A Good Clean Fight (13 page)

“What would we fly?” Barton asked. “Hurricanes?”

“Yes. Brand-new.”

“And hung with long-range tanks like a bull's balls. You left out a few stops, sir. It's five hundred miles over emerald-green jungle to Kano. After Kano there's Maiduguri,
then
Fort Lamy, Geneina, El Fasher and El Obeid,
then
Khartoum. After Khartoum it's still a thousand miles via Atbara, Wadi Haifa and Luxor before you reach Cairo.”

“Goodness,” Bletchley said. “You've done your homework.”

“I met a guy in Tommy's Bar once who'd just done a ferry job from Takoradi. Took him more than a week.”

“Ample time to view the scenery.”

“He said every stop is a dump. He said Kano to Khartoum is seventeen hundred miles of bugger-all.
Nothing grows, nothing lives. Not a nice place to have engine-failure.”

Bletchley finished his tea. He swirled the dregs and looked at the leaves.

“He told me ten percent of the kites never make it to Cairo,” Barton said. “He told me you could navigate by the wrecks.”

“Slight exaggeration,” Bletchley murmured.

“Takoradi is a bitch, sir.”

“Of course it is. But it's the only way we can get fighters to Egypt, short of sending them around the Cape and that takes forever. The Takoradi route is working wonders, Fanny, but it needs more pilots and I've got the job of finding them.”

“Don't look at my squadron, sir. We're fighter pilots.”

Bletchley read his tea-leaves again. “From what I hear, not everybody is totally convinced of that.”

“Things will change, sir. You watch.”

“Oh, I shall,” Bletchley said. “Believe me, I shall watch very closely.”

Barton flew back to his airfield, thinking hard all the way, and sought out his intelligence officer. Schofield was about thirty, a hardworking young architect until the war came along. He was a good listener. Barton said nothing of the risk to his own job, but he spelled out the Takoradi threat. It was essential, he said, that the squadron rapidly made itself indispensable.

Schofield sharpened a pencil. All his pencils were as sharp as needles. “You know the form, Fanny,” he said. “This is one of those long pauses in the fighting while we all get our breath back. Our army's not strong enough to attack. Rommel's not ready yet, either. So he's not about to risk his lovely Messerschmitts in the sky. Why should he? He needs them for his next battle. I'd do the same if I were Rommel.”

“Wing reckons the other squadrons are making kills.”

Schofield shrugged. “They prang the odd bomber, now and then.”

“I'd give a crate of Scotch for the odd bomber, now and then.”

“You can't shoot them down if they won't take off.”

Barton took one of Schofield's pencils and tested it on a fingertip. It was very sharp indeed. He pricked his skin, jerked his hand and snapped the point. “Sorry,” he said. Schofield took it from him and began re-sharpening it. “Looks like a dead end,” Barton said. He sucked his finger.

“Well,” Schofield said, “unless you know a way to get the enemy off his backside, you're somewhat stymied, aren't you?”

Barton went away and brooded over it. Next day he called on the wing commander again. “I know how I can give my boys a crack at the 109s, sir,” he said, “but I need your okay.”

The wing commander looked and waited.

“It involves doing a bit of strafing,” Barton said. “Rather like Ray Collishaw. Wasn't he AOC Western Desert when Italy came into the war? May 1940?”

“June,” the wing commander said.

“Now, correct me if I'm wrong, sir, but didn't the Italian Air Force have him hopelessly outnumbered? Five to one? Six to one? Something ridiculous like that. And Collie simply ignored the odds. The RAF went on the attack and never stopped.”

“He used to say ‘We'll fox 'em,'” the wing commander said. “Collie was a great one for foxing the enemy.”

“And didn't it work? The poor bloody Italian infantry never knew where they were going to be bombed next! Collie used to look at the map and say, ‘We've just attacked here and here, so they'll expect us to hit there and there next, but we won't do that, we'll hit this, that and the other instead.' And the Eye-ties got so twitchy they screamed for their air force to come and protect them.”

“Standing patrols,” the wing commander said.

“Exactly. Dawn-to-dusk umbrella over the troops. A wicked waste of good fighters and it wore them out like ninepins.”

“I don't think ninepins wear out, do they?” the wing commander said. “Still, the Italians certainly gave themselves big servicing problems. They ended up with more kites in the hangars than in the air.”

“Collie foxed 'em,” Barton said brightly. “So can I.”

“What with? The Tomahawk's not a bomber.”

“But we can ground-attack the buggers, sir. We can strafe them every ten minutes. Strafe 'em from asshole to breakfast! They won't like that! They'll scream for fighter cover. Standing patrols of 109s! Then at last my chaps can have a decent scrap.”

The wing commander thought that if Barton grew any more enthusiastic, smoke would come out of his ears. “I'll put it up to Group,” he said. “Don't hold your breath.”

*   *   *

Group disliked the idea.

“Barton's bored, is that it?” the group captain said. “Tough titty. We're not here to amuse Barton and his boys.” The group captain was suffering from dhobi itch, a form of athlete's foot in the crotch that prickled maddeningly. He could barely restrain himself from scratching.

“Exactly what I told him, sir,” the wing commander said.

“There are fundamental flaws in his proposal,” said the group captain. “This isn't 1940, Barton's not Collishaw, and the Luftwaffe is not the Regia Aeronautica.”

“There's another thing, sir. Barton's squadron is almost out of range of the enemy ground forces.”

“That's no problem. I can move him forward. Far forward.” The group captain wriggled his backside as
hard as he dared. It did no good; if anything it aroused the dhobi itch; but sometimes you had to act whether it worked or not.

“I've been strafed once or twice,” the wing commander said cautiously, “but never day-in day-out. They say it's a bit of a bind.”

“Do they? Then they're farts.” The group captain got up and walked stiffly to the window. “Constant strafing is utterly demoralizing. Worse than bombing. Far worse.”

“I suppose the Tomahawk is quite good at ground attack.”

“Not bad. It certainly
looks
ugly enough, with those bloody silly shark's teeth.” The group captain squinted at the bleached-out glare and watched a little dust-devil whirl across the sand, tottering like a drunk, until it spun out of view. “What it boils down to,” he said, “is giving Barton a free hand to make a complete bloody nuisance of himself in the hope that he scares up a few Me 109s.”

“That's about it, sir.”

Group decided to sleep on it. Next day he telephoned Air Commodore Bletchley. “Look, sir,” he said, “you've known Squadron Leader Barton a long time. What d'you think of him?”

“I like him. He's a typical New Zealander. A bloodthirsty young bugger with precious few scruples. Admirable.”

“And this plan of his?”

“Well, it raises two simple questions. What's the worst that can happen? And what's the best that can happen?”

“The second's easy: we get a chance to thin out Rommel's 109s now. Worst? I suppose the absolute worst is bang goes a squadron of Tomahawks.”

“Which are obsolete.”

There was a pause.

“I've a feeling I've overlooked something,” the group captain said.

“Don't get sentimental,” Bletchley told him. “Spare me that.”

The group captain hung up. He locked the door, took off his shorts and spread some new anti-fungoid cream all over his hectic crotch. He had no faith in the treatment. This was Africa, and Africa always won. Standing in his shirt, with his legs wide apart, he telephoned Wing and gave his decision: transfer Barton's squadron to LG 181 immediately and tell him to begin strafing operations a.s.a.p.

“Right, sir,” the wing commander said. “Who knows? This might solve all Barton's problems.”

“I expect it will. One way or another.”

Delicately, the group captain stepped into his shorts. He winced as he pulled them on. War was tolerable, but war plus dhobi itch was beyond the call of duty.

*   *   *

Major Jakowski's desert-brown open-top Mercedes swept across the parade ground in front of the Italian army barracks in Benghazi and stopped next to the main entrance. Captain di Marco stepped forward with six men and a sergeant. He was the wrong side of fifty, too old for combat, but he knew the desert, he spoke adequate German and therefore he had been made a liaison officer. He was tall, with gray hair turning silver and a serious, unblinking face whose skin was lightly pockmarked like an unripe orange.

Two of his men hurried to open the rear doors of the Mercedes while another two maneuvered a wheelchair into position for Major Schramm to use.

Di Marco saluted. “Good morning, major.”

Jakowski returned the salute with the minimum effort. It was ten a.m. and he was sweating already.

They processed through the barracks. Soldiers stopped
what they were doing and stiffened to attention until the group had passed. Finally it reached a large room, draped with Italian flags and regimental pennants. There were captured Arab swords on the walls and a dais with a twice-life-size bust of Mussolini. A laurel wreath lay around its neck. A dozen chairs upholstered in red leather surrounded a table of polished oak.

“We're a little early,” di Marco said. “Would you like some iced lemonade?”

“I'd like some blood,” Jakowski said. He wandered off and looked at a photograph of cavalry.

“They raided us again, two nights ago,” Schramm said. “Not Barce. Tmimi, near Derna. Just a landing-ground, but they caused a lot of trouble. Could you make it iced tea for me?”

The captain looked at the sergeant, the sergeant nodded at one of the soldiers, and the soldier went out. Jakowski came back. “Horses are useless in the desert,” he said.

Time passed. The soldier returned with the iced drinks. A little later, four army officers came in and di Marco made the introductions. The senior Italian officer, a brigadier, invited everyone to be seated. Schramm's wheelchair was eased into place beside the table.

Jakowski had asked for this meeting. He had heard that the Italian army was making its own plans to counter the SAS raids. It made sense to coordinate his operation with theirs, whatever it was. He sat back and let the brigadier open the discussion.

Jakowski's knowledge of Italian went little further than restaurant menus. The brigadier had no German. After a couple of minutes, di Marco gently stopped him and began to translate.

“The Italian High Command has examined the concept of maintaining a mobile column in the Sahara in order to intercept enemy patrols, and it has decided that this is not the most efficient way to use its resources.”

“Why not?” Jakowski asked.

“Because its resources are small, while the desert is big.”

“They'll never succeed if they never try. How can—”

“Be quiet,” Schramm said. “Let him finish.”

“Instead,” di Marco said, “a combined operation of the Italian air force and army is being planned. Long-range reconnaissance aircraft will search the desert all day, every day. When they find an enemy patrol, a unit of Italian paratroops will be flown immediately to that spot.”

“They'll be dead before they touch the ground,” Jakowski said. “Those SAS jeeps carry heavy machine guns.”

Di Marco spoke to the brigadier, and the brigadier replied.

“The paratroops will not be dropped within machine-gun range of the enemy patrol,” di Marco said. “They will be dropped several kilometers away.”

“In that case they will never catch the enemy,” Jakowski said, “no matter how fast they run.”

This time the brigadier did not wait for di Marco's question. He rattled off a confident statement as he opened a folder and spread out some large photographs. A jeep-like vehicle was shown descending beneath a cluster of three parachutes. It landed on its wheels, the silk canopies collapsing. Men drove it away.

“You need specially adapted aircraft to do that,” Jakowski said. “How many has he got? And how many search aircraft?”

Di Marco came back with the information. At that moment, only one search aircraft was available but more were promised. As for aircraft to deliver vehicles by parachute: several large troop-carriers were being adapted as a matter of urgency. They would be delivered at the earliest possible opportunity.

“That's too late,” Jakowski said. “The threat is
now.
We must act
now
.”

The brigadier understood his tone of voice and spoke a few crisp words. “You believe in confronting the enemy,” di Marco translated. “We believe in outwitting him.”

There was little more to be said. After a few minutes the meeting ended.

On the way out, Schramm said: “I know it's not your style, but I must say their solution seemed to have a lot of merit.”

“Too much machinery. Too many things to go wrong.”

“Air power can be valuable,” di Marco said.

“Look: there's no easy way to do a difficult job. You can't fight the battle from some remote operations room. You've got to get out in the desert and track down the enemy and blow his damned head off, five hundred kilometers from anywhere. It'll take sweat and guts and sheer bloody persistence. Jumping out of airplanes is no short cut to success.”

They passed yet another garlanded bust of Mussolini. Schramm said, “How often do you change the laurel wreaths?”