The Lodge was a quiet, modest residence, as 40 room mansions went; like so much of Canberra, it was a temporary structure that after sixteen years had taken on shades of permanence. Of the two studies provided for the Prime Minister, Locock liked the private chamber on the first floor, even if he found the formal room more practical for business. Although he was of two minds about the decor.
“Rum, single malt, Dimple, gin, brandy, and I mean brandy — not cognac, or… well there’s a bottle of Pims lurking back here, and is that Benedictine? The cupboard is pretty bare, Arthur; or I could get us up a bottle of Red Ned, a drop of Muscat?”
“Oh, whatever you’re having” replied the Treasurer casually.
“Well, to tell the truth, I rather fancy a cup of tea,” chuckled Locock.
“But, if there’s any gas in this soda bottle…” There was.
“Ta. So Curtin cleaned you out before he left, then?” asked Fadden, leaning back into a deep armchair with his whisky and soda.
“They had a bit of a shindig before they left.” Locock eased back into his own armchair. “And, with all the comings and goings, the staff have been a bit busy. Have you read Dickey’s report yet?”
“The Casey Enquiry into matters of Security and Intelligence? No, it’s still on my desk, although I did see your minute about a committee.”
“Well, the committee can wait a little,” nodded Locock. “But I was hoping you’d read it, as I need to twist your arm on some funding.”
“Oh, the spies need paying, do they?”
“It’s more a matter of the estimates.” Locock rubbed his ear. “I need to pry half of Naval Intelligence out from under the Naval Board and into my office, and I thought grabbing them by the budget might be the easiest way to do it.”
“Half?” Fadden was puzzled. “Of Naval Intelligence…? It looks like I do need to read that damned report.”
“Under the circumstances, Casey felt he needed to pick a winner for us to build on, rather than try to start something new from scratch, and apparently the chap running Naval Intelligence is best we have.” Locock shrugged. “Putting it directly under the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet seems about the only way to short circuit a lot of petty jealousy and obstructionism. I get the impression the old boy system we have worked well enough in peacetime, when everyone knew who they needed to talk to; but now, with people going everywhere and new faces all over the place… Do you remember Strahan mentioning the Governor General was our principal source for overseas intelligence?”
Fadden nodded. “Aye, and I didn’t need Frank Strahan to tell me either.”
“No? Well you might have mentioned it to me chum,” smiled Locock. “In any case, it seems the good Sir Alex gets a great deal of his information from Long. It’s the only way he’s found to get around your precious civil servants and the all the bloody bureaucracy. We are just not used to taking that sort of thing into account on a day to day basis and we must,” said Locock firmly.
“Well it’s not generally all that useful,” shrugged Fadden. “A few ominous whispers and vague hints without much a fellow can get his teeth into. About as much use as weather forecast for Wednesday a week.”
“No? Then it would not have helped us any to know the Thais were wooing the Hong Kong trading houses?”
Fadden looked a little stunned. “You’re joking?”
“No, but I wish I were. Dicky has seen the correspondence; dated correspondence. Apparently Long passed it up to the ACNB, but somewhere between the Navy Board and anywhere useful, it vanished. There’s something big stirring there and we don’t know what it is. And then there is that wretched coup attempt in India. Halifax loyalists trying to get back into power. We think that’s over, but how do we know? The Halifax people could be regrouping and planning another attempt while we sit here speaking…
“We need this, Arthur; we need this. You keep telling us we need to trim expenditure and maximize tax revenue.
“Oh, it’s only temporary.” Locock said, lying through his teeth. “The Committee will sort out a permanent structure, and then you can punt Long back into the wilderness if it makes you happy.”
Chapter Eight
GIVE AND TAKE
It was a set-up. The Italians had got into the habit of sending Ro-37 reconnaissance aircraft over the area occupied by allied troops escorted by a flight of four CR.42 fighters twice a day. The aircraft would cruise over the allied lines with almost perfect impunity. If the South African Hawker Furies showed up, the CR.42s would move to intercept them and the obsolete old fighters would be forced to flee.
Today, things would be different.
The Hawker Furies would take off from Buna all right. They would move to intercept the Italian reconnaissance aircraft as normal. The CR.42s would move to attack them, also as normal. Only there was a new element to the situation. Flying high over the battlefield, four Tomahawk Is were waiting in ambush.
The first of the fast, heavilyarmed fighters to appear in Kenya, their job was to drive the Italians out of Allied air space. The reason was quite simple. The 12th King’s African Division had arrived and was moving into the line alongside the South African Division. Along with the 11th King’s African Division, the three divisions would mount a counterattack that would drive the Italian Army out of Kenya. So the planners hoped.
Every precaution had been taken to ensure that the Tomahawks would achieve complete surprise. They hadn’t been based at Buna, in case their presence was detected. Instead, they’d used the aircraft’s long range to fly in from Mombasa where they had been uncrated and assembled. They would land at Buna after the mission was over. Then another flight of four Furies would go to Mombasa to receive the new fighters instead.
Looking down, Pim Bosede saw the Furies closing in on the Ro-37. Above them, the CR.42s peeled off and started their dive on to the South African fighters; hoping, this time, to get close enough to engage before they made their escape. The four Furies curved away, once more running for the interior of Kenya. The Italian fighter pilots wouldn’t chase them too far from the Ro-37. The CR.42s continued to give chase, their pilots fixed on the biplanes in front of them.
The Tomahawks closed the gap quickly. The Curtiss fighter was almost 100 mph faster than the CR.42. It had 200 horsepower more and its extra 2,000-pound weight meant it could dive that much faster. Bosede saw the CR.42s swelling quickly in front of him. The Italian pilots weren’t fools; they kept a watch out for an ambush exactly like this. But they were used to the relatively slow pace of conflicts between biplanes. Now, they were up against modern monoplanes. The situation had changed much faster than they had ever experienced before. The Tomahawks grew from almost-invisible dots to full-sized aircraft, painted olive drab except for the snarling red-and-white shark’s teeth marking their noses. The Italians started to swerve out of the way. It was too late.
Bosede saw his gunsight slide along his target’s fuselage. The CR.42 could easily out-turn the Tomahawk. Delaying fire would simply give it a chance to escape the ambush. Bosede squeezed the trigger on his guns. He heard the heavy thud of his two nose-mounted .50-caliber machine guns joined by the faster rattle of the four .303-cals in his wings.
The enemy fighter lurched as the stream of bullets tore into it. Bosede could have sworn he heard the whumph noise as the fuel tanks exploded. The CR.42 became a streaming comet of flame. The Italian pilot threw up his arms in a hopeless gesture to protect his face from the fire that engulfed him.