The Maltese Defence

by Simon Brading

  The Misfits didn’t participate in the slaughter. Instead, Gwen and Drake followed Abby as she took them to the end of the walls and began a run that would take them the length of the fortifications, allowing them to target the soldiers manning the guns from above, an angle from which the parapets would provide them no protection.

  Unlike the other squadrons, they did have a reason to use their cannons; the heavy machine guns on the walls were the heaviest the Prussians had, the two anti-aircraft batteries that had been on the walls having been destroyed by the islanders who’d manned them before they had abandoned them. If they could be rendered useless then any British ground forces that were sent in would have a much easier time.

  The first gun crew spotted them and struggled to swivel their gun around, but it was too late and they disappeared in a cloud of pulverised limestone as Abby opened fire on them.

  Gwen swung wide to strafe the next section of wall, which had two gun emplacements on it. The men had seen the fate of their friends and faces contorted with terror turned towards her as she screamed down at them, but after all that had happened that morning, and the previous months, to herself, to Kitty, to her friends and fellows, she had no pity for them, and she unleashed her cannons without hesitation.

  The Misfits made short work of the machine gun emplacements on the walls, the sand bags the Prussians had surrounded themselves with doing nothing to stop their heavy weapons, but when they turned their attention to the rest of the huge fort, looking for fresh targets, they found it deserted, aside from discarded equipment, bloodied remains, and the boldest of the carrion birds, already on the ground, working up their courage to feed.

  Abby took them up to join the rest of the fighters circling overhead.

  ‘Badger Leader here, where did the blighters go?’

  ‘Gladiator Leader here, Badger Leader. There are tunnels and storage rooms underneath the fort. They started going down as soon as we showed up.’

  ‘Dammit.’

  Gwen peered over the lip of her cockpit as she followed Abby around the large circle they were describing above the fortifications. The buildings within the walls had long been in ruins, but that didn’t mean that the basements, storage rooms and tunnels, which the Maltese seemed to delight in excavating in their islands, weren’t intact and didn’t provide excellent cover for the invading force.

  ‘There’s nothing else we can do here, then. Let’s go home and see what Haven wants to do next.’

  Gwen and Drake fell in beside Abby as she turned to the southeast and headed out over the short channel between Gozo and Malta, followed by the other squadrons.

  ‘We must have gotten eighty or ninety in the courtyard before they scurried under the rocks like cockroaches, ma’am,’ said the commander of Warrior Squadron.

  The pilots were back in the briefing room with an increasingly worried-looking Campbell.

  ‘We got about forty more,’ added Abby. ‘There were ten guns on the walls and four men working each of them. Not many got away’

  ‘So, something like a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty. Out of two thousand or so.’ Campbell grimaced. ‘I had hoped for better than that, but I’ll take it for now. When the army goes in they’ll have to stick their heads out and then you’ll get the chance to really take the fight to them. But in the meantime we still have to do something about those ships.’

  She lifted her eyes to look at the Misfits as she continued. ‘Nineteen Nelsons survived the failed attack, five of which will need repairs before they can fly again, and there are forty-five ships in the enemy fleet. The numbers just don’t add up, so I’ve already ordered the Misfit fitters to load Wendy’s meltbombs onto the Misfit aircraft and I’m sending up Dreadnought as well.’

  ‘Yes! About bloody time!’ Wendy leaped off her seat, knocking it over and almost tipping Owen and Scarlet, sitting on either side of her, off theirs.

  Most of the rest of the pilots jumped at the sudden noise coming from behind them and, despite the seriousness of the situation, there were a few laughs as she looked around sheepishly. ‘Sorry!’ She sat down heavily, Scarlet only just getting her chair standing again before she did so.

  Campbell was the only one in the room who didn’t at least smile and she continued on as if there had been no outburst. ‘I’m informed by Rear Admiral Pritchard that this fleet represents a large part of the enemy presence in the Mediterranean - they are throwing everything they have at us. Therefore, if we destroy it we’re not only going to be saving Malta, but we’ll cripple the Coalition’s ability to make war in this entire theatre.’ She paused to let that sink in, then glanced at her antique aviator’s chronograph and shook her head. ‘Bloody hell, it’s not even time for elevenses... Their fleet is still more than two hours away. We’re going to wait until they’re less than ten miles offshore before launching the attack. That’s close enough that Bertha would be in range of our anti-aircraft batteries if it tried to pull the same trick as last time, so you’re not going to be under nearly as much fire. However, they will probably launch aircraft to cover their final approach, so everyone else will fly cover - Soldier and Warrior at angels five for close support and Gladiator at angels fifteen.’

  She turned back to Abby. ‘Prioritise the merchant vessels, particularly those carrying troops if you can, please.’

  Abby nodded. ‘Will do.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Campbell looked around, meeting the eyes of her squadron leaders one by one. ‘Any questions?’ When there were none she nodded. ‘Good. Take off is at twelve hundred hours. Dismissed.’

  Abby came to a halt outside the briefing room and gazed around the huge hangar.

  Nearest to her, Dreadnought’s gun crews were giving their weapons a final check. The men and women who had volunteered to operate the big aircraft’s weapons were universally a strange bunch. Of every possible physical type and social background, the only thing they seemed to have in common was a shared love of guns and explosions. That served to keep them together as a very close-knit bunch, though, so close, in fact, that they never really mixed with the rest of the squadron and preferred to be quartered away from everyone else, where they wouldn’t disturb anybody with their experiments and “fun”. The “Whizz Bangers”, as they called themselves, had suffered losses, most notably during the attack on the Prussian-occupied ports during the summer, but there were always dozens more volunteers standing by to join them and Wendy was never short of crew.

  Beyond Dreadnought were the aircraft of Warrior, Gladiator and Soldier Squadrons. Derek and Tanya were expected back at any moment and would be flying with the Gladiators for the mission and their Spitsteams were there, their fitters working on them to make sure they were up to their exacting standards. Beyond them, closest to the ramp, shut now, were the three Misfit aircraft. Hummingbird was with them, instead of in her place on the other side of the hangar with Bloodhound, and Abby frowned as she noticed unusual activity around the small gyrodyne. She sighed and picked her way across the cavernous space towards it.

  Scarlet was bending down to peer underneath the fuselage of the aircraft while two of her fitters were lying on the floor beneath it, attaching meltbombs to a pod on its belly.

  The diminutive Irishwoman looked up as Abby approached and stalked towards her. She planted herself firmly in front of Abby and scowled up at her. ‘Before you say anything...’

  ‘I want you with the bombers, you’re the same speed as them. Use them as cover, then when they drop their torpedoes and turn for home make your run. By that time we’ll have made ours and we’ll cover you on the way back out. Understood?’

  Scarlet blinked at her. ‘Uh, yes. Uh, thank you.’

  ‘Good.’ Abby nodded, then smiled. ‘Happy hunting.’

  ‘You too!’ Scarlet beamed happily, then spun and skipped back to her aircraft.

  Gwen sat in a large wingback armchair in a corner of the ready room staring at the bacon sandwich, congealing in its own fat on the table in front of her. Without Kit
ty there to distract her, or remind her of the future that awaited after the war, she’d found her thoughts becoming increasingly morbid.

  She had joined the Misfits ten months ago, in July of 1940. For six months of that time the squadron had seemed invincible, coming through pitched battles over Britain and overwhelming odds in Muscovy almost unscathed, where many other squadrons lost most of their pilots. That had changed drastically since their arrival in Malta, though and in less than five months they had not only lost almost all of their aircraft, but also several of their pilots. Mac, Monty and Chalky were all dead, as were Smith and Drummond, two of the three Navy pilots who had volunteered to join them. Chastity and the third of the Navy pilots, Farrier, were missing in action and, if there was no word from them soon, that meant they were probably dead too.

  The Misfits had proven to be less than indestructible and she couldn’t help but think that they only had themselves to blame; they had begun to believe in their own legend, to believe that they couldn’t be killed and had thrown themselves into several fights they’d had no hope of winning. She also couldn’t help but think that a large part of that blame was hers; with the improvements she’d made to the aircraft, making them far superior to those of the enemy, she had only fuelled those beliefs.

  Which meant that it was at least partly her fault that her friends had died and that Kitty was in the hospital, barely alive.

  Perhaps the Misfits would have been better off if she’d never joined them.

  Lost in her dark thoughts, she didn’t hear Rudy Drake call out to ask if she wanted some tea. She didn’t see Derek and Tanya arrive, either, or look up when the pilots welcome back a bedraggled Farrier, who had been fished out of the sea by a small fishing boat which didn’t have a radio to report the rescue, hence the doubt over her survival. Nor did she notice Abby come in and frown in her direction.

  An hour later the pilots were called to the flight line. Gwen roused herself, went to the bathroom, then made her way out and up onto the airfield where the aircraft that were going to take part in the attack, including Hummingbird and Dreadnought, were waiting. She spotted Excalibur immediately and walked along the line to her. However, she didn’t immediately climb into the cockpit, but stood staring at the myriad of scars that the once-pristine machine had picked up over the past months. Every one of the scratches, dents, or filled in holes had come from a near miss - a blast of ack-ack, a machine gun round, a cannon shell - and each and every one of them could have meant her death if it had been just a few feet, or in some cases a few inches, to one side.

  She had been lucky, though. She had survived. Even when shrapnel had penetrated her cockpit and hit her in the head.

  What made her special? What gave her the right...?

  ‘Kitty’s going to be fine, you know that, right?’

  Gwen jumped and looked up at the sudden sound of Abby’s voice from beside her. ‘What? Oh. Yes... It’s not that.’ She shook her head, but then grimaced. ‘Well, it’s not just that. It’s, I don’t know, this.’ She waved her hand vaguely, indicating the airfield and the five Misfit aircraft.

  ‘What, you think you have something to blame for all this?’ Abby mimicked Gwen’s gesture with a smile, but then sighed when her wingmate’s mood didn’t lighten. ‘Do you know how many times I’ve had that conversation with myself? And how many times I’ve had it with Dot? There are many people that we could blame for the situation we’re in - the War Minister for sending us, the Ministry for not committing enough resources, or the Prussians for starting the whole damn shooting match. And yet, after Cece died, I laid in bed, night after night, blaming myself and trying to work out what I could have done differently. What I could have done better. Those thoughts went away for a while, but when Mac died they started up again and with every subsequent death - Drummond, Smith, Chalky, Monty, and now Chastity - they have only gotten worse. So, you’re going to have those thoughts. It’s only natural and it’s fine. Like Dot told me, it means you haven’t got to the point where you no longer care. But just remember that those thoughts aren’t true, that there are plenty of people on whom to lay the blame for what’s happened to the Misfits on this damn island but you’re not one of them.’ Abby punctuated her last words by poking Gwen in the chest, rocking her back. ‘What you’re feeling is called survivor’s guilt and it has one cure - shaking hands with the Dark Scythesman. You just have to ignore it, like I’m trying to, and, for Darwin’s sake, listen to what we’ve all told you so many damn times and learn to live!’

  Her final words were almost drowned out by an immense hiss and then a cloud of steam rose from Dreadnought as the valves on her engines released excess pressure. The roar that followed as Wendy started her engines was enough to prevent any further conversation, so Abby just grinned, slapped Gwen on the shoulder, then went to Dragon.

  Gwen smiled wryly as she watched her go, wondering how many times she would have to hear the same speech before she began to believe it. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried, but it was just her nature to overthink things - she liked to think that was part of what made her such a good designer.

  She climbed up onto the trailing edge of Excalibur’s wing, then walked up the narrow marked strip beside the fuselage to where Giuseppe was waiting patiently, ready to help with her straps. She gave him a nod, then clambered in and started doing her checks.

  As ever, her worries dissipated, at least for a while, as she concentrated on the task at hand.

  Chapter 26

  ‘Campbell’s cut it a bit fine, hasn’t she?’

  There was humour in Drake’s voice, but his comment was understandable; the enemy fleet were clearly visible even as the Misfits flew at a thousand feet over the towers of St Paul’s Cathedral in the centre of the island, where the photographs of their fallen comrades were still on display.

  As expected, the enemy ships had sailed a slightly roundabout route so as to approach Gozo and Mgarr Harbour from the north, avoiding Malta and the sea defences grouped mostly around the Grand Harbour as much as possible.

  Gwen hadn’t seen them; she had been too busy peering over her right wing, watching the Nelsons at Ta’Kali taking off and forming up on Dreadnought and Hummingbird - there were so few of them it was hard to imagine them being able to do anything to stop the ships. She lifted her eyes now, though, and took in the sight of the Coalition task group. It was easy enough to pick out which ships Campbell had asked the Misfits to target; the fat and ungainly support vessels were clustered together in the centre of the formation like sheep, flanked by a couple of huge battleships, while the sleeker, far more nimble destroyers, frigates, and corvettes ranged around, hunting for undersea boats and other threats.

  ‘Badgers. Go to full throttle.’

  At Abby’s command, Gwen pushed her lever to full unwind, then glanced at her Frobisher chronograph.

  It was coming up to three minutes past twelve. According to Campbell’s schedule the Misfits were due to make their run at five past, at the same time as the undersea boats. Then, at ten past, the bombers would make their attack, followed closely by Dreadnought and Hummingbird, the idea being that they would be covered somewhat by the chaos created by everyone else.

  That was the plan at least, but, like most plans in war, it was unlikely to survive contact with the enemy.

  ‘Haven, this is Gladiator Leader. I’m not seeing any enemy aircraft, over.’

  ‘Haven here. They must be there, Gladiator Leader; they’d be foolish not to send some kind of escort. Keep looking, please.’

  ‘Roger, Haven.’

  Gwen spared a moment to glance up towards where the Spitsteams of Derek, Tanya, Farrier and the Gladiators had to be, even though there was no hope of spotting them. It was puzzling that the Prussians wouldn’t send up at least their fighters to cover their ships during the approach to enemy territory; they must have known the British would send their remaining bombers back out. Perhaps they were planning a bombing raid themselves and they wanted the fighters t
o provide an escort, but even then, they had enough to send half to cover the ships.

  She had no time to think through the reasoning behind the enemy decision because in that moment the first of the screening ships opened fire, closely followed by the rest, including the well-armed battleship.

  Gwen pushed her stick forwards sharply, following Abby as she dived towards the sea. Blood rushed to her head, temporarily colouring her vision red and making her feel like her eyeballs were going to burst, but the pressure was just as quickly relieved as she pulled up again, levelling off a hundred feet above the waves and beginning to weave from side to side - the combined fire of the anti-aircraft batteries wasn’t even a fraction of that of a single one of the Javelins, but it still had to be respected.

  They were flying at top speed, though, so they didn’t have to brave the fire for long and twenty seconds after the barrage had begun, Gwen swung Excalibur sharply around one of the huge battleships and lined up on the target she’d chosen, one of the larger merchant vessels, its decks packed with brown-clad soldiers sitting in regimented lines. Faces turned up to her in alarm and a few of the men tried to bring their rifles to bear on her, but it was far too late. She pressed the button to release the meltbombs then banked away.

  Puffs of red smoke on the main deck showed that her aim had been good, but she didn’t wait around to see what kind of panic she had created among the men; the Misfits had been tasked with causing as much chaos as they could, so she brought her guns to bear on the next troop ship.

  Gwen had thought she was used to shooting at men on the ground, she had barely winced when she had attacked the gun positions on the walls of the fortress only an hour or so before, but this was an entirely different prospect. The soldiers were so tightly packed on the decks of the troop ships that every single one of her cannon rounds blasted through several of them, sending sprays of gore in all directions. The horror didn’t end there, though, because the shots then ricocheted off the metal of the ship to cause even more destruction on the soft bodies.