A Mighty Endeavor

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.

First kill.

Bosede didn’t try to maneuver. The American who had given him his painfully brief lessons in how to handle the Tomahawk had made that very clear. Don’t hang around to dogfight with biplanes. Dive on them, shoot them up and then climb away to repeat the process on somebody else. The Tomahawk climbs almost 700 feet-per-minute faster than the CR.42; you will be clear of the battle before the Italian pilots can do anything about it.

Bosede did a wingover at the top of his climb and surveyed the chaos underneath. His victim had gone; nothing but a cloud of black smoke to mark its grave in the sky. Another CR.42 was spinning down; smoke and flames poured from its fuselage. A white flower erupted behind it. The Italian pilot had bailed out and was riding his parachute down. A third CR.42 was just a pyre of smoke from the ground. That left the fourth and last. It was heading north, trying to escape from the battlefield. A pair of Tomahawks were already closing in on it. Escape was a faint hope. A little to the west of the battle, the Ro-37 as already trying to escape from the disaster; the Furies had turned and were chasing it.

Bosede pushed his nose down again and went into a long dive that would bring him behind and below the Ro-37. Tracers flashed out from the single gun in the aft cockpit as the Italian pilot tried to evade.

It did him as little good. Bosede’s six machine guns tore into the flimsy biplane. The two crewmen lurched around in their seats. Its crew dead, the Ro-37 peeled over into a long dive that quickly turned into a fatal spin.

Second kill.

The airfield at Buna was only a few minutes away. Bosede knew the way there well. He saw the runway before him and only just remembered to lower his undercarriage before carrying out a neat threepoint landing on the long grass strip. Hoping nobody had noticed the near-goof, he taxied to the hangars before turning off his engine. That was when he saw how the Tomahawk was surrounded by ground crews who had run out to see the new fighters.

Petrus van Bram listened to his story of the fight with something close to amusement. “Do you realize, Pim, that your four fighters shot down 11 CR.42s and three Ro-37s in that dogfight? That’s what we get if we add up all the claims you four are making. And that’s not including the Ro-37 my Furies shot down. A great air victory, I believe?”

Bosede flushed. It was obvious that the air battle had been much more complex than he had realized. But, he was quite sure that it had been his guns that had killed a CR.42 and the Ro-37. His memory of the kills was so clear, so positive.

“Petrus, I….”

van Bram held up his hand. “Pim, we have reports coming in from the Army who watched the battle from the ground. They will confirm your CR.42. They saw it explode in mid-air the way you describe and say only a single Tomahawk attacked it. But there were six aircraft firing on that Ro-37 and nobody can say who really killed it. At best, you have a small part of it. But, I will ask you to forgo that small part and allow me to credit one of the Furies with the kill. It will be very good for their morale after so many weeks of achieving nothing.”

Bosede thought for a second. He knew in his heart that it had been his guns that had brought down the Ro-37, but he could see how a kill would encourage the remaining Fury pilots. He nodded.

van Bram slapped him on the back. “Good man. Get your aircraft ready for a fast take-off. After this day’s work, the SM-79s will be paying us a visit and we would not wish to be caught on the ground like the Rhodesians.”

Back by the hangars, Bosede saw the ground crew reloading his machine guns and fuelling up the Tomahawk. He saw something else; a single red-white-green roundel painted under the cockpit. The crew chief stepped back with a proud grin on his face. He had waited a long time to paint a kill mark on one of the fighters in his care.

“Sergeant, please do something for me. On the nose, paint the name Marijke, please.”

“Your wife, sir?” The sergeant asked the question as he went to get a pot of white paint.

“No. I don’t know where the name came from. It just popped into my mind somehow. As if she was telling me her name herself.”

“We’re running out of time, Your Highness. All the intelligence we are receiving suggests that the Japanese will move on Hong Kong in the very near future. We have a couple of months, at most; perhaps much less than that.”

Princess Suriyothai smiled politely at the businessman who sat before her. The builders of the new office block had done her proud; the facility was complete and as modern as any in the Far East. The new communications system was also being built; the choke point there was the underwater telegraph cable needed to improve the capacity of the link. There were only a limited number of suppliers of such cable and orders for it were placed months in advance.

“I think you have longer than you believe, Simon. The Japanese cannot move on Hong Kong at the moment since they are painfully short of troops. The war in China is already grinding them down as it absorbs more and more of their army. They will move on French Indochina first, since doing so will close off the most important remaining supply line for the Chinese forces.

“They call this force the Indochina Expeditionary Army and it is commanded by Major General Takuma Nishimura. It has as its main element, the Fifth Infantry Division, commanded by Lieutenant General Akihito Nakamura, supported by two independent infantry brigades and a cavalry regiment. The Fifth Infantry Division will need to be detached from that force before the Japanese can contemplate an assault upon Hong Kong. We intend to make sure it cannot be so detached.”

“How do you plan that, Your Highness.” Keswick had his own sources of information; they had reported the quiet mobilization of the Thai Army. Some of the German advisors training that army had also spoken to Keswick; their comments made him realize that The Ambassador’s claims of her army were not exaggerations. His question was curiosity, not doubt.

Suriyothai understood that perfectly.

“We intend to take the southern half of Indochina, all the way to the Mekong. That gives us a strong defensive line and puts our army in a position to dominate the rest of French Indochina. The Japanese will be forced to keep their Indochina Expeditionary Army in place. They will have to bring additional forces down for the seizure of Hong Kong and that will take them time.”

“An ambitious plan, Your Highness. When will you start?”

“In eight weeks. As soon as the Americans have had their feelings soothed.”

“Another ship lost to us.”

Wavell’s voice was heavy with disappointment. HMS Ramillies was in the shipping channel, heading out for Gibraltar and home. She was the latest in a long line of departures. Some ships were heading for their new home port of Gibraltar; others going all the way back to Britain and an uncertain future. The only really good news was that Ramillies would be the last. She had been drydocked in Alexandria for months; that was the only reason she had stayed so long.

“She’s no real loss; her engines are done for. With her in a squadron, we’re hard put to hold 15 knots. She and Royal Sovereign look good on the homeward bound list, though. With Malaya still in Gibraltar and Warspite here, we’re still in business. We haven’t done badly, Archie. I still have a fleet here and it’s a damned good one. And the fleet at Gibraltar is nothing to be sneezed at: a battleship, two really modern cruisers and eight destroyers. We’ve got both ends of the Mediterranean covered; for the moment, anyway.”

Wavell wasn’t entirely convinced. He’d looked at the standard naval reference book before coming to Warspite for this meeting. The count had shown four old but rebuilt battleships in Italian naval service, with at least two more modern ships due to enter service at any time. Six to one was bad odds. Then there were the seven heavy cruisers, a dozen light ones and more destroyers than he could shake a stick at. He honestly couldn’t see how the small squadron left here in Alexandria could secure his seaward flank.

“Andy, with Graziani stuck at Mersa Matruh, what happens at sea could be decisive. I’ve got a coordinated offensive planned. The South Africans in Kenya will push north while O’Connor tries to take down Graziani’s supply base with a division-sized raid. If we can destroy those supplies, Graziani will stay stuck and we get a breathing space to sort out East Africa and the Horn. Even more critically, with any Italian advance in Africa stalled, the Germans might think twice about executing the Noth Plan.”

Cunningham looked at him quizzically. “The Noth Plan. I keep hearing about that. Do you really believe it’s serious?”

Wavell grimaced. “Every time I look at it, I try to logically persuade myself that it is a nonsense; a scheme dreamed up by some wild-eyed theorist who has never commanded troops in the field. Just as I am succeeding, I remember all the other wild-eyed schemes the Nazis have come up with and how they have then made work. We can’t afford to assume it’s not serious and, to be honest, there’s quite a lot of evidence to suggest that the Nazis are really thinking along these lines. There’s all the political trouble in Iraq, for example, and we know the Germans are trying to cozy up to the Turks. They’re also making friendly noises to Subhas Chandra Bose. You heard he escaped from detention at his home in Calcutta after the mutiny and has turned up in Germany?”

“So I heard. That mutiny was a bad do all around.”

Wavell agreed. The attempt by a handful of units under the command of traditional-minded officers to reestablish links with London had already caused some regrettable ramifications. The escape of Bose was one of them. On the other hand, it had the perverse effect of solidifying the rest of the Indian Army behind the accelerating Indian independence process. The ideas of India continuing the war and Indian independence were becoming intertwined, despite all Gandhi’s attempts to separate them. A major Commonwealth victory right now, with Indian troops at the head, would cement that. But, one battleship against six? Four cruisers against almost twenty? Eight destroyers against sixty?

“What I need is for Graziani to be cut off from supplies. When our raid takes out his main supply dumps, the Italians will try to run convoys through to replace the lost supplies. They’re short on road and rail capacity to move them, but if they get replacement supplies ashore, that will make the difference between a serious inconvenience and a major reverse. Andy, you have to stop those supply convoys from getting through.”

Cunningham nodded thoughtfully. “We can do it.”

He saw the disbelief on Wavell’s face and crushed down a moment’s irritation. Halifax may have stabbed Churchill in the back but he, Cunningham, commanded a picked squadron of the Royal Navy and had virtually a free hand in how he used it. That was the one great thing about the present situation. With the de-facto decision to ignore messages and orders from London, he could use his fleet the way he knew it had to be used.

“Don’t worry about it, Archie. I know the numbers look bad. But remember, the Italian fleet is spread all over the Mediterranean and Red Sea. They have to worry about keeping ships in service and they have all too many other responsibilities. We have just one and we can concentrate all our power on that single mission.”

And we’re the Andrew and the Italians are not. And there are just one or two other things we have running for us.

There were three roundels under Marijke’s cockpit now. The Italians had responded to the destruction of the reconnaissance flight and its escorts by sending a formation of Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 Sparviero bombers to hit the Buna base. Ground observers had spotted the formation and passed the warning. Four Tomahawks were airborne and waiting for them. It had been a massacre; one that Bosede had felt slightly ashamed about.

The Sparviero had been 50mph faster than the Hawker Fury; its immunity to interception made the Italian crews careless. Never having been under serious attack before, they had little idea of how poorly-defended their aircraft were. The SM.79 was armed with a single fixed machine gun forward, another flexible gun in the dorsal position and one more gun in each of the two beam windows. They were completely blind from below and behind. The Tomahawks had swept in from that angle. Their six guns gutted the Italian bombers. Not one survived.

This flight was different. There were eight Tomahawks in 2 Squadron now and the South African Air Force was on the offensive at last. The second flight had arrived back from Mombasa with its new aircraft. Convoys of trucks loaded with spare parts and supplies had arrived at Buna, turning the airfield into a fully-equipped fighter base.

The eight remaining Furies had been relegated to ground attack work, equipped with racks for four 20-pound bombs under each wing. They were spread out underneath the Tomahawks; their target was the Italian troops north of Buna. It was the start of the campaign to drive the Italians out of Kenya and Somaliland and, eventually, liberate Ethiopia. Bosede knew the outlines of the plan. Its first objective was to ruin the morale of the Italian troops. Shooting down eleven aircraft in less than a week had been a good start.

Even better, a second Tomahawk squadron was also entering the game. They were a Rhodesian outfit whose four aircraft were further east, escorting some Ju-86 bombers hitting one of the Italian forward airbases. Soon, the Italian pilots would learn that if they wouldn’t come up and fight the new South African fighters, they would be bombed out of their bases. The battle was changing. The desperate days when the Italians ruled the skies seemed a long time ago.

Bosede glanced down. The Italians were dug in around a road junction some 15 miles north of Buna. It was their foremost position; one that was isolated by distance and the almost non-existent road system in this part of Kenya. Unfortunately, it was also in the way of the planned offensive and removing it was a vital preliminary. Far below, the two remaining flights of Hawker Furies in 2 Squadron sweept into the attack. Bosede imagined he could hear the flat crack of the vicious little 20-pound Cooper bombs, but his eyes were scanning the sky for Italian fighters. Sure enough, he saw them as they approached the beleagured outpost.

“B Flight. Bandits approaching from two o’clock; Angels Five.” By agreement, B Flight would handle these fighters. A-Flight remained high up, guarding against the same kind of ambush that had caused an entire flight of CR.42s to die under the guns of the Tomahawks.

The aircraft below were CR.32s. That hardly surprised Bosede; it had become quickly apparent that the Italians were short of fighters. It hadn’t seemed that way when he’d been flying a Hawker Fury and the CR.32s and 42s appeared to be everywhere. Now that they were as outclassed as he had once been, they were rare sights. According to intelligence, the Italians had a large number of Ro-37 and Caproni reconnaissance aircraft, but few fighters and only a handful of bombers.

The CR.32 pilots spotted the diving Tomahawks early and turned to flee. Bosede held his breath. If the Tomahawks set off in pursuit, the Furies would be left unguarded. B Flight knew their duty though. With the CR.32s in full retreat, there was no need to go chasing after them. The Tomahawks pulled out of their dive and climbed back to rejoin A Flight.

Sergeant Gasparo Bonaventura dived for cover as aircraft swept overhead. It wasn’t supposed to be this way at all. Other people were supposed to get bombed. All around him, the men of his detachment were finding nooks and crannies in the rocks to protect them against the fragments from the bombs. Intellectually, he knew the bombs had to be tiny; the old biplanes couldn’t carry any really significant bomb load. When they went off, they were the loudest things he had ever heard. Fragments zinged, ricocheting off the boulders that made up the perimeter of the outpost. They gave good cover against fire from outside, but they trapped the fragments from the bombs and caused them to buzz around inside the laager.

“The perimeter. Quickly.”

His call went out as the biplanes arched away to make another run. There was a reason why this outpost had been positioned here. There weren’t many roads in northern Kenya and none of them were much good. Two of them joined just below the low rise the outpost was sited on. This was the most forward of all the Italian positions on the front. The point of the tip of the spearhead’ his Captain had described the position, before taking off to somewhere safely to the rear. If the enemy were to move in this area, they would have to come through this point. Bonaventura’s job was to see them making the attempt and warn the main defensive positions further north. What they did afterward was unspecified, but he had a feeling it would not end well for him.

Cautiously, he glanced around one of the boulders and looked at the road below. It was as he had feared; a small column of trucks had already pulled up and were unloading their infantry. What shocked him were the number of small, four-wheeled armored cars that were with them. He could count at least six. They were a problem. His men only had their Carcano rifles, without a single weapon capable of defeating armor. Bonaventura was forced to duck again. The biplanes had returned and their twin machine guns were strafing the little outpost.

When he could watch again, the situation had deteriorated badly. The infantry had spread out and were making their way up the slope. Even worse, the armored cars were following them. One stopped. There was a brilliant flash from its left-hand side. A heavy bullet struck a rock, barely a meter from his head. The rock split wide open. Fragments spalled across the gap and slashed at his face.

If that is a Morris down there, and it surely looks like one, then it has a Bren gun and a Boys antitank rifle. Just what are we supposed to do now?

“Open fire!”

The order was almost an automatic response. A feeble patter of fire resulted from it. The infantry attacking them to took cover, but that was hardly a good thing. There were Bren guns down there. They started to put short bursts into his position. His men only had a single light machine gun between them, a Model 30. Bonaventura was rather surprised to here it snap out a burst in return. He was not, though, surprised when it jammed. He heard the crew cursing as they tried to clear the weapon. They will be lucky; once they jam, it takes hours to clear them. Oiled cartridges indeed! Which idiot thought that was a good idea?

The Brens obviously had no such problems. Every time one of his men fired a rifle shot, a Bren would lay down a quick burst in reply. Then the infantry would dash forward while his own men took cover. Every so often, there would be another flash from the armored cars. Another heavy bullet would go whining off the rocks. Bonaventura squirmed around and looked behind his position. Sure enough, the South Africans had worked around his flanks and sealed off his position. That’s it; nobody is getting away from here. It was almost as if the South African commander had heard him. The shout from below was labored and the Italian pronunciation was terrible, as if the man was reading from a note he had been given. The awkward, mispronounced words echoed around the rocks.

“Soldati italiani, la posizione è senza speranza. Abbiamo carri armati e supporto aereo, e vi sono più numerosi. Non c’è disonore nel cedere a tale forza superiore. Nessuno deve morire oggi.”

Italian soldiers, the position is hopeless. We have tanks and air support, and we are more numerous. There is no disgrace in yielding to the superior force. No one should die today. Bonaventura shook his head. The officer below spoke terrible Italian, but he was right. There was nothing more to be achieved here today. “Everybody; cease firing and put down your rifles.”

He sighed, took off his scarf, fixed it to his bayonet and waved it in the air. The South Africans closed on his position. As they did so, he stood up, his hands raised. They jumped into the little redoubt and quickly took possession of the weapons his men had placed on the ground.

“Do not worry about the machine gun. I never had the damn thing fire more than three shots in succession.”

The South African officer looked at the Breda, shuddered slightly, and nodded. “You have no casualties?”

Bonaventura looked at his men. Some had scratches and cuts from flying rock fragments, but that was all. For all the bombing and firing, nobody was seriously hurt. That was a miracle to be thankful for. “None. Thank God.”

The South African smiled and nodded. “My men, also; not one with a hurt worth speaking of. Indeed, we should thank God tonight for his providence to us both.” He paused for a second and looked around. “What were you supposed to be doing here?”

“Warning of your advance.” Bonaventura suddenly realized he had no idea how he had been supposed to get the message back. “They never told me how. They just left it to me.”

The two men exchanged long-suffering looks; both were all too familiar with being given orders but not the equipment needed to carry them out. “Come on, Sergeant; bring your men down. We’ll give you a ride back in our lorries.”

“Where is Mersa Matruh?” Lord Halifax was most confused by the geography of North Africa.

“It’s here, of course.” Butler strode arrogantly towards the map of Egypt on the wall and stabbed his finger towards the western section. Then he stopped and started to search the area for the town in question, Watching him, the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, General Sir John Dill, permitted himself a slight smile of amusement. It was obvious to him that Butler had no real idea of where Mersa Matruh really was. Dill timed his intervention to a nicety.

“Arabic is a very hard language to transliterate, you know. We all had terrible problems with it at the College. Here you are, RAB; it’s called Marsa Matrouh on this map.”

“My God; it’s only 90 miles from Alexandria!” Halifax was appalled at how far the Italian Army had penetrated.

“Oh, no; it’s closer to twice that. But don’t be deceived by distances, Prime Minister.” Dill had an earnest, helpful tone in his voice that appeased Halifax and set Butler’s teeth on edge. “The really important detail here is the lay of the land. See how this ridge angles towards the coast? Well, south of that ridge is a pure undiluted hell called the Quattara Depression. An impassible wasteland; the only water comes from marshes so salty, they make seawater taste sweet and the ground is quicksand under a hard crust. A man can walk on it one moment, then break through and drown in sand the next. The area is riddled with scorpions and venomous snakes. The temperatures hit far over 100 degrees in the day and drop to freezing at night. There’s no way anybody can run military operations there. An army might go in there, but it’d never come out.

“Anyway, the ridge that marks the northern edge of the Depression closes on the coast and it forms a funnel. As an army advances eastward, that funnel compresses it, making it harder and harder to deploy the troops available. It becomes very easy for a small force to defend itself against a much larger one. Also, there are no ports here. The supply line stretches all the way back to Tobruk, Benghazi and ultimately Tripoli. As an army advances eastward, it becomes harder and harder to support. Everything, even water, has to be brought forward from ports hundreds of miles to the rear. But, as the opposing army retreats eastward, it gets closer and closer to its port of supply, Alexandria and the Suez Canal. So, it gets stronger and stronger as the invading army gets ever weaker. Eventually, a point of balance is found where the invader simply cannot advance without a massive supply injection. That is the point Marshal Graziani has reached now. He needs a great injection of supplies before he can advance. He needs to bring those supplies up and stockpile them close behind his lines. That will take weeks or months. Only then will he be able to advance on Alexandria.”

“So we have time to negotiate an agreement.” Butler sounded satisfied.

“We have better options than that.” Halifax was looking at the map intently. “Much better options. We have an opportunity here to reestablish our authority and stamp our mark on the situation. General Dill, you say Graziani is at the end of his tether and cannot attack our positions in Egypt without great risk, yet we are in a secure position ourselves, well-defended and wellsupplied?”

“That is correct.” Sir John Dill was fascinated by the change that was coming over Halifax while he watched. The man was swinging from servile appeaser to school bully within a moment. Quietly, Dill wondered what he would have done if the campaign in France had gone just a little bit more favorably.

“And General Wavell is determined to hold fast?”

“He is.”

“Then it is up to us to support him. Herr Hitler has said that this is a matter between us and the Italians and that how we resolve it is of no interest to the German nation. So, if we are in such a secure position, it makes sense to use it to gain the best terms that we can from Senor Mussolini. Yes, that is the way to go. Sir John, telegraph General Wavell and advise him that we will be guided by his opinions on the situation and he can count on our support.”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“I don’t understand why.” Achillea took a drink out of her bottle of beer and sighed.

“Perhaps because, when you took your last boyfriend out for a country afternoon, you rode him into the ground, outshot him on a skeet shooting range, out-fenced him, arm-wrestled him for the restaurant bill and won, and finished off by drinking him under the table.” Igrat surreptitiously winked at Suriyothai.

“But, I just…”

“On a first date?” Igrat’s voice was incredulous.

Suriyothai burst out laughing. That segued into a fit of coughing as the beer went up her nose. She delicately wiped her eyes and put her own bottle down. Quietly, one of her attendants checked it, saw it was empty, and replaced it with a full one. It was very hard to stay sober in a Thai party. “So, Achillea will be helping you with courier runs from now on, Iggie?”

Igrat thought for a second. “Perhaps. I’m trying to find qualified couriers to help me out, but it’s harder than it seems. I thought Nell would be perfect, but she isn’t hard enough. I set up a little test and she allowed herself to be bullied into handing a package over to an assistant rather than the person it was destined for. I’ve found some outsiders who qualify for the routine stuff; a couple of them are pretty good, but I’ve struck out with couriers for family stuff.”

“I got my package through and gave it to the right person.” Achillea sounded aggrieved.

“You did.” Igrat admitted that readily. “But the whole point of this job is to avoid confrontations, rather than to go looking for them. And you must remember spoken words exactly, not paraphrase them. That way, if they are misunderstood, nobody can blame you.”

Achillea looked upset and took another drink out of her beer. Suriyothai looked at her sympathetically. “Igrat’s work is harder than it seems, I think. So, Iggie, what are the developments in Washington?”

When Igrat spoke, her voice was flat and uninflected. To the initiated, it was the sound of Phillip Stuyvesant in briefing mode. “The U.S. cabinet, as a whole, is sympathetic to Thailand, but Cordell Hull is violently antagonistic to you. Why this is, I do not know, but his mind is set on the matter and he will not listen to argument on the matter or on any issues related to it. There was a major confrontation between the State, Treasury and War Departments on this issue. Treasury and War took note of the intervention of India on your behalf and suggested that a further investigation of the position adopted by your country was merited by their favorable counsel. Cordell Hull tried to shut them down and close off the avenue of approach but Treasury would not countenance this and forced him to re-open the issue. Cordell Hull will be visiting Thailand soon. You should prepare for him and show him where your true interests are placed, but do not forget you are dealing with a person who, if not an avowed enemy of yours, is something very close to it.”

Suriyothai sighed. The adverse relationship with the United States was the greatest single roadblock to her plans, and she honestly could not understand why it was there. “One person has so much power in your government? To block the desires of the rest?”

“Where that man is Cordell Hull, yes.” Once again, Igrat’s voice dropped into a near-perfect facsimile of Stuyvesant’s. “Cordell Hull is an intimate of FDR and greatly trusted by him. He is a man of firm beliefs and opinions and does not easily change his mind. You would do well to recall the St. Louis incident in 1939 where his advice caused almost 900 Jewish refugees to be sent back to Germany. He did try to persuade Cuba to accept them, but when that failed, he would not retreat from his decision that they should not land in the United States. He uses his close relations with FDR to by-pass any government decisions that he does not like. Snake, even getting him to come and visit you is a major achievement. Do not waste this opportunity; for you will not get another.”

Igrat looked up and her voice snapped back to her own husky tones. “Snake, I’m going to break a rule here and give you my own impressions, alright? I’ve met Cordell Hull, and he struck me as being one of those people who is too proud and arrogant to change his mind once it is made up. He won’t change his mind about you, but he might be persuaded that his opinion of you is of lesser weight than his opinion of the situation out here. Show him, however much he dislikes you, the alternatives are much worse.”

“That makes much sense.” Suriyothai noticed that Igrat had finished her bottle of beer. “There is more beer on the way.”

“Don’t give Igrat any more.” Achillea still sounded resentful. “She’ll get drunk and end up dancing naked on the table top.”

“Not,” Igrat said firmly, “on a first date.”

“Just what the devil is happening in London?” General Archibald Percival Wavell was stunned by the telegram he had just received. He had been expecting one that instructed him to surrender his forces to General Graziani; he would have consigned that to the waste paper basket. Then he would have struck out on his own, for better or for worse. But the message that had arrived threw everything into doubt.

“A message of support, promising reinforcements? And they’re sending Illustrious to Gibraltar?”

“Perhaps somebody has injected some backbone into Lord Halifax?” Major-General Noel Beresford-Peirse, commander of the 4th Indian Infantry Division, sounded doubtful of the possibility. Wavell couldn’t blame him; whatever sentiment and tradition might say, political facts had placed the Indian Government in opposition to London. Beresford-Peirse looked to Calcutta for his orders now. The same disbelief was evidenced by Lieutenant-General Thomas Blamey; he had surrendered command of the Australian 6th Division to take command of the new ANZAC Corps that was forming in Egypt. His response to the idea was a disdainful snort.

“What exactly does the telegram say?” Freyberg was being cautious. The first echelon of the 2nd New Zealand Infantry Division was already in place and would join the Australian 6th and 7th divisions in the ANZAC Corps when that formation was activated. His caution stemmed from the briefing he had received from the New Zealand Government. Essentially, the country was bankrupt; only minimal support for his division could be provided. It had been discretely suggested that he ought to seek local sources for supply. The result of that suggestion had the nascent 2nd New Zealand Division nicknamed ‘Freyberg’s 40,000 thieves’.

“It states that London enthusiastically supports the idea of offensive action against the Italian forces under General Graziani and will support any such actions to the best of its ability.” Wavell looked over the telegram, shaking his head in disbelief. “It goes on to say that London’s position will be guided by my decisions here as the commander on the spot. It approves our dispositions of the Mediterranean fleet and informs me that the squadron in Gibraltar, currently consisting of battleship Malaya, cruisers Gloucester and Liverpool and the H-class destroyer flotilla, will be reinforced by the addition of the aircraft carrier Illustrious and four K-class destroyers. We are advised that the Gibraltar Squadron is now designated Force H.”

“This is something of a relief.” General Sir Richard Nugent O’Connor and his 7th Armoured Division had been orphaned by the Armistice and the subsequent break-up of the Empire. He had kept quiet, allowing the political and strategic situation to mature, and it now looked as if his prudence was paying off. “But it appears to me that the telegram is long on encouragement and short on actual deeds.”

“There is an option that may clarify the situation a little further.”

General Henry ‘Jumbo’ Maitland Wilson had a strange grin on his face.

“General Graziani is slowly and painfully building up his supplies in front of Mersa Matruh for the next stage of his advance. The dumps behind his positions are already large and grow a little every day.”

“Mmmm, supplies.” Freyburg’s interjection caused a ripple of sympathetic laughter around the briefing room. More than one of the Generals present made an ostentatious gesture of protecting their wallets.

“Exactly.” Wilson nodded. “Graziani has a lot of troops deployed forward, but they are almost all infantry with few heavy or support weapons. Such units matter little in desert warfare. The only Italian force that is of any account is a single motorized group with some 70 armored vehicles, mostly machine gun carriers. In contrast, we have the 7th Armoured Division, the 6th Australian Division and the 4th Indian Division all of which are fully motorized. It’s a strange thing; for all the apparent disparity in forces, in the troops that actually matter, we seriously outnumber the Italians. I propose that we launch a raid on the Italian positions, destroy that motorized group and seize those supplies. At the very least, we will set all of Graziani’s plans and operations back months while he rebuilds his supply base. At best, we could put all those infantry sitting in the desert into the bag.

“If it’s a matter of pillaging, we ought to bring Bernie and his marauders along.” Blamey grumbled in the background. He had been moved upwards just in time to miss the action.

“I think so.” Wavell looked at the map for a second. “Jumbo, you are right; we can do this. You can’t have 4th Indian, though. I need them to join 5th for an assault southwards out of the Sudan. We’ll hit the Italian positions in East Africa from the north at the same time as the South Africans move up northwards out of Kenya. Jumbo, you can have 7th Armoured and 6th Australian, plus Bernie’s New Zealanders. Your primary objectives are those supply dumps; capture them pretty much at all costs. But don’t neglect any opportunities to develop the situation further to our advantage. Nothing wins a battle more conclusively than a vigorous pursuit.”

There was a stunned silence as the extent of the planned offensive sank home. Wavell was attempting to wrap the whole situation up with two simultaneous offensives. Maxims about not dividing one’s forces in the face of the enemy weighed heavily on the Generals’ minds.

“If I may make an addition to this plan?” Admiral Cunningham had been quiet during the strategy meeting but he could see a glowing opportunity developing. “If Jumbo and Dick are as successful as we hope, the Italians will have to run a massive supply convoy through to their ports in Africa to restore the situation. This offers us a good opportunity to being the Italian fleet to battle and give it a proper trousering.”

“One battleship, against six?” Wavell couldn’t help asking.

“There won’t be six; not with this new Force H in the Western Mediterranean. They’ll have to hold back a lot of their fleet to face that. We’ll face three battleships at most; the rest of the Italian fleet will be split as well. We have naval aircraft; they don’t. We can hurt them badly enough to swing the balance of power our way for months, if not years.”

Wilson looked at the map. “This is certainly ambitious. If we pull it off, we’ll have eliminated the threat in East Africa, driven the Italians out of Egypt, sent the Italian fleet back to harbor and probably chewed up their air force. We’re biting off a major mouthful here, gentlemen. I hope we won’t choke on it.”

Wavell nodded in agreement. “We’re risking everything on one roll of the dice. London is behind us now; why, and for how long, we can only guess. But we must assume that if we have a partial success, enough to save face, we’ll get a cease and desist order from London while they sign another Armistice. We have to clear the board in one go.”

Wavell looked around the room and noted the unanimous nodding. The game was on.

“Two student, please; front stalls.” David Newton put two shillings down on the ticket booth counter.

“David, being so close to the screen hurts my eyes. Could we go in the rear stalls please?” Rachael glanced around and saw the cinema staff hiding their smiles. The front stalls were easily visible; the rear stalls, underneath the balcony, were in the dark, even by cinema standards. That was why they were the traditional place for couples to indulge in discrete courting.

“Of course, Rachael.” Newton added another sixpence to the price of the tickets and picked them up as the cashier took them out of her drawer. “Would you like some snacks? I thought we’d have some fish and chips later. That should be OK for you, shouldn’t it?”

Rachael nodded. Fish and chips were unrationed, but very expensive. “Cod and six-penn’oth of chips will be lovely. Until then, could I have some Mint Imperials?”

Newton bought a packet of Mint Imperials and a bag of Pontefract Cakes for himself, then escorted Rachael into the theater. By the time they had taken their seats, the lights were already dimming and the Pathescope News was starting.

Today, all eyes are fastened on North Africa where 200,000 Italian troops under Marshal Graziani sit barely 100 miles from Alexandria. The question asked across the world is, when will this mighty force complete the conquest of Egypt? When will it seize the Suez Canal? Barely 30,000 Commonwealth troops stand in the way of the approaching Italian juggernaught. Meanwhile, in Kenya, Italian troops there are being driven slowly back by South African troops supported by their new Tomahawk fighters.

Pathescope had obtained footage over the Tomahawks in action. The cinema screen was filled with pictures of the fighters with shark’s teeth painted on their noses. There was one sequence that was obviously camera gun film. It showed an Italian SM.81 bomber staggering under the impact of gunfire from a Tomahawk. Smoke erupted from its left wing and nose engines; then it nosed over and spun downwards in a train of flame. The cinema audience erupted into cheers at the sight. As if in reply, the commentary restarted.

The South African and Rhodesian squadrons are competing to see who can down the most Italian aircraft. The leader is South African pilot Pim Bosede with his Tomahawk Marijke. Just after this film was taken, he shot down another SM.79 bomber, making his total score ten victories. He is the first double-ace in East Africa!

The newsreel showed a young, fair-haired South African jumping out of his Tomahawk and being applauded by the ground crew. Rachael looked at him and jabbed Newton in the arm. “Look, David. He’s so handsome.”

Newton looked sideways and saw the flash of Rachael’s teeth. She grinned in the darkness. That made him realize he was being teased.

“You wait until I fly a Spitfire. I’ll show you handsome.”

The main feature was The Sea Hawks, starring Errol Flynne. Set in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, it showed a Britain with its back to the wall fighting the overwhelming power of Spain. Only the Sea Hawks, the captains of the British warships, stood between Spain and England. What neither they nor the queen knew was that the Prime Minister, Lord Wolfingham, was a traitor, in league with Spanish. He betrayed the leader of the Sea Hawks, Captain Geoffrey Thorpe, and caused him to be captured by the Spanish. When the Spanish soldiers seized him, Rachael let out a cry of dismay and seized Newton’s arm.

Newton noted that the scene hadn’t really been that frightening, and that Rachael had kept a firm hold on his arm afterwards. A few minutes later, her head was resting on his shoulder and he had his arm around her. The film ended with a long speech by Errol Flynne about how no level of treachery, even that committed by a Prime Minister, would stop England from winning in the end. The cinema erupted into sustained cheering that drowned out the closing music. As they stood for the national anthem, they both thought it had been a very satisfactory visit to the cinema.

“We are organizing four additional divisions. Of them, the 7th and 11th Divisions will be assigned to secure Burma against foreign aggression. The 8th and 10th Divisions will be assigned to Iraq and will secure the Commonwealth position there.” Lord Linlithgow looked up from the report that he had received. “It goes without saying, of course, that a considerable force of those regiments who proved their loyalty to India in the recent unpleasantness will be held here in case of additional disturbances.”

“We are most fortunate that so few regiments were deceived into moving against us.” Pandit Nehru had been pleasantly shocked by the loyalty most of the Army had shown to the newly-independent India. Even the few regiments that had rebelled had done so by following their officers. The rank and file had abandoned them when faced with the reality of firing on other Indian troops. Quietly, Nehru gave solemn thanks in memory of Colonel Garry, whose self-sacrifice had prevented a blood bath on the streets of New Delhi. His name would be honored, Nehru promised himself that. When things settled down and there was time to consider how best to memorialize the man, it would be done.

“And so, we become the policemen of an empire again.” Despite his new-found respect for the Army, Nehru also remembered that traditionally the Indian Army had been the security force that had upheld British power across the world. It was less honored in Indian eyes than in British for that very reason.

“There is a big difference this time, Pandit.” Lord Linlithgow guessed what his deputy was thinking. The months that had passed since the stunning news from London had revealed much to him. One abiding theme was how little the British had understood of the people they ruled here in India. Linlithgow had taken for granted that Imperial rule had always been for the benefit of India, and that he and his predecessors had been benign, enlightened rulers. He still believed that, but he also knew that many of their actions were not so well regarded by the Indians. He hoped and prayed that the Indians politicians, now working throughout the Indian administrative systems as part of the slow transition process, were beginning to understand why apparently unjust decisions had been inevitable.

“This time, the Indian Army goes abroad in the interests of India, not Britain.”

Nehru nodded. “A big difference, indeed but our young men still leave. And Mohandas Gandhi still opposes their departure with every fiber of his being. Even the arrival of our new aircraft attracts his ire. You know he held a demonstration to block access to our new aircraft maintenance plant? It appears, though, that he was misinformed and held his demonstration outside the wrong building. A matter of an unfortunate clerical error in the transposition of two digits, so I am told.”

The Marquess of Linlithgow raised questioning eyebrows at that. Nehru saw the gesture and shook his head. “No, this was not organized by Sir Eric’s intelligence services or, indeed, the result of any official act. It was an Indian clerk, proud of the fact that Indian squadrons would receive the new aircraft while the ex-British squadrons had to make do with the old, who made sure information leaked to Gandhi’s clique was false. In its way, that is more important that the fact the demonstration was planned at all.”

“We still have no fighters in service, though.” Linlithgow had never quite recovered from the shock of discovering there was not one single fighter aircraft in India. “But, at least, we have trainers. Our pilots have already started to learn to fly modern aircraft.”

“This is the Harvard I. A two seat advanced trainer. Compared with the Westland Wapitis you have been flying to date, it is an entirely different machine. A hundred miles-per-hour faster, it stalls at higher speeds than your old Wapitis cruised. It climbs faster, dives faster and will kill you faster if you do not take care. We will all work with these aircraft together. When you are familiar with handling a modern monoplane, we will transition to the Hawk 75, the Mohawk, fighter and you will become the first Indian fighter pilots.” Gregory Boyington looked at the group of pilots surrounding him. They were young, earnest and painfully inexperienced. “Just remember, there are two kinds of people on this planet. Fighter pilots and lesser men.”

Boyington had resigned his commission with the U.S. Marine Corps to join the Central Aircraft Manufacturing Company, run by Bill Pawley. He’d been under the impression that he would be going to China to fight the Japanese, but Pawley had taken a look at his degree in aviation engineering and his experience as a draftsman at Boeing and assigned him to the training program in India. Boyington’s age had been part of that decision as well; he was a good half-decade older than most of the pilots in the CAMCO program. Boyington had two responsibilities with CAMCO. One was to train the pilots in the three Indian Air Force squadrons in the arts of flying high-speed monoplanes. The other was to get aircraft production at the CAMCO plant in Bangalore off the ground. India also needed the ability to maintain its new Mohawks, Bostons and Hudsons. CAMCO was the answer to that need.

“How soon will we be able to fly the Mohawks, sir?”

“As soon as they, and you, are ready. The aircraft have to be delivered here, uncrated, assembled and test-flown. That will take some weeks. The delivery of Tomahawks to the Middle East takes priority. Then you must qualify on flying the Harvard before you can transfer to a Mohawk. After that, you will have to learn the operations demanded of fighter units. Intercepting raids, conducting sweeps for enemy fighters, escorting our own bombers. There is much to learn and little time. So we will start with familiarizing you with the Harvard.”

Elsewhere in India, Boyington knew the coastal reconnaissance flights would start converting to the Hudson while the flying boat squadron was set to convert to Catalinas. In that case, at least, the transfer should be relatively trouble-free. The first Indian bomber squadron was presently flying Audaxes and would be converting to the Douglas DB-7. If anything, that was more challenging than even the fighter conversions. The Audax was notoriously docile and easy to fly, but the hot DB-7s were anything but. “Right. The first thing to remember about the Harvard is that it has a retractable undercarriage. Don’t forget to pull it up after taking off and most especially don’t forget to lower it before landing. Failing to do so makes the accountants very angry.”

Boyington looked around at the trainees crowding around the Harvards. God, I need a drink, he thought. Preferably several.

“So we ended up as droppin’ bombs after all.” Andy Walker sounded aggrieved. “Don’t tell me the Mad Bomber was right.”

“The top brass promised this was a once-only job. Lot of thin’s goin’ down tonight and we’re just a small part of it all.”

Alleyne was staring out of his cockpit, searching for the black shadows that would show another Sunderland making its bomb run. The original plan had been for the flying boats to make the trip to Massawa in formation and bomb the port in mass. He’d had to point out that his crews weren’t trained to fly in tight formations in daylight, let alone at night; he would lose half his aircraft to mid-air collisions. The Sunderland carried its bombs in an internal bomb room and cranked them out on underwing racks when needed; a maximum of four bombs at a time. That meant at least two runs to deliver the eight 500-pounders they would be carrying. The one thing his crews could do better than most was navigate.

Eventually, the planners had listened to reason. The aircraft would fly out alone and make their runs individually. One virtue was that the Italian naval base would be kept under a steady rain of bombs for a long period.

“Massawa comin’ up.”

“I got it.” Alleyne made a few minor course corrections and lined up on the port. Incredibly, there were lights still on down there. Had the Italians never heard of a blackout? “Midships crew, open the side ports and wind out the first set of bombs.”

Noise increased as the side doors to the bomb room were opened; the controls felt slightly different as the bomb racks slid out under the wings. The Sunderland wasn’t built for this kind of operation; it didn’t even have a suitable bomb-aiming position. Alleyne was going to have to release his bombs by dead reckoning. He visualized the picture in his mind, trying to work out where the bombs would land in relation to the nose of his aircraft.

Far below, the lights of Massawa still twinkled. They went out just as Alleyne felt his bombs drop. For one weird moment, he wondered if their descent had caused the blackout. He saw flashes as the four bombs impacted somewhere in Eritrea. He was enough of a realist to accept that he couldn’t expect much more than that.

“Midships crew, get the second set of bombs out.”

He put his Sunderland in a long, gentle curve. The bomb room crew wound in the underwing racks, winched the remaining bombs into place and then got them back out under the wings. All hard, backbreaking work; all the more so when undertaken on a darkened aircraft over hostile territory. The people who had thought of this raid hadn’t allowed for that.

The reloading took longer than he’d expected. Eventually, the aircraft was ready. Alleyne arched around, making another run. By this time, the target as completely blacked out. He made his drop using the shape of the coast as a guide. This left him slightly uncertain as to whether he’d hit Eritrea.

Straining his eyes to make out details on the ground had taken all his attention. When he looked up, his first reaction was that a nearby area of sky was a little more solid than it should have been. His second was that he had a split second to avoid a collision with a Sunderland coming in the opposite attention.

He broke right, heaving the controls over and standing the big flying boat on its wingtip. By a miracle, the other Sunderland broke right as well. The two aircraft missed by inches. Shaking with nervous tension, Alleyne pressed the switch on his intercom. “All you bastards all right back there?”

“All right? All right, yoos ask? I’ve just shaken flamin’ hands with his starboard gunner, that’s how all right I’m. And the bastard had me wristwatch in the process.” Don Clerk’s voice was shaking. Alleyne guessed he knew just how close the two aircraft had come to colliding. Reassurance is in order.

“That settles it boys. This night bombing stuff is for the birds. We’re goin’ home and that’s the end of it for this game. Top brass wants us to do this again, they can fly the flamin’ raids themselves.”

“All right, broere; get ready to move.” Sergeant Dirk Klaas passed the word quietly, although there was no real need to do so. What was about to hit the Italian positions opposite made any advance warning from a carelessly spoken word almost superfluous. The Transvaal Horse Artillery were about to wake the defenders up.

Flashes seemed to ripple along the horizon. There were two batteries pounders and another of 4.5-inch howitzers. The shells whined overhead, the pitch of the noise clearly defining them as being ‘outbound’. Klass had been in pounders were firing. The eight 4.5-inch howitzers were holding their fire in order to support the infantry when they made their approach. Ahead of him, a series of flashes erupted in the Italian positions.

Another pattern arrived before the after-images of the first shell bursts had fully faded. The 18-pounder had been criticized by European armies for being ‘too light.’ That relatively light shell made it fast-firing and that was critical when it came to keeping people’s heads down. Klaas had no doubt that the gunners were working like dervishes back on the lines, serving their pieces as fast as possible. He took a quick glance at his wristwatch and noted the time.

“Up, broere. Follow the shells in.”

The South African infantry surged upwards from their trenches, running across the gap that separated them from the bursts of the 18-pounders. Overhead, the sound changed slightly. The pattern of bursts lifted by about a hundred yards, slamming in on the second line of trenches that backed up the first. In their place, the howitzers dropped their shells on the first line trenches, cutting any wire that was in place and keeping the defenders pinned down. The lead elements of the South African infantry went to ground, covering the Italian front with their rifles and Bren guns. The next wave passed between them and closed on the defenders. Then, they too went to ground. The troops they had passed rose up again and assaulted the trenches.

The Italians fought hard. Klaas gave them that. They surged out of their dugouts, those that had not been crushed by the artillery fire, and met the assault with fixed bayonets. Lee Enfield crossed with Carcano. The men carrying them fought desperately; all knew when two men fought with the bayonet, only one would survive. Other men fought with entrenching tools, spades with their blades sharpened to turn them into a vicious battle-axe that cleaved their opponent. Some, a few, turned to run. Their reward was a bayonet thrust in the back or a skull caved in by a swing from an entrenching tool. Klaas never remembered the details of that fight. Only that he had waded in with bayonet and entrenching tool, and that the Italians had died.

At some point, the sun had risen. It was daylight when the South Africans climbed out of the advanced trenches they had taken and moved on the second line. They left behind them a trench filled with bodies; some Italian, some South African. Further behind them, another wave of infantry was crossing no-mans land and moving up to support the lead elements. Ahead of Klaas and his men, the 18-pounders and 4.5-inch howitzers were still pounding the main line of resistance.

That was beginning to crumble already. Klaas could sense it. There was a feel to a battle, a sense of its tempo, and he knew that this one was going to succeed. The Italians were already beginning to fall back; their positions abandoned or marked with small white flags. Klaas didn’t blame them. They had probably seen and heard the horror in the advanced trenches and wanted no part of it.

What started as an advance became a pursuit. Klaas’s sense of the battle was right. The Italians were giving up the ground and retreating. By the time the main line of defenses had fallen to the South Africans, the Italian infantry was already streaming to the rear, boarding lorries and heading north, away from the artillery fire and the men with bayonets that followed it. A few rearguards hung on; they bought just enough time for the rest of their units to escape. That didn’t matter too much, for one very simple reason. It was the whole reason why the battle had been fought here, at a small village in northern Kenya whose very existence was of so little consequence that a detailed map was needed to find it.

There was no water between El Yibo and the Ethiopian border.

The sixteen Tomahawks were spread out, four flights of four aircraft each; all were hunting for Italian fighters. They would be coming to remedy the situation that had erupted on this front. Hunting for the Italian fighters was a phrase that echoed happily in newly-promoted Flight Lieutenant Pim Bosede’s mind. Gone were the days when the pathetic, obsolete Hawker Furies had run at the first shadow of an Italian fighter. Now, the Tomahawk ruled the skies and it was the Italians who fled at their approach.

“We see them.”

The message was from the Blenheim bombers below. The Natal Mounted Rifles reported the Italian forces that had been holding the front east of Lake Rudolf were in full retreat, heading north. The Italians themselves were in trucks; their Askaris, local auxiliaries, were on foot. That difference would be very important in the next few minutes. There were no real roads up here to disrupt the yellow-gray ground; only tracks, and few enough of them.

The Blenheim crews knew where the Italians would be. The cloud of dust thrown up by the trucks drove the message home.

Here we are, come and get us.

The Blenheims did.

<…>pound and 40-pound bombs on the troops beneath. Compared with the blast of the bombs, the patter of fire from the single machine gun arming each aircraft were of little account. The effect of the attack on the convoy was disastrous. Many of the lorries were hit. They started belching black smoke and blocked the track. The others turned off in a desperate attempt to escape. Their tires broke through the thin crust of hardened mud that covered the ground and spun helplessly in the fine sand underneath. The infantry in them knew that their ride northwards had just ended. From now on, their retreat would be on foot.

Watching them, the Askaris noted the development. They dropped their rifles. Being an Italian Askari had been a way of earning a little extra money for doing very little work. The possibility of being shelled, bombed and strafed hadn’t figured in that equation. It was time to leave. Word spreads fast in African villages. Soon, all across the front, the Askaris deserted and, very sensibly, went home.

High over the veldt, Bosede knew nothing of the word rippling through the African villages. What he did know was that the Blenheims had finished their attack and were on their way back to base. That released the Tomahawks to resume their free-chase. The squadron swung south, to where the Natal Mounted Rifles were advancing. Bosede had no doubt that the Italians would be trying to do to them what the Blenheims had just done to the Italian infantry.

“Bandits.” Flight Lieutenant Petrus van Bram, now acting squadron leader, spotted the Italian aircraft. Twin engined aircraft, their yellow and gray paint made them hard to see against the ground below.

“Pim, take them with your flight. The rest of us will stay up here and cover you.”

Bosede made a wingover and dove on the aircraft below. His eyes took in the details. The extensively glazed nose told him all he needed to know. Caproni Ca.311s. Almost an exact Italian equivalent of the Blenheim and as weakly defended: one 7.7mm machine gun in a top turret and one firing from a ventral hatch. Tracers licked out from the top turrets of the Italian aircraft. Light defensive fire that gave him little concern. His gun sight closed on the nose of the Caproni. His thumb squeezed the triggers, firing off a burst from both his nose .50s and the four .30s in his wings.

The effect on the Ca-311 was as disastrous, as it had to be. The aircraft staggered and flew apart under the concentrated blow. Its wings separated from its body as it disintegrated. The fuel tanks erupted into flame. What was left of the aircraft plowed into the dry, dusty veldt. Bosede swept upwards, climbing away from the scattering Italian formation. Three of the eight aircraft were already down;a fourth was trying to escape northwards, leaving a thick trail of black smoke behind it. Bosede watched a Tomahawk close in. A stream of tracers turned the aircraft into a flying torch. One more pass would finish the formation off.

One again, a wingover and a long dive down on to the poorlyprotected Capronis. Instead of firing from above, Bosede came in from behind.

His fire raked the rear fuselage and engines. His target went down; three parachutes emerged as the Italian crew bailed out.

“Pim, you’re trailing white vapor. Head back to Buna. The rest of your flight will escort you.” Petrus van Bram’s voice brooked no argument. Bosede glanced at his instruments. There was no sign of trouble yet, but the Tomahawks were precious. They had made the offensive that was driving the Italians out of Kenya possible and their numbers were carefully conserved. Bosede set course for Buna.

On the way, he noted that his engine temperature was starting to rise. By the time the runway at Buna appeared under his nose, it had reached serious levels. He wondered if Marijke would make it. By then, what had started as a thin line of white vapor had turned into a thick stream behind the Tomahawk. She didn’t let him down. By the time she came to a halt, he was surrounded by a white mist. It didn’t take the ground crew long to spot why.

“There’s your problem, sir.” The flight sergeant pointed at a single small hole in the nose. “Looks like a bullet from a 7.7 caught your cooling system. Another few minutes and she’ll have seized solid. Don’t sweat it; we’ll have her fixed by morning.”

The telephone rang and a voice came warbled on the other end. The Flight Sergeant grinned broadly. “And that was a Lieutenant van der Haan from intelligence. Confirmed your two Capronis shot down.”

Bosede staggered under the vigorous back-slapping and cheering. It was a long, long way from the days on the Hawker Fury. He threw his cap skywards to celebrate. Then he saw the single tiny hole that had nearly brought him down. A sudden sense of mortality weighed him down to earth.

“We have word from General Cunningham in Kenya, Archie.”

Maitland Wilson had a conceited expression on his face that reminded Wavell of the time one of his dogs had stolen an entire leg of roasted lamb. “Alan seems to be quite happy with the way things are going down there.”

“I’ll need more than that, Jumbo.” Wavell wasn’t in the mood for playful games.

“The South Africans have broken through in both the northern and southern sectors. In the south, they have captured Gorai and el Gumu. Their columns are advancing north towards Kismayu and the Jubu River. In the north, they captured the wells at el Yibu and el Sarbu and sent the Italians packing there. Our aircraft are bombing and strafing the Italians as they retreat, and it looks like that retreat is turning into a rout. Alan doesn’t expect any serious resistance inside Italian Somaliland and thinks the Italians will try and concentrate on holding Ethiopia.”

“Italian aircraft?” To Wavell, this was the crux of the matter.

“The Italians are throwing them in to try and slow down our advance. The Tomahawks are having a field day. They’ve shot down more than forty aircraft, mostly light bombers, but with a handful of CR.32s and .42s thrown in. We’ve had one Tomahawk shot down and three or four are damaged, but the odds are enormously our way. Even better, the Italians have brought the aircraft from northern Ethiopia down to try and regain air superiority. It won’t do them any good; they’ve only a handful of fighters and they’re CR.42s. Alan has ordered all our biplanes grounded; not that they were of much consequence anyway. That leaves the sky free for the Tomahawks down there; they can shoot at anything that isn’t a monoplane.”

Wavell nodded with a measure of relief. The first blow had been launched in Kenya because that was where the Italians were weakest and where the first squadrons of Tomahawks were based. He was gambling that the Italians would see this as a major thrust and would shift their air and ground forces south to match it. That would open the way into northern Ethiopia for the two Indian divisions in the Sudan. They would drive south, taking the Italian formations defending Ethiopia in the rear. Finally, with that battle under way, Maitland Wilson could launch his attack on Graziani and the supplies around Mersa Matruh with some hope of achieving tactical surprise.

The beauty of it was that each of the three operations was genuinely independent. Not one of them actually depended for its success on any of the others working. Each might work or fail on its own merits. In each case, the benefits they would bring by their success would be worth having. But, if all three worked together, then the success achieved would be, literally, worldchanging.

“Jai Hind!”

The call went up from the ranks moving up the hill. Subedar Shabeg Singh repeated the cry. He relished the sun gleaming off his bayonet and the sight of the waves of infantry that were moving against the railway junction at Kassala. The area had been seized by the Italians during the first days of the fighting in Sudan. A previous Indian attempt to recover it had been defeated due to heavy Italian air attacks.

Today, Italian aircraft were absent from the battlefield and the 7th Infantry Brigade was advancing in fine style. Having tanks in support was a help. Six Matilda IIs were moving in a manner that could best be described as stately. Their machine guns were rippling fire across the Italian positions. That was their job; to support the infantry. There were light tanks for the chase that would take place once the Italian positions were broken.

Overhead, the sound of artillery fire slackened slightly. The Indian inch howitzers. Those guns were more useful than the 18-pounders in very hilly terrain; one reason why the Indian divisions had a much higher proportion of them in their artillery regiments. The Italians were using reverse slopes to protect themselves from artillery fire, but the howitzers could lob shells over the crest to land on that reverse slope. It was an open question as to what they would hit that way.

The reduced artillery fire allowed Shabeg Singh to hear the sound of approaching aircraft. That had meant disaster a few weeks earlier. The Italian Breda ground attack aircraft had strafed and bombed the regiment, making the positions they had won untenable. They’d had to fall back; the shame of doing so still stung the Sikhs.

Today, though, was different. The aircraft were coming from the north. That meant they were supporting the 11th Sikh Regiment, not harassing it. Assuming that the pilots do not make a mistake, thought the ever-realistic Singh. The flight of Fairey Battles swept overhead. Bombs dropped on the defensive positions. The blasts and towering columns of smoke from over the ridgeline were the signal for the final push up the hill.

“Jo Bole So Nihal, Sat Sri Akal!”

The Sikhs sprinted across the remaining few yards of ground and jumped down into the Italian positions, preparing to take them with the bayonet. Instead, they found empty entrenchments and deserted defenses. The artillery fire had pounded some portions of the defenses, the bombing from the aircraft had done more, but the lack of Italian casualties was painfully obvious. The preparation had landed on mostly empty trenches.

The implications of that were still sinking into Singh’s mind when he heard the renewed whistle of artillery fire. This time, the difference in sound was immediately obvious.

“INBOUND!”

The Sikh troops scattered and took cover in the deserted Italian positions. In some cases, the safety they offered was illusory. Foxholes and trenches had been booby-trapped. The resulting explosions beat the arrival of the Italian artillery fire by a few seconds. The light cracks of the inbound pound projectile. The placement of the rounds made up for any lack of power. The Italian gunners droped their shots into the positions just seized by the Indians with almost uncanny accuracy.

They’ve pre-registered all the positions. The thought ran through Singh’s mind as he scrambled out from the dugout he’d occupied and got as far away from it as he could. Behind him, a pattern of the light shells covered the position he’d just vacated. Fragments whined around his head.

The artillery bombardment was joined by a crackle of rifle fire, punctuated by brief bursts from machine guns. Singh sneaked a look from the dip he had found himself in. The Italians were advancing quickly across the open ground. His eyes took in the black feathers on their helmets. Bersaglieri.

Their rifle fire was accurate and, combined with the precision support from the little 65mm howitzers, they were making the Indian positions too hot to hold.

The Sikh troops, very reluctantly, started to give ground, dropping back over the ridgeline to the dead ground beyond. There, they were relatively safe from the Italian guns. When the Bersaglieri crossed the crest in pursuit, they were greeted by a barrage of rifle and machine gun fire. Tthat drove them back in turn.

In the brief pause that followed, Singh collected his surviving men and got them back into reasonable shape. Then the whistles blew. He led them back over the crest into an assault on the Italian line. Once again, the positions just over the crest had been abandoned and lay temptingly open, but the Sikhs had learned from their previous mistakes.

They kept going.

This time, without pre-registeration on carefully defined targets, the light Italian mountain guns were much less effective; they were an annoyance more than anything else. The Indian artillery observers had caught up with the infantry. They directed fire from the comparatively heavy 4.5-inch howitzers on to the Bersaglieri positions in the rear. The 35-pound shells had an authority that the 9-pound Italian projectiles lacked; the barrage suppressed the Italian infantry fire long enough for the Indians to close.

The fight was bitter. The Bersaglieri had no intention of giving

ground without making their opponents pay dearly for it. By the time they were driven out of their defenses, Singh’s unit had lost yet more of his men. He doubted the ability of the remainder to advance further without rest and reinforcement. He was slightly surprised to see one of the Bersaglieri officers advancing with a white flag. Surely they are not surrendering now, after the brave and honorable fight they put up?

It was with an anomalous sense of relief that he got the message from the company headquarters. “There will be a three-hour truce so that the wounded can be collected for care and the dead recovered for burial.”

A few minutes later, whistles blew on the Indian side to announce the start of the truce. Singh was amused to hear the same message being given on the Italian side by a trumpet fanfare. His men started to lay the Italian bodies out where the Bersaglieri could collect them and get their own wounded ready for carriage back to the battalion lines. Half way through the process, a stretcher team from the Italians turned up and started to pick up the Italian wounded. An Italian officer with them noted the first-aid work carried out on the Italian wounded by the Indians and caught Singh’s eye. Singh himself had seen the Italian medics and stretcher bearers treating the Indian wounded and returned the glance. Two professional soldiers who didn’t even begin to speak each other’s language reached an understanding without any problems. There was a time to fight and a time to give aid and comfort. This was the latter and that it was being respected as such gave honor to them both.

The eighteen Wellesleys were formed into three flights of six and lined up on the Italian Air Force base at Asmara. 47 Squadron had been assigned the base as its primary target, mostly to persuade the Italian Air Force not to come back north. As far as Squadron Leader Sean Mannix was concerned, the absence of Italian fighters was an entirely good thing. His Wellesley had been a remarkable aircraft once; long ranged and capable of carrying what was, for then, a heavy bombload. Now, it was painfully obsolete, slow and very poorly armed. His aircraft’s only real defense was a single .303 Vickers machine gun aft and that had a very limited field of fire. The fact that he and his gunner sat in separate cockpits made coordinating defense very difficult. All in all, it was fortunate that the Italians had moved all their fighters south, where the South African Tomahawks had cut a swathe of destruction through them.

Mannix peered over the nose, trying to see the airfield that he was supposed to be approaching. It was hard to make out the runway against the prevailing yellow-gray color of the bare African soil. Even black-topped runways quickly adopted the universal khaki color as they absorbed the windblown dust. The airfield was supposed to be south of the town, but he couldn’t see anything.

It didn’t help that he was his own bomb-aimer. He had to fly the aircraft, search for his target, keep in formation with the other aircraft in his flight and watch out in case any enemy fighters were around. He swept his eyes quickly around the sky before transferring attention back to the ground. That was when he saw two large, square buildings with a long, straight patch of desert in front of them. Hangars, runway, south of the town. This has to be it.

It took a minor change of course to line up his aircraft on the target. Around him, the other five members of his flight saw the change and adjusted their own path accordingly. Their pilots watched his aircraft with their thumbs on the bomb release. As soon as he dropped, they would do the same. His was the only flight in 47 Squadron trained that way; the other two flights both relied on individual bomb-aiming. There had been long arguments over the technique Mannix had come up with. The other flight commanders pointed out that if he missed badly, everybody would. His counter-argument was that his flight would at least get a nice tight bomb pattern and damage something. Underneath him, the hangars he had spotted entered his bombsight. He waited a second, allowing the cross-hairs to pass just over the target. Then he pressed his release. In the streamlined bomb panniers under his wings, the racks released the ten 100-pound bombs contained in each. They hit the bungee-loaded bomb pannier doors, knocking them open and then falling clear to rain down on the target below. The ground around the buildings erupted in a tight pattern of explosions, the buildings vanishing under the clouds of black and red smoke.

“Fighters; fighters.” The voice from his gunner came over the speaking tube clearly. Mannix looked around and saw a flight of CR.32s descending on the British formation.

“Everybody, keep it tight.”

Mannix tried to stay calm. They promised us there wouldn’t be any fighters here. Behind him, he heard chatter; his gunner opened fire on a pair of

CR.32s that had picked his flight. The other gunners in his formation did the same. Between them, the display of firepower looked impressive. Mannix was painfully aware of how ineffective it really was. In contrast, the other flights had dispersed as each aircraft made its own run. Now the fighters had a spread-out series of targets, instead of the compressed mass offered by Mannix’s group. They went for the easiest targets: picking an isolated bomber, diving down and coming up from below, gutting them with their machine guns. Mannix saw one Wellesley break up. Its long wings folded around it as it started to spin down. Another developed a trail of black and orange flame; two parachutes separated from it.

There was more chattering from his formation. A CR.32 tried an upand-under attack, but the aircraft were able to cover each other. The fighter pilot obviously decided easy kills were better and left them alone. Mannix’s decision to keep a tight formation paid of in ways he had never expected. By the time the CR.32s pulled away, seven of the 18 Wellesleys had been shot down, not one of them from his flight.

“They all escaped?” Colonel Duilio Loris Contadino looked at the destruction and shook his head. The prison on the outskirts of the town had been the center of the attack and the bombers had done appalling damage. The walls had been knocked flat; the baked-mud bricks powdered by the bombs. The walls of the cell blocks had collapsed as well, leaving the cells inside exposed. The occupants of those cells took the opportunity the British bombers had so generously provided and fled. A handful had died from the bombs; the majority of prisoners, almost all leaders of the resistance to the Italian occupation of Eritrea and Ethiopia, had escaped.

“All of them, except the few we see in the ruins, sir.” Captain Crescenzo Rico surveyed the destruction and whistled. “These must be the very best crews the British had. Just to hit a target like this from so high showed great skill and to get a close pattern like this, all around the prison but so few hits on it is truly remarkable. Our airmen could never do such a thing. And the way the other bombers drew our fighters away from the attack formation. I hope these were the elite British crews; because, if the rest of the British bombers are as skilled and ruthless as this, we will have much to fear.”

“They were lucky, Captain. We were expecting them to bomb the airfield the other side of town and our fighters were stacked there, waiting for them. By the time the pilots realized the airfield wasn’t their target, it was too late. The bombers had an undisturbed run.” Contadino sighed; privately he was shaken by the attack. How had the British bombers known that the leaders of the bandit forces were held here? Asmara must be saturated with British spies. “What of the rest of the town?”

“The bombs are scattered all over the town. No great damage; a few buildings knocked down here, a road blocked by craters there. It’s annoying more than anything else. If it hadn’t been for those bombs disrupting our efforts to move through the town, we would have been here in time to chase the escapees. As it was, by the time we got here, they had got clean away. This was a very well-planned raid; an accurate main strike and wellexecuted diversions.”

Contadino nodded. “We underestimated the British badly. I will seek a meeting with the Duke of Aosta and tell him that he will now have to face a resumption of bandit attacks in this area. I do not think he will be pleased with that information.”

“Bill Slim shapes up well.” Wavell sounded pleased.

Maitland Wilson agreed. “Fifth Indian Division is pushing forward into Eritrea and advancing on Asmara. If he can just forget that he isn’t commanding a brigade any more and stop running around on the front line, he’ll make a good divisional officer. Fourth Indian Division is hung up on the ridges south of Kassala. We expected that; they’re pinning down the 40th Infantry Division there. Slim’s Indians will be taking the Cacciatori d’Africa in the flank very soon.”

“We’re taking a hell of a chance moving 4th Indian Infantry down there, Jumbo.” Wavell was flicking at the map with his fingers. “The 6th Australians are as green as grass and I doubt if any of their officers have commanded more than a battalion. Blamey makes a big show, but expecting those men to equal the performance of the Indians is pushing it. I hope we don’t have a disaster in the making.”

Maitland Wilson stared at the map. “We don’t really have much choice. We know Halifax will call for an armistice as soon as he has enough gains to make securing one politically worthwhile, or plead for one as soon as it looks like we’re losing. We’ve got to grab everything in one go. Once we have momentum on our side, we get freedom of action. If we let momentum slip, we’re going to lose that freedom.”

“Just how green are the Australians, Jumbo?”

There was a long pause as Maitland Wilson thought the situation over. “Very, but I’m not entirely sure that it matters. They want to fight. There’s no doubt about that and the treatment of the Canadian division back home got their dander up. On the other hand, they lack experience in combined arms operations and large formation actions. The question is, will they need to do either? If 7th Armoured defeats the Italian armored battle group and spearheads the advance, the Australians following behind will be doing little more than clearing up and taking prisoners. Looked at that way, this may even be the training exercise they need to shake down. Anyway, I say again, Archie; do we have a choice?”

Wavell shook his head. “No, we do not. We cannot rely on any coherent policy out of London. Between us, Jumbo, I must admit that my position here is about as uncomfortable as it gets. I’m supposed to report to London, but I am an Indian Army officer who is now supposed to report to Calcutta. Well, that’s always been something of a problem, we all know that; but we’ve never had a situation where India is at war and Britain isn’t.”

“Britain is at war with Italy; effectively, at any rate.” Maitland Wilson was looking for some ray of sunlight to illuminate the situation.

“Yes, now. And that brings us back to our initial problem. For how long will Halifax keep up his present position? Anyway, Jumbo, I have another problem. Have you ever heard of an officer called Wingate? Major Orde Wingate?”

“Heard of him? I’ve had the misfortune of dealing with him. Insufferable, arrogant, conceited man, with excessive religious beliefs. Did well in Palestine, but got convinced he was the messiah come to Earth and ended up part and parcel of the Jewish forces there. Working as much for them as for us. Why? He’s not in Egypt, is he?” Maitland Wilson’s face was so distraught at the possibility, Wavell couldn’t help but laugh.

“No, he’s in Ethiopia. Bill Platt knew his success in raising and commanding irregular forces in Palestine and brought him out. Anyway, I’ve had a message from our Major Wingate claiming to have organized a jail break in which nearly all the leaders of the Ethiopian anti-Italian groups have escaped. He wants to set up an irregular group in Ethiopia to help drive the Italians out.”

“That fits the man. He’s obsessed with irregular warfare and deep penetration operations.”

“They worked in Palestine.”

“Yes, they did. Give him credit for that, but he was operating in a very friendly environment for what he was doing. He could trust his own people implicitly and they knew exactly who the enemy were. Neither will be true in Ethiopia. Anyway, I have my doubts about his deep penetration operations theories. I think he’s going to try it one day against an enemy who know what they are doing and he’ll get cut to pieces. The problem is that he’ll take a lot of good men down with him.

Wavell nodded thoughtfully. “There’s a lot to be said there. I’ve got a different question, though; one that strikes right at the heart of this proposed operation of Wingate’s. Do we really want to go around starting up these irregular insurgency groups? It strikes me that the whole idea could backfire very badly.”

“You mean start something that will return to haunt us?” Maitland

Wilson looked thoughtful. “That’s a very real danger. However, there is something else we have to take into consideration. We’re desperately short of troops. We’ve got five front line divisions, one independent brigade and two divisions that are second line. We’ve got the whole lot committed to action right now and we’ve not got a man in reserve. Archie, if there’s a crisis now, you’ll have to give me a pistol and tell me to deal with it myself, because I’m the only reserve you’ve got.”

“I might have to take you up on that, Jumbo. But, I take the point. The two Indian divisions are over-extended in Eritrea already and their attack has barely started. We need that irregular force in Ethiopia or we just won’t have the men to boot the Italians out.”

“Do you know where are we going, Corporal?” The private was deferential, as befitted one speaking to somebody of higher rank.

“Of course.” Corporal Mongkut had already noticed the differences in the 11th Infantry since he had first been recalled to the colors. Where once men had made hard work of a few kilometers march, now they swung along easily; their steps accompanied by light-hearted banter. Yet, despite the rhythm of the march, they were keeping a wary eye out for a ‘surprise’ planned by their officers. Or, much more likely, the German advisors who had directed their training.

“Well, where are we going?” After a marked pause, the same private asked Mongkut with carefully faked patience.

“Why, wherever our officers tell us to go, of course.” Mongkut replied with equally carefully faked innocence. He listened appreciatively to the wry groan of disappointment that went up.

Mongkut had a shrewd idea where he was. His family came from Rattanburi and he knew the country well. After the train had brought them from Kanchanaburi and unloaded them at the marshalling yard at Sisaket, they had marched east. Combining that with his knowledge of the land, he guessed that the whole regiment was moving towards the IndoChina border; probably close to where the borders of Thailand, Cambodia and Laos intersected. There was no logical reason why an entire infantry regiment would be needed up here; not unless something big was about to happen.

Without being able to explain why, Mongkut knew that war was coming. It wasn’t the troop movements or his sudden resumption of military life. Nor was it the intense training he and his men had gone through over the last few weeks. It was much less definable than that. It was just that there was something in the air; an electricity or a tension. It was as if all the decisions had been taken, all the preparations made and the war was a reality that hadn’t quite happened… yet.

His thoughts were interrupted by a blast of whistles. A rest period. Ten minutes rest for every hour of marching. He couldn’t detect urgency in the movement; it was as if the planners knew that there was plenty of time and they preferred the troops on the move to arrive in good condition rather than exhausted from a forced march.

“Water carriers; fall out and refill canteens.”

The order had come from the Sergeants, but it was for the Corporals to carry out. Mongkut didn’t need to say anything; he just pointed at two of his men and watched them join the rest. There was a lake through the trees, gleaming dark blue in the sunshine. He recognized it; knew the shoreline and the square fish farm that lay across the width of the lake. They were just a little bit north of Non Sung; only a few kilometers from his family home. That really did put them close to the border with Cambodia and Laos.

Troops moving up to the Indochina border and a war in the air.

Mongkut put the two together and came up with a very satisfactory answer. In his opinion, there were a lot of debts owed. It was about time that his country collected on them.

“My apologies, Mister Secretary, for the landplane. Unfortunately, we have no areas suitable for flying boats, so we have to use DC3 aircraft for even the most prestigious of dignitaries. Please accept the warmest hospitality of our nation.” The Ambassador placed both hands together in the traditional Thai ‘wai’ gesture and dipped her head.

“This is a more modern airport than I had expected.” Cordell Hull did not return the gesture or make an equivalent response. “And a much more active one. I assume you have arranged this as a demonstration of your country’s modern outlook?”

The Ambassador ignored the discourtesy shown to her. She’d been insulted many times in her life and had long ago learned to ignore the slights. There were much more important things at stake here than her personal feelings.

“This is a normal day’s activity for this airport, especially now at the end of the rainy season. You see, the whole of the river delta is low-laying ground and it floods very easily once the rains start. By this time, the end of the monsoon, most of the area is underwater. This is wonderful for our farmers who will produce rice on the newly-enriched ground, but it makes the construction of roads and railways in the region difficult. To make matters worse, most of our population lives in the flooded areas. So we have developed air travel to maintain communications. The aircraft you just saw taking off is taking some passengers and, most importantly, the mail to Aranyaprathet. If you wish to look at the logs of the Civil Aviation Division, you will see this is a regularly scheduled flight.”

“I am sure I will.” Hull looked skeptical. “Who runs this airfield?”

“It is a joint civilian and military operation. The plan is to transfer the civilian part of the airfield to civilian employees as soon as they are properly trained and qualified. The actual airfield is run by our air force and they use the northern part. The fighters charged with the defense of the city are based there.”

“What fighters and how many?”

“We have six Curtiss Hawk IIs based here; that’s the export version of the U.S. Navy’s F11C-2,” The Ambassador sighed. “They are old, of course, and quite obsolete. Six more are at Chiang Mai in the north. We had hoped to replace them all with North American Model 68s, but the six aircraft we bought are being held in Hawaii.”

“We cannot afford to allow the Japanese access to our latest technology.” Hull slid into the waiting limousine. The Ambassador sat beside him in the back. “Not with the Japanese set on a course of territorial aggression across this whole region.”

“And as one of the potential victims of that aggression, we could not afford to compromise the effectiveness of our air defenses by giving away their details. The secrets of your aircraft are safe with us. Secretary Hull, Bangkok is a densely crowded city built largely of wood. If anybody was to bomb it, the way the Japanese have bombed cities in China, the fires would be a catastrophe. Our fire fighting services would be overwhelmed and the only thing to stop the blaze spreading would be the canals that divide the city. Thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, would die. Without modern fighters, if our major cities are threatened with bombing, we would have no choice but to submit.”

For the first time, Cordell Hull paused to question his basic assumptions. It was one thing to look at a map and make theoretical assumptions; quite another to deal with realities on the ground. The vulnerability of Thai cities to fire had never occurred to him. In passing, he wondered how many other cities in Asia would burn just as easily or as catastrophically.

“And why should the Japanese bomb you? It would appear to me that your government and political systems are very much akin to theirs.”

The Ambassador smiled politely. Mentally, she imagined the American Secretary of State being burned at the stake; using a slow, carefully controlled, fire. “To the Japanese, other nations fall into two categories. Those who must be conquered and turned into slaves or those who acknowledge Japanese superiority and become willing servants. We would prefer to be neither; but, if forced to make the choice, we would become the second rather than the first.

“As to similarities, yes, there are many. We are both monarchies where the King is held in high esteem. There is an important difference. In Japan, the Emperor is held in high regard because that is the religious duty of the people. In ours, we hold our King in high regard because he has earned that respect by his service to our people. If the respect is not earned, it is not given and he is replaced. You may remember this happened, less than ten years ago.” And let us see if you remember who commanded the troops that did it.

“Replaced by a military junta that wields authority in the name of the monarchy.” Hull’s voice injected a healthy dose of contempt into the phrase.

“Again, I will concede a superficial similarity.” The Ambassador’s voice remained polite and deferential. “But the reality is very different. In Japan, the military junta is an end in itself; it is the final product of a flawed system. Here, the military dominance of our government is a temporary thing; a step on the road to a functioning democratic government. In any case, our Prime Minister may be an Army officer, but he also functions within the rules and limitations of an elected assembly.

“By 1942 we will have full elections and we already have opposing political parties ready to contest them. The leaders of those parties already freely express their opposition to our current administration and its policies. They even have their own newspaper. What would happen to them in Japan?

“No, Mister Secretary, we have little in common with the Japanese. They believe they are already perfect and seek to impose their will on others. We recognize our imperfections and ask only to be given the chance to learn from others. And we ask you only to give us the chance to choose from whom we wish to learn. For without proper air defenses, we will have no such choice.”

It had only been a short advance. But it had a significance much more than just the ten miles they had moved. They had crossed the border from the Sudan and were now driving the enemy 40th Infantry Division backwards on their base at Bitama. The 40th Infantry, also known as the Cacciatori d’Africa, had held the ridgeline east of Kassala for two days before a flanking move by a brigade of the Fifth Indian Division had made the line untenable and forced them to evacuate.

Subedar Shabeg Singh felt gravely shamed that his Skihs hadn’t managed to take the position and had to be helped out by the Jats of the 9th Brigade. Somehow, it made matters worse that the same flanking threat made the position at Bitama untenable and the Italians would not be trying to defend it. The critical high ground, the Bara Ghazi, to the west of Bitama had fallen without a fight.

Brigadier Harold Rawdon Briggs had called the meeting of his battalion officers to outline the next stage of the campaign. Scattered amongst the august ranks of the British were the much more junior Indian officers. Briggs was keenly aware that the political circumstances of his brigade had changed. It was now an Indian Army formation, in all its attributes; the process of handing it over to Indian command was, if not absolutely urgent, something all the better for being started as soon as possible.

The command structures of the battalions was being changed; each of the British officers now had an Indian ’shadow,’ who would be learning to take over. Briggs had spent long hours looking at the men involved and their records, carefully picking out pairings that would work together. As far as he was concerned, the longer these men had together in the transition phase, the better for the Indian Army that was being born here. That was why an early start had been so essential.

“Major Hamby, sir.” Singh recognized the man he was supposed to meet here. They’d worked together in the past and made a good team. The news that they would be working together again pleased him greatly.

Major Joel Hamby turned around; his own face was split by a friendly smile. “Shabeg, my old friend. It is good to see you again.”

In the background sitting at his briefing desk, Briggs saw the two men greet each other as old friends and allowed himself a smile of satisfaction. To his knowledge, there was no parallel in modern warfare for what was happening now. An entire army was changing nationalities in the middle of a campaign. The Indian will be the British officer’s second-in-command and assistant while he is taught the new responsibilities. Then, when the Indian officer is ready, the two will switch positions. Finally, command will be handed over to the Indians and the British officer will… Well, that is the problem, isn’t it? What will happen to us once command of the Indian Army is fully returned to the Indian Government?

It was time to start the meeting. He tapped the glass of water on his desk and the room froze into silence. Briggs glanced around and saw how the Indian and British officers had completed pairing off. That part of the meeting, actually the most important part, was accomplished. He just hoped that other brigade and battalion meetings would be going as well. “Gentlemen, I have news for you that will change our plans for the immediate future. The armored cars of the Central India Horse have taken Bitama from the Italians without resistance.”

There was a series of polite cheers from around the tent. Briggs paused for a second, acknowledging the moment before continuing on a cautionary note. “Let us not be misled. We all know that the Italians can fight and fight well. They are retreating because they do not believe that they can put up an effective resistance here. Our assessment is that the Italian garrison in Eritrea is falling back on Asmara and, eventually, Massawa. We believe that they will form a defense line at Keren to defend that position.”

Briggs cleared his throat and drank some water before continuing.

“The Fifth Indian Division will be pursuing the Italian force back to Keren and will be occupying Eritrea. The Italian moves appear to be similar to those adopted in Kenya and Somaliland. Put briefly, the Italian garrison in all the Somalilands are retreating without putting up much of a fight. They are regrouping in Ethiopia and it is there that they will make their final stand. The South African Division is already entering Ethiopia from the south, while the 11th and 12th King’s African Divisions complete the occupation of all the Somalilands. Now, we can’t let the Boers have all the glory can we?”

There was a patter of applause and a discrete Sikh war-cry. Briggs smiled to himself. There is nothing like providing a common rival to weld people together. “Just because the South Africans and their Tomahawks have shot down large numbers of Italian aircraft doesn’t mean that nobody can win a battle or two without them, does it?”

Again a patter of applause rippled around the room. The way the two squadrons of Tomahawks had cleared the air of Italian air support had made a compelling story for the newspapers, but it had left the ground troops feeling unappreciated and resentful. Briggs waited again until it had settled down.

“Well, we have our part to play in Ethiopia. Effective immediately, we will be heading south. And, I am reliably informed, we will soon be having our own Tomahawks to support us, along with other American aircraft, including a new light bomber called the Maryland. Our job will be to drive south and link up with the South Africans. I needn’t say that honor demands we meet them as far south as possible, need I?”

There was another subdued roar of agreement.

“I am advised that we will be cooperating with other forces on our move into Ethiopia. One will be an Ethiopian irregular force that will be conducting a partisan campaign against the Italian forces in the country. There is also a British group doing much the same thing, under the command of a Colonel Wingate.”

Briggs paused for a few seconds, running over that issue in his mind.

When he spoke again, he did so very carefully. “I would caution you all that irregular forces and partisan groups invariably have their own agenda, and their long-term interests may not coincide with ours. I would counsel caution in your dealings with them. Be aware that they may be on our side today, but we do not know on whose behalf they may act tomorrow.”

There was much nodding around the room at that. Briggs was interested to see that the Indian Army officers were as cautious as the rest. There was a much greater degree of agreement than he had dared hope. Eventually, one Indian officer asked the question Briggs hoped nobody would.

“Sir, does this most appropriate caution also apply to Colonel Wingate’s force?”

“He calls his group Gideon Force, and I believe Colonel Wingate is aware that his control over the men nominally under his command may not be as absolute as he would wish; nor are their interests and ambitions necessarily in accordance with his own.”

He could see the officers he was addressing translating his words in their minds and coming up with the answers he had intended. The Indian officer nodded with satisfaction and sat down again.

“Is there any word of the French?” A British officer spoke up.

Briggs hesitated for a moment. “I have been advised that the French have shown no interest in the conflict between us and the Italians at this time. In the absence of any further information, I believe we will have to continue planning our operations based on that perception. I would add that the Italians did attack the French back in June, although they did not achieve very much. The French may resent the fact that we left them in the lurch, as it were, but they actually fought the Italians.”

There was a deep silence around the room. The British officers remembered how France had fought on after the Halifax had accepted the German Armistice offer. The French fight might have been hopeless, but it had been gallant. France had gone down with its colors still flying bravely. The contrast with Britain’s actions had echoed around the world. Looking at the meeting, Briggs began to realize how deep the wound in British pride and self-confidence had been.

“The greatest curse of any nation is illiteracy. No matter how free somebody may be in theory, if that person is illiterate, then they are imprisoned by their minds. A prisoner held by steel bars and iron shackles may escape his bonds, but one imprisoned by an illiterate mind can never escape its curse. That is why we must educate our children; so that freedom will be their heritage.” Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram leaned forward in his chair, his eyes flashing. “The teacher is in the vanguard of progress and the school is where the future is born.”

Cordell Hull blinked at the unexpected lecture. This wasn’t going at all the way he had expected. “And where does military rule fit into all this?”

Marshal Plaek folded his fingers together as he thought the question over. “In the long term, it does not. In the short and medium term, I believe our task is to prepare the country for truly democratic rule under the leadership of a constitutional monarchy. Once again, we come back to the problem of literacy. People who are illiterate, who cannot investigate matters and form their own opinions, are easily led. To be frank with you, Mister Secretary, my greatest fear is of some smooth-tongued scoundrel who will use wealth and charisma to dominate large numbers of illiterate peasants and bring them to our capital in order to wreak havoc. While illiteracy remains rampant in our country, then that is a danger we must guard against. That is why our constitution stipulates that the transition to full democratic representation in the Assembly should only be achieved at the end of ten years or when more than half of the populace has gone through primary education, whichever is achieved first.

“I am proud to say that we have met this target and when the new elections take place in 1942, more than half the population will indeed have gone through primary education. Many of them are not youngsters; but older members of the community who have sacrificed what little leisure time they have to go back to school and become literate. When they make such sacrifices, we cannot let them down.”

“The American concept of democratic government does not include the concept of qualifying people for the vote. We have had such measures in the past, and they were used to oppress and disenfranchise the voters.”

“Our constitution was actually written by an American jurist, Raymond Bartlett Stevens. It does not qualify people for a vote individually, but merely states that the present arrangement of our parliament, wherein half the members are elected and half appointed, shall be replaced by a parliament wherein all the members are elected once the primary education target is met. Which it was, well before the 1942 deadline.”

Marshal Plaek’s quiet, very precise English had the desired impact. Very reluctantly, Cordell Hull had to concede the point made. Nevertheless, his primary concern remained unaddressed.

“And what, may I ask, are your future intentions with regard to your neighbors?”

“Once again, I will be frank with you, Mister Secretary. Personally, I like Japanese weapons. They are inexpensive for us to buy, simple, easy to maintain and effective. My colleagues in the government disagree and the government has discussed the issue with the loyal opposition, led by Luang Pridi Phanomyong. After listening to the case made by the opposition, I agreed with their position that the political costs represented by any links with Imperial Japan were too high to countenance. However, the need for armaments still remains paramount, given the world situation. The North American P-64s we bought and the license we had been granted to build more would have resolved our problems but…” Plaek sighed softly and noted the guilty bob of the head from Cordell Hull.

“Weapons are tools, not intentions; Field Marshal. I asked after the latter.”

“But the availability of appropriate tools determines the range of intentions, does it not? If one has only a hammer, one cannot build a house using screws. The intentions of Thailand, Mister Secretary, are simple. We intend to preserve our independence and our way of life, while also modernizing our country to become part of the modern, democratic world. For this, we require strong defenses and secure borders. The greatest threat to those is Imperial Japan. We must either be strong enough to oppose Imperial Japan or friendly enough with them for them not to be a threat to us. We prefer the former.

“Part of maintaining strong defenses is the ability to recognize threats

before they become critical. Every day, the Japanese position in French Indo-China becomes stronger. The French authorities in Indo-China are staunch

supporters of the Vichy government and are so indirect allies of Japan. Our border with French Indo-China was forced on us by the treaties of 1893 and 1908 and was deliberately designed to be indefensible. It concerns us here in the government that soon Japan will be on the other side of that border. If Japan attempts the same absorption process that is being conducted in Indochina, it will leave Malaya, Singapore and Burma gravely exposed. Ultimately, India itself will be at risk. As responsible members of the international community, this causes us much concern. We would make some minor changes to the border to improve our defensive positions and negotiate cross-border trade agreements to benefit the lives of the people living along that border, but the French authorities refuse to negotiate with us.”

Cordell Hull shook his head. As a long-term diplomat, a refusal to negotiate was one of the worst cardinal sins he could imagine. It had been the way he, himself, had nearly committed the same sin that had shocked him into undertaking this mission. In his mind, the only worse sin that refusing to negotiate was to negotiate in bad faith. Determining whether the people he had met since his arrival were speaking in good faith was his next priority.

“If Thailand will accept my services as an intermediary, I will go to Hanoi and attempt to organize a meeting where trade and security issues may be discussed. In the meantime, I would like to visit some of the towns and villages here.”

“We will be most grateful for your aid, Mister Secretary. Let us know where you wish to go and we will arrange transport for you.”

The meeting ended much more cordially than it had started. Cordell Hull returned to the Oriental Hotel while Field Marshal Plaek Pibulsonggram read reports on the progress of the communications work that was finally in hand. Even so, he heard the quiet steps as the Ambassador entered his office. Unannounced, of course.

“I trust you did not tell him that the minor border adjustments we have in mind will take us all the way to the Mekong?” Her voice was droll.

“Of course not, Highness. It will be a nice surprise for him.”