Assault on Zanzibar

by E. C. Williams

  With no pause to gloat over the downed balloon, Dave banked left and climbed to do the second and most important part of his mission: damage assessment. He circled the harbor area as the AA gunners in the town belatedly woke up and started firing. He noticed puffs of black smoke appear suddenly in the sky well above him. The enemy had started using explosive AA shells with timed fuses. They had over-estimated the altitude of the attacking planes, and their fire was harmless. But Dave had no doubt that they would get better at it with practice.

  By now, the Puffins had all released their bomb loads, and were flying south, climbing as fast as they could to their operational ceilings, already well out of the danger zone. It appeared that all three had come through the attack unscathed.

  Dave climbed to ten thousand feet and circled the town, banking steeply, gazing over the rim of his cockpit at the target area. Columns of smoke were rising into the morning air, leaning over to leeward in the slight breeze. The burning balloon had apparently set a nearby godown alight, and one of the dhows was afire, as well. Another dhow, a three-master, was down by the stern and listing outboard, its masts at a radical angle. He could see blast damage to structures on the terminal itself. That seemed to be about it.

  Except, of course, for whatever destruction he could wreak himself.

  He picked out the largest vessel at anchor in the outer harbor, a big three-master: obviously a gun-dhow, not an ordinary merchantman. By now, Dave was the sole target left for the AA gunners, and they were beginning to find his range; dirty yellowish-black bursts were intensifying and creeping closer. Time, then, to change altitude – rapidly.

  Dave put the nose of his Petrel down and went into a power dive, plunging almost vertically toward the harbor, leaving the AA bursts above and behind him. The gun-dhow was heaving up in preparation for getting underway, perhaps in the hope of evading air attack. She had launched a motor boat that was standing off, emitting the puffs of black diesel smoke characteristic of Zanzibari engines, ready to take the dhow in tow once her anchor was aweigh.

  Dave leveled off no more than six feet above the water, juking left and right to dodge the increasingly-heavy AA fire mounted by the enemy vessel, and squeezing off bursts of one-inch whenever it appeared briefly in his gun-sight. When he was on the very brink of crashing into the craft, he triggered all four bombs, pulled up sharply, and banked left. His vision grayed and he almost blacked out from the acceleration forces. He climbed at the airplane's maximum rate until he was at eight or nine thousand feet, then leveled off and turned back to assess the results.

  Which were very gratifying: the dhow had taken at least two direct hits, and the other two bombs had exploded in the water alongside. The vessel heeled over sharply to starboard, nearly on her beam ends. Dave could see the tiny figures of the crew jumping overboard. The dhow sank abruptly as he watched, the high poop the last part of it to disappear under the water. Dave whooped and cheered, pounding on the cockpit rim with his free hand.

  Some roughness in the handling of the Petrel recalled him to the need to get home to Charlie before he could really celebrate. He glanced up and back, and saw that his right wing was perforated with jagged shrapnel holes from a near-miss burst. The holes in the fabric were visibly growing larger as he watched, from the force of the air over the wing surfaces. Dave slowed to near stall speed and, once out of range of enemy AA, lost altitude gradually as he turned southwards. He was losing lift in the damaged wing, with the result that the plane kept banking to the right and losing altitude despite his efforts. The problem would worsen into an uncontrollable death spiral into the sea as more fabric tore off, and he lost more lift -- unless he could do a controlled ditch first.

  Landry and a small troop of seamen-gunners moved quickly through the dense bush, following closely on the heels of two young islanders whom Ajali had identified as the best trackers and woodsmen on Mafia. They were following the spoor of the Arab raiders, and Landry was confident of catching them. They were slave-owners and their hired slave-drivers, not soldiers, and some of them were middle-aged and fat. Too, they were burdened with loot from the village they had attacked, mostly food, according to a single witness who had gotten a fleeting look at them in passing. It made sense that they would need food. What they apparently didn't need was arms and ammunition, with which they were well-supplied, reportedly by that smuggling dhow. And their arms were breech-loading repeaters now, not the quaint muskets they had used in their first attacks on the Kerguelenians. The Arabs were quick to copy Kerg innovations. Landry had to wonder just how long it would be before they progressed to powered aircraft.

  The pace, a fast jog, and the terrain, dense bush, was beginning to tell even on Landry's iron constitution, and he could hear gasps and swearing from his men. But the two young Africans, superbly fit, ran on tirelessly. Landry worried about stragglers – with so few men, he couldn't afford to leave even one behind – and was on the verge of calling a halt for a quick breather when he caught a glimpse of gowned figures running ahead of them, bundles on their backs and rifles in their hands. One of them, aware that their pursuers were in sight, turned and fired. Landry dropped to one knee and returned fire, three quick rounds, and had the satisfaction of seeing one of the Arabs stagger and fall. A burst of fire came in return, and Landry dropped prone. He shouted a pair of orders, and his seaman-gunners spread out into open order and took cover where they could. The Arabs had done the same, and now opened a heavy but largely inaccurate fire, which the Kergs returned more deliberately.

  This stalemate went on for a few minutes, while Landry considered his options. He knew that the Arabs would probably take one of two actions: either a rear guard would keep the seamen pinned down while the bulk of the Pirates slipped away into the bush; or they would mount a flanking movement, sending a strong party in a wide arc through the forest to take the Kergs from behind, catching them between two fires. He couldn't wait to find out which they would do, because by the time it became clear there would be nothing effective he could do in response.

  So that left just one course of action: attack.

  He passed the word to fix bayonets and move forward on his signal. He reloaded his rifle while the order passed down the line. Once the word came back from either side of him that all hands had acknowledged, he blew a single short sharp blast on his bosun's call. His gunners, in response, began to advance, half dashing forward for short distances while the other half covered them with rapid fire, then switching roles. The Arabs didn't at first realize their enemy was advancing. When they did, they re-doubled their fire. But the gunners, in their jungle green uniforms, taking advantage of every fold in the ground and every bush or tree, were difficult targets to pick out, while the Arabs, in white gowns, were much more conspicuous. Landry was sure they were taking casualties, although in the dense bush it was hard to tell.

  He heard shouted orders in Arabic, and guessed that the leader was trying to get his men to fall back in the center while sending his flankers out and around to attack the Kergs from their rear. But a tactical withdrawal while in contact with the enemy was one of the most difficult moves to pull off, even for seasoned troops, and the Arabs were merchants or gentlemen farmers and their retainers, not soldiers. Landry could sense confusion, uncertainty. Now was the time; he blew three short sharp blasts on his call, and shouted the gunners' war-cry – Kiasu! – the name of the merchant schooner Sam Bowditch had commanded when it had become the first Kerg vessel to fight off a Pirate attack, and a Hokkien word meaning “must win!”

  On either side of him the gunners took up the cry, rose together, and ran forward, bayonets to the fore. This was too much for some of the exhausted and disoriented Arabs. Usually fiercely courageous, a foe now confronted them that blended in with the forest, whose rapid fire had convinced them that they faced many times their number, and they broke and ran. A few stood and fought, throwing down their rifles and drawing their short swords to defend themselves. But the whole point of the bayonet was to hel
p riflemen stay out of the reach of those wicked curved blades, and the gunners bayoneted those who stood, and shot down those most of those who ran, or tried to run.

  The vicious little battle was over in minutes, when the gunners ran out of enemies to engage. Landry checked their tendency to scatter in pursuit by roared commands, spaced out with fearful imprecations. When he took stock, he found that he had three walking wounded, all with minor cuts or gashes from the Pirates' blades. There were no gunshot wounds – the Pirate fire had been mostly wild and high. Landry guessed that they had not yet mastered reloading quickly, much less worked on their marksmanship. With time, they could remedy those defects. Landry did not mean to give them that time.

  As for Arab casualties, the gunners found twelve of them down, all dead or dying. They did what they could to make the wounded comfortable, but their only medic was back at base – there had been no time to summon him. And no man could survive a bayonet thrust to the chest or belly without immediate and expert medical attention.

  Landry recalled that there were still an unknown number of Pirates in the flanking party, or parties, their leader had no doubt sent to catch the gunners from behind, and had his men stand to. But after an hour, he realized that these men must have fled, as well. He summoned his two African trackers. Since they had no weapons, they had sensibly taken cover during the brief battle. He tasked them with following the trail of the surviving Pirates' retreating main body. He had no intention of dividing his small force, and the small, scattered flanking party was less important than finding the Arab base. He hoped the retreating Pirates would lead him to it.

  But his three wounded men – were they up to a pursuit through thick bush? He thought a few moments, then called Leading Gunner Breedlove over. He had what looked like the most serious wound, a deep slash along the back of his left hand and up the forearm.

  “What about it, Lovey? Can you keep up if we press on? Honest answer, now – I don't want to have to carry your ass.”

  “I'm fine, Chief. I got it bound up tight right away – didn't lose much blood. It hurts like a bastard, o'course, but it won't slow me down. And I'm right-handed, so I can still shoot, no worries.” Landry looked at Breedlove's bandaged hand. It was bound up clumsily, obviously by Breedlove himself, one-handed, a spreading red stain visible. Landry stared hard into the wounded man's face. He was pale, whether from shock or loss of blood, and couldn't meet Landry's eye.

  “Sorry, Lovey. You're down-checked. Back to base. Steyn!” He called over one of the other wounded men. “Go with Breedlove. Both of you get medical attention. Tell LPO Fourie it is my intention to press on after the raiders.”

  “But Chief ...”, both men wailed.

  “No buts! That was an order. Take off. Van der Merwe, to me.” This to the third wounded man, who had a slash down one cheek from a Pirate blade, bound up with a field dressing. Landry looked him over carefully. His color was good, and he met the Chief's gaze with confidence.

  “You're good to go, Van. But let me know if you have trouble keeping up.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Listen up, ladies! We're gonna press on after these bastards. Furaha, Kibwe – lead off, as fast as you can track. Johnson, you're tail-end Charlie. Keep a sharp eye out astern. There may be some flankers on our tail. The rest of you, single-file, three-meter intervals. Move out!”

  Four

  “Mayday, mayday, mayday,” Dave radioed. “Mother, this is Bull. Plane damaged, ditching just south of Wonderland” – the radio call sign for Zanzibar. Then he repeated the call two more times.

  “… this is Mother.” he heard as soon as he released the mike button. “Make it as far south as you can, Dave. We're sending a Puffin to pick you up. Over.”

  “Roger that. Looking for a Puffin. Make it quick, please. Bull out.” By this time, Dave had his hands too full keeping the plane from going into an uncontrollable death spin to talk on the radio. He couldn't prevent the plane from banking to the right, as the right wing steadily lost more fabric and thus lift; he could only try to keep his downward spiral under some semblance of control. The muscles in his left leg trembled as he pressed as hard as he could on the pedal to counteract the tendency of the Petrel to bank sharply rightward. He was losing altitude rapidly; he could see the blue-green sea rising to meet him, the densely forested shore of the African mainland far too close to the west. At least he was well clear of Zanzibar – no danger now of coming down on the island.

  But if the first part of the airplane to hit the water was the right wingtip, the plane would cartwheel disastrously across the surface, a landing he couldn't possibly survive. He had to keep that right wing up enough for the hull to touch first. He throttled all the way back and wrestled desperately with the stick. The sea rose to meet him at a dizzying rate. He had almost despaired as the skeletal wingtip passed inches above the (blessedly) near-calm sea surface when the hull came down with a teeth-rattling bang – and the Petrel was taxiing normally over the surface, gliding slowly to a halt.

  After a heart-felt prayer of thanksgiving, Dave's next thought was to call in the good news to Charlemagne, but he quickly discovered that his radio was dead, almost certainly due to the shock of the Petrel's impact on ditching. His next impulse was to unbuckle the safety harness, inflate his life jacket, and un-ass the airplane, double-time.

  But as near as he could tell, the Petrel was safely afloat; a glance over the side showed the waterline where it should be, and he could hear no inrush of water into the hull. He decided to sit tight, and wait in dry comfort for his ride home.

  If it reached him in time; the Petrel happened to be facing back toward Zanzibar, miles away to his north. He could see tiny puffs of black smoke, and a fleck of white: the bow wave of a power boat running as fast as it could, with a “bone in her teeth”.

  Dave decided that it might be prudent to taxi southward at max speed, and meet the Puffin part-way.

  On board Charlemagne, Sam Bowditch was in an agony of indecision. His air boss and the most experienced pilots were away, and he had to make an aviation command decision, one for which neither his knowledge nor experience fitted him.

  “Mister Eloy: recommendations?” he asked his aviation staff officer – without, however, much hope.

  Midshipman Eloy shocked him by being ready with an immediate answer. “Scramble Mauler in the stand-by Petrel to fly cover for Commander Schofield, sir – the Pirates will almost certainly send a vessel to capture him, and possibly tow the plane back to harbor for intelligence purposes, if they can. Mauler must prevent that. Then turn around the first Puffin to return, as soon as the pilot can dump his right-seater, and send it to pick up the Commander.”

  “Why not send the Puffin right here?”

  “It's not ready, sir – not even in standby mode, like Mauler's Petrel. By the time we get her launched and warmed, the raid element will have returned, anyway.”

  “Good. Make it so, Mister Eloy,” Sam replied, pleased and surprised. Eloy had never at any time impressed Sam as quick-witted; this was a side of him as welcome as it was unexpected.

  “Aye aye, sir,” the mid replied, and raced forward to pass on these orders.

  The shock of its violent touch-down had shut off the engine of Dave's Petrel, and he quickly discovered that it wasn't just his radio that on the blink. When he tried to restart the engine, he found that the impact had knocked out all its controls, as well. In a flurry of activity, he tried to diagnose the problem and fix it – to no avail. His Petrel drifted at the mercy of wind and wave, and, the high tail acting as a wind vane, gradually assumed an orientation with the nose into the wind, facing south-south-west. All he could do was stare into his mirror or back over his shoulder at the bow wave and puffs of black smoke of the enemy boat, drawing slowly but inexorably closer.

  Lieutenant Pierre Maury, known to the folks back home as “Pete” but to everyone on board Charlie by “Mauler”, his call sign, was bored. He sat in the cockpit of his Petrel, which wa
s in her cradle but readied for launch, crane fall hooked on, standing by to act as plane guard. He periodically re-started his engine, to keep it warmed up to operating temperature – the new electric starter motors made this much more convenient that the old method, which involved climbing out onto the fuselage and balancing precariously while swinging the prop by hand. But he would have welcomed the physical activity, just to have something to do. He was bitter at being the only veteran pilot left behind for the Stone Town raid, after he had drawn the short straw. And the memory still rankled of having to circle passively over the recent battle at sea – dubbed the Battle of the Comoros – unarmed to pack on max fuel, reporting back to Charlemagne on what he could see below while his squadron mates flew in to the attack.

  The loud speaker on the Air Shack crackling to life startled him out of his sullen reverie. “Bull is down. Repeat, Bull is down. Launch standby Petrel ASAP and fly along the reciprocal of the strike force's return vector. Mauler, find him, and fly cover – we're sending back one of the Puffins to pick him up.”

  The deck crew sprang into action, and Maury's Petrel soared into the air and lowered over the side, an aviation bosun's mate riding on the fuselage, holding onto the fall. As soon as she touched the water, the ABM unhooked the fall, and hung on to be lifted back to the deck. Before he reached it, Maury had already brought his engine up to full throttle and was taxiing away into the wind. At the end of the shortest possible take-off run, he pulled up and banked sharply, flying over the Charlie at mast-top height, still climbing. Heedless of fuel consumption, he flew at full power in a north-north-westerly direction toward Zanzibar. At the Petrel's top speed of 120 knots, he had Zanzibar in sight to the north within a matter of minutes, and began anxiously scanning the surface of the sea below, banking left and right to get a full view directly beneath the flying boat. Seeing nothing, he began to worry that Schofield's Petrel had sunk, and descended to have a better chance of spotting a lone swimmer.