All that day the two fleets were on divergent courses, but the British progress south was limited to the 16 knots that Queen Elizabeth could make. Malaya was in no better shape with the torpedo she had taken, but the flooding had been controlled and the ship was in no immediate danger of sinking. The three cruisers that had also taken bomb hits, Calcutta, Coventry, and Orion, were all still seaworthy, though they would all need repairs when they returned to Alexandria.
Argos Fire continued to shadow the Franco-German fleet, steaming about 100 kilometers to the south on a parallel course. Captain MacRae continued to feed updated reports on the enemy location, and Tovey was amazed at the accuracy. There’s something to be said for these advanced radars, he thought. They provide a situational awareness that is unsurpassed.
With this knowledge, Tovey concluded that the enemy was definitely heading for Crete, and warning alerts were sent out to see if the RAF there could return the favor and hit the enemy fleet. But in communication with Cunningham, Tovey received a coded message updating him on current air strength for Crete. Twelve Hurricanes, and eight old Gladiators made up the fighter defense. For strike aircraft they had 27 Blenheims, and while the airfields had adequate fuel for operations, there were no spare parts for maintenance. RAF had made the difficult decision to eventually pull the remaining aircraft off to North Africa. Meanwhile, disturbing reports continued to show German air strength building up in Greece-over a thousand planes.
Crete will be next, thought Tovey. So it looks like my little visit here will be extended. After all, Hindenburg is here, and there is simply no way I can return HMS Invincible to Home Fleet at the moment, Cunningham will need me, and every ship I can give him. For starters, I think I’ll have to bring in another carrier as soon as possible. That thought immediately brought the face of his young protege to mind, Christopher Wells on the carrier Glorious. He turned to an aide and asked for an update on ongoing operations with Force H, and he soon learned that Somerville had concluded the occupation of the Canary and Cape Verde Islands, and was now maintaining a guarded watch on Casablanca. There was a new carrier just about to join the fleet, HMS Victorious. That now made it possible to shift carrier strength here, so he cut orders to have Glorious steam for Alexandria at once.
Good enough, he thought. Now we’ll give the Italians a good pounding at Benghazi, and hope our boys don’t get too much of the same on Crete. Yet one day soon we’ll have to face that Franco-German fleet, and that will decide who controls the Eastern Mediterranean. At the moment, we risk losing the whole thing! I have Invincible, Warspite and our friends from another time. Who knows how long it will be before I get Queen Elizabeth and Malaya back in shape? I had better get them to Alexandria as soon as I possibly can.
He made the decision to detach those two old warriors, and send them home directly with an escort of five destroyers and the cruisers that had also taken bomb damage. The guns of Invincible and Warspite would be more than enough to pound Benghazi.
“Any deviation in that course track, Mister Healey?”
“No sir. I still have the main body heading 090, due east at 24 knots. But a couple of smaller contacts look like they are getting a bit curious about us. I have two ships bearing on our position.” He toggled his history track on those ships and saw they had broken off from the main body just five minutes earlier.
“These ships are fast, sir. I’m making them at 36 knots!”
“I knew we should have taken that spotter plane out an hour ago,” said MacRae. They had seen a single incoming aircraft coming in from the north, high and slow. MacRae had decided not to waste a missile on it, and now knew that he must have been spotted. Fair enough, he thought. Anybody gets too nosey and they’ll get more than a nasty surprise for their trouble.
“Keep an eye on them, Mister Haley. What is the range now?”
“Seventy five kilometers and closing, sir.”
“Notify me if they cross the 50 kilometer line. Mister Dean, please message the British and see if they have any sheep astray. I’ll be on the helo deck aft.”
About forty minutes later MacRae got that notification at the fifty kilometer mark, and he was back on the bridge, this time with Mac Morgan in tow.
“Two fast ships inbound,” said MacRae. “We could give them a nice poke on the chest, but at this range I really don’t know what I’d be shooting at. British fleet says they have nothing on that heading, and this contact was seen to break off from the main body we’ve been tracking at long range.”
