“Then it must have been a plane. I have heard the Germans are working on weapons like this-radio controlled bombs.”
“They saw no aircraft, sir.”
“Probably ducked into a squall line. How could any ship fire at a target it could not see? Captain Degarmo on the Agile is not blind.”
Laborde could not be faulted for the assumptions he was making. Over the horizon radar was not something that would have come readily to his mind as a possible solution. French investment in radar technology was sparse at best. By 1935 a single French ship had been equipped with a “collision avoidance device,” and on land the French had tinkered with the “barrage electronique.” They had purchased a few radar sets from the British, and one of these was installed on the Normandie, but amazingly, it was disregarded as a useful device, and switched off. Strausbourg had an air warning set installed and operational, but saw no threats.
“There is one thing I do not understand, Admiral.” Captain Martel was adjusting the fit of his gloves. “If the British have these weapons, why is it we saw nothing of them at Mers el Kebir or Dakar?”
“Possibly a new development. It may be limited in deployment, and only available on a few ships. The British flagship is here, or so say the Italians. It was HMS Invincible that caught the Italians as they withdrew, but it used the good old fashioned way of doing battle at sea, those nice big 16-inch guns.”
“Perhaps we’ll get a crack at that ship today, sir. I’ll match our twelve 15-inch guns against her nine any day and come off the better man.”
“Undoubtedly,” said Laborde. “Well with this weather clearing, let’s get spotter planes up and verify the position of this enemy fleet. Notify the Germans that we will launch at 15:00.”
“Very good sir.”
MacRae was pacing on the bridge, his deliberate, steady movement from one side to the other like the motion of a pendulum.
“Keep that up and you’ll wear a path in the carpeting,” said Morgan, but he turned his head to see that Elena Fairchild had come up to the bridge to see what was going on.
“Greetings, Mum,” he said politely.
“I heard the alarm,” she said. “What were we firing at this time?”
MacRae drifted over, speaking in a calm, quiet voice. “A pair of French destroyers were thinking to get cozy with us a while back. I sent them a message to discourage that thought, but it seems my strategy backfired.”
“In what way?”
“We’ve another 22 ships heading our way now, and here we are between the wolves and the sheep, just one little sheep dog on the watch.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The British are about 20 kilometers south of us, and we’ve taken up the radar and air defense picket for this detachment. They’re heading for Alexandria-the ships that took damage from that air strike.”
“That was unfortunate,” said Fairchild. “Why couldn’t we stop that attack?”
“Oh we might have-that is if you don’t mind my using damn near every SAM we have aboard. The Russians took a bite out of them as well, but it was clear they were trying to husband their missile inventory as well.”
“And what about the destroyers?”
“It looks as though we put one under, and that has the rest of the lot a wee bit bothered. They’ll be on our far horizon in fifteen minutes at the speed they’re making. So I sent down a message to let you know we may have to do some serious shooting, and very soon.”
“Well how are we fixed for missiles ourselves?”
“On the SSMs, we’ve seventeen Gealbhans remaining.”
“Seventeen?”
Twenty two enemy ships… Seventeen missiles. The mathematics did not give her any comfort.
“What about the deck guns?” She folded her arms, clearly unhappy.
“Oh, Aye, we’ve plenty of ammunition for those. But Mister Haley there says we’ve a good number of heavy ship sin that formation, and a 4.5-inch gun won’t make much of an impression on their battleships. We can use it to fend off a destroyer rush, should it come to close quarter action like that.”
“A destroyer rush?” She gave him a long look. “Walk with me, Captain, if you please.”
“My pleasure…” The two exited the aft bridge hatch, with several crewmen looking over their shoulders as they went, and Mack Morgan giving one a big grin until he heard Miss Fairchild’s voice calling for him as well.
They moved out to the officer’s wardroom behind the bridge, and Elena closed the door, folding her arms. “What in god’s name are we doing, Gordon?”
“We’re screening the British fleet. That’s what we agreed to do when we took up this post.”
“Where is the Russian ship?”
“Kirov? They’re doing the same for Admiral Tovey’s detachment, off to Benghazi. I can’t say as I like the idea of dividing the fleet like this, but the ships we’re screening all took hits in that air action, so it seems they want to get them safely to Alexandria. It’s really my fault, Elena. I took a pot shot at a pair of destroyers getting nosey, and put one under. Perhaps if I’d waited and used the deck guns I might have driven them off and avoided the situation we’re in now.”
