“Put a star-shell across her bows”
As
the flare hissed into the North Sea the erstwhile whale catcher, rust dribbling
over battleship-grey, death’s heads on the funnel, shark’s jaws painted on the
prow, opened up from a 37mm twin barrelled Soviet V-11 AK-AK gun that was
mounted on the foredeck.
With a staccato of thunderclaps the sky around the hot-airship peppered
with shell bursts, shrapnel rattled on the hull of the gondola and tore into
the skin of the canopy.
Ferdy spun the elevator wheel as he banked the dirigible hard to
port. Pumps screamed as
ballast was forced to the stern, the great hot-air burners roared and the
sixteen triple-bladed large diameter propulsion screws whined. The Princess Aethelfleda, almost
standing on her tail, powered towards the stratosphere, out of range of the
corsair’s gun. The flack
would not last long. Most
corsairs used reloads for ammunition and a miss-fire or jam was inevitable.
There was crashing and banging from beyond the
bridge door as everything not secured took off towards the stern, and a hideous
screeching when Ginsbergbear tumbled from his armchair in the rear saloon and
landed on Phoebles’ tail.
“Make
black smoke.” A veil of
black oily smoke poured from the funnel to hide their ascent, it poured from
seams and joints in the engine-room, it poured from the galley stove.
“We
may have detected a bit of the refurbished system that’s not been thoroughly
tested till now, eh?” Boz
blew hard down the gunnery deck voice tube and the whistle was answered with
an, “Ey ey captain?”
“Run
out the stern chasers and fire when ready.”
During
the refit the Princess Aethelfleda had acquired two massive F-Off howitzers in
the stern to deter pursuers.
The violent recoil, partially absorbed by giant springs, shuddered the
gondola’s framework; the gun ports spouted cordite-smoke and flame. The large-bore shells purred
towards the pirate vessel and, just as Ginsbergbear struggled onto the command
deck, the first one exploded in mid air showering the craft from stem to stern
in vivid Day-Glo pink paint.
“Paint
bombs?” enquired Boz.
“Well? Suddenly being spray-painted pink
can be very demoralising in a macho situation,” explained the bear. The second shell had clanged,
unexploded, onto the deck of the corsair and was ticking. As the crew cautiously approached
there came a clockwork whirr and a ‘tink’. Something brown and treacly oozed out across the pink
deck and began to evaporate.
The pirates fled.
From the dirigible they could be seen scrambling in a panic across the
stern, holding their noses, clawing at their eyes and desperately trying to
launch the life rafts. The
foc’sle gunner threw himself into the sea.
“Second
round will have been a stink bomb then,” laughed Phoebles triumphantly, as he
too arrived on the bridge, still cradling a throbbing tail.
“Drop
down to sea level and prepare to take on survivors,” instructed Boz.
Much had changed since the early days of the
Coleycorsair Wars. The
Princess Aethelfleda had recently had a major upgrade. She bristled with assorted
weaponry and her eight newly modified, light weight, yet ultra-powerful Stanley
Steamer engines each drove twin, contra-rotating propellers. She was fast and agile. The top half of her canopy had
been painted a North Sea slate-grey and below she was a light sky-blue. Ginsbergbear and Phoebles felt
they had greatly enhanced the effectiveness of the camouflage by painting waves
and an albatross into the dark grey and adding fluffy clouds to the blue underside. In the pilot’s seat the once
affable dodo appeared drawn, thin beaked, his cold eyes fixed on the distant
horizon. Boz sported an eye
patch and the empty right arm of his reefer jacket was safety-pinned to his
breast.
Phoebles
was unimpressed, “You might find the controls easier to manage if u stopped
mucking about and used both hands – put your jacket on properly,” he muttered,
somewhat scornfully, “And if you don’t take that silly eye-patch off you’ll go
blind. You don’t look
rugged, just daft.”
“Boz
sighed, “This war’s not much fun any more… And that bruised tail is making you insubordinate.”
The Princess Aethelfleda descended and
Ferdinand straightened her up to hover a few feet above the swell, midway
between the abandoned pirate vessel and its intended victim, a Belgian
sidewinder coleyfishtrawler that wallowed and rolled as only a Belgian built
trawler can. The entire crew
lined the rail in enveloping oilskins and sou’westers and a cheer went up.
“Hoera!
U hebt ons opgesiagen.”
“Hourra!
Vous nous aves sauvés.”
Ginsbergbear
and Phoebles waved to the fisherman whilst Boz turned his field glasses onto
the corsair pursuit craft. A
bilious green mist rolled along the deck to tumble through the scuppers and
drift down wind along the surface of the sea. A little further away orange life rafts bobbed at the
mercy of the waves.
Gradually the gang became aware of a distant, gnat like whine and Boz
spotted two indistinct dots in the sky to the northwest. Ferdy took up the 20x60
binoculars that were housed in a box by the bridge windows. Through them he could make out
two gaudily painted Grumman J2F Ducks sporting CSAAF insignia on the wings and
tail. Each had twin
ring-mounted 50 calibre machine guns to the rear of the cockpit and they had
additional machine guns Gaffer taped to the wings. The Corsairs and Reivers utilised prodigious amounts
of gaffer tape and controlled by far the largest Gaffer tape factory in the
northern counties.
“It’s
Les Chats Souterrains,” shouted Ferdy.
“Bugger,”
groaned Boz, “Is there no let up?
“Take
her up again, Ferdy. Those
crates can’t out climb us. And, Phoebles, get the Kronstadt Fleet
Air Arm on the radio. We
need back up.”
