Voices on the Wind - Assault

In the wardroom things looked a little less serious. The Navy were good hosts, the rum flowed liberally, and the sheer beauty of the southern seas and bright sunshine lifted spirits. Robin consulted with Squadron Leader Grant and Flight Lieutenant Toff about how best to divide the group into two temporary flights, distributing the more experienced pilots between them. Around them, the pilots were chatting and laughing, making light of the challenges ahead. They teased each other that the lack of ammo made no difference since so-and-so couldn’t hit anything anyway or pretended to contemplate the advantages of spending the rest of the war with a harem in the Sahara somewhere. The alcohol had taken the edge off Robin’s nerves as well. He was just beginning to look at the whole thing as an adventure, when he caught sight of Warrant Officer Crane.

The engineering officer entered the wardroom, made a beeline for the bar, and there knocked back first one and then a second shot of something without hardly taking a breath in between. Robin didn’t like the look on his face.

Excusing himself, Robin went over to the bar. Slipping in beside the engineer, he asked in a low voice, “Something wrong, Crane?”

The engineering officer turned to face him with a rigid expression — rather like a man facing a death sentence. “You’re all going to drown tomorrow, sir. Every last single one of you.”

“Steady on! What makes you say that?”

“The tank feeds don’t work.”

“What?”

“The drop tanks the Navy provided have fuel feeds incompatible with the Spitfire.”

“Are you sure?”

“While the rest of you gents have been boozing it up here in the wardroom, I’ve been in the cold and wind on the flight deck trying to get the bloody things to work!” the Warrant Officer exploded.

Robin flinched inwardly at the rebuke but made no protest. Instead, he replied, “Right. Take me to the flight deck and show me the problem.”

By now, the sun was going down and had lost its power. Combined with the stiff breeze blowing in over the port bow, the air had a sharp, cold edge. Crane led the Wing Commander toward the bevy of tethered Spitfires vibrating in the wind like a flock of shivering birds.

Around the closest Spitfire, a half-dozen open crates and a score of men and gathered. The men wore Duffel coats and red faces. Two different fuel canisters lay under the Spitfire’s wings and coils of rubber fuel piping curled around haphazardly like a pride of pythons. Crane led Robin directly over to one of the coils, picked up the start of a tube and showed him the metal plug. “The Navy uses these AN/6 fuel pipes and that’s all they’ve got on board, but the Spitfire requires a AN/8.” While that was gibberish to Robin, Crane was demonstrating the problem by holding up the nozzle of the fuel pump to the socket in the wing where it had to connect. The Navy fuel pipe was patently too small.

Crane showed the more senior officer the various methods they had tried to wedge the little nozzle into place. With growing and understandable frustration, he demonstrated how none of these jury rigs withstood jostling or bouncing. “We can fix something up, but the moment you run into turbulence or bank hard, they’ll fall apart. It’s sheer madness to send you up there with these improvised fixtures! You’ll bleed fuel over half the Med until, when the main tanks are empty, you’ll all just fall out of the sky. It’s as simple as that.”

Robin looked around at the circle of Navy mechanics who had been sharing Crane’s ordeal. He saw the same hopelessness in their eyes. A petty officer noted, “We’ve tried everything, sir.”

“All right. We better take this up with your senior Flight Engineering Officer.”

They took it farther than that. With the carrier hammering its way through an increasing sea, Robin found himself facing Captain Edmund Rushbrooke, the commander of HMS Eagle, again. The atmosphere was decidedly less friendly than after he’d successfully flown the first Spitfire off the deck. Carrier captains were not only very senior in rank, they were also men marked for flag rank. Rushbrook was not amused by junior officers bringing him a problem he could not fix. From under his heavily braided cap, he eyed the three men facing him with deep suspicion and demanded (not unreasonably, Robin conceded), “Why wasn’t this fatal incompatibility discovered sooner?”

The hapless Fleet Air Arm Engineering Lieutenant was visibly cringing under his Captain’s stare as he explained, “The Spitfires were in crates, sir. We could not begin to install the auxiliary fuel tanks until they had been assembled and put aboard.”

“Obviously! Yet surely someone gave some thought to whether our auxiliary tanks would work on the Spitfires?”

“The tanks do work, sir,” the Lieutenant hastened to point out. “They fit neatly under the wings and can be attached without difficulty.”

“A lot of bloody good that does if the fuel can’t flow into the main tanks!” Rushbrooke pointed out. He was right, of course, so the others held their tongues. After a pause, Rushbrooke demanded, “So? What are you proposing? We can’t go back now! We’re half-way to the launch position! Have you forgotten we’re accompanied by a battleship, a cruiser and nine destroyers — all to ensure the arrival of these sixteen Spitfires! They must take off as planned!”

When the Fleet Air Arm Lieutenant appeared too intimidated to contradict, Robin had no choice but to speak up, “The point of this operation is not to launch Spitfires but rather to deliver them to Malta. They cannot arrive, if they don’t have the fuel to fly the distance. If we can’t use the auxiliary fuel tanks, then the launch will have to take place from a point close enough to Malta for us to fly on our main tanks alone.”

Rushbrooke had naturally focused on his subordinate. Now he swung his gaze to the RAF Wing Commander. He made no attempt to disguise his displeasure, and Robin sensed what was coming almost before Rushbrooke snapped, “Just when did they let you out of school?”

“Eighteen years after my father went down with HMS Turbulent,” Robin replied, meeting the Captain’s eyes. Taking advantage of the split second while Rushbrook processed that answer, Robin added, “And I have no intention of following my father to a watery grave simply because the Royal Navy is too proud to admit they made a mistake.”

“If anyone made a mistake it was the Air Force,” Rushbrooke replied testily.

“Fine. Blame us if you like, but the fact remains that since the drop tanks won’t work, you will have find a launch point within 450 miles of Malta.”

“Totally impossible! The Italian Navy has capital ships in Trapani!” Robin continued to gaze at him to convey that this information did not change his opinion. “You will launch as planned,” Rushbrooke insisted, closing the discussion.

“No,” Robin replied, firmly. Beside him, the Fleet Air Arm Lieutenant and Warrant Officer Crane caught their breaths. Rushbrooke was so stunned by such insubordination that Robin had time to add, “There is absolutely nothing to be gained by wilfully destroying 16 Spitfires and killing 16 highly trained pilots. It will not help Malta. It will not help the Mediterranean fleet. It will not help us win the war. It simply does the Germans’ work for them.”

Rushbrooke’s eyes narrowed. “What did you say your name was?”

Robin could think of only one reason why his name mattered: Captain Rushbrooke intended to complain about him by name. “Priestman,” he replied. Then he realised that he needed to play every card he had, and he added pointedly, “Robert Cyril Priestman.”

Rushbrooke flinched, snorted, and then grunted, “Presumably some relation of Admiral Sir Cyril Priestman.”

 “His grandson.”

Captain Rushbrooke snorted again and then turned to bark at the Officer of the Watch that they needed to signal the Admiral Syfret’s flagship. Facing Robin again, he snarled, “I’ll let you know the Admiral’s decision.” He did not add, ‘get off my bridge,’ but it was understood.

Half an hour later, HMS Malaya ran up a signal ordering the entire task force to change course. Eleven warships reversed direction and started back for Gibraltar. As they steadied onto the new course, the Fleet Air Arm lieutenant remarked to Robin, “I suspect you are the least popular RAF officer in the entire Navy at the moment.”

And my grandfather will wring my neck next time he sees me, Robin added mentally, but it didn’t matter. He’d been at loggerheads with Admiral Priestman half his adult life, and the person who mattered to him most, Emily, would never have forgiven him, if he’d caved in. She wanted him to stay alive, not make senseless sacrifices.