The pilots stared at her in silence, each trying to assimilate all the information she had thrown at them.
After a few seconds, Abby tutted and shook her head in disappointment. ‘You had a full fifteen minutes in the air and that’s all you could come up with?’
Gwen blinked. ‘Well, I... uh... well...’ She raked her brain, trying to think of something else so as to satisfy her commander, but stuttered to a halt when she saw that her fellow Misfits were all grinning at her behind their hands and that Abby herself was having a hard time keeping a straight face. She glared at her in mock anger. ‘You should know better than to tease me like that! You know I’ll just take you seriously.’
Abby shrugged and allowed her smile to show finally. ‘Sorry, Gwen, but if you’re going to be teasing Owen with the rest of us, you have to be able to take it too.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for you, Gwen, darling. Not just redesigning all the aircraft, but also keeping these ungrateful sods happy.’
The voice came from behind them and the pilots turned to find Lady Penelope smiling up at them from an old-fashioned wooden wheelchair that had most likely been sitting in a storeroom in Bagshot Hall for fifty years or more. She had a tartan blanket over her lap, although Gwen at least wasn’t sure whether it was to disguise her missing appendages or to keep her warm.
Lord Bagshot was behind her, holding tightly onto the handles of the chair as if frightened she would zoom off and try to jump into one of the aircraft. He was looking tired and dishevelled, but had a wide smile. ‘Sorry to interrupt, but Penny wouldn’t let me take her up to the house without popping by to see how you were settling in first.’
The pilots rushed to gather around her and began bombarding her with questions all at once until Abby raised her voice. ‘Misfits! For goodness sake! Give her some room to breathe!’
The pilots fell silent sheepishly and backed off the minimum amount that they felt they could get away with before looking to Abby to speak first. She tutted and rolled her eyes, then raised her eyebrow at Penelope. ‘Should you be out of hospital?’
‘No.’ Penelope shook her head with a mischievous grin. ‘They wanted to keep me for a few weeks, but Biffy told them where to stick that. He’s contracted a nurse and a doctor and bought enough of the latest equipment to turn my room into a bloody hospital ward! So I’ll be far more comfortable here than I would be in that awful place, and besides, I’ll be able to keep an eye on you lot. Which reminds me...’ She squinted up at Abby, a hard look in her eyes. ‘I hope you’re not going to wait as long to find a replacement for me as you did for Cece.’
Abby flinched involuntarily at the thought of her younger sister, the first pilot of Wasp, who had died over France in the early weeks of the war, but she forced herself to hold Penelope’s gaze and even gave her a half smile. ‘It’s already well in hand. Whitehall are sending me the files of likely candidates by courier - they should already be on their way.’ She looked around the group, smiling at their shocked and surprised stares. ‘I’m just obeying the King’s orders. We’ll be back to full strength in plenty of time to go back on active duty, so there’s no need for any of you to worry about that. Worry about the jobs you’ve been assigned instead. Speaking of which.’ She turned back to Penelope. ‘When you’re feeling up to it, we could use your expertise with the new B flight machines; the more ideas the better, as far as I’m concerned, and there’s a good reason you won the Schnitzel Cup twice.’
‘I’d be delighted. A few hours rest and I’ll be right as rain.’ Lady Penelope smiled, but her voice was weakening by the minute and when she coughed in an attempt to clear it, she had to close her eyes against a sudden pain, her face going pale.
Abby took the opportunity given her by Penelope’s attention being elsewhere to give a concerned glance to Lord Bagshot. She received a grimace and a reluctant nod in return; he would make sure his wife didn’t do anything that she shouldn’t, which included rushing her recovery and joining them in the design shed before she was strong enough.
Penelope recovered slightly after a few seconds, but her breathing was ragged, her voice was weaker than before and her eyelids were drooping as the effort of coming down to greet the Misfits took its toll. ‘Well, my darlings. I would love to be able to welcome you properly to my humble home, but as you can see, I am rather indisposed; the medications, don’t you know? Please do avail yourself of the facilities, though, and if there is anything you need, please don’t hesitate to ask Biffy or one of the servants. Now, if you’ll forgive me...’
Her voice trailed off and she sagged against the side of her chair, unable to keep herself from exhausted sleep any longer.
The pilots stared at her sadly for a few seconds, but then Lord Bagshot spoke into the silence, his harsh words the more shocking for the softness and gentleness of his tone as he tried not to wake Lady Penelope. ‘I’ll get Penny up to the house, but first let me just first say one thing - don’t you dare pity her. She was hurt doing something she adored and defending the country she loves and I am positive that this little injury of hers won’t keep her down for very long. So, just bloody treat her as you always have. It’s what she wants and what she bally well deserves.’
He didn’t wait for an answer from them, but just nodded and wheeled his wife away around the ready room, back the way they had come.
The Misfits looked at each other, displaying various degrees of shame and thoughtfulness, but then Mac chuckled.
When the others looked at him in disbelief he shrugged. ‘She whipped my arse in the Schnitzel Cup as a wee sixteen-year-old girlie, against all odds. Do ye really think not having any legs is going ter keep her down fer long?’
He shook his head and then turned to go back to the design shed, calling to them over his shoulder. ‘Shake a leg, yer daft Sassenachs, we’ve got work to do!’
‘This is good, this is very good.’
Gruber looked from the plans pinned on the table in the design room to the almost completed frame of the machine under construction in the workshop next door and back again, comparing the two. He tried to imagine the finished aircraft in his mind, but couldn’t quite, so he just shot the man standing next to him a mild look. ‘But will it be good enough to beat the Misfits?’
‘Undoubtedly, sir.’ The white-coated scientist, Walter Blume, bobbed his head nervously. Despite being a well-respected designer and decorated ace from the First Great War, he was still nervous around Gruber and with good reason.
‘It had better be.’
Gruber stared at the man, enjoying the way he wilted under his gaze. He briefly considered letting him know the consequences of failure, but in the end decided against it; sometimes it was best to leave things to the imagination and besides, Blume knew perfectly well what had happened to his predecessor.
He finally broke eye contact when he turned to the table next to the board and picked up the models that had served as inspiration for the new design.
The two model aircraft, one pink and one yellow, had been bought relatively cheaply in the Hamleys toyshop in London by one of his agents, then smuggled out of England at ridiculous expense by unscrupulous Cornishmen.
It was incredibly stupid of the British to sell accurate models of their most advanced technology in a toyshop for all to see; it rendered industrial espionage completely unnecessary. For years the Empire had been buying aircraft, ships and even autocars and trains to study, and the war had not stopped that. The Americans were much smarter and kept their cards close to their chest - for instance, all attempts by Prussian intelligence to get their hands on the plans of old man Tesla’s new electrical weapons had failed and agents had been lost, but that wouldn’t stop them trying; those weapons could change the course of the war and make it so much easier for the right side to win.
‘Have you thought of a name for your new aircraft, sir?’
Gruber pursed his lips, thoughtfully. ‘What is that English saying? Give them hell? Well, let us ind
eed give them “Hell”.’
He tossed the models back onto the table, not caring if they were damaged; they had served their purpose.
He gazed through the window at his new machine, Hölle. ‘Will it be ready in time for my departure?’
‘She will be ready in three days, sir.’
‘You have two.’ Gruber gave the man a last, meaningful look, then left.
Chapter 3
Penelope paid a short visit to the design shed first thing in the morning the next day, bringing along with her a servant, who was weighed down with a few dozen cardboard tubes. The tubes contained blueprints of many of the aircraft, including Mac’s, which had taken part in the Schnitzel Cup during the last fifteen years before the competition ended at the outbreak off the war. Lady Penelope had drawn them up herself, so that she could study them and improve her own designs, and while she herself couldn’t work for very long because she tired too quickly, those designs immediately proved invaluable as a reference tool.
The fitters completed preliminary repairs on Dragonfly by mid-morning and all that was left to do was apply a fresh coat of paint to the new Duralumin panels, which didn’t stop Abby immediately dropping her pencil and taking her up to do her own evaluation of the new springs. She concurred with Gwen’s assessment of them and authorised her to begin looking into new airscrew configurations. As a temporary measure, while Gwen ran her own tests, she and Abby decided to run a five-bladed airscrew on their aircraft, quickly put together by their machinists using existing blades. The new configuration worked well enough and delivered a fair increase in thrust immediately, without needing any further adjustments to their airframes, so they declared themselves satisfied for the moment and put the problem of airscrews to one side so as to concentrate on more important things.
The days passed extremely quickly as everybody, pilots and support staff alike, worked flat out, often long hours into the night. They were desperate to get the squadron back to readiness as quickly as they could. Without working aircraft, they all knew the Misfits were wasted and everyone was keen to have the most effective squadron in the Kingdom of Britain back in the fight as soon as possible.
Abby and Gwen split their time between the design shed and testing, getting used to the different feel and tactics that were necessary with the increased power. They began flying mock dogfights and interceptions on the Lekker, which they had been gifted by the Royal Transport Department, who seemed very keen to get rid of it. Work on the designs of the new aircraft slowed slightly as a consequence, but it didn’t matter very much; the fitters had enough to be getting on with repairing Swift and Dreadnought.
Gwen was run off her feet, but Abby was even busier; not only did she have to do the same designing and testing as her wingmate, but she also had to look through a couple of dozen files, searching for a new pilot, as well as send regular reports to Whitehall on the progress of repairs. She was often awake until midnight and up again at dawn the next morning trying to keep up. Then, to cap it all off, the bigwigs, on hearing that Wasp had been repaired and that the Misfits could scrape together a section, had immediately put them back on limited readiness, thinking that the appearance of at least a few of the famous aircraft in the sky might do wonders for the rest of the RAC.
The Prussian air force, Die Fliegertruppe, or the “Fleas” as the British liked to call them, were being strangely quiet, though, and there wasn’t anything much for the Misfits to do apart from continue with their work.
While the pilots understood the necessity of repairing and rebuilding and were willing to stay on the ground to help the fitters as best they could, it was very much a case of all work and no play and tempers quickly began to get short. On the eighth day, after a fight almost broke out between Charles and Derek, two of the mildest mannered of the Misfits, Abby decided to do something about it. She didn’t need to organise anything frivolous this time, though, like she had with the glidewing competition at Badger Base, because it was obvious that all they needed was to get back up into the air.
She drew up a schedule for the fighter pilots to use Dragonfly, Wasp and Hawk, with the permission of their respective owners and contacted Whitehall with a request that missions be given to Owen, Scarlet and Charles. When Swift was repaired a few days later, she was added to the ready list, giving the Misfits a section from each flight to play with, which opened up many more options of what to do with them and they began going for training flights and practised dogfighting in pairs, with A flight taking on B flight.
One afternoon, after almost two weeks of solid work an urgent message arrived for Abby. Squadron Leader Billingsworth delivered it to the design shed personally, considering it important enough to require his personal attention and she stepped outside the building to read it, not wanting to distract the others from their work.
Officer i/c Misfit. Report BPal post-haste. Hyde expecting.
Abby looked up at the squadron leader, who was smiling at her from under his copious facial foliage. ‘You’ve read this, I take it?’
He nodded. ‘I relieved the operator and took it down personally once I heard the identifiers. It sounds like we’re getting back into the show.’
Abby frowned. ‘Probably. But it’s too early, we’re not back at full strength. We need at least a few more weeks.’
Billingsworth shrugged. ‘Perhaps they are expecting the impossible from you; after all you have delivered it to them before.’
Abby huffed in amusement and shook her head. ‘Well, they’re going to be disappointed this time.’
Billingsworth raised an eyebrow. ‘We shall see.’ He gestured at the message. ‘Any reply?’
‘Acknowledge and say that I’m on my way, please.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ Billingsworth saluted her, then marched back off to the communications shed.
Abby went back inside to tell the others that she was going to be away for the rest of the day.
She had to admit that the call couldn’t have come at a much better time. They had just finished the design of the new A flight aircraft. It had taken far longer than it had taken Gwen to create Devil, partly because there wasn’t the same desperate urgency to get the entire squadron back into the fight, but also because, due to the increased power of the new springs, some basic principles that had always been applied to fighter aircraft no longer applied and the philosophy behind the design had to be adjusted accordingly. It was ready now, though, and all that remained was to neatly draw up two copies, one each for the two construction teams, which could be left for the morning; a few hours wouldn’t make a difference. When that was done and the plans had been given to the construction teams, she and Gwen would help Kitty and Mac finish off the two B flight aircraft, after which they would be free to start improving Wasp and Dragonfly.
Gwen, of course, hadn’t wanted to wait until Abby got back, so she continued working long after Mac and Kitty were gone for the night, finally finishing around midnight.
She put her pencil down and stretched while she frowned down at the pair of identical blueprints.
She and Abby had created a wonderful design, working together well and complimenting each other perfectly, just as they did in the sky, but she wasn’t at all happy with it; it was too functional, it had been designed with only its purpose in mind. There was nothing special about it, nothing that spoke to her as a person and there were no small touches of individuality that said that its designers had put some of their own personality into it.
War was making aviation too impersonal and she had produced a machine that owed more to and appeared more like the Harridan and Spitstream than any of the previous Misfit Squadron aircraft.
She picked up the pencil again and leant back over each of the two copies in turn to angrily scrawl the only names she felt that she could give them - Rapier and Sabre - naming them as the weapons they were. She threw the pencil back down again with a snarl, then turned the light off and left to start the long walk up to the mansion and her bed, leaving
the blueprints where they were.
Abby landed at Hyde Airstrip just as the sun was going down and was escorted directly to the changing room where she got into her dress uniform - she had no idea what she had been called for, so had decided to play it safe and dress for court. The corseted jacket was slightly tighter than it should have been, the gold buttons running in diagonal lines from her shoulders to her waist even more difficult to do up than they usually were; it seemed that nervous energy on its own wasn’t quite enough to burn through the excellent food that Lord Bagshot was providing and she would have to get back up into the air more often if she didn’t want to be too big for Dragonfly’s cockpit soon. Once dressed, she settled the brown silk sash and gold oval-shaped medallion of the Order of Darwin in place over her shoulder for the first time since she’d been awarded it. Lastly, she took her top hat from its box and made sure that the purple silk band was straight and unwrinkled. As always, she lamented half-heartedly that, when she had been recruited, she had been given only the rank of wing commander; if she’d been made a group captain, just one rank higher, she would have had impressive gold braiding around the front of the brim.
The Russian Resistance Page 5