“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know—a person, a vehicle, anything?”
“Can’t say I was paying attention. Why?”
“She’s gone missing somewhere between here and Valetta.”
“Are you sure?”
“As good as. She should have been at work more than two hours ago.”
Before Harry could respond, there was a low, building roar of engines from out of the west. This was met with wild cheers from around the airfield as a flock of shapely planes swept into view over the ridge just south of Rabat. They were in formation, four sections of four flying in line astern, wingtip to wingtip, nose to tail.
“Bloody fools,” muttered Harry. “They’re way too tight. Did no one tell them?”
He was right. Tight formations were the kiss of death on Malta. So was line astern. Fortunately, the Spitfires fanned out, entering the circuit, before the first Messerschmitts swooped on them. The 109s came low and fast out of the sun from the direction of Valetta, ripping through a smattering of ack-ack. A handful of Hurricanes from Luqa or Hal Far did a fine job of heading off the attackers. The Hurriboys were an experienced bunch. Battle-hardened (and usually bearded), they prided themselves on the superior maneuverability of their otherwise inferior aircraft, and this advantage served them well in the tussles that now developed over Ta’ Qali. A lunatic chatter of light artillery fire accompanied the spectacle as the Bofors and twin Lewis guns opened up on the enemy.
“Here comes the first,” shouted Harry above the din.
The pilot was struggling to keep his aircraft from lurching about in the eddies of rising heat. The Spitfire hit the ground hard, bouncing and bumping along the pitted strip. A large number eight was emblazoned on its fuselage. A motorcyclist flashing a card with the same number raced to meet it, leading it off toward one of the new blast pens at the southern end of the airfield.
Harry was jumping around like an excited child. “It’s a Mark Vc, with four cannons! Look! So’s the next!”
All sixteen Spitfires touched down without mishap, and all were guided to their pens. The cloud of white dust stirred up by their propellers rolled toward the Intelligence Office, engulfing it, filling Max’s eyes and mouth with grit.
“Which number is Ralph?” Max yelled above the din.
“He came down with a dose of the Malta Dog last night. The CO won’t let him fly. He’s pretty browned off … so to speak.”
Ralph had been more subdued than usual over dinner the night before, only picking at his food, but Max had put it down to nerves, not the pernicious strain of dysentery that plagued the island.
Overhead, through the breaks in the billowing dust, he glimpsed fighter planes wheeling and twisting against the blue. He was trapped. To run for it now would be madness—a 109 could pick him off before he even reached the perimeter track—but the prospect of staying put filled him with a cold and creeping dread. Memories of the last time he’d been caught in a bombing raid at Ta’ Qali blew into his mind. He wasn’t sure he could go through that again and emerge with all his mental faculties intact. How on earth the gunners and the ground crews put up with it—day after day, night after night, month after month—was anyone’s guess.
Harry called in the safe arrival of the sixteen Spits to Fighter Control. Hanging up the phone, he turned to Max, face alight.
“Ops don’t have anything on the table.”
“So what’s that?” said Max as a 109 rocketed by overhead.
“No big jobs. Nothing between here and Sicily.”
“That doesn’t mean they’re not coming.”
“No, but it means they’re already too bloody late. We’ve been working on our turnaround times.”
They certainly had been. The first of the new Spits was back in the air within ten minutes—armed, refueled, and with an old Malta hand in the cockpit.
“Go, you bastard!” yelled Harry as its wheels left the ground. The others weren’t far behind.
Max watched in amazement. At the last fly-in back in April, Kesselring had obliterated most of the reinforcements on the ground soon after their arrival. On that occasion, “soon” had meant anything from an hour to two hours, while the aircraft were in their pens being made ready for combat. Ten minutes was a whole world apart; it was almost beyond comprehension. That’s why Kesselring, their nemesis, the master tactician they all grudgingly respected, had failed to allow for it in his calculations. For once, he had been outmaneuvered. It was good to witness this reversal firsthand. It also offered Max a small window of opportunity.
Even if swarms of 88s were taking off from Sicilian airfields at that very moment, he still had time to make it to Mdina before the bombs started to rain down. The 109s were the problem. Or were they? They seemed to be drifting south, away from Ta’ Qali. And now he saw why. A fresh formation of new Spitfires was flying in from the west, making for the airfield at Luqa.
It was as good a moment as any. If he didn’t risk it now, he was liable to spend the rest of the day cowering in a slit trench.
He seized Harry’s hand and shook it. “Good luck, Harry.”
“You too. Hope you find her.”
It was a terrifying ride, a blind, choking, headlong dash; he was half expecting to be torn apart by cannon fire at any moment. Only when he started to climb toward Mdina did he rise above the dust and the din and allow himself to glance over his shoulder. Max spat the dirt from his mouth and blinked his streaming eyes, cursing himself for leaving his goggles behind at the office in his haste.
Despite his best efforts to turn himself into something vaguely presentable, the maid still recoiled when she
