Assault on Zanzibar: Book Four of the Westerly Gales Saga

by E. C. Williams

  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.

  Then he saw Bull's plane, with its distinctive yellow tail, floating serenely, nose to wind.

  At the same time, he saw the motor boat racing toward it, its wake forming an arrow on the water pointed precisely at the downed plane, emitting puffs of black exhaust at a furious rate, no more than three or four hundred yards away. Without hesitating, Maury threw his Petrel into a steep dive, and flipped the safety cover off his gun trigger. He fired a burst of three 25 mm rounds that splashed only a few feet off the bow of the enemy boat, which swerved away sharply like a man flinching from a blow.

  Cursing his marksmanship, Maury climbed, pulled the Petrel into a high-speed turn that caused his vision to dim, and lined up for another run on the boat. By now, the Pirates were shooting back; he could see muzzle flashes and puffs of white gun smoke, but apparently only from small arms. As he lined up to open fire, the boat went into a series of sharp turns, swerving from side to side, in an obvious attempt to frustrate his aim. But an airplane was a great deal faster and much, much more maneuverable than any surface craft, and at least one of Maury's next burst of three found its target. Its effect was immediate. The boat slowed abruptly, emitting a larger than usual cloud of black smoke; the hit must have been to the engine.

  Maury thought that he had now bought Schofield some time, but the boat's crew resumed firing – not at Maury's Petrel, but at Schofield's. They were clearly hoping to inflict at least one casualty before they were sunk themselves. To his surprise, Maury saw a burst of fire from the ditched plane; Dave clearly wasn't going down without a fight. Of course, his gun could only be aimed by aiming the airplane – and Dave's plane, without power, could not be pointed. But, as it happened, the enemy boat was approaching from the north, and the plane happened at that moment to be pointing in that general direction, so it appeared to be a real threat to the Pirates, although Dave was firing randomly. Since his gun was fixed just too high to do more than fire over their heads even if, by a lucky shift of wind, it was pointed in the right direction, he was only bluffing. Still, it worked to the extent that the boat's crew ducked below the gunwales, leaving their weapons unmanned.

  Mauler took advantage of their temporary disarray to put three rounds solidly into the boat. These did for her – she began settling fast, despite frantic bailing by her crew, who quickly despaired and abandoned ship. Mauler gave an exultant whoop, and began to climb – he was perilously close to the surface of the sea. He leveled off at a thousand feet and started making wide, lazy circles around Dave's downed Petrel, waiting for the promised rescue plane to arrive. He kept a wary eye on the shipwrecked Pirates, all now clinging to bits and pieces of wreckage from their sunken motor boat.

  All except for two men, swimming strongly toward Dave's plane.

  It was obvious to Mauler that these guys were out to get Dave, without regard to their own safety. They probably knives or daggers. Dave had only a pocket knife, if that, with which to defend himself. Why, oh why, had no one thought to give pilots pistols?

  Mauler put his Petrel into a shallow dive straight at the two swimmers, and fired a three-round burst into the water ahead of them – a warning to desist. He pulled up, went around again, and saw that the swimming Pirates, undeterred, still headed with quick, powerful strokes for the downed plane. Every instinct cried out against what he did next, but he couldn't hesitate – in a few moments the swimmers would be too close to Dave's plane to risk another shot at them.

  He dived straight at them and fired burst after burst. Waterspouts from the explosive rounds shot up all round his targets, obscuring them momentarily. He made another, very low, pass, and saw the two Pirates now motionless, floating face-down, surrounded by a spreading crimson stain on the water. They were dead, or if still alive, too badly wounded to pose any further danger. And the blood would very soon attract the voracious Indian Ocean sharks, Tigers, or Great Whites, who would leave not a trace of their bodies.

  Mauler circled the little group of Pirate survivors and noted that none of them seemed anxious to replace their fallen comrades and carry on the attempt on Dave Schofield. They floated passively, apparently resigned to their fate. It was just as well, because, while he hadn't counted his shots, Mauler was pretty sure he had spent most of his 25mm ammo. He was not bombed-up, a deliberate measure to increase his loiter time over the scene of any rescue. That was just as well, too; he didn't like the thought of dropping bombs on helpless swimmers.

  “Mauler, this is Buster, outbound to pick up Bull. Over.” “Buster” was the call sign of Georges Bourgeois, one of the new fliers from Reunion who had delivered the new Puffins. He had flown one of these in the strike on Stone Town. On his return to Charlemagne, Eloy, speaking for the Flag, ordered him to kick out his co-pilot and return for Bull, double-time.

  “Buster, Mauler. Roger that. I'll make sure you're not bothered.”

  The Puffin circled, losing altitude, then touched down heading into the wind five hundred yards south of Dave's downed Petrel. It slowed to a stop as near to it as possible. Mauler could see a tiny figure that could only be Schofield, perched on the wing of his downed plane.

  It had never occurred to anyone that a swimmer might sometime need to board a flying boat, and Mauler wondered just how Dave was going to get up into the Puffin's cockpit. But the combined ingenuity of Buster and Bull was equal to the task; Dave walked precariously out onto the port wing of his airplane, giving it a pronounced port list, and Buster slowly taxied closer until his starboard wing was almost touching the Petrel's port wing. Dave jumped the gap, but landed awkwardly and fell, causing Mauler to gasp in apprehension. But Dave grabbed the flap as he slid off, and managed to recover. He climbed back onto the wing, scampered to the fuselage, seized the engine strut, and wriggled into the cockpit. Bourgeois at once throttled up and turned away to a safe distance from the wrecked plane, then turned into the wind and started his takeoff run.

  “Charlie, this is Buster. Bull recovered safely and we're on our way home,” Maury heard over his radio.

  “Roger that, Bull. Well done. Mauler, this is Mother. Interrogative: is Bull's plane still afloat, over?”

  “Charlie, Mauler. Affirmative, downed Petrel is still afloat, over”

  “Mauler, Mother. Sink her so the Pirates don't get her.”

  This made perfect sense to Maury. While the Kerguelenians were ahead in the military technology race, the Arabs were adept at “me, too” tech. If they got hold of the downed Petrel they might very well reverse-engineer it and soon have copies flying. At the very least, they would learn far too much about aviation.

  But there was a problem with this order. “Charlie, this is Mauler. Roger that – will try to sink Bull's Petrel. Break. Be advised: I've expended most of my ammo on the Pirate motor boat. I may not have enough left to do the job. Over.”

  “Roger that, Mauler. Do what you can, and let us know results. If you leave her afloat, we'll send another bird. Over.”

  “Roger, Charlie. Wilco.”

  As Maury nosed over and lined up carefully on the disabled Petrel, he made a mental note to sugges
t some means of keeping track of ammo fired – a meter of some kind. As it was, if a pilot lost mental track of rounds fired, he had no way of knowing how much he had left. He pushed the selector to semi-auto, and fired three deliberate rounds into the hull of Dave's plane. On his fourth press of the firing button, he got only a click; the gun was dry.

  But he was certain his last three rounds were all hits. He circled and watched the abandoned plane. After a couple of orbits, he saw that it had settled deeper in the water. He continued to circle and watched the wreck sink with slow dignity, on an even keel, the fuselage submerging first, then the engine pod, the propeller, then lastly the tip of the tail. When nothing was visible but a patch of disturbed water and a stream of bubbles, he called in: “Mother, this is Mauler. Bull's Petrel sunk. Repeat, I managed to sink the downed plane. No need for follow-up. Mauler inbound. Out.”

  “Bien jouer, Mauler. See you soon. Mother standing by.”

  Landry's little band, now down to ten seaman-gunners and the two African trackers, crept through the dense bush toward the goal. The trackers, Furaha and Kibwe, had insisted on arming themselves with swords and rifles taken from dead Pirates. Landry feared that the two, unfamiliar with firearms, were as much a danger to themselves and their mates as to the enemy, but he understood the psychological comfort of having the means to defend one's self, and just made sure to demonstrate to them how to load and point the enemy rifles, which were simple single-shot breech loaders. They were so simple, in fact, that they had no safety, another source of worry. Landry insisted that they carry the weapons unloaded, and chamber a round only when in contact with the enemy.

  The raiders had opened a lead on the gunners while Landry had been sorting out his wounded, but he was confident that his men, fitter and more disciplined, would soon close in. The trackers several times reported multiple spoors, as stragglers apparently skulked off from the main body. But were they stragglers? Or perhaps men detailed to circle around behind Landry's force? He decided that, either way, he would press on after the group, simply reminding the rear guard to be alert. His overwhelming goal was to prevent the Pirates from finding an advantageous position, a hillock or simply a slight rise of ground, then digging in. Since they still out-numbered the gunners, going on the defensive would give them the advantage. Landry had no heavy weapons – no one-incher or recoilless rifle – and limited ammunition. Once well dug-in, the Pirates could hold them off indefinitely.

  But if the Kergs pressed them hard, keeping them off balance, inflicting casualties while avoiding taking any – then Landry could see the possibility of a victory. Or, if not outright victory, so reducing their numbers that they would become only a minor threat to the Navy's presence on Mafia Island.

  When Landry's band had almost caught up with the fleeing enemy – when the trackers reported hearing their heavy breathing and the noise they made crashing through the bush – the gunners came suddenly on a small clearing in the bush, and saw the Pirate camp, and the backs of the Arabs as they vanished among the huts.

  Landry ordered his men to take cover, then cursed at length, in three languages, until he ran out of profanity. But at that point, he considered that it might be worse. The camp was unfortified by so much as a thorn or brushwood boma; the Pirates' only cover was their flimsy huts. The clearing was small, and the Pirates had made only a half-hearted attempt to enlarge it. The dense bush was a bare hundred yards from the camp at most points around the clearing's perimeter. But with no more than a dozen men, two of them untrained, there was no hope of effectively surrounding the camp, “closing the back door.” The Pirates could continue their flight whenever they chose.

  But, he considered, where would they run to from here? This was their base, the location of their stores of food and ammo.

  He passed the word to his men to take cover and fire only at clearly visible targets to conserve ammunition. The Pirates, for their part, were blazing away at the bush, their fire passing harmlessly overhead. It occurred to Landry that he was very thirsty, and his water bottle was empty. This was almost certainly the case with all his men, as well.

  “Joubert,” he called to the seaman-gunner nearest him. “There's gotta be a source of water nearby – a stream or creek. The Pirates wouldn't have made a dry camp. Go find it.”

  “Aye aye, Chief.” Joubert moved off through the bush, keeping low and well away from the clearing. He was back in minutes.

  “You were right, Chief – there's a little muddy crick that flows along the north side of the clearing, then away to the east. That must be where they get their water.”

  “Good. You and McKinney collect all the men's water bottles and go fill 'em. Be sure to filter the water through cloth – a handkerchief or whatever. Then tell the lads to be damn sure they add purification drops and shake it up good. Tell 'em any man gets the runs will lose a stripe and go back to swabbing decks.” Contaminated water could cause massive, debilitating dysentery. Doctor Girard's drops, properly used, made any water safe to drink.

  Chief Landry then pulled out his pocket notebook and wrote a detailed message. He called over Furaha and Kibwe and, straining his very basic Swahili to the limit, told them to take the message back to the petty officer in charge of the tiny Kerguelen shore base on Chole Bay, LPO Fourie. This task did not make them happy. They were eager to fight the Pirates, and did not find the role of messenger appealing. Landry couldn't simply order them to do it – they were not seaman-gunners but civilians. He had to persuade them. The only way he could think of to do this, given his limited Swahili, was simply to insist over and over how important it was.

  The two finally agreed, reluctantly, that one of them would do it – then fell to squabbling among themselves about which of them would go. Landry tried to explain, with as much patience as he could muster, that the two of them had a better chance than one of getting through, given that there were Pirate stragglers loose in the bush. They brightened up at the thought that they might get to fight after all, using their new rifles, of which they were inordinately proud, and finally agreed that they would both go. Landry saw them off with relief, feeling as drained by all the argument as if by a fire-fight.

  Then they had only to wait for reinforcements to arrive. Landry posted two gunners in the bush near the point where the stream entered the clearing, with orders to shoot anyone who went to fetch water. The Pirates would obviously be just as thirsty as his men – and the one advantage he had was control of the only source of water. Once the enemy had drunk up whatever water they had in the camp, they would become very thirsty indeed. The only other orders he passed were to stay low and in cover, shoot only at clear targets, and wait.

  And wait. The brief tropical twilight arrived, and Landry reflected with surprise that everything – the discovery of the massacred village, the long chase across miles of bush, the brief but bloody battle – had taken place in one morning and afternoon. No wonder he was tired.

  And his boys were certainly just as tired. He passed the word for half his troop to take one-hour naps in rotation.

  Nothing left to do but cope with the heat, and insects ranging in size from invisible to improbably large. Night fell with that peculiar tropical suddenness, like a theater curtain falling on a lighted stage. At once, he heard two shots, the Kerg .25 caliber carbine's distinctive sharp crack. Then nothing. The shots came from the other side of the clearing. Landry raised his voice slightly and said, “Pass the word: whiskey tango foxtrot, over!” Not for the first time, he wished fervently that the electronics boffins back in French Port would hurry up with the development of the promised portable field radios.

  Within a few minutes, a message passed back around the clearing: “Pirate tried to fetch water; Pirate down.” Landry smiled with grim satisfaction. The Pirates had sent someone for water as soon as it was dark; the camp was now dry. He could only hope that they didn't realize just how much they outnumbered the seaman-gunners, because a concerted rush by their entire force would certainly succeed in
breaking out, although with heavy casualties.

  The night passed, disturbed by several more attempts by the enemy to reach the creek. One made it by crawling all the way, and only gave himself away by the sound of water sloshing in his container. A gunner, alerted, fired at the dim shape, and scored. The dead Pirate lay half in, half out of the water. Moonrise put an end to any further such attempts.

  Landry managed to doze for an hour or so during the night, and awoke at dawn somewhat refreshed but wholly convinced that the Pirates would try a breakout early that day. His sleeping mind had continued to analyze the tactical situation, and concluded that this was their only alternative, and that they knew this, too. Landry couldn't expect reinforcements from Chole Bay earlier than the afternoon.

  And without more men, the only way Landry could stand a chance of defeating the break-out was to concentrate his entire force at the point of attack. Since the Pirates were unlikely to do him the courtesy of giving him their plan, he could only guess where that point would be. If he guessed wrong, the entire enemy force would escape unscathed. He had to guess right.

  He tried to put himself into the mind of the Pirate leader, and it seemed obvious that the only reasonable spot for a break-out was at the point on the clearing's perimeter where the little stream left the bush and meandered across the corner of the clearing. There, the thirsty Arabs could get water, rally, and take cover in the bush to hold against a counter-attack, with the goal of slipping away into the forest. This outcome wouldn't be entirely bad from Landry's perspective; the Pirates would suffer more casualties in the attempt, and they would have to abandon whatever stores of ammunition and food they had accumulated.

  But Landry didn't want to settle for a “not entirely bad” outcome. He wanted to defeat the Pirates here and end the problem definitively, at least until they could land more guerillas and arms. And the squadron, now alerted to the possibility, would be vigilant against another covert landing. The logical move was to concentrate his entire force at the point most likely to be the focus of the Pirates' break-out attempt. He thought he knew where that was. If he was wrong … well, it was a gamble.