“Yes, I do; but if you must know, it’s full of hand grenades.” Fiver bared his big teeth in a grin and the sergeant’s hand automatically strayed to where his shoulder holster should be. Even after nearly two years in the Army he couldn’t get used to carrying his pistol on his hip. His hand slid down his thigh and rested on the butt.
“Don’t worry,” said O’Neill, “I’m not about to sling them around; much though you bunch of trigger-happy hoboes deserve it.” Still showing his horse teeth, he added, “And if you did think of demonstrating your fast draw, I wouldn’t give much for your chances. Er... Buster,” he concluded.
“You wouldn’t?” The sergeant’s eyes narrowed and his head thrust forward. When he did this back home on his patch it unfailingly quelled resistance: like when some cheapskate tried to hold back on that week’s protection money.
“No. Ever heard of savate?”
“Can’t say I have.”
“French boxing in which one uses both hands and feet. Like this.”
Sgt. Tommasso Pienze found himself flat on his back without being able to work out how it had come about.
“I happen to be a champion at the sport.” Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill hadn’t moved his hands, but it was obvious to the recumbent sergeant that he had done something with his feet. The sergeant picked himself up.
“Don’t you Lime... British... have no rules about officers striking enlisted men?” There was a plaintive rather than aggressive note in the query.
“We have a very firm rule about enlisted men threatening their superior officers with firearms: we execute them summarily.”
“This way, Squadron Leader.” Pienze turned to lead the way. He sounded resigned.
At the top of the stairs Pienze knocked on a door which was instantly opened by a tall, handsome, lissom, suntanned man in the clean pale khaki shirt and slacks he had hastily donned. Major Pietro (Pete) Corrado knew the value of a good turnout as a putdown. He wore several medal ribbons: for such achievements and exploits as scoring seventy-five per cent on the rifle range, joining the Army at all, leaving the shores of his native land, and actually setting foot in a theatre of war. He looked at his visitor’s bare chest with satisfaction: unaware that it was not permissible in the British Services to wear decorations on a shirt. His full lips smirked under his narrow moustache and he said heartily, “Come in, Squadron Leader, welcome to the Nine Hundred Seventy-Fifth.” He held out a hand and gave his visitor a frank manly clasp. In return, O’Neill nearly broke all his fingers.
Massaging his right hand, the major made an awkward gesture towards a chair. “Sit down. Care for a glass of marsala?” He uttered a buccaneering laugh: “We liberated some yesterday.”
“I’ve brought along something you might prefer.” Fiver dipped into his unbuckled haversack and Corrado stepped back a couple of paces: was this to be instant retribution for the destruction of the Spitfire? He felt mesmerised by this husky hoodlum’s ice-cold eyes.
O’Neill drew a bottle of Johnny Walker from his haversack. “Thought we might talk things over a bit more comfortably over this. That’s our drinking bottle. Here...” He fished again “is another; for you.” He had thrust the first bottle into Corrado’s suddenly trembling hands and now set the other on a table. “Well, get on with it man: open the damn thing... where are the glasses?”
Corrado realised that he had irrevocably lost any advantage he might have had by his peacock display of fine feathers. In silence he obediently fetched two glasses from a cupboard, opened the bottle and poured two tots. He looked up, met Fiver’s now mocking gaze, raised his glass and muttered, “Glad to know you... my name’s Pete Corrado, by the way.”
His visitor took a gulp of whisky before replying. “Walter O’Neill... known as Fiver.”
“Hi! Er... Fiver?”
“Doesn’t matter why.”
“O.K. Say, Fiver, I guess I know what you came about. I sure am sorry about the mistake my guys made this afternoon... real boner... your pilot was O.K., I heard?”
“Yes, old boy. What I came to tell you was,” said Fiver, speaking at his pleasantest, his most benevolent, “that if any of your ack-ack guns ever fires on any British aircraft again, I’ll personally lead a strike that’ll destroy the whole bloody site and everyone on it. Just thought I’d mention it.” He drained his glass and shoved it amicably towards Corrado, who automatically replenished it and his own. “Just pass that on to your General, or whoever’s in command of your pop-guns.”
Corrado drank deeply. “Now, there’s no need to be like that... Squadron Leader...”
“You listen to me, Pete.” O’Neill hitched himself forward a little, rested one massively muscled forearm on the table and bunched his thick fingers into a colossal fist. “For more than two years we fought this war without the dubious benefit of having you lot on our side. We did have a few Poles, who are bloody good; and sundry Frenchmen, Belgians, Dutchmen, Danes, Norwegians and various other odds and sods who were useful types as well; the only Yanks we had on our side were the volunteers in the Eagle Squadron, and they were damn good types too. Now we’ve got the whole blasted American Army, Navy and Air Force supposedly on our side, we have to keep as sharp an eye open for some of you buggers as we ever did for the Hun. And I mean to do my paltry bit towards putting an end to it. You spread the word among your brethren: any more incidents like today’s... and like we’ve had every day ever since the landings... and my squadron will blast the lot of you right off the map. Got it? Right off the bloody map, old boy.”
Corrado, whisky-bold, bristled. “See here, Squadron... Fiver... in this man’s Army we don’t take no crap from...”
“From any goddamn Limey,” O’Neill interposed equably. “That’s a lot of crap in itself, old boy. But I happen to be half-Russian, so perhaps you’d better prepare to take some... a lot of crap, in fact... from me.”
“I been in this man’s Army five years. I was a National Guard officer before...”
“And I’ve been in the Mob for eight, counting my two years at Cranwell; the Royal Air Force College, that is.”
But Corrado, who indeed had never heard of Cranwell, was no longer listening. At mention of the Family his soul had suddenly withered; physically he had felt as though a stiletto had been slid between his ribs. He did not know — indeed, how could he? — that, since the earliest days of the Royal Flying Corps, the Royal Air Force had always referred to itself affectionately as the Mob. His mind spun into a crazed whirligig. He’d never heard tell of a British branch of the Mafia, but, by Gahd, it made sense. And this hulking tough was just the sort of guy who would figure ’way up in its hierarchy. “The Mob?” he whispered.
“The R.A.F., old boy.” But Corrado didn’t believe him: he knew a veiled threat when he heard one and was an expert at innocent-sounding, lying disclaimers himself. He drained his glass for the second time, O’Neill did the same, and Corrado refilled them.
“Sure am glad to know you, Fiver.” Corrado raised his glass. “You bet, I’ll put the word around.” He winked; heavily, tipsily. “No more misidentification of friendly aircraft will be tolerated. Say, I sure do appreciate you being so friendly about it.”
“Always found the velvet glove the best way, old lad. Thought we’d get on best over a bottle of good Scotch, especially as I had some rather harsh things to say; but no point in becoming bad friends over it, eh? After all, young Toby Yule... my pilot you clobbered... didn’t even get a scratch. In fact, gave him a chance to distinguish himself.” Fiver threw his head back and bellowed with laughter. He told Corrado about Yule’s Goumier.
“Is that a fact?” Corrado shook his head in admiring wonder.
“Only nineteen, too.”
“Some gutsy kid.”
“Toby’s a good type. Very press-on. Hasn’t even been two years in the Mob.”
That word again! Corrado spilt some whisky, drank deep, replenished. What was that name this dangerous-looking guy — those crazy eyes! had said? Toby... Toby Yule.
He had to remember that. Another member of Cosa Nostra. He thought it wise to change the subject. Leaning confidentially towards his guest, he said, “Say, Fiver, how about you stay and have some chow?” He recoiled as a waft of Fiver’s distinctive aroma smote his nostrils.
“My dear chap, if you’ve got any spam, I’m on.”
“Sure we got spam... we also got fresh ham... er... contributed by a local farmer...” Sgt. Pienze had exercised his fatal charm: a whisper of the Mafia and a touch of the menace he had used as a collector in the protection racket had produced more than the ham. “After, if you wanna get laid... well, we kinda got facilities... locally... just down the road a piece... a coupla broads... well, strictly more than just a couple... you can take your pick.”
For the first time Fiver regarded him without contempt, ridicule or provocation. “Well... my God! I’ve been out here since early ’41, and never heard of anything like this. Three days after you land, you chaps have really got yourselves organized: ham, booze and crumpet. I take my hat off to you: now this is what I really admire about American hustle.”
Corrado basked in such genial praise. “Sure, sure, we don’t lose no time...”
“I mean,” O’Neill interrupted crushingly, “we all know you have to pipe in Coca-Cola and lay on instant ice cream to persuade your chaps to fight at all... and rumour says you had the Coke flowing and the ice cream freezing before the first assault craft even touched the beach here... but crumpet as well... it takes the breath away.” His eyes gleamed with ridicule again.
Huffily, Corrado, on his fifth Scotch, hiccupped, “Take it or leave it, Bo: you wanna piece o’ tail, you gotta piece o’ tail. I’ll tell my transportation sergeant to bring it right here, if you want.”
Fiver rose from his chair. “Another time, perhaps, old boy. I just dropped in to straighten out that little matter. I’ll take a rain check on the spam, if I may. I’ll leave you to finish the bottle.” Corrado pushed himself unsteadily to his feet. “No, don’t bother to see me out.” They shook hands, the major cried out in agony, reeled, and, stretching for the bottle, fell over.
Outside the door Fiver blundered into Sgt. Pienze, who had been listening at the keyhole. The sergeant regarded him with awe, as, stone cold sober, Sqdn Ldr. O’Neill made his way to his jeep. Here was a guy the Mob could feel real proud of, the sergeant had told himself repeatedly while he eavesdropped. Generous with it, too: one whole bottle as a personal gift to the major, and the remainder — only slightly less than half — of the one they’d been punishing, left behind.
Pienze peeped round the door. What the hell was with Pete, lying there on the floor and making no attempt to get up? He went into the room and stood over his recumbent, snoring Commanding Officer. Well, it was an ill wind... he picked up the bottle and put it to his mouth.
He licked his lips, and sniffed. There was a strange smell in the air. He remembered the visitor and wondered if this could be what sulphur and brimstone smelled like. Tech. Sgt. Pienze piously crossed himself. Then he made the sign of protection against the evil eye with the thumb and little finger of his left hand. Thinking some more about Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill, he put the bottle down and did it again with both hands.
Chapter Three
The Allied invasion of Sicily on 10th July 1943 was almost as great a cultural shock to some of the participants as it was a military shock to the defenders. From the primitive environment of North Africa and its simple-minded people, the British and Americans were overnight brought in contact with a race scarcely more civilised but steeped in centuries of guile, sophisticated villainy and corruption. Toby Yule was soon to have his first encounter with this ancient tradition of vice
The Sicilian landings had been timed to coincide with the moon’s second quarter, so that there would be enough light until midnight for parachute and glider forces to see what they were doing, and dark enough after the moon had set to permit the unseen approach of forces by sea.
The airborne assault was launched direct from Tunisia. The seaborne attackers assembled to the east and west of Malta. On the island of Malta itself were the airfields from which air cover was provided.
A high wind and rough sea on the night of 9th July had one helpful and one potentially disastrous effect for the Allies: the Axis commanders thought the weather unsuitable for an invasion; and the wind scattered 5,000 glider-borne and parachute troops far from their intended dropping zones. The latter, however, also had its useful corollary, for captured Italians insisted that the airborne forces were so widespread that there must have been some 30,000 of them: a strong argument in favour of surrender!
The R.A.F. had two functions: to provide protection against the German and Italian Air Forces; and to deliver air strikes against ground targets, in support of the Army.
The latter task could not be adequately done with cannon and machine-guns alone, but needed bombs or rockets as well. By the end of the war, every type of R.A.F. fighter had, in some squadron, been converted to a fighter-bomber. But in mid-July 1943, although Hurricanes had been filling this role in North Africa and over Europe, the North Sea and Atlantic, against both land and sea targets, since early 1942, only one attempt had ever been made to use Spitfires for this purpose.
In that instance the R.A.F.’s inventiveness had been provoked by the Luftwaffe’s use of the Messerschmitt Bf 109F. The 109E-4/B had already been converted to fighter-bombing in the final phase of the Battle of Britain in 1940, by fitting it with a 551 lb SC250 bomb or four 110 lb SC50s. During the siege of Malta more modern Me Bf109Fs and Gs, carrying an SC250 and operating from Sicily, had made themselves a pest which demanded reprisal. Their technique was to approach the island at less than 50 ft above the water, zoom up to 4,000 ft when 10 miles offshore, dive at an angle of between 25 and 40 degrees, according to the position of the target, release their bombs halfway down, hold their dive to almost ground level and return to base skimming the sea.
One of the Spitfire squadrons, No. 126, devised its own bomb racks to carry one 250 lb bomb under the fuselage. With these the squadron first dive-bombed enemy airfields in Sicily as early as September 1942. The conversion of these Spitfire Vs to fighter-bombers had been more successful than their pilots expected, for the bomb racks did not detract from the aircraft’s handling qualities.
By mid-1943 the squadron which Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill commanded (seldom known by its official number, but almost invariably, and somewhat ruefully, as “Fiver’s Lot”) had, when the Axis forces were driven out of North Africa, been detached to Malta for a short period. There, their Spit VBs were converted to fighter-bombing by the provision of two bomb racks under the 20 mm Hispano cannon in their wings, each to carry a 250 lb bomb. Although Fiver and his pilots were not slow to imply, to anyone who was ready to listen, that this new role was a compliment to what was obviously the best squadron in Desert Air Force (having, in consequence, to buy several rounds of drinks and endure sundry de-baggings in the mess), they privately worried that their aircraft would lose performance; despite many reassurances. In the event they found that not only did the bomb racks not interfere with their manoeuvrability, but they could also carry out aerobatics with little change in the aeroplanes’ responses, even while carrying both bombs.
When it came to the invasion of Sicily, both air cover and close support to the ground troops were given by squadrons still based on Malta; with one exception: Fiver’s Lot flew into Sicily on the first day. No other squadron from Malta was able to operate from Sicily itself until, on 13th July, the fourth day after the landings, 244 and 239 Wings, comprising eight squadrons, brought their Spitfires into hastily constructed airfields at Pachino and Cassibile. But O’Neill’s Spitfires, detached from their parent wing, were ordered to land immediately after the initial assault, on an airstrip at Bolgheri captured and secured for them by a small group of paratroops. These were swiftly followed by an R.A.F. Servicing Commando, an Advance Landing Ground Signals section, an R.A.F. Regiment light anti-aircraft unit and a skeleto
n force of various necessary tradesmen.
The squadron had a dual part to play: to perform in the traditional manner of air superiority fighters and shoot down enemy aircraft; and to drop their bombs on enemy ground forces in aid of their own ground troops.
*
Salvatore Ferugino saw Fiver O’Neill lead his Spitfires in from the sea, coming from the direction of Malta, and slant towards where he knew the little aerodrome at Bolgheri lay. He went on staring at the sky long after they had disappeared in the distance. If there was one thing Sergeant Ferugino disliked more than another, it was fighting. In his view it was sheer insanity to fire his regiment’s heavy guns at the Allied invaders in more than token resistance to placate their German overlords.
The harder they fought the more fiercely would the British and Americans fight back. That way lay death for himself, his comrades, relations and friends; and devastation of their property. Already what he had seen in the first few hours of the invasion was enough to make a man weep. In fact it had made him weep, and a lot of his fellows along with him; including several of their officers.
In manning the coastal defences of Sicily with Sicilians the Germans had made a cardinal error in psychology. Where they had thought that the natives would defend their soil with totally self-sacrificing determination, in fact the natives conscripted into all three Services had wrung their hands in horror at the prospect of provoking retaliation which would lay waste their homes, their farms, their vineyards, their businesses.
The defence of Sicily, except where it was in the hands of Germans or a few of the stiffer Italian mainland outfits, was one of the most half-hearted in all recorded history. If Salvatore Ferugino had been able to have his way there would have been no opposition to the landings at all. He hadn’t struggled through life to reach the age of twenty-eight in order to be killed just as the Allies were about to liberate his country from the Germans. Apart from the risks involved in being an artilleryman, he had actually been looking forward to the day when the British and Americans landed: he had cousins both in Soho and Chicago; and he had various ways of knowing that some of them were serving in North Africa and would soon be arriving in Sicily. He already had warehouse space ready to receive P.X. and N.A.A.F.I. goods, Service issue blankets and clothing, boots and medical supplies. There was also a large house in Catania with a lot of small rooms, each occupied by an eagerly awaiting nubile creature comfort at ten dollars, five hundred lire, or a suitable item for barter, a time.
Air Strike Page 2