Chita was coursing through still, quiet air as part of a three-plane flight of Condors, returning to Africa from Hong Kong and the East Indies.
It had been a restful journey. Their flight path over the Indian Ocean had been mostly without clouds or incident. They needed this. Their experience providing bombing support for the invasion of Hong Kong had been harrowing – far worse than anything they had experienced in Africa or Borneo. Anti-aircraft fire had been intense, and there had been occasional British fighter defenders, preying upon the Portuguese bombers.
Chita had been lucky, and had not been subject to their attacks, but a third of the whole airwing had been lost in the combat there, and temporary losses to damage had brought them down to about 50% operational strength – the worst they had experienced so far during the war.
Word was, they would soon be employed in convoy raiding again, either from Portugal, or even from the newly captured Portuguese base at Nairobi, from which they could reach Allied shipping traveling through the constricted Red Sea – seemingly an even better prospect than catching them as they exited the Straits of Gibraltar!
As they approached the African coast, a line of pillowy white clouds demarked the shoreline from north to south. The formation began a shallow dive, aiming to fly underneath the clouds. The overcast was too high, in places, to fly over, and one did not wish to get lost within a maze of gauzy canyons. Darkness would be near by the time they reached Nairobi. There might be storms beneath the clouds, but facing them was better than getting stuck within the clouds themselves, with the tempests that might lurk within to destroy an unsuspecting or overly arrogant pilot.
The tension increased… If only because those billowing thunderheads looked like they might cause a wild ride ahead.
“Action, two-o-clock!” shouted Aaran, from his navigator’s observation bulb atop the aircraft. Everything else set aside, Ari’s and Paolo’s eyes darted to their right with anxious concern. Three defined dots – obviously aircraft – had just emerged from a languid, wispy puff of cloud to their starboard side.
Chita was on the far side of all this, but already the shapes seemed large, and menacingly dark. They had achieved complete surprise – perhaps having tracked the three large birds from distance, they had hidden in the cloud and emerged in perfect deflection firing position.
Already, their wingtips were winking with little flashes of light, and streaks of smoke and trails of fire were lancing out toward the Portuguese bombers. Ari watched one stream of bullets and tracers collide with their flight commander’s plane. A spray of debris leapt from his wings and fuselage, falling away. Now the damage was marked by a thin trail of whitish-gray smoke…. No, vapor. Glycol coolant. Very bad.
Immediately, the large, bulky planes began to bank and turn into the Condors, maneuvering to not fall too far behind them, and to pass behind, and end up on their five-o-clock flank once they’d turned around. That meant
Chita would be the center of attention! In one smooth, decisive move, Ari threw
Chita’s four throttles full forward. Both of their compatriots had done the same, hoping speed would save them from sure destruction.
“They’re Fulmars!” Esteves said, from his gun position in back. His guns were already chattering. “Carrier-based.” They had not even seen a lot of enemy aircraft, but these types were known to be operating in this area, and they knew there might be a British aircraft carrier nearby, since it had been flushed from its base at Mombassa not long before. They were obviously sticking around, trying to cause problems for the Portuguese advance.
The Fulmar was a stretched, two-seater fighter – much longer than the Portuguese Messerschmitts from back home. It was armed with eight .303 caliber machine guns, mounted in the wings – very like the armament of the Hurricanes and Spitfires which had fought creditably from bases in Hong Kong during the recent campaign which had devastated their airwing. Thankfully, the Fulmars were not so nimble, nor as fast.
Ari and
Chita had faced anti-aircraft fire, before. Some of it very intense, and from close range. But the only fighters they had faced were at long range over Gibraltar. The British just hadn’t had a lot of aircraft in the theatres where Chita had operated.
This was different. This was
personal. They were being chased! Hunted. By a powerfully armed foe, regardless of whether it was a top-of-the-line craft or not.
Their engines were carrying the Condors at a speed, now, not much less than that of the pursuing planes. Those drifted, mothlike, in the range just beyond close and way closer than far. They would be able to approach the bombers, slowly, but couldn’t run circles around them, by any means. The Condors were not loaded with bombs, and unburdened by most of their fuel supply at the end of a long trip. They were light, clean, and fast. Not quite as fast as these two-seater fighters…
With plenty of time to line up, the Fulmars’ pilots took careful aim until one of Pascoal’s tracer streams connected with one, and the target shuddered. He faltered, briefly, then fell back and climbed, trying to stay out of Pascoal’s limited field of fire. If the plane remained immediately behind
Chita, it had a better chance of not being shot. He fired, again, his bullets spraying wide.
Pascoal added, from his rear-facing underside position, “He’s learned his lesson. Not getting too low, not too high.” As he spoke, Pascoal targeted another of the two planes still below the formation, and frightened another into evasive maneuvers. The third poured a fusillade of fire at
Chita – wasting ammunition like a rookie, a voice in the back of Ari’s mind told him, and yet… All those lethal projectiles! His skin crawled, his stomach clenched.
Another rat-a-tat of machine gun fire reached Ari’s ears from behind them. Esteves, maybe? Then silence, then again. And then the subtle vibration of
Chita’s airframe suggested they were being fired at, too – and hit. A handful of miniature jets of smoke sped past the cockpit – missed shots, but too near for comfort. What had the hits done? Not too serious? He hoped. The plane continued to fly, uncrippled.
We’ve got to shake them! Ari thought to himself urgently, just as Paolo hissed, “We’ve got to shake them!” The fear was clearly evident in his voice.
Standard procedure, Ari vaguely remembered from his untested air-to-air training, was to remain in formation during combat. This offered the best mutual protection from the neighboring bombers. Each could support the others with their own defensive fire, and Ari noted his commander’s plane was shooting at something behind them.
As if to confirm this best behavior, Pascoal shouted, “Nicolau got one!” Referring to one of the rear gunners on the seemingly hamstrung lead plane, he added, “The Brit just exploded! Now he’s in a spin and in flames!” That left two…. Better odds….
A flash, coincident with another light shudder, drew Ari’s attention to their left wing. It had been as if he felt this wound in his own arm, as an extension of his craft. His baby. The outboard engine was aflame. The rush of air past the cowling kept the fire from completely engulfing the engine mount, but Ari knew if they didn’t get the fire out quickly, it wouldn’t keep. He furiously jabbed at the fire extinguisher button for that engine. His copilot intuited what was going on, and responded with activity. Spoken questions would just get in the way in a situation as tense as this.
Stretching to peer out his window, again, Ari could see that the engine was just smoking now. Not afire, except perhaps in a smouldering fashion. How long would it remain controlled, he wondered. Had the flame only retreated, to regroup, then later to rush forth and take them?
Leaving no time for contemplation, bullets could be heard and felt ripping through other surfaces of the plane, now. He gathered that at least one, maybe two, of their pursuers were concentrating on
Chita.
One, he inferred, as suddenly the lead plane, commanded by his friend Floriano, shattered in a bright but momentary explosion. His field of view prevented his seeing what happened next. His horror was damped, but he could tell by watching Paolo’s astounded expression that his friend’s end was certain, and quick. Agony and loss warred with fear; his attention divided, momentarily, between grief and a survival instinct.
Chita would NOT be next!
In a moment of decision, Ari turned the wheel, and banked his plane hard to the left. The Condor didn’t lumber, but it responded slowly, steadily. Pascoal’s guns bit out, but there was no report of contact. Peering out his window, Ari strained to see his enemy, but could not. “Afonso!” Ari called back to their dorsal gunner, Esteves. “Watch for a target. I’m going to turn back.”
“Aye, skipper!” he replied.
Ari reversed the bank. The Condor was not a light plane, and the maneuver took longer than he had hoped – and, like a kite, the bulk of his plane’s flight surfaces caught the air. For good measure, he cut the engines back part way, and their scream subsided, rapidly, to a dull roar. The ever-present rustle of airflow past the canopy waned. Staccato reports from the back indicated that Esteves did, in fact, see his target.
“Got him…” came his tentative voice, barely audible over his .30 caliber’s chattering. “Got him! YEAH!!!” From the top bubble, Aaran echoed the loud cheer, having witnessed the victory.
Ari, unable to see anything but his partner’s plane to the right, breathed a sigh of relief, knowing their chances of survival just increased exponentially. Then, suddenly checking his euphoria, he glanced out to the left, to see how the fire was going. Engine number one was still smoking, and rotating slowly… After an instant of puzzlement, Ari realized Paolo had feathered the engine without his having to order it – thus saving them from the drag caused by an inoperable propeller catching the wind with its broad blades. In any case, the situation seemed controlled.
“Captain,” Pascoal reported. “The last fighter is breaking off, and heading home.” Then, his voice cracking with emotion, he added, “We’re saved!” Instantly, the intercom was filled with incoherent cheering and shouting. Paolo beat his hand against Ari’s shoulder, and Ari pounded his fist into his copilot’s leg.
“The luck of the cheetah!” Manny declared, from his compartment below the flight deck. Manoel had been badly wounded from their encounter with a British cruiser nearly a year before. He had been on medical leave for five long months, having to leave many weeks of prime convoy hunting season to a substitute. But he had come back, and had already demonstrated he had not lost his touch as one of the airwing’s crack bombardiers.
Giddy laughter and elation reigned for another long moment before Ari’s maturity manifested itself. He instructed, “All right, boys… Enough! We’re not out of danger, yet.” He ran a quick scan of the instruments, then asked, “Did anyone see ‘chutes from Pégaso?” referring to their flight leader’s plane. The others answered in the negative. It was just as well, Ari supposed. They were still over the sea, and these waters were reputed to be populated with sharks.
As Paolo led a soundoff, to make sure no one had been injured, Ari considered their situation. Their fellow traveler, off their starboard wing, seemed to be undamaged. But they were slowing down to match
Chita’s sluggish pace. On only three engines, she could make Nairobi just fine, he figured. But one of the wing-mounted fuel tanks had been punctured, and the self-seal wasn’t working quite as designed. They were losing fuel even as the other gasoline-hungry engines were having to work harder to make up for the loss of one of their team. Would they have to redirect to Mombassa, he wondered?
“Mayday, Mayday,” Ari called over the broadcast radio, then used the code words for
Chita and Nairobi. “Seta Seis, inbound for Facão Oito – enemy fighters caught us. Major Meosa’s plane was lost. We have engine damage. Send help, please!”
“Mayday, Mayday,” he repeated.