Fingal looked up to a sky dappled with high thin clouds and for the moment enemy bomber free. The twenty-knot wind of their passage ruffled his hair where it stuck out from under a steel helmet. All the other bridge personnel wore similar protection. “Thank you, sir. I’d be four decks down on Warspite. I’d have no idea what was going on.”
“Four decks down behind God knows how many tons of armour,” the captain said. “Destroyers are different.” He grinned. “Nowhere much to hide really.”
As poor Chris Simpkins had discovered.
“You’re probably as safe here as anywhere if the only ships firing are battleships at long range. The Eyeties will be too busy trying to hit our battlewagons to bother with shrimps like us—unless we are trying to torpedo them, then they’ll give us everything they’ve got.”
There was some comfort in that. In Fingal’s mind, there’d not be much left of a 1,850-ton ship like Touareg if she were to suffer a direct hit from a battleship’s main armament.
“I’ll have to chase you if we are going into close action, but until then, you will have time on your hands, so you may as well watch the action if you wish.” He handed Fingal a spare set of binoculars. “Here, you’ll see better with these.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“I think you’ll find it illuminating. A flying boat out of Malta has identified most of the enemy fleet. There’s a pair of Cavour-class battleships each with ten twelve-inch guns. They’re capable of twenty-eight knots. One’s the fleet flagship, Giulio Cesare, with Admiral Riccardi on board. The other’s Conte di Cavour. They’ve both undergone recent extensive refits and will be tough nuts to crack. They also have sixteen eight- and six-inch gun cruisers, and more than thirty destroyers. I’m afraid we’re outnumbered, and outgunned in the cruiser department, and Malaya and Royal Sovereign aren’t very fast. We may leave them both behind if we end up trying to catch the Eyeties.”
Fingal whistled. Warspite would have to take on their battlewagons unsupported by any other heavily gunned ships. Not good odds.
“Look,” said Huston-Phelps, and pointed astern. “Eagle’s coming head to wind.”
Fingal put the glasses to his eyes, focussed, and watched as the ponderous aircraft carrier and her escort, including the battered Gloucester, swung onto a northwesterly course to give the aircraft the best lift under their wings. Looking to Fingal like little moths, the flimsy “stringbags” took off, formed into V-shaped groups of three, and droned away, each carrying a Mark XII torpedo that they hoped might hit an enemy warship and at least slow her down if it failed to sink her. Their main targets would be the Italian battlewagons.
“You have to admire the Fleet Air Arm laddies,” Huston-Phelps said. “You’d not get me up in one of those Swordfish biplanes on a flat-calm day, never mind being shot at too.”
Fingal lowered his glasses. “Nor me,” he said.
“Flagship’s signalling, sir,” the yeoman of signals said, and began to read the flickering morse. “Seventh Cruiser Flotilla proceed at best speed.”
“That’s thirty knots,” Captain Huston-Phelps said. “Vice Admiral Tovey’s cruisers are going to get among the enemy before us.”
Fingal looked through his glasses as the four sleek vessels already ahead of the rest of the fleet began to put on speed. He wondered how their six-inch guns would fare against the Italian cruisers with their eight-inch armaments. And yet airman and sailor alike, facing horrid odds, seemed to go about their business as if it was simply a routine day. Were they inured to fear, too young to be afraid, heroes who were heroes because, although terrified, they carried on nevertheless? He shook his head. He couldn’t speak for them, but he was scared. And he wasn’t afraid to admit it, at least to himself. Last night, just as he had after Narvik, he’d seen what bomb fragments could do to metal and to flesh. Fragments. What effect a twelve-inch shell would have he’d try not to imagine. His smile was grim. If nothing else, it would be over quickly for many.
The signals yeoman said, “To Warspite’s five escorting destroyers, make revolutions for twenty-four knots and maintain screening positions on Warspite.”
“Very good. Acknowledge.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
The skipper bent to a voice pipe, which presumably communicated with the engine room. “Engine room, bridge. Engine room, bridge.” He paused, listening to the chief engineer’s acknowledgement before saying, “Revolutions for twenty-four knots please, Chiefy.”
Fingal heard the jangling of the engine room telegraphs. At times such as these the engineering chief petty officer, Chiefy, would be on the engine control platform. Fingal felt the deck move under his feet as the ship gathered speed. Astern she now was throwing up a high rooster tail of wake. The wind on his cheeks freshened and the funnel smoke streaming astern thickened.
“Tallyho,” said the captain. “Our admiral is a pretty aggressive man. He’s sending his light forces on ahead to try to slow down the enemy, pushing the hell out of Warspite. Look at her go. Malay and Royal Sovereign will be left behind.”
Fingal watched his ship, picturing his friend Tom Laverty busy at his chart table keeping the plot up to date. For the time being her great rifles were trained fore and aft, but as soon as they were in range they would start swinging, elevating, blasting.
Her funnel smoke belched thick, her bow wave creamed away from her sides, flung spray over the forepeak, and the wake boiled above her stern. Even here, four cables away, he could hear the roar of the turbines, the crackling of her battle ensigns streaming out from the fore and main tops.
“ABC’s pushing on so he can support the cruisers as soon as possible,” the captain said, “but that’ll leave the other battlewagons lagging behind. Once we get in range, we’ll have ten ships and only one that outguns the Eyeties—Warspite. And they’ll have, if I’ve done my sums correctly, thirty-three ships.” He grinned. “Real death-or-glory stuff.”
“Motto of the Seventeen, Twenty-first Lancers,” Fingal said. He was still picturing what a battleship’s guns might do to Touareg, but he also found himself being infected by the captain’s excited enthusiasm.
“I think,” said Huston-Phelps, keeping his voice flat, his expression deadpan, “ABC’s plan is to surround the enemy.” He chuckled.
And Fingal, whether from genuine amusement or simple release of tension, laughed until the combined twenty-four-knot wind and his laughter brought tears to his eyes.
* * *
By three o’clock, Eagle had flown off a second unsuccessful air strike. Not a torpedo had hit, but all the planes had eventually returned safely to land on the carrier’s flight deck, much to Fingal’s relief.
“It’s been nearly three hours since ABC sent the cruisers in pursuit,” the captain was saying. “Visibility is about fifteen miles. The cruisers are ten miles ahead of us and the rest of the fleet ten miles behind.”
Fingal glanced astern and had no difficulty making out the bulk of the two battleships. The carrier was off to the east of Warspite. Ten miles ahead, the four fast British ships were easy to make out.
“Aha,” said the captain, “Neptune, one of the cruisers, has just signalled, ‘Enemy battle fleet in sight.’” He grinned. “The last time that signal was made in the Med, Nelson was in command.”
Moments later, a Swordfish biplane was catapulted off Warspite’s deck and headed in the direction of the enemy.
“The plane will spot the fall of Warspite’s shells when she opens up and radio back corrections,” the captain said. “We’ll listen in.” He gave instructions for a repeater speaker to be switched on on the bridge. “It’ll be in Morse code, but our yeoman will give us a running commentary.”
The cruisers had opened fire, and even at this distance Fingal could hear the sounds of gunfire and see the flashes from the British cruisers’ guns and beyond them the flickering of guns being fired by the enemy forces. Waterspouts, white and discoloured by the shells’ explosives, towered above the distant ships. Fingal was sur
e it must be only a matter of time before one or more of the outnumbered British cruisers were hit, but he’d not seen any telltale towering gouts of flame from any of their hulls. He recalled a phrase his father had once used and had attributed to a Prussian, von Clauzewitz, “The fog of war.” Certainly up ahead, as funnel smoke and the cordite fumes of many guns hung low over the water, it was difficult to be sure exactly what was happening.
“Amazing,” the captain said. “Admiral Tovey’s handling his force like a destroyer flotilla commander, dashing here and there, unsighting the enemy gunners and—”
Fingal was deafened. Warspite had let go a salvo from A turret, immediately followed by one from B. He ducked instinctively. The last time he’d seen her fire her great guns he’d been watching from directly above. Now he had a different perspective on the sheets of flames pouring from each muzzle and the dense mahogany-coloured smoke. The cruiser sailors would be heartened by the arrival of Warspite’s one-ton shells among the enemy. It must be, Fingal thought, like the intervention of a big brother in a playground squabble between rival kiddies’ gangs—but a potentially lethal intervention.
Shortly after, Fingal became aware that his view of the enemy squadrons was becoming even more obscured. “What’s going on, sir?”
“It seems our Italian friends don’t want to play anymore. They’re laying a smokescreen and turning away, and … hang on.”
“Signal from Flagship, sir. Time three thirty,” the signals yeoman said. “Warspite and destroyers will steam in a circle to permit Malaya to catch up.”
The skipper gave the necessary helm orders, and Touareg heeled into a turn to starboard and completed a 360-degree manoeuver before steering northwest again with Malaya in company. Royal Sovereign was still lagging behind.
“Here comes trouble,” Captain Huston-Phelps said, and ahead, appearing from the man-made fog bank, Fingal could begin to make out the ghostly shapes of two huge Italian ships. The leading ship carried five of her great guns in two turrets on the foredeck. The three in the lower turret spoke.
“We’re almost on parallel courses,” the captain said, “so both sides will soon start firing broadsides, but Warspite will range with salvoes.”
“I watched her doing that on a gunnery exercise,” Fingal said. “Each gun of a pair fires, then they correct the range.” He didn’t get a chance to say any more because with a roar like that of an approaching train, three Italian shells arrived and their deafening explosion and waterspouts bracketed Warspite.
Nearly simultaneously, Warspite fired at the Italians’ leading battleship. Once more the roar, the flames, the smoke.
Fingal watched as the waterspouts rose close by the closest Italian ship. “Pretty impressive,” the captain said. “The range is twenty-six thousand yards.”
“Short by six hundred yards,” the signals yeoman said, interpreting the spotter aircraft’s message.
Fingal saw the muzzles of the guns of Warspite’s two for’ard turrets lift to increase their elevation. Then the rifles bellowed their defiance.
He lost count of the number of times the great guns spoke, but at four o’clock he saw clearly through his binoculars a column of fire arising from near the funnels of the leading Italian ship. The blaze was followed by a huge upheaval of smoke.
Captain Huston-Phelps clapped his hands. “Got the bastard.”
The yeoman announced, “Direct hit. Midships. Giulio Cesare. Large fire. Heavy smoke. Much steam. Possible damage to boiler room.”
“And,” the captain said, “at a range of thirteen miles. No one has had a hit on a moving target at that range before. Well done, Warspite.”
It was well done, Fingal acknowledged, but how many men had ceased to exist? How many were in agony, lying still or flopping like landed fish? A hit in the boiler room? The superheated steam would flay members of the engineering crew alive.
“Look at the buggers run,” the captain said.
Already the Italian battleships were turning back into the smoke.
“Orders from flagship, sir,” the yeoman said. “All destroyers to counterattack in concert with the cruisers under cover of smoke.”
“Sorry, O’Reilly,” the captain said, “but we’ll be dodging fire from the whole Eyetie fleet now. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to go below to your sick bay.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” He wasn’t sorry. He’d seen enough carnage. As Fingal made his way down the companion ladder, he paused and watched as the two Italian battleships turned tail into an ever-increasing pall of man-made smoke while shells from Warspite and Malaya were hurled into the darkness, doing what damage not even the spotter plane could see.
* * *
Fingal sat at the little desk in his borrowed cabin. It was 9 P.M. and Touareg’s men had been stood down from action stations some time ago. He’d made one last round of the sick bay and retired to make notes from the conversations he’d had with some of the ship’s officers in the wardroom over dinner.
He read his entries.
July 9, 1940. 4 P.M. Destroyer and cruiser attack in smoke. Heavy fire from enemy cruisers, but no British vessels damaged. Warspite’s spotter plane reported: “Italian fleet in disarray.” Italian aircraft had appeared and in the confusion had mistakenly bombed their own ships instead of the British. Fortunately for the enemy not a bomb had scored a hit. Pity. Could have saved us the trouble. Eventually it was reported that the Italian fleet had got itself back into some semblance of order and was steering west and southwest at high speed for Straits of Messina.
5:35 P.M. British fleet twenty-five miles south of coast of Calabria. No hope of catching Italians but we are under heavy aerial attack. ABC ordered course set for Malta.
Bombing stopped at 7:30 P.M. No serious damage to fleet. One of Warspite’s spotter planes set on fire in hangar by her own guns’ muzzle flashes. Ditched overboard.
My first and, I hope my last, fleet action. I am a little proud that although scared most of the time, I was able to master my fear. I am amazed that for all the sound and fury, the number of ships and aircraft involved, that so little was achieved by either side and by how one hit from one of Warspite’s big guns could make an Italian fleet turn tail and run.
He rose. Was it, he wondered, a British victory? Hard to say. British casualities had been minimal when you considered that Warspite, with her complement of more than a thousand men, could have been sunk with dreadful loss of life. Even a Tribal-class destroyer carried 190, but no British ships had been seriously hit. Even so, eighteen men had been killed on Gloucester and three men had died on Touareg. Nothing but a stupid waste.
One of those men was Chris Simpkins, and Elly would be sitting in Alex about to learn that she was a widow and her boys in England were fatherless. In the shock of hearing of Simpkins’s death last night, Fingal had blurted out to the captain something about comforting Elly. Now he wondered. After all, he hadn’t been Chris’s MO and had only met Elly once. Did Fingal have any responsibility to see her at all? He shook his head. He’d not decide now but think on it during the journey back to Alex. Perhaps it might be better to let that hare sit. She’d have a wide circle of old friends and was there much Fingal could add? Probably not.
Besides, he was supposed to be leaving on a troopship for England soon. He fingered Deirdre’s green scarf, tucked into the pocket of his shorts. But would any of that still be on? Might he find he was being posted to Touareg permanently instead? Already the fleet was one MO short. Fingal had watched them commit his body to the sea this morning. There, never mind a new posting, there but by the grace of God go any of us, including officially noncombatant MOs like Peter Fenwick. He picked up his diary and closed it with a snap.
40
Vast Sorrow Was There
Fingal sat at his desk on Warspite and looked around the little cabin. It had been his home for nearly eight months, but tomorrow, glory be, he’d be taking a train to Port Said to join a convoy that would be Liverpool-bound on its return trip.
One of the troopships had brought out his replacement, a new MO who would join Warspite tomorrow.
When he’d left Touareg four days ago, the first thing he’d done after reporting back on board was to seek out Richard Wilcoxson.
“Fingal, you’re back. Well done.” The man had jumped up from his desk and extended his hand, just as he had done last November at their first meeting. “By all reports you did an excellent job.” And Fingal had warmed to the older man’s praise. “It’s all confirmed, nothing has changed. You start the course at Haslar Hospital early October and I want you back on Warspite once you’ve completed your training.”
And there’d been a letter from Deirdre, full of inconsequential gossip and underscored with love and longing. He’d devoured it and immediately written back telling her the wonderful news that the wedding was definitely on and that soon they would be together. He had hers tucked into the breast pocket of his white shirt to read again when he went ashore later this morning. He planned to visit the base hospital and see the two major cases he’d operated on eight days ago on Touareg.
His war diary lay on the desk and he idly flipped it open. Someone had once described war as long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. As usual he had some time to kill before the pinnace took him to shore. He would reread the last entries before putting it into his half-packed suitcase.
July 9th, 5:30 P.M. Still on Touareg. Battle seems to be over. Fleet twenty-five miles off coast of Calabria. Too close to Italian aerodromes. ABC has ordered course set for south of Malta.
July 11th. We’re been cruising these waters for two days. ABC had to get to high-level conference in Cairo so Warspite and her destroyers are now headed for Alex. Rest of fleet to Malta to escort convoy. Italian bombing barely ceased during daylight. Touareg skipper said the planes came from bases in Libya. Our flotilla attacked thirty-four times. More than 400 bombs were dropped, but not a single ship seriously hit.
An Irish Doctor in Peace and at War Page 33