Still under full throttle, the Rolls-Royce engines screamed in protest as they climbed out, turning into the sun that blinded the Italian gunners. Shasa winged over and went down into the attack.
He could see the bomb-bursts now, tiny fountains of pale dust, spurting up around the crossroads, falling amongst the antlike column of vehicles in the gut of the hills. Those poor bastards down there were taking a pounding, and as they tore down the sky the second flight of Capronis released their bombloads. The fat grey eggs, finned at one end, went down with a deceptively slow wobbling motion, and Shasa twisted his head around in one last sweep of the heavens, squinting into the sun, checking that the Italian fighters were not waiting up there, lying in ambush; but the sky was unsullied blue, and he switched his full attention back to his gunsight.
He picked out the leading Caproni in the third flight, hoping his attack would spoil the bomb-layer's aim, and he touched left rudder and rotated the Hurricane's nose downwards a hair's breadth until the silver and blue Caproni swam gently in the rose of his gunsight.
Six hundred yards and he held his fire. He could see the insignia of the fasces on the fuselage, the bundled rods and axe of imperial Rome. The heads of the two pilots in the cockpit were inclined earthwards, watching for the fall of the bombs. The twin machine-guns in the revolving power turret were trained aft.
Five hundred yards. He could see the head and shoulders of the turret gunner. The back of his helmet was towards Shasa. He had not yet spotted the three deadly machines screaming down onto his starboard quarter.
Four hundred yards, so close that Shasa could see the scorching of fumes around the exhaust ports of the Caproni's engines, and the gunner still was unaware.
Three hundred yards. The bomb bay of the Caproni began to open under her swollen belly, pregnant with death. Now Shasa could make out the rows of rivet heads along the silver fuselage and on the wide blue wings. He settled his grip on the joystick between his knees and slipped the saf etylock on the firing button, readying the eight Browning machine-guns in his wings.
Two hundred yards. He played the rudder bars with his toes and the gunsight drifted over the Caproni's fuselage. He stared through it, frowning slightly with concentration, his lower lip caught between his front teeth. Suddenly a line of bright fiery phosphorescent beads strung across the nose of his Hurricane. The gunner of the second Caproni had spotted him at last, and fired a warning burst across his nose.
One hundred yards. The gunner and both pilots in the leading Caproni, alerted by the burst of fire, had looked round and seen him. The turret gunner was traversing frantically trying to bring his guns to bear. Through the gunsight Shasa could see his white face, contorted with terror.
Eighty yards. Still frowning, Shasa pressed down with his thumb on the firing-button. The Hurricane shuddered and slowed to the recoil of eight Brownings, and Shasa was thrown gently forward against his shoulder-straps by the deceleration. Bright streams of tracer, sparkling like electricity, hosed into the Caproni, and Shasa watched the strike of shot, directing it with quick subtle touches of his controls.
The Italian gunner never fired his turret guns. The Perspex canopy disintegrated around him and concentrated fire tore him to shreds. Half his head and one of his arms were pulled off like those of a careless child's rag doll, and went spinning and bouncing away in the propeller wash. Instantly Shasa switched his aim, picking up the silver coin of the spinning propeller and the vulnerable wing root of the Caproni in his sights. The crisp silhouette of the wing dissolved like wax in a candle-flame. Glycerine and fuel vapour poured from the motor in liquid sheets, and the whole wing pivoted slowly backwards on its root, and then tore away and spun off, a dead leaf in the slipstream. The bomber flipped over on its back and went down in a flat inverted spiral, unbalanced by the missing wing, weaving irregular zigzag patterns of smoke and vapour and flame down the sky, and Shasa turned all his attention to the next formation of bombers.
He brought the Hurricane round still under full throttle, and he pulled his turn so tightly that the blood drained away from his brain and his vision turned grey and shadowy. He tensed his belly muscles and clenched his jaw to resist the drainage of blood, and levelled out on a head-on course with the next Caproni in line.
The two aircraft raced together with terrifying speed. The nose of the Caproni swelled miraculously to fill all Shasas vision, and he fired into it at pointblank range and then pulled up his nose and they flashed past each other so close that he felt the bump and jar of the bomber's slipstream. He came round again, hard and furiously, breaking up the Italian formations, scattering them across the sky, turning and diving and firing until with that abruptness that is so much part of aerial combat, they were all gone.
He was alone in an enormously blue and empty sky and he was sweating with adrenalin reaction. His grip on the control column was so tight that it hurt his knuckles. He throttled back and checked his fuel gauge. Those desperate minutes at full throttle had burned over half a tankful.
Popeye flight, this is leader. Come in all units. He spoke into his microphone and the response was immediate.
Leader, this is three! That was the third Hurricane, with young Le Roux at the controls. I'm down to quarter of a tank. All right, three, return independently to base, Shasa ordered. And then he called again. Popeye two, this is leader.
Do you read me? Shasa was searching the sky around him, trying to pick up David's aircraft, feeling the first prickle of anxiety.
Come in, Popeye two, he repeated, and looked down, searching for smoke rising from a wrecked aircraft in the broken brown land below. Then his pulse jumped as David's voice came in clearly through his headphones.
Leader, this is two, I have damage. David, where the hell are you? Approximately ten miles east of Kerene crossroads, at eight thousand feet. Shasa glanced into the easterly quarter and almost instantly picked out a thin grey line being swiftly drawn above the blue horizon towards the south. it looked like a feather.
David, I see smoke in your area. Are you on fire? Affirmative.
I have an engine fire. I'm coming, David, hold on! Shasa flung the Hurricane's wing up in a steep turn and rammed the throttle open to its stop.
David was a little below him, and he went screaming down the sky.
David, how bad is it! Roast turkey, David said laconically, and ahead of him Shasa made out the burning Hurricane.
David had his stricken machine in a steep side slip, so that the flames were not streaming back over the cockpit canopy but were being blown out to one side. He was going down fast, trying to build up speed to the critical point when the fire would be starved of oxygen and would extinguish itself spontaneously.
Shasa bore down on him and then eased back his own speed and kept slightly above and two hundred yards off. He could see the bullet holes in the other machine's engine cowling and wing. One of the Italian gunners had got in a good burst at David. The paintwork was blackening and blistering back down the Hurricane's fuselage, almost as far as the cockpit, and David was struggling with the Perspex canopy, trying to open it.
,A jammed canopy and David will cook, Shasa thought, but at that moment the canopy came free and slid back easily and David looked across at him. The air around his head was distorted by the shimmering heat of invisible flames and a brown patch appeared on the sleeve of David's tunic as the khaki cotton scorched.
No good! I'm hitting the silk, Shasa. He saw David's lips move and his voice echoed in Shasa's earphones, but before he could reply, David pulled the helmet from his head and released his shoulder-straps.
He lifted one hand in a farewell salute, and then turned the burning Hurricane onto its back and fell out of the open cockpit.