Devil's Due (Destroyermen #12)(143)
“Which means the enemy’ll still have a hard time seeing us,” Matt reminded, “particularly with their attention elsewhere.” He knew Spanky’s greatest frustration was that he wanted in the fight. It wasn’t in him to stand and watch. Matt felt the same, but possibly for the very first time in his experience, everything seemed to be going according to plan. Maybe it was because they’d prepared so carefully and everyone was on the exact same page for once. Or maybe, having faced Kurokawa so many times, they knew him well enough to predict his reactions. Matt hoped so, but did that mean Kurokawa knew him just as well? The thought bothered him.
“Hold on. What’s that?” Spanky asked. Even as the air battle raged above and the Grik cruisers crisscrossed the upper bay, sometimes shooting at planes but mostly trying to avoid them, two of the monstrous ironclad battleships were getting underway—and so was Savoie. Matt wondered if they were moving solely to avoid the planes or had already smelled the bait past the North Channel. It was still a little early, but Kurokawa obviously had scouts in the air. Matt’s speculation shattered when Spanky continued. “I see three—four modern planes swooping down. I think they’re goin’ for our guys! Jeez . . . They’re tearin’ ’em up! One pass knocked three P-Ones out of the sky!” He turned to look at Matt. “Those damn Macchi-Messers, Skipper.”
Matt looked for himself. “Anytime now, Colonel Mallory,” he said tensely. “Have Mr. Palmer pipe the Third Pursuit Squadron chatter up here,” he told Minnie. “I want to hear it.”
? ? ?
There was bright sunlight at seven thousand feet and the four P-40Es of Colonel Ben Mallory’s 3rd Pursuit Squadron seemed all alone. The lightning storm still lingered to the west but visibility was good—until one looked down at Lizard Ass Bay. Smoke piled high and the haze made it difficult to see what was going on. There was a helluva fight underway, though, in the air and on the land. Flitting, burning, wildly maneuvering shapes soared over the haze about three thousand feet below, and clouds of gray-white smoke rose from the land about ten or twelve miles northwest of Saansa Point, where Chack’s Brigade and the 1st North Borno were driving fast, fighting hard. Down below, Ben suddenly saw four particularly fast planes almost as big as his P-40s, with strange, mottled, camouflage patterns, swoop in from the north and tear a swathe through Salissa’s P-1Cs. It was like a blowtorch boring through a swarm of moths and, caught unaware, they never had a chance. Several enemy planes fell burning before them as well. With their dark green paint and bright red “meatballs,” the Jap-Grik planes were clear to him even at this distance. The indiscriminate slaughter wreaked by the Macchi-Messers hardened his heart against them even more.
“Flashy Lead to Flashies Two, Three, and Four. Tallyho! Tallyho! League fighters, nine o’clock low!” Ben hollered in his microphone over the roar of the big Allison. “All Flashies, follow me!” He tightened his grip on the stick and pushed it forward. Down below he saw the League planes split, two breaking right, two left, whipping around for another pass through the furball. “You’re with me, Flashy Four,” he called to 2nd Lieutenant Niaa-Saa, better known as “Shirley.” She was one of the shortest Lemurians Ben ever saw, and one of the best pilots. “We’ll go for the two turning west. Flashies Two and Three, take the ones breaking east.”
“Wilco,” came Lieutenant Conrad Diebel’s stoic, Dutch-accented voice. He was Two. Lieutenant (jg) Suaak-Pas-Ra, “Soupy,” didn’t respond, but Ben saw him edge away in his mirror, sticking to Diebel’s wing. They were screaming down, all probably trying to find their targets with the N-3 gunsights in front of them. Ben put his illuminated crosshairs in front of one of the enemy planes. “Let’s see how you like it, you bastards!” he said aloud to himself. P-1 pilots, expecting their appearance after the League fighters showed themselves, were careful to stay out of their way. The Japs and Grik had no such notion. A couple shot at them as they blew past, just as the P-1s probably had at the enemy, but they were diving too fast. There were a lot of them, though, and trying not to collide with any was distracting Ben’s attention from his target.
“Soupy’s hit!” Diebel shouted, more emotion in his voice than Ben had ever heard. “He lost part of a wing and is going down!”
Damn, Ben swore, he probably hit one of these stupid planes. What an awful way to go after all we’ve been through! “Stay on your targets,” he said harshly. The targets must’ve seen them or sensed they’d suddenly become the prey, because they started jinking. They were still too low for anything fancy, however, and Ben put his crosshairs in front of a plane now less than a hundred yards away and pressed the trigger. The P-40 shuddered violently as all six lovingly maintained .50-caliber machine guns in its wings poured tracers in a tight, converging stream just in front of the enemy. In the next instant, the plane and hundreds of heavy bullets met. Amid a glittering confetti of shredded aluminum, the Macchi-Messer coughed black smoke, then fire, and nosed down to scatter its burning fragments across the northwest end of Island Number 1, a few hundred feet below. “I got one!” Ben shouted triumphantly, pulling up. After all this time, it was his first victory over an “equal” aircraft.
“I got one,” Diebel reported, his voice strained, “but the other rolled in behind me! They are rather good at this, I think.”