An Irish Doctor in Love and at Sea (55 page)

Admiral Iachino's eight-inch gun cruisers outgunned the British ships, so the Empire cruiser flotilla immediately notified Cunningham and steamed south, hoping to draw the Italians down on the approaching British battleships where, glory be, the repairs had now been effected and
Warspite
could manage twenty-four knots again. The Italians followed Pridham-Wippell and shelled him at long range but scored no hits.

Cunningham's big ships were still ninety miles away.

It would be several hours before the Italians would be in range of
Warspite
's batteries, but her medical department was at readiness. Richard Wilcoxson had everything set up in the two medical distribution stations so his staff would be ready when action stations were sounded. But for the moment, he was releasing members of his teams in four-hour shifts so they could eat and sleep.

Fingal was not due back for another two hours and had come to his cabin from breakfast in the mess to change his shirt and note the night and day's developments so far in his diary. He was resolved to do his best to keep track of what transpired. He had started the diary so he could tell Deirdre about his doings while they had been apart. Since he'd left
Warspite
last year he'd made no more entries except for a few notes about the journey home on the troopship. As long as he and Deirdre had been together, there was no need to keep a record. Now they were apart, starting the diary again seemed to bring her closer. He pictured them, snug in the upstairs lounge of the house in Ballybucklebo, a peat fire in the grate. He sighed. He was so far from her, far from the pastoral peace of Fareham and the New Forest, far from the Northern Ireland village he had called home before the war. In hours his ship might be embroiled in a fight to the finish with her fifteen-inch rifles roaring and the enemy blazing back. Fingal O'Reilly was well and truly back at war.

He flipped back to the entries he'd made since his return to Alexandria, and to those he had filled in since the beginning of the year.

Jan 1. British attack Italians in Libya as Operation Compass proceeds to drive them out of Egypt.

Jan 2.
Warspite
shells Libyan port of Bardia. Hit by bomb on anchor. Little real damage.

Rest of Jan.
Warspite
shells Libyan ports and escorting convoys. Greeks beat Italians in land actions in Greece and Albania.

Feb 5. Italians defeated by British at Beda Fomm on Gulf of Sirte. Twenty thousand Italians surrender while I am in the Blenheim flying over Africa.

Feb 6. Scary engine fire on Blenheim on way from Takoradi.

Feb 7. I rejoin
Warspite
and old friends.

Feb 14. Afrika Korps under Rommel arrives in Africa.

Feb 22. Seven-a-side rugby football team from
Warspite
(including me) beaten by more than sixty to nil by New Zealanders (we stopped count). Kiwis all ex-internationals.

That entry would make her laugh, he thought.

March 5. British troops sent from Africa to Greece in support of Greeks fighting the invading Italians.

March 22. Leading Seaman Alf Henson, gunnery course completed, rejoins Warspite after a long sea passage from Liverpool. He has been promoted to gun captain of the number-four gun of the starboard six-inch battery.

March 25. Bulgaria and Yugoslavia now part of Axis.

March 26. Italian one-man explosive motorboats attack and cripple HMS
York
in Suda Bay (Crete). Our only eight-inch cruiser. I have to admire the courage of the boats' crews and even if they are the enemy, I am relieved that all six survived.

Another Tannoy announcement seeped through the door of his cabin. “The Italian cruisers have reversed course to the north and are en route to rejoin their battleship. They are possibly heading for home. Admiral Pridham-Wippell's cruiser group is shadowing. We are continuing in pursuit.”

So perhaps there wouldn't be a fight after all. He'd not be sorry. “What next?” Fingal wondered aloud. He knew the Tannoy would keep him posted, and he still had free time. He opened a desk drawer, took out the photo album Deirdre had given him at Christmas, admired the wedding photos, the rose now dry and forlorn, then took out a letter, written on the day she'd got home to Belfast in January. The missive had made its weary way round Cape Horn and finally been delivered two days ago.

Darling Fingal,

How sweet of you to write a letter so it would be waiting for me when I got back to the nurses' home.

By now she should have the ones he'd posted in Takoradi too.

I was feeling lonely and reading your lines comforted me. I shouldn't tell you, but I had a wee weep, but I soon cheered up. Your words telling me how much you love me warmed me. And before I say any more, dearest, I love you too …

He skipped over her white lies about her journey from Southampton not being too bad—wartime travel was almost always an ordeal—her cheerful gossip about a phone call to Ma, her remarks on the weather, her room, and the awful food in the nurses' home.

I'm going to unpack now and have a nice hot bath before I get an early night. Good thing there's lots of water in Northern Ireland and no rationing. I'll pop into bed and think of our bed in Alverstoke and of being held in the strong arms of the gentlest man in the world. I'll look at his photo on my bedside table and make my snow scene into a blizzard—it's there to remind me of our lovely first Christmas. And I'll think of how you loved me and I loved you and I'll fall asleep and dream of our love and will the days to pass until we can be together again.

Please take care. I love you so much, darling,

Deirdre

He wondered why he'd bothered to look at it again. After so many readings he knew the words by heart.

*   *   *

Fingal, happily smoking his Christmas pipe with its silver lid, felt the wind on his face, the pitch and roll of the deck underfoot. He had to strain to hear the Tannoy's message over the thundering of the screws and the roar of the turbines. “Seventeen hundred hours. After several air strikes from land-based Blenheim bombers and
Formidable
's air attack group, the Italian ships are retreating at reduced speed.
Vittorio Veneto
has been hit by a torpedo from an Albacore. One Albacore was lost. Our cruiser division is following and maintaining contact.”

He noticed that the tompions had been removed from the muzzles of the guns of X and Y turrets. They and their fellows in A and B were ready for their deadly business. Above everything, the ship's thick funnel smoke and that of her consorts streamed astern, vandals' dirty smears on an otherwise perfect azure sky.

“Pity we have to slow down to recover one of our reconnaissance planes,” said Richard, as he kept Fingal company on the starboard side of the quarterdeck. “I'm sure A.B.C. hopes to get in among the Eyeties, and he won't be too pleased, but this is going to be something to watch. It's never been done before with our ship still steaming ahead. We usually heave to.” A seaplane recovery crane stuck out from abaft the funnel trunking, not far ahead of where they stood watching. Its pickup hook dangled freely.

On the starboard bow, a single Walrus, one of the battleship's spotters, was taxiing at a parallel course on the calm water ahead. It and
Warspite
's other observation plane had been catapulted off earlier in the day. This one had just returned.

Warspite
's bows cleaved the sea.

“Are they seriously going to try hooking onto the recovery ring on the aircraft and hoist it inboard while we're under way?” Fingal asked.

“They are. And they'd better get it right the first time,” Richard said. “Scuttlebutt has it that Admiral Cunningham's fit to be tied about having to reduce speed to eighteen knots. You know we catapulted two spotters earlier. They can't land on aircraft carriers, but they can land on land or sea. They were both supposed to fly to Crete, but for some reason this one has come back. We might need to launch it again, so it's got to be recovered. I reckon the pilot'll take a right chewing out.”

Warspite
's condenser repair this morning meant the ship was now up to her full twenty-four knots. Since then, she,
Valiant
,
Barham,
and their escorts had strained to catch up with the
Vittorio Veneto
. The torpedo had done its job and the Italian battlewagon had only been able to make fifteen knots, half her regular speed. But that success had cost the lives of the plane's three-man crew. Nothing would persuade Fingal that Horace's famous
Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori
was a truth. It is lovely and honourable to die for your country? Rubbish. And as far as he knew, the Roman poet had not died in battle himself.

Fingal stared down at the amphibious plane's telegraphist/air gunner, a petty officer named Pacey. The man was balancing precariously above his cockpit. “Rather him than me. I had enough of open-water acrobatics in a breeches buoy trying to get on to
Touareg
last year.”

Richard smiled and nodded.
Warspite
had overtaken the little aircraft, and in moments her bow wave would toss it around like a cork. The Walrus's pilot altered course to starboard so his floats were stern to the waves, which passed under without capsizing the small plane. Moments later, the Walrus's aircrewman succeeded in hooking on to the crane.

Fingal, who hadn't realised he was holding his breath, exhaled and yelled, “Bloody well done.”

The plane, swinging like a pendulum, was winched on board and respotted on its catapult. Soon it would be refuelled and ready to launch again.

Richard was applauding as the notes of the turbines and propellers bellowed their renewed challenges, the deck beneath Fingal's feet jerked forward, and the great battlewagon raced up to her top speed. The pursuit was still on.

*   *   *

The Tannoy squawked to life. “Twenty-two twentyhours. All sick bay personnel report to your action stations. All sick bay personnel…” Bloody hell. Fingal had just got to his cabin after four hours on watch. He'd been looking forward to a few hours of sleep after a restless shift sitting in the medical distribution station twiddling his thumbs, cracking feeble jokes with the SBAs, rechecking that everything was set up correctly, munching on corned beef sandwiches and sipping weak cocoa, listening to the Tannoy, chatting with Richard, and trying to follow the events as they unfolded.

He closed his cabin door and started heading back the way he'd just come: toward the bow along the main deck, up a level for a short walk along the upper deck, then down two levels to the middle deck. Much had happened in the outside world in the past few hours and he'd seen none of it.

Warspite
had successfully relaunched the Walrus, and the spotter had reported that
Vittorio Veneto
and several eight-inch cruisers were forty-five miles ahead, making fifteen knots to the northwest. Cunningham, based on the plane's intelligence, had ordered another aerial attack to try to slow the Italians down more.

“Bloody good thing they recovered the spotter and could find out where they were,” Fingal had said. “We might still catch up.” The excitement of the chase was getting into his blood.

At 7:25
P.M
., a cruiser believed to be the
Pola
had been hit and was reported as being dead in the water.

Richard's smile had been grim as they'd listened to the Tannoy announcement. “I don't give much for her chances once our big boys catch up with her.”

And now Fingal was on his way back to the for'ard medical distribution station. Things were going to start hotting up.

As he went down one companionway, the tinny voice continued to narrate. “Twenty-two twenty-three hours.
Orion
's radar has picked up a single ship six miles from her own position. Our position is ten miles west of Crete, ten miles southwest of Greece's Cape Matapan. Our radar has detected two large cruisers and a smaller one crossing our bow. Range thirty-eight hundred yards.”

Where the hell had they come from? Fingal wondered. Had Admiral Iachino detached cruisers or destroyers to aid the stricken
Pola
? The Italian must have been unaware he was being pursued. British intelligence knew the Italian ships had no radar. So now a detachment of the Italian fleet and Cunningham's ships were almost on top of each other.

A full-fledged battle was no longer just a possibility, it was a reality. And things were going to get hectic. He knew he'd be safe four decks down—once he got there. He'd be crossing open deck in a few minutes. At least after his time in Haslar he no longer doubted his anaesthetic skills, and there were sure to be casualties. Lots of casualties, the poor divils.

He was aware of the ship heeling to starboard. The admiral must be turning his line of battle so the great ships' port broadsides were presented to the enemy. Whatever Italian vessels were out there in the pitch-black night would be facing the combined firepower of twenty-four fifteen-inch rifles, each shell weighing a ton, and Lord alone knew how many six-inchers would be firing. Henson would be disappointed. His gun, on the starboard side, might not see any action.

Fingal had seen
Warspite
's great guns in action in daytime. What would they look like at night? There was only one way to find out. A quick detour before he reported to his post would satisfy his curiosity. He ran up the nearest companionway to the forecastle deck and found he was standing behind the shield of one of the antiaircraft guns. Its crew all wore steel helmets and asbestos antiflash gear. “Hello, Doc. Come to see the fun?” said one of the gun's crew, a man for whom Fingal had lanced a boil two weeks ago.