“Easy enough to assume these are a couple destroyers sent to look us over.” Morgan stroked his thick beard. “Well don’t look at me to give you the name of the ships, Captain. I’m your intelligence master, but nothing has come in over the black line from sources since we arrived here, if you know what I mean.”
“Well enough, Mack. From here on out we rely on conventional methods for intelligence gathering. You’re probably correct, but I’d prefer to look a man in the eye before I punch him in the nose.”
Morgan nodded, leaning close so only MacRae might hear him now. “Look Gordon, are you going to let every ship we run into out here get within gun range to satisfy your proprieties?”
“I see what you mean,” said MacRae. “Very well, air contacts have been clean for a good long while. Let’s get an X-3 up to have a look. I was just on the helo deck and the birds are all oiled and ready for action.”
“Suit yourself. But they have got to be destroyers, and if I can get the first good punch off in a bar fight I always feel I got my money’s worth.” He smiled, and MacRae sent the order down to the helo deck. His caution turned out to be unwarranted. Twenty minutes later the X-3 helo reported in that they had long range cameras on the contacts, two fast destroyers, flying the tricolor of France, and they were beating to quarters.
This wasn’t the Georgian Coast Guard, thought MacRae. Mack Morgan is right. I’ve got to re-set my watch to war time. It’s no good thinking I can back down a potential combatant with a warning or the simple flash of our deck gun. These ships undoubtedly mean business, just like the Russian Black Sea Fleet did, and so that’s what we’ll have to get down to here.
“Mister Dean,” he said stiffly.
“Sir?”
“Stand up the Gealbhans, a single missile to begin. Target those close contacts. You may take your pick as to which ship you hit. I want them to know what we’re capable of.”
“Aye sir.” Dean spun on his heel, ready for action. “You heard the Captain. Light up the forward cell and sound deck claxon.”
The blaring warning came and the forward deck was cleared as the covering plates opened to expose the missile cells. Seconds later the missile was away, fast on its way to find a pair of troublesome birds in the two French destroyers.
Agile and Vautor were the uninvited guests that day, the Eagle and Vulture. They had been coming at their top speed, all four stacks darkening the sky with smoke, with crews at the ready on their five 138mm guns. Their mission was to find the ship reported by the German reconnaissance plane out of Greece, and to ascertain whether the British fleet was on a parallel course south of the main Franco-German force. MacRae did not know it at that moment, but he was about to tell the enemy exactly what they wanted to know.
The missile came in low and fast, a sleek sparrow out to challenge the bigger birds of prey. Vautor was the ugly duckling that day, its crews spying something bright and low on the horizon. The missile came so fast that the ships barely had time to swivel their AA guns on the heading before it pulsed in to find its target, a silver streak of death. At just a little over 3000 long tons, full load, and no armor to speak of, the Vautor was exactly the kind of ship the missile had been designed to kill. It penetrated the hull easily, and the resulting explosion set off the big 22 inch torpedo tubes, with catastrophic results.
Captain Degarmo aboard the Agile stared with disbelief at the chaos when he saw the other destroyer erupt in angry fire and smoke. A rocket, just as he had been warned. He did not believe the tales circulating about these new British naval weapons, until he saw the skies laced with the ragged remnants of the winding white contrails from the aerial missile defense. Yet he had not actually seen any of those rockets in action, and the thought that one could come at him like this, so fast and low over the sea to unerringly strike his squadron, was most unnerving. He found himself spinning this way and that on the weather bridge, field glasses pressed tight against his eyes in a vain attempt to spot the enemy who had fired upon him.
Nothing was to be seen.
Mon Dieu! Could they have hit us from beyond the horizon? Was this fired from an unseen aircraft that sped away after delivering its weapon? He immediately sent a signal to the main fleet, warning him that he was under attack by rocket weaponry, and the die that would decide the fate of many on the sea that day had just been cast.
Admiral Jean de Laborde received the message with some concern, turning to his aide, Lieutenant Giroux. “Rocket weapon? Then the British do have these things as reported. Notify the Germans. It seems the enemy is south of us, and on a parallel course as we suspected.”
