in the currents or the wind, something that Gwen didn’t really understand, would send spray reaching up for the aircraft.
However, while the sea below was calm, a storm raged less than a five yards above them.
The flak created a solid bank of black clouds which roiled and flashed as explosion after explosion rocked them, sending tiny shards of metal floating down to patter relatively harmlessly on the aircraft.
It was hard not to flinch away from the death above, but the death below was just as real and the Misfits were caught between the two, flying a narrow passage of safety where a single slip or moment of inattention would surely end everything in a heartbeat.
An aircraft routinely made random up and down and side to side motions during flight because of wind, air currents and such, and a pilot would usually pay no heed to them, but Gwen’s hand was a death grip on the stick and her legs were in constant tension as she fought each and every deviation the instant she felt it, in an attempt to keep Excalibur exactly where she was in the very centre of the thin patch of clear air.
Making matters worse was a worrying creaking noise, easily audible over the thunder of the barrage. Every chance she could get, Gwen shot glances at her wings and instruments, trying to find the problem, wondering if something was coming loose and would plunge her nose first into the drink.
It took her a good thirty seconds to work out that it was her own teeth making the noise, that she was grinding them unconsciously, something she hadn’t done since her first nervous presentations in front of the Société Aéronautique.
Realising she was being ridiculous, that she had a good ten feet to play with, both above and below her, she forced herself to relax her hands and legs and worked her jaw to get rid of the stiffness.
‘Thirty seconds to target. Good luck everybody. Badger Six, B flight is yours.’
‘Thank you, Leader.’ Derek replied. ‘See you on the other side.’
The Misfits had been heading for the centre of the enemy formation, so as not to give away their intentions, but now they split into their two groups and changed course abruptly towards their assigned Javelins. A Flight, led by Abby, with Gwen, Kitty, Farrier and Chastity as Badgers Two to Five turned for the one at the front, while B Flight, led by Derek as Badger Six, with Bruce, Monty, Drake and Tanya as Badgers Seven to Ten, aimed for the rear one.
‘Ten seconds.’
‘For what we are about to receive...’
The old blasphemy, muttered almost under his breath by Monty, drew no reactions - the pilots were far too engrossed in their own thoughts and fears to even hear him properly, as the seconds counted down to when they would have to pull up into the hell that waited for them in order to drop the meltbombs onto the decks of the Javelins.
The ack-ack had stopped as they had drawn too near for the shells to have time to arm, but the near-invisible cannon fire was still there, still providing a layer of metal above them in which nothing could survive. The Misfits had one last surprise for the gunners, though, and, right before they had to come up off the deck, the pilots kicked their rudders hard, splitting the flights and slewing their aircraft to either side of where the fire was concentrated.
Sticks came back into laps and the aircraft popped up, surging to a hundred feet in less than a second, taking them above the fire that was desperately trying to follow them. Again, the enemy tried to compensate, but a stomp on the opposite rudder swerved the aircraft back in the opposite direction, confounding them again, before sticks went forwards, bringing the noses of the aircraft back below the horizon at exactly the same moment as the ships came into their sights.
Levers were pulled and meltbombs were dropped, then the Javelins were past and the Misfits dived back down onto the safety of the wave tops, their aircraft suddenly so much more responsive after ridding themselves of their excess baggage.
All eyes went to the mirrors above their heads, looking for the results of the attack.
The one drawback with the meltbombs, at least as far as Wendy was concerned anyway, was the lack of a satisfyingly big explosion, which meant that there had originally been no way of knowing if the munitions had actually hit their target or not. Georgina Strangeways had solved that problem, though, by adding a small smoke packet to the bombs and, as the Misfits watched, red smoke billowed up from multiple points around the decks of the Javelins.
Almost instantly the flashes from the guns came to a halt as the gunners found they had other, more important things to do.
‘How long until...’ The words were barely out of Gwen’s mouth before a huge explosion rocked the Javelin behind her, then a
nother, and another. ‘Oh, not long then.’
The laughter began slowly but picked up pace and volume as every single pilot joined in, some of the tension of the attack flowing from them. It took a while, but gradually it died down and then Abby’s voice came over the radio. ‘Is anybody hit?’
‘Six here, I have a rather lovely new hole in my wing, but it’s not giving me any gyp.’
There was silence for a couple of seconds as Abby waited for anyone else to report, but nobody did - it was just Derek who had been hit and he had only sustained minor damage.
‘Bloody hell, we’ve been damn lucky.’ Abby’s voice was soft and full of emotion and Gwen realised with a start that the woman had most likely been expecting to lose some, if not most, of her pilots that day. She wondered if she would ever be capable of leading a group of men and women she loved into the face of almost certain death.
‘How about we use a bit of that luck and give the Spits a hand with those airships, then, Boss? My guns are feeling a bit left out...’
‘Good idea, Seven, let’s...’
The Maltese Defence Page 30