“The Mediterranean Fleet is not at its peacetime establishment.” The shout was still aggressive, but Halifax was already beginning to back away from the conflict. He had brought the matter of Mussolini’s movements in North and East Africa up with the Germans and they had denied all interest in them. As far as they were concerned, what Italy did was Italy’s business and they could do it on their own. If Britain chose to resist the Italian moves, that was their business as well and it would not affect German-British relations in the slightest.
“And we shall reduce it to that establishment.” Pound sounded agreeable, but his mind was running through the options. There are two old battleships out there, Ramillies and Royal Sovereign. They can come home without too much loss to ABC and we can use their crews for the new battleships King George V and Prince of Wales. Likewise three old cruisers can come home and we can use their crews for three of the new Dido-class. If ABC loses his four oldest and slowest destroyers, we’ll have a paper compliance with the Armistice while maintaining our position out there.
“Those ships will come home and the rest dispersed between the various bases we have available.”
It sounded reasonable and Halifax took the chance to back off. Pound saw him do so and smiled gently to himself. With one modern, capable squadron at each end of the Mediterranean, his Navy could still do its duty out there.
“Watch those Italians. Their CR.42s have a hell of an edge over us.”
Which, considering we are flying Hawker Fury fighters, is hardly a great surprise. Pilot Officer Pim Bosede was beginning to understand just how bad the situation was in Kenya. It wasn’t that the Italians had achieved great successes; it was that there was so little stopping them from doing so. The South African Air Force had sent two squadrons to help hold the line in Kenya. One had Ju-86 bombers; the other had the Fury. On the ground, two brigades of the King’s African Rifles were holding off six brigades of Italian troops. Quite how they were doing it, Bosede couldn’t see; but they were, and in doing so, they had bought time for the First South African Division to arrive and form up.
“What do we do about it, broere?”
“We fight commando style.”
Flight Lieutenant Petrus van Bram wondered just how long this freshfaced recruit would last. The Italian pilots were skilled and fought well. Their aircraft outperformed the mix of old aircraft deployed in Kenya across the board. Technically, there was no reason why the allied forces in the country should have survived. van Bram was a deeply religious man, and he assumed that the survival of the small group of fighters on the front line at Buna was due to divine intervention. The more secular members of the squadron agreed with him. There wasn’t a more plausible explanation.
“We hit and run, try to pick off a bomber here, a reconnaissance aircraft there. Problem is, the bombers and reconnaissance aircraft are faster than us as well. Every so often, the Italians try to visit one of our airbases. They got a few Hardys on the ground the first time they tried, but we have observers out now and we get a few minutes warning.”
“What are their pilots like?” Bosede was frantically absorbing as much information as he could.
“Individually, very good. They are well trained and they know their work. Operational planning is not so much so. They have the same attack patterns and schedules, so we know when they will arrive and what they will do. The fighters stay very close to the bombers. So we can get in, pick off a straggler and get away before they respond. We cannot break up the formations, but we can do a little damage here and there. How many hours do you have?”
“On the Fury? Eight. But I have flown much prior to joining the Air Force. Mostly Curtiss Travel Air 6000s.”
van Bram grimaced. “I hope you have not picked up too many bad habits. We will take an orientation flight and see. Take off in 30 minutes.”
An hour later, Bosede was looking down at the landscape of northern Kenya as it slowly unfolded beneath him. Right in the middle of the parched brown and light green was the rich dark green stain of the Ajao River. His briefing on navigation had been simple. All one has to do was to find that dark green strip and follow it south; that would inevitably lead a pilot to the airstrip at Buna. The problem was that Italian bomber pilots could do the same thing. Somewhere below him, in the reddish brown and green, the King’s African Rifles were fighting to hold off the Italians. There was no sign of that; it was as if the vastness of Africa had swallowed the war whole.
Ahead of him, van Bram was rocking his wings. Bosede saw him gesturing downwards. There was an aircraft down there. Bosede quickly took its details in. A radial-engined biplane; very distinct from the inline-engined Hardy and Fury used by the South Africans. An Italian Ro.37, probably on a reconnaissance mission. He saw van Bram peeling over into a long dive and followed suite.
About half way down, the rear gunner in the Italian aircraft must have spotted the two Furies. A stream of red tracer dots poured out of the rear position, searching out van Bram’s aircraft. The lead Fury held its fire, though. van Bram ignored the tracer lights all around him, until he had closed the range to nearly point-blank. Then van Bram fired. A long burst from his twin Vickers guns abruptly ended the fire from the Ro.37’s rear gun. Bosede dived below the Ro.37 and came up from underneath, firing a burst from his twin guns into the reconnaissance aircraft’s belly.
The two fighters swerved away. The Ro.37 streamed black smoke from a damaged engine. Bosede was expecting to make a second pass; van Bram pointed upwards. A formation of four biplanes was already closing in. They were instantly recognizable: Fiat CR.32s. Bosede knew their reputation from Spain. Not as fast as the later CR.42, but extremely agile. Even one on one, they were far more than a match for the old Fury. He was quite relieved when van Bram broke off the attack and headed south. Unwilling to get involved in a long tail-chase, the Italian pilots formed up around the damaged Ro-37 to shepherd it back home.
Following the river worked. The rich foliage that surrounded it was visible from a long way away. It was simple to find it and then head south. After landing, Bosede climbed out of his Fury and stretched. It all seemed a waste of time somehow, and he said so to van Bram. His flight leader didn’t agree.
“We saw off a reconnaissance aircraft and that helps our broere on the ground. As long as we do that, the Italians will keep their fighters escorting the other aircraft and not have them running free to hunt us down. So we did a little good work today. Not much, perhaps, but a little. We are doing what we can and we will continue to do so until help arrives.”
“Railways. Now there is a problem to conjure with.” Sir Martyn Sharpe had an almost dreamy look on his face. In his youth, he had wanted, more than anything else, to be a train driver. Even today, he had an abiding fascination with the operation of steam locomotives mixed with a genteel dislike for their diesel equivalents. The idea of rebuilding an entire continentwide railway network was immensely appealing to him.
“We already have made a good start on building a railway network.” Pandit Nehru objected and bristled slightly. Railways were a sore point in the Indian Congress Party; one on which everybody disagreed with everybody else over everything.
“A start, yes; but hardly a good one. We have railway lines built in four different gauges: narrow, meter, standard and broad gauge. They don’t link up well and the track-beds are so light they can’t take heavy freight. It’s a frightful mess. We need to have a strategic plan for the development of our railway system. Communications are key to modern development.”