A Mighty Endeavor (50 page)

The vibration told him his engine was hurt. Oil starting to spray on to his windscreen suggested the hit was bad. MacFleet abandoned the idea of going for the cruiser and decided to settle for a destroyer.
After all, the attack is supposed to hit as many ships as possible wasn’t it? And my Swordfish might not stay airborne long enough to get into a drop position on the cruiser.

A quick check showed he was barely 300 yards from the destroyer and in a near-perfect position just off the bow. Turning away from him would present the destroyer’s broadside to his torpedo; turning into him would mean that closure speed was so high, the torpedo would hit before the destroyer could escape. He corrected the angle slightly and released the torpedo.

It ran straight and true, hitting the destroyer dead under the midships gun mounting. For a sickening moment, MacFleet thought it had malfunctioned and sunk without exploding. Then the column of water erupted around the destroyer. Only for a second, though. The torpedo hit was perfectly placed to detonate the magazine that fed the midships guns. The destroyer vanished in a black and orange fireball. The blast wave threw the damaged Swordfish out of control and nearly tossed her into the sea. MacFleet only just managed to get her back in hand. He felt sure a wingtip at least had dipped in the water. The aircraft was still flying despite the blast damage and the smoke streaming from its engine.

“Give us a course for home, Harry.” The voice tube at least was still working.

“Try 180 for a few minutes. I’ll give you a course as soon as I get a hit from the ‘79.”

That was the Royal Navy’s secret weapon, a homing beacon that would allow her carrier aircraft to make their way back. For a battered and damaged aircraft, it was a gift beyond price. MacFleet wondered if other navies had similar equipment, but dismissed the thought. He had a damaged aircraft to worry about.

Admiral’s Bridge,
Conte di Cavour,
off Cape Methoni

Admiral Inigo Campioni hauled himself back on to his feet as the
Conte di Cavour
rocked from the third torpedo hit she had taken. Off to port, a tower of water beside the
Guilio Cesare
showed that she too had suffered at the hands of the infernal torpedo-bombers that were breaking his fleet apart.

“Sir, the
Nicolo Zeno
has blown up!”

The lookout’s report confused Admiral Campioni. They were under air attack. It was supposed to be impossible to torpedo a destroyer moving at full speed and taking evasive action. He looked across the fleet. A black pyre of smoke told him the report was correct. One of the Swordfish torpedo bombers was on fire as it crossed Campioni’s field of vision. He watched the crew jumping from the open cockpit. They were far too low for their parachutes to open and far too high to stand a real chance of surviving the jump without a parachute. He guessed they’d decided it was better to jump than burn. The Swordfish wallowed for a split second and then it bellied into the water. The pyre it made drifted through the formation of ships and was left behind in their wake.

“Brave men.” Campioni did not grudge the tribute to the pilots and crews of the old biplanes. He was under no illusions about the weakness of his anti-aircraft fire, but flying so slowly into the tracers still needed cold nerve. The British pilots had that; skill, too. His listing, crippled flagship was a clear tribute to that.

“Sir,
Guilio Cesare
has been hit again. She’s signalling she is out of control.”

Campioni looked aft towards where
Guilio Cesare
was starting to circle helplessly.
Another ship with a torpedo in the screws. The British pilots aren’t just hitting my ships; they’re putting the torpedoes where they will hurt the most. Damn them.
There was a light rattle as machine gun fire struck the bridge. One of the Swordfish had actually had the gall to strafe him as it passed. The single Lewis gun was unlikely to do any real damage. It would take the foulest of foul luck for it to hurt anybody, but it was the thought behind it that counted. He felt the ship shudder slightly under his feet. Campioni thought she had been hit again, but it was the echoes of a distant blow.

“It’s over, sir.” His flag Lieutenant sounded relieved. “We have taken three hits,
Guilio Cesare
two,
Trento
two,
Trieste
one and
Nicolo Zeno
one. The destroyer has gone and
Trento
is sinking fast. “

Nine hits out of 15 torpedoes. Just who were those pilots?
“How many aircraft did we shoot down?”

“Three sir, with two more seen flying away badly damaged.
Andrea Doria
is trying to get
Guilio Cesare
under tow.”

“What about us?” Campioni was shocked at how much damage the small formation of bombers had wrought on his fleet.

“Sir, the damage control crews report that the torpedo protection system has failed completely. All three torpedoes hit the same side and they cannot stop the flooding. We can limit the list if we counterflood but doing so will mean our remaining machinery room will be lost. We’re sinking, sir.” The damage control officer sounded hopeless and defeated. “All we can do is to buy the time needed to get the crew off the ship. The destroyers can pick us up.”

Campioni could feel his ship was going down. The rolling motion under his feet was getting consistently more sluggish. She was rolling reluctantly, but each successive recovery from the rolls was even more reluctant. The list at the end of each was just that little bit worse. Soon, she wouldn’t stop the roll and she would capsize.

“Make it so. Get the men off. Make sure the crew in the engine and boiler rooms know what is to happen. What about
Trieste
?”

The Flag Officer took over the reports again. “She’s dead in the water now, but Captain Avila reports she should be able to make five knots in a quarter of an hour and fifteen within the hour. He requests permission to head for port since it is proving hard to stop the flooding.”

That should not surprise anybody.
The
Trentos
were built so lightly that they get shaken up by their own guns, let alone torpedo hits. “Tell him to proceed at his own speed and at his own discretion.
Andrea Doria
is to take
Guilio Cesare
under tow and make for Taranto. I will transfer my flag to her. With five destroyers left in operational condition and those crowded with survivors, our part in this is over.”

Campioni looked at his mauled fleet again and shook his head, thinking of the crew he had seen jump from their burning Swordfish.
God help me, I would be honored to shake the hands of those men.

Goofers Gallery, HMS
Eagle,
At Sea, Off Gavdos

“Here comes another one!”

The chorus of cheers from the bridge of the carrier marked the appearance of another Swordfish returning from the strike. The first few aircraft back were already below, sitting in the hangar while they were repaired, rearmed and refuelled. The day was still early and there was the possibility of launching another mission. It all depended on what the pilots had to report.

The Swordfish making its approach was in serious trouble. It was streaming thick black smoke from its engine and its progress was unsteady. On
Eagle’s
flight deck, emergency crews were getting ready to deal with the crash landing that seemed all too probable. The aircraft seemed to slip sideways and lurch down; then it recovered. It shook some more as it crossed the turbulence behind the carrier deck. Again, it seemed to falter, but the pilot caught it just in time. Then, his aircraft dropped on to the flight deck. Its arrester hook snagged a wire. The Swordfish came to a halt, quickly surrounded by emergency crews. They doused the smoking engine with foam. A cheer went up from the watchers lining Goofer’s Gallery as the pilot jumped down. It turned to a roar of appreciative laughter; he knelt down and kissed the deck.

“V4373.
That’s Jim MacFleet Take him off the strike list, he won’t be able to fly that kite again today.”

The Pegasus engine on the aircraft was obviously wrecked. It was questionable if a replacement was available. It was rumored that
Illustrious
and her escorting destroyers had arrived in Gibraltar loaded down with all the spare parts and supplies that could be physically stuffed into them. Despite that, spares were in short supply.
Eagle’
s aircraft were a quickly-declining asset. Nobody knew for sure what, if anything, would be coming out of Britain or when. The same problem was cropping up in all sorts of unexpected places. Without Britain as a source of supply, there was a slow, creeping paralysis of the equipment that was still in service.

Beneath the Goofer’s Gallery, the damaged Swordfish was already being pushed towards a lift so it could be struck down for repair. On the horizon, another Swordfish was already starting to make its landing approach. Just how long
Eagle
could continue to operate her aircraft was a question that was starting to worry a lot of people.

Admiral’s Bridge, HMS
Warspite,
North of Tobruk

“Eagle
is claiming two battleships, two cruisers and a destroyer sunk, sir.” The lieutenant had the message flimsy in his hands and was waving it around in what seemed to be near-triumph.

Admiral Cunningham looked at the young officer with a certain level of severity. The Lieutenant was brash, to the point of being insubordinate, and was never afraid to speak his mind. Neither trait seemed to be very favorable to the prospect of a successful naval career. Nevertheless, Cunningham believed that he would go far; it was just that he wasn’t sure whether it would be to the top of His Majesty’s Navy or to one of his prisons. Still, one had to make allowances for anybody cursed with a surname like Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksberg.
How did a Greek end up with a name like that?
he wondered.

“And why is my searchlight officer bringing messages to the bridge?”

“Casting light on the situation, sir.” The lieutenant seemed quite unabashed by the question from the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet. “Signals is swamped, sir, with all the traffic coming in, and are out of runners. I was passing, so I was just helped out.”

“Hmph.” Cunningham wasn’t quite certain whether that was commendable or not, but there was much to be said for an officer who wasn’t reluctant to help out another department in an emergency.
Especially with a message as important as this one.
“We had another message from the RAF a few minutes ago. They say that the Italian battle squadron is retiring on the naval base at Taranto with three large and five small ships. How do you reconcile the two messages?”

“I’d assume that either the debriefing on
Eagle
or the RAF made a pig’s breakfast of things, sir. Probably, both of them. The important thing is what they both say; the Italian Battlefleet has been hit hard and is retiring.”

Well, that was probably accurate, if tactless,
Cunningham thought.
And he got the crux of the matter right.
Eagle
sent the battle squadron running for port with their tails between their legs. That means that the Italian convoy is wide open.

“Quite. Captain Fisher, make to the rest of the squadron that they are to form on us and prepare for a night action.” Cunningham looked at the four light cruisers and four destroyers that surrounded
Warspite
and couldn’t help but reflect that the battleship looked rather like a nanny surrounded by her charges. “Make 23 knots and steer to intercept the Italian convoy. We want to hit them after dusk, so we can hunt them all down before dawn. I had expected to spend most of the day beating off air attacks, but we haven’t seen a single aircraft. This is most encouraging. Lieutenant, get to your searchlights and make sure your crews are ready. Much may depend on you tonight.”