Air Strike Read online

  He had come through the concluding eight months of the desert campaign without serious damage to his aircraft, and the only time he had been shot down was four days previously by the over-excitable American anti-aircraft artistes. Sicily didn’t seem to be a lucky place for him, he thought. The thrill of dive-bombing had been quickly replaced by anxiety about getting his aircraft safely home and fear of falling into enemy hands.

  The latter seemed the more likely, for his oil pressure was dropping.

  *

  Maj. Corrado’s battery was in action against German and Italian dive-bombers and fighter-bombers when he saw the Spitfires slant into their attack. Although not an airman he could discern the beauty and precision of the manner in which the leading aircraft changed its attitude, and describing a lovely arabesque against the clear blue sky, dived as straight as an arrow on to the nearby enemy positions. He had no way of knowing that Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill was in the cockpit, but he had been thinking frequently of that awesome consumer-of-whisky-without-turning-a-hair and issuer of lethal threats; so it was natural for O’Neill to occur to his mind at that moment. Corrado turned to Tech. Sgt. Pienze, who was standing beside him — Pienze’s duties did not bring him much in direct contact with his battery commander, but their Mafia relationship did draw them physically as well as obligatorily to one another — and remarked, “Guy in that ship sure knows how to handle it.”

  “Yeah.” Pienze shifted his wad of chewing gum from cheek to cheek. “Wanna bet it’s that crazy Limey came to put the B on us coupla days back?”

  “Could be. I heard something about him since then: made it my business to ask around. Seems he’s kind of a hero...”

  “The British don’t admit to having heroes,” the sergeant objected.

  “O.K., so they don’t admit to it. But this guy’s got a Distinguished Flying Cross and bar, and an American D.F.C. to go with ’em.”

  In his simple Chicagoan gangsterish way Tommasso Pienze assumed that there must be a fair Mafia representation in high office in the British and American Air Forces: it seemed like a lot of medals, and how else? But he said nothing.

  Suddenly the sergeant pointed. “Lookit there, Pete... Major, sir... one o’ the guys bin hit.” They saw sparks and flashes from tracer striking the engine cowling of the last Spitfire in the first flight of six.

  “They can’t blame our guys for it this time,” the major said.

  Pienze was a cynic: “I wouldn’t lay no odds on that.”

  “Talking of laying... you’d better check out our nursing assistants... make sure they’re O.K.”

  “I already did, sir. They’re safe enough in the slit trench beside the first aid post.”

  “Good. Can’t have our camp followers injured by enemy action.”

  “That’s right, Pete. They ain’t bad-lookin’ broads. We don’ wan’ they should get a bomb splinter in the kisser, or a leg blown off. Gahd knows, we was lucky enough to get ’em: replacing them wouldn’t be easy. If it hadn’t of bin f’r my cousin Salvatore, we wouldn’t be so lucky, yet.”

  “Yeah. When we drop ’em off at Catania, your cousin Salvatore can give us a set of replacements.”

  “I already decided that,” said the transportation sergeant. “This bunch sure is gonna need a rebore by the time we make it to Catania, the way the guys is appreciatin’ them and with the Krauts holding us up like this, an’ all.”

  *

  Salvatore Ferugino, sergeant of artillery, saw the Spitfires’ attack at the same time as his American cousin was commenting on it. He gloated when their bombs tore so effectively into the German tanks and troops. This was the way to hasten the departure of the Germans from Sicily! There were approving murmurs from his comrades as they all watched the devastation.

  The artistry of the Spitfires’ technique appealed to them also: they uttered cries of approval and exclamations of “Bravi ragazzi!” and “Che bello!” when each section of three aircraft, in faultless rhythm, successively half-rolled and pulled through, then, appearing to stand vertically on their noses, hurtled down with the sun reflecting off them as though from burnished silver. The ensuing eruptions of red, yellow and blue flame, with grey and black billows of smoke, appealed aesthetically to the watchers as much as a canvas by Caravaggio or Botticelli, as well as exciting them with the prospect of the imminent defeat of the Germans. They didn’t like the Germans for themselves; but were prepared to welcome them back as tourists with money to burn. For the immediate future, however, the Sicilians were eager to see the backs of their enforced guests: as civilians, they were tolerable as long as their money lasted; in uniform, they were execrable; and execrated.

  Ferugino rubbed his hands. “Good lads. We’ll soon be in Catania at this rate.”

  One of his Mafia chums in the same battery said, “Thank God we’re not anti-aircraft. I wouldn’t have the heart to shoot at one of those beautiful little aeroplanes, even though I knew we had used the wrong fuse-settings, in case a shell hit one by accident...”

  Sgt. Ferugino yelped with alarm. “Cafone! Imbecile! Bringer of ill-fortune! Have you got the evil eye, or something? Look what you’ve done now.”

  For the sixth Spitfire in the formation was streaking away from the target with a skein of smoke behind it, and, as they could see when it flashed a few feet overhead, oil covering the engine cowling and windscreen.

  Sgt. Ferugino kicked his friend hard and crossed himself. Then, eyes fixed on the Spitfire, they began to run after it. They watched it pull up into a steep climb and roll on to its back. They saw the pilot fall clear and his parachute break open. They were still stumbling and panting over the rock-strewn hillside when Toby Yule landed with a thump that knocked the breath out of him.

  *

  When Yule found his engine had been hit he had the choice of staying at low level with the rest of the formation, where he was safe from flak and enemy fighters, and had the protection of the rest of the squadron if the latter did appear; and climbing high enough to be able to glide back to base if his engine cut: but thus inviting the attention of Me 109s and Fw 190s, and putting not only himself but also his companions at risk. He knew he ought to climb as fast as he could, to gain the height needed for a glide all the way back to base. But the C.O.’s voice on the R/T changed his mind. Fiver sounded as confident as usual: “Hang on, Toby... we’re going downhill... you’ll have enough height to bail out if you have to, when we level out over the valley.”

  They were following the slope of the mountain, some 50 ft below them, and the other side of the valley ahead was in Allied hands. They would fly along it a good 600 ft above ground when they pulled out of their present shallow dive as they passed the forward British and American positions on the valley floor.

  But it was not to be. His engine faltered, the temperature gauge rose rapidly and his oil pressure dropped dangerously low. Switching on his R/T he called, “Engine packing up... going to climb and bail out...” and pulled the stick back hard to make the best use of the speed he had built up in his dive. He had just shot up another 650 ft when his engine seized, and with a few gouts of smoke and loud bangs, stopped dead. Flicking on to his back, the aircraft already losing height, he tumbled out hastily and jerked at the ripcord as soon as he safely could. He was so concerned about his nearness to the ground that he hardly felt the tug when his parachute opened. He braced himself for the slam of machine-gun or small arms bullets into his unprotected body as it drifted down to the side of the hill.

  Inexpertly manipulating the rigging lines, he contrived to guide himself away from some boulders and a clump of sharp-topped pines. When he hit the ground his heels skidded on grass and he fell flat on his back heavily. The open parachute dragged him a few yards and into a tree, where he struck his head and around which the silk wound itself.

  He was sitting up dazedly when a portly young Italian artillery sergeant accompanied by a scrawny little private soldier arrived at a trot, as breathless as he was, and set about disentangling him and
helping him to his feet solicitously.

  Chapter Five

  When the squadron landed at its dusty airstrip it was Yule’s engine fitter and airframe rigger whose faces expressed the deepest gloom. The other ground crews fussed around their aircraft and pilots with their habitual cheerfulness; overlaid by a decent expression of concern for the one who was missing. Yule’s fitter and rigger stood disconsolately by the empty space in the dispersal line where his aircraft should have been, looking hangdog and expectant as they waited for someone to tell them what had happened. From 13th May, when the last remaining German and Italian forces in North Africa had capitulated, until now, two months later, the squadron had spent only the past week in action. And for the three months before that it had suffered no casualties. The loss of a pilot after so long was therefore even more grievous than when everyone had grown to expect such events during a long, intense period of battle.

  It was Warren who first reassured them. “We saw him bail out safely. He’ll be back soon.”

  Had Fg. Off. Yule landed well away from the enemy line? they asked.

  “The lines are so fluid just now, it’s hard to say.”

  “If Jerry’s picked him up, sir... or the Eyeties...”

  “He’ll still get back. Don’t worry. The enemy’s going to have enough trouble getting out of Sicily without bothering about prisoners as well. Besides, we’re pushing on so fast we’ve probably already overrun the place where he came down.”

  Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill, who had joined them, made a statement which gave evidence of the poverty of intellect which had retarded his advancement and made his superiors so eager to detach his squadron from its parent wing at every opportunity: Fiver’s Lot had learned how to survive under the peculiar leadership of their Commanding Officer; but let loose among a lot of other squadrons, he was the cause of a considerable amount of chaos. A good type, everyone at H.Q. agreed, but best kept at arm’s length. No one flew more beautifully and pressed on more regardlessly; it was just that he didn’t always fit in with other people’s more conventional notions. Fiver said, “Good job he stayed with us instead of wasting power in a climb: he’d have come down well behind the Jerry line if he’d sacrificed speed for height.”

  Vincent, who was also in the group, murmured, “And he’d have had the bore of having to glide dead-stick all the way back here.”

  Fiver didn’t even waste a glare at him. If he had been able to recognise sarcasm he wouldn’t have come so serenely through the past twenty-six years; for he had always been a frequent object of it, without being aware of this. Not a frown creased the inch-and-a-half of forehead above his heavy eyebrows, nor did his wild eyes lose their confident gleam. He knew that he would have been able to hold the crippled Spitfire in the air long enough to skim the hillside and brush the grass of the valley floor to make a perfect landing almost right here on the airstrip. If young Yule couldn’t do so, it only went to prove that aircraft handling was still the criterion which really separated the men from the boys. He was too dense to realise that he himself was an aerial genius.

  Tustin, questioning the pilots about the sortie, extracting combat reports from them, constantly referring to a map at every mention of where they were when it was known that Yule’s aircraft had been hit, the exact place at which he had suddenly left the formation to climb before the bailing out, the very spot at which he had jumped out of his aircraft and the precise position of his landing, became increasingly optimistic. When he had completed the debriefing he went to O’Neill’s office in a corner of the one small hangar which the airstrip possessed. The squadron adjutant, one of the most resilient and long-suffering officers in Desert Air Force, emerged from the C.O.’s presence with his usual scuttling gait that had earned him, from Fiver, the nickname of Crab. He gave the Intelligence Officer a weak, tortured grin in passing, said, “He’s being difficult”, and crabbed out of sight. Tustin had heard Fiver fulminating about “damned time-wasting bumph” while standing at the door after knocking. He supposed that, set against the scale of the battles that were raging all round them, poor old Crab’s misery was a mere pinprick; but how the poor devil must be longing to get back to the regularity of a crowded third class compartment on the 8.30 from Surbiton to Waterloo every morning and the comparative lack of uncertainty of his routine as a solicitor, far from Fiver’s vagaries.

  Fiver looked up from glowering at a memo from someone at Wing H.Q. “What can I do for you, Tusty?”

  “I’d like permission to go off camp for a couple of hours, sir.”

  Fiver sat back and began to put a cigarette into his amber holder, a sure sign of returning geniality. “Why, you dirty old devil! Can’t you keep your pants on till after we’ve been released?”

  Long inured to his C.O.’s puerile innuendoes, Tustin nevertheless felt a quick stab of annoyance. One of Walter Vladimir O’Neill’s sustained fantasies was that his I.O. led a clandestine sex life of unparalleled vigour and resourcefulness. This was because Tustin was so earnest-looking and known to be uxoriously faithful to a plump, plain wife in Pinner. He also happened to be the father of no less than five children, all born within the span of seven years, and here lay the source of O’Neill’s coarse accusations. In private life Tustin was a barrister with chambers in Lincoln’s Inn, and to his everlasting chagrin his C.O. had learned that he had a large practice in divorce cases: further material for his rancid jests.

  “I rather thought of seeing what I could find out from the Security Liaison types about Toby Yule, sir. I can at least get a line on who’s got hold of him... I don’t imagine he’d be able to hide out at all... and how soon we can get him back.”

  “Glad to hear you’re so optimistic. My own view is that if some of these unshaven local brigands have ‘rescued’ him they’re more likely to hold him to ransom than bring him back.”

  Security Liaison was a euphemism for a branch of the British Intelligence organisation which kept in close touch with the local populace. The implication was that its contacts lay among duly constituted authorities such as municipal governments. In fact, its main purpose was to foster any partisan, guerrilla or underground movement and obtain information from civilians who had been behind the enemy line. In Sicily it meant almost exclusively making contact with the Mafia (while politely maintaining the fiction that no such organisation existed) and the outlaws who infested the mountains. Sqdn. Ldr. O’Neill had a robustly sceptical attitude to all such roundabout ways of winning the war. He was convinced that the only way to do this was by assault. Even for indirect assault he hadn’t much time: flanking movements and all that clever stuff. Go straight for the objective, old boy, was his motto. Take a decently trained squadron in and blast the Hun off the face of the earth. However, he acknowledged that it was part of Flt. Lt. Tustin’s devious trade to prosecute the war in this labyrinthine fashion, so he said, “Get on with it, then. And fix up another delivery of that rather decent Albanello we were drinking at dinner last night: see if you can get your hands on some Val de Lupo or a good honest Faro while you’re about it, too. And I hope you bring some good news about young Toby.”

  He watched his I.O.’s stiff-backed, elongated, gaunt figure stalk from his office, with an inward chuckle. One had got the crusty fellow an M.B.E. six months ago for doing his job so outstandingly well and working about twenty hours a day for week after week when things had been really hectic during the final phase of the desert war; so he should have the gumption to realise that one didn’t entirely lack confidence in his secretive trade. But one didn’t want to be overt about one’s approval of anything not immediately concerned with leading the squadron on an op.

  Tustin drove off in his pick-up van to consort with the Army Intelligence unit a few miles back towards Lentini which was responsible for Security Liaison in the sector. He hoped someone there would guide him forward again towards the front line and contact with one of the local informants who must have filtered through from the enemy side within the past few hours. If there
was not already some word of Yule’s fate, there soon would be; he was confident of that.

  The missing pilot’s two particular cronies, however, were less sanguine about his predicament. Vincent, lean, quick-moving, his sharp face always vivid with emotion, usually mischievous, was reminiscent of a whiplash; and so, often enough, was the way he talked. He flicked words at his listeners, frequently cutting. He looked on Toby Yule as an innocent at large: totally honest, unsubtle, and often tacitly bewildered by a world he had played no part in making and into which he had been thrust, to be mentally, and sometimes, as now, physically, beaten-up. Toby was still in essence a good public school prefect, the type that had proliferated among the subalterns of 1914-18; constantly striving to do his best and obeying orders unquestioningly. Hence his obedience to that ass Fiver this morning, when he could have made altitude and glided home in one piece. Toby was the ideal 2nd XV rugger wing-three-quarter: give him the ball and tell him to run for the line, and he’d dash straight ahead until brought down with a tackle, occasionally side-stepping and dummying when he remembered to. Vincent said to Warren, “If Toby gets put in the bag and isn’t seen again until we’ve won the war, it’ll be entirely Fiver’s fault.”

  “You know that, Vince, and I know it; and so does everyone else: but Fiver doesn’t, that’s the trouble. He’s so lamentably dim. He makes a N.A.A.F.I. candle look like a ruddy searchlight. But what we all also know is that if there’s any chance of snatching Toby out of the bag, he’ll go and do it on his own. Without hesitation. That, of course, is a further manifestation of his obtuseness.” The war had interrupted Warren at the end of his first year up at Oxford, reading Politics, Philosophy and Economics, and he often expressed himself like that. “Tusty’s disappeared somewhere, looking inscrutable, but I wouldn’t mind betting he’s off on some cloak-and-dagger business to do with Toby. I can’t see what good that’ll do. The poor lad came down in full view of everyone for miles around: the Huns must have sent a patrol to grab him before he’d even got half-way down to the deck. Despite what I told his crew about Jerry not wanting to be bothered with prisoners when he’s got enough problems getting himself out of here eventually, of course they evacuate P.O.W.s to the mainland by air...”