The Russian Resistance

by Simon Brading

The pilots drank, each using the moment to remember in their own way the woman who had given her life for others, then returned to their meals as if nothing had happened.

  It took a few moments for conversation to return to normal and, while the naval officers were reluctant to ask about something that was so obviously very private, the journalist in Freddy Featherstonehaugh had no such qualms and he leaned forwards to speak to Abby across the table.

  ‘Excuse me, but would you mind my asking what the meaning behind that rather emotional gesture was?’

  Silence fell as everybody wondered how Abby would take the question and several of the more drunken naval officers prepared handfuls of spotted dick to fling if needed, but she smiled, somewhat sadly, and nodded, to the disappointment of the aforementioned officers.

  ‘Today is my younger sister’s birthday. She died in France.’ She looked at the First Officer, Twining, sitting at the head of the table. ‘I apologise for bringing down the mood of the party.’

  ‘Please,’ Twining shook his head, ‘if we do not take time to remember those who have died, then we are in danger of forgetting what we are truly fighting for.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Abby nodded her gratitude then turned back to the journalist. ‘Cece died of injuries sustained during a fight against overwhelming numbers. We were sent up against a bomber raid with a heavy escort along with a squadron of Harridans. At one point, Cece spotted two Harridans in a dogfight with eight Prussian fighters, MU9s. She didn’t hesitate and ordered Monty to stay with the squadron while she went to the rescue.’

  Abby’s voice cracked and she paused, taking a sip of her drink while she fought to control her emotions. ‘She managed to shoot down five of them and drove the rest away, saving one of the two Harridans.’

  She took a deep breath, once more struggling with the tears trying to force their way out. ‘But that was when the Crimson Barons showed up. She...’

  She faltered again, but this time she lost her fight and was forced to stop, covering her eyes.

  Owen came to her rescue, continuing the story. ‘None of us were there to see it, we had to hear it from the Harry pilot afterwards, but apparently she was jumped by Gruber and three of his pilots. Going up against MU9s is one thing, going up against Flamme and three Blutsaugers is quite another, but even so she managed to shoot down one of them before Gruber got the upper hand.’

  He stopped and looked at Abby, wondering if she wanted to continue herself, but she nodded and forced a smile, silently giving him permission to continue.

  Owen grimaced, but returned her nod and went on with the story. ‘Gruber hit her with multiple shots and according to the Harry pilot she just stopped manoeuvring and started flying in a straight line. The remaining Blutsaugers flew away, but Gruber stayed. He flew with her, on her wing for ten seconds or so, then just broke off. That was the last the pilot saw of her, because he had to return to the fight.’

  Owen paused. If Abby was going to stop him it would be now, when all that was left to tell was the tragic finale, but she just stared into her glass, not meeting his eyes, so he took a deep breath and finished the story.

  ‘Her aircraft, Wasp, was riddled with holes, missing its tail and barely capable of staying in the air, but somehow she got home, bringing it back to us so that it could fly again. She, however, was beyond repair and died of her wounds in the cockpit, less than a minute after she landed, as if with her aircraft safe she could let go. Wasp is in the hangar above us as we speak and has helped this squadron shoot down countless Prussians.’

  Owen finished and there was a respectful silence as those people who hadn’t known the full story, including Gwen herself, took the time to fully assimilate it.

  Then, one by one, the Navy officers lifted their glasses and mirrored the gesture that the Misfits had made before.

  Chapter 13

  Despite Lieutenant Commander Bush’s ominous words, there were no further incidents during the rest of the voyage; either the Prussians just hadn’t been expecting anybody to send a convoy round the North, it being so close to winter, and weren’t prepared to follow up on the loss of their scout, or they were too busy elsewhere. Whatever the reason, the convoy arrived safe and sound off the coast of the Kingdom of Muscovy just after dawn three days after the incident with the scout plane.

  The Misfits had been ordered not to show themselves until it was absolutely necessary, and they had been instructed to rendezvous with a Muscovite aircraft over a deserted stretch of the Muscovite coast which would guide them to Vaenga. That meant that, despite the fact that none of B flight’s machines or Bloodhound could take off from the carrier on their own, they had to find a way for them all to do so.

  Most of the sailors said that it was impossible and indeed there were several enterprising souls running a book for those people who wanted to wager on the outcome, but the squadron had put their heads together during the voyage and, between the lot of them, had come up with a uniquely unconventional solution to the problem.

  Dreadnought had been fully repaired and the fitters had spent the previous day reassembling her on the flight deck, along with Vulture, Bloodhound, and all four B flight aircraft. They had been taking a big risk to do so because if they were attacked the only aircraft that would be able to take off would be Hummingbird, but it had been necessary for the next part of the plan.

  The A flight pilots and Scarlet carried out their final checks in the hangar. They were supervised by Naval fitters because their own had been sent ahead the night before in two destroyers, along with a supply ship carrying the dismantled Harridans, in order to set things up at Vaenga and be on hand to take care of the aircraft when they arrived. Then, when they were ready for take-off, they made their way up to the flight deck to watch the rest of the squadron.

  Everything had to be done in a precise order and there was no room for mistakes. Dreadnought had been placed furthest forward on the deck, almost blocking the hangar lift and the first move was hers to make. Her engines coughed and began to turn as a compartment in the roof of her fuselage opened and a dark grey balloon quickly began to inflate. Once the balloon was fully inflated, her engines rotated, pointing the airscrews almost directly upwards, and roared as they were put into full emergency power.

  As the huge, eye-achingly painted machine lifted gracefully from the deck, a signal was given and the thrum from the Arturo’s engines deepened as the Captain put her into full power, accelerating ahead to compensate for the slight forward motion that Dreadnought had when taking off in such a fashion and keeping underneath her as much as possible.

  Dove had been placed in a sling attached to the winches in Dreadnought’s wings, much like the old comical drawings of a baby in a stork’s mouth, and as Wendy delicately slowed her ascent, Chastity was gently lifted into the air.

  This manoeuvre in itself was nothing unusual for the Misfits; it had been employed many times at Badger Base with Bloodhound, which had a takeoff run longer than the runway, but they had never tried it with multiple aircraft before and in order to get all of the aircraft off the carrier, Jaguar and Hawk had been put in similar slings - Jaguar fixed to the bottom of Dove using the attachment point where a second spring would go and Hawk similarly attached to Jaguar.

  It seemed that everybody on the ship held their breath when Jaguar lifted into the air, but it was when the sling became taut around Hawk that hearts really missed beats; Dreadnought had more than enough lifting power for all three B flight machines, their combined weight was comparable to Bloodhound’s, but the system that they were using meant that the weight of two aircraft was on Dove. She had been chosen as the newest of the machines and as the one that theoretically had the strongest fuselage, but there had been no way of testing whether she would be able to cope and if she couldn’t then it would likely result in the death of at least two pilots, if not three.

  Thankfully, Dove did cope with the weight and the ungainly four-headed creature steadily gained altitude, soaring up into the blessedly c
lear skies, doing so more and more rapidly, the interceptor aircraft swinging sickeningly from side to side, looking more like dead fish than the elegant predators they were.

  The audience on the carrier knew what was coming, but it was still a shock to them when Dreadnought reached a safe height and Hawk suddenly dropped away and plummeted from the sky. The twin-boomed aircraft spun lazily, showing that she hadn’t been properly centred in the sling, but as soon as she had gained enough speed and her wings bit into the air, Kitty expertly righted her and put full power on to climb away. The sling dropped from her to fall harmlessly into the sea, where it bobbed, buoyed by floats, to be recovered once the Misfits were away.

  The process was repeated by Jaguar and Dove, much less dramatically, and finally the watchers were able to draw a breath as the four aircraft went into a holding pattern over the carrier.

  Compared to the drama of Dreadnought’s departure, that of the rest of the aircraft was almost normal. Bloodhound was helped aloft by Vulture which had a similar balloon system to Dreadnought and then it was time for Hummingbird to fly from the side of the carrier and land on deck to pick up Swift, the last remaining B flight machine, in its sling.

  Finally, all that remained was for A flight and the Harridan instructors to get aloft one by one and, only an hour after Dreadnought’s engines had powered up, all fifteen aircraft had formed up at twelve thousand feet and were speeding towards the rendezvous point.

  It was just as well they had Owen in Bloodhound with its radar, otherwise they would never have found their escort.

  Not only was he circling the wrong coordinates, but he was at twenty thousand feet and not the twelve that they had been told to expect him at. They were also unable to contact him over the radio because the frequency they had been given only filled their ears with static and they couldn’t try other channels for fear of giving their presence away to any listening enemies that close to the border. Then, when they formed up on him, he was obviously so startled that his aircraft, a silver three-engined leisure craft much like their Lekker, lurched in the sky as its pilot jerked on the controls in shock. When he finally regained control and was no longer a risk to them, Abby formed on his wing and waved, receiving, bizarrely, a salute with a shot glass from the pilot in return, before he began a shallow turn towards the coast, a few miles away.

  Their destination, Vaenga, was only twenty miles inland, some fifteen miles north of Murmansk and not far from the river that fed the city. Thankfully, despite not having gotten anything else right, the pilot didn’t manage to get lost, although the airfield was almost as well-camouflaged as Badger Base had been and it would have been easy enough to do.

  Half a dozen large, but squat, hangars nestled among thick forests of silver birch trees. They flanked an oval landing field made of sand that had been flattened and compressed by machinery and that was long enough for even the larger aircraft to operate comfortably. Smaller brick buildings, barracks and mess halls and such, were separated from the hangars by what looked like a security gate and a gap in the trees leading from the gate showed where a single narrow access road winded its way towards the city, which could be just about made out in the distance.

  As the British landed, familiar figures came out of the buildings to meet them - the support staff had evidently arrived safely, which was a relief, given the generally shoddy organisation the Misfits had encountered up until then.

  The Muscovite machine landed first, but Abby and Gwen were hot on its heels and were directed to one of the low hangars by soldiers in greeny-grey uniform. Abby jumped out of her cockpit as soon as she could to speak to Sergeant Potter and Gwen hurried after her, not wanting to miss the conversation.

  ‘Well, Sergeant?’ Abby spoke quietly so that the nearby Muscovites wouldn’t be able to hear.

  ‘It’s adequate, ma’am, but no more than that. Their repair facilities are dreadful, they have scant stocks of ammunition or Duralumin, beyond what we brought with us and I wouldn’t be surprised if most of that weren’t half-inched before long. And as for the base - there are very little in the way of creature comforts, although there is plenty of grub and a whole bloody warehouse full of vodka.’

  ‘I’ll talk to Sky Commodore Campbell about having a reliable guard posted on the stores. Anything else?’

  ‘The airfield.’

  ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, it’s alright if it’s dry and it’ll probably be better when the ground freezes, but there’s no drainage and if we get any heavy rain then it’s probably going to turn to mush. We might want to see if we can’t reinforce the undercarriages on A and B flight.’

  Abby looked at Gwen. ‘That’s your department, Gwen. Assess the situation, please and make a decision on how feasible it’ll be.’

  Gwen smiled, pleased to be given such an important task. ‘I’ll see if we can pump some water from the river, we can pour it on the side of the field and see what happens.’

  Abby nodded. ‘Do that if you can. Anything else, Henry?’

  The fitter sighed. ‘Well, there is one thing, ma’am...’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t bloody like them?’

  Sergeant Potter had taken them to the hangar where the crated Harridans were being assembled one by one. There he had introduced them to the commander of the squadron who were going to be trained up on the British fighters, Captain Sergei Baryshnikov, a short and swarthy, but colourful character with a long thin black moustache. He was wearing a light blue uniform which would have been more appropriate on a cavalry officer in the nineteenth century, with a tall black busby, shiny black riding boots and an immense amount of gold braid on his jacket. He and his squadron had evidently put on their dress uniforms to greet the Misfits, but then gotten so side-tracked at the sight of the aircraft they were being forced to fly that they had completely forgotten to do so.

  ‘Just look at them! They’re so... so... boring!’ The Muscovite waved dismissively at the two Harridans that had already been assembled and exclaimed in excellent English that was only slightly tainted by an accent. ‘Where are the bright colours to taunt the enemy? The brass pipes to add flair...? There is not even a single cog in sight! Come!’

  He gestured for them to accompany him and, followed by the rest of his pilots, they went back out of the hangar and along to the next one in line. He stood in front of the open hangar doors and opened his arms wide, beaming at a group of stubby fighters sitting inside. ‘Now, that is what a fighter should look like! Yours...’ he bowed apologetically, ‘...they are not bad, they are very pretty... but these are Russian machines and would run rings around them. We don’t need those, those... Harried Dames or whatever you call them, we have our own wonderful aircraft.’ He looked lovingly at the machines, which gleamed in the cold morning light.

  Gwen gave the aircraft a once over, assessing them, trying to look beyond the bright colours, which put even the Misfit machines to shame - compared to the drab camouflage of the Harridans, which in their factory form didn’t even have the splash of colour usually provided by roundels, they looked like peacocks next to chickens. They were identical, factory-constructed aircraft, with thick, stubby fuselages that ended in blunt noses and short wings which would provide plenty of lift and allow them to roll quickly. They were quite obviously turn fighters and would probably have been very effective, if it weren’t for the unnecessary decorations strewn all over them - brass pipes that led to nowhere and did nothing, golden cogs that weren’t actually attached to anything. There were even lines of semi-precious stones ringing the canopies of a few of the aircraft, which had to ring the pilot with a soft halo when the sun shone on them. She had to admit that they looked lovely and each of the machines was very distinct and individual, but the embellishments only really served to add weight and ruin their aerodynamics.

  Russians had always liked to decorate their technology as much as they could, often adding impractical touches that had no discernible purpose, almost as if they were seeking to disgu
ise its function and turn it into a work of art instead, like their famous Fabergé eggs which hid mechanical delights within a beautiful shell.

  The British, on the other hand, had always focused on practicality and function foremost, but they were especially austere now that resources were being conserved as much as possible. While some decoration was certainly allowed, and even encouraged as long as it didn’t affect the proper working of the machine in question, it was kept to a minimum. Only the very vulgar, or those seeking to highlight how rich they were, ornamented their property or inventions, but even then, they never went to the same lengths as the Russians.

  The British were like the Prussians in that regard, but while British technology was always elegant and pleasing to the eye, Prussian solutions to the same problems were invariably stark and almost brutal in their efficiency.

  In this case, though, the function of the aircraft hadn’t only been disguised by the Russians, it had also been impaired and the Misfit machines, even those of B flight, would absolutely annihilate them. The Harridans, despite being stock aircraft, would undoubtedly do the same.

  Abby rolled her eyes at Gwen and smirked, obviously having come to the same conclusion as she had. ‘Fancy jumping back into a Harridan?’

  She hadn’t thought she would, but as she sat in the cockpit of the Harridan, waiting for Abby to give the signal to take-off, she found herself enjoying herself, smiling widely as she reacquainted herself with the machine she had flown before joining the Misfits, the machine she had helped design and test.

  It was one of the new marks of Harridans that her parents had brought out only recently, armed with twelve machine guns and equipped with the new Rentley-Joyce spring. It had been easier to ship new Harridans straight from the factory rather than send any of the older models, so the Muscovites were being supplied with them even before some of the British squadrons got their hands on them.