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With the Eastern Mediterranean suddenly the focal point of the war, Kelly knew very well that he’d be moving with his ships to Alexandria before long, and, in the middle of March, Nineteenth and Twenty-Third Flotillas were informed they were to accompany a desperately-needed convoy to Malta before passing on to Alex. Intelligence had it that the Italian Fleet was contemplating a sortie against the Greek convoys while Admiral Cunningham, in Alexandria, was making dispositions to catch them at it, and the Malta convoy was to be the last for a while because he had no wish for such an important collection of ships to be caught at sea.

Getting his captains together on board Impi, Kelly explained what he intended and they worked it out carefully with model ships until everybody knew exactly how his mind was moving, what he thought would happen and what he intended them to do.

‘The voyage will divide itself roughly into three parts of three hundred miles,’ he pointed out, ‘and if the convoy makes a speed of just over twelve knots, we can divide it roughly into three periods of twenty-four hours. If we leave at daylight we should arrive off Malta at daylight on D+3 and, with the early-setting new moon, we shall have only minimum illumination at night, and the hours of darkness on all three days will be almost equal to the hours of daylight.’

He paused to look at the men listening to him. Verschoyle sat alongside him, his hands clasped on a thick wad of papers, and directly in front were Smart and Latimer, as different as chalk from cheese; Smart elegant, unruffled and controlled, Latimer nervous and edgy and eager to get on with the job. The men about them looked unbelievably young.

‘The major hazards,’ Kelly continued, ‘will occur during daylight and will consist, I imagine, of evening reconnaissance’s and air torpedo and bombing attacks. These might well be supplemented by the proximity of Italian heavy ships, with the most dangerous time as we go through the Sicilian Channel. However, the Long Range Desert group’s expected to put on a diversion against enemy airfields, and cruisers from Alex have been ordered to bombard Soluk near Benghazi to keep the Luftwaffe busy. To gain early information, submarines will be patrolling off Taranto and the Strait of Messina.’ He paused. ‘We can’t expect air support.’

He looked up again at the young faces staring at him but there was no sign of alarm.

‘If enemy surface forces are sighted,’ he went on, ‘Twenty-Third Flotilla’s job will be to harass and threaten a materially superior enemy by repeated assaults and withdrawals, to prevent them reaching the convoy. Liberal use of smoke screens ought not only to prevent them sighting the merchantmen but will also conceal the imminence of short range gunfire action and of even greater concern to them – of torpedo attacks.’

He saw the officers shift a little in their seats because what he was saying could well be condemning some of them to death.

‘The ships will be split up to make a striking force, consisting of Impi, Inca and Impatient, who will harass enemy warships. Indian and Hallamshire will act to lay smoke between them and the convoy. Captain Verschoyle’s remaining ships will be the close anti-aircraft escort. The disposition for surface action, to be assumed in place of the normal cruising disposition designed to meet air attack, will be taken up with the least possible delay. The Hunts will leave the night before to carry out an anti-submarine search ahead, and join on the morning of D+1.’

He let that sink in, then went on slowly. ‘If the Italians appear, the two rear groups will use their W/T as much as possible to give the impression of a larger force than there actually is. False names and false positions can be used, but let’s be discreet; if we appear to be an armada the Italians will soon get suspicious.’

He paused, remembering the stress laid at Jutland on signalling and the rigidness it had produced, and recalled something Verschoyle had said then about the Grand Fleet.

‘Apart from this,’ he concluded, ‘I wish to cut down signalling. From everybody’s point of view it’ll be safer. I suspect our general purpose weapons will be switching at full speed from aircraft to surface vessels and it’ll require some pretty quick decisions about which target’s the most important, so you won’t want to be looking to the flotilla leader to know what to do.’

There were a few smiles and he concluded briskly. ‘Too much signalling only results in tactical arthritis, anyway, and I prefer command to be more elastic and hope that apart from “Enemy in sight” and “Am engaging the enemy,” there won’t be need for much. If anybody’s in any doubt, he can do no better than place his ship between the convoy and the enemy and I expect you to use your initiative. We’re a band of brothers not a flock of sheep; and initiative, like muscle, atrophies if it’s not used, though there’s always a well-tried course of action everybody in destroyers should have learned by now – “When in doubt, follow father.”’

As the conference broke up, the officers left with serious faces.

‘They look worried sick,’ Kelly said, frowning.

‘But of course,’ Verschoyle agreed. ‘They’re terrified of not coming up to scratch, because you have a reputation for coming down on carelessness like a ton of bricks.’

It surprised Kelly. ‘I have?’

‘“Extremely efficient,”’ Verschoyle quoted. ‘“Merciless with the inefficient and never one to hand out the chocolate.”’

The weather was fair and visibility was good when the convoy, consisting of the fast supply ship, Hoylake, two freighters, Youlgreave and Clan Mackay, and the tanker, Mons Star, sailed with Hallamshire and the Twenty-Third Flotilla. But they were already deteriorating into a moderate swell and an increasing wind and, with the first problem the position and progress of any Italian ships that might be out, Kelly was almost indifferent to the air attacks which began almost at once. Verschoyle’s ships appeared ahead on time, as the aircraft were reported – and just as it was discovered that Clan Mackay could make no more than nine knots. The attacks, delivered by high-level bombers, were neither heavy nor well pressed home.

‘Wind-up after Taranto,’ Rumbelo suggested in a growl from the back of the bridge.

Despite the Italians’ lack of success, they knew they were being shadowed all the time, and later in the day there were a few torpedo attacks by Italian S79s. But the torpedoes were dropped at extreme range and the attacks were futile, and, with the convoy opened out so that each ship could take avoiding action, no one was hit or damaged.

The aeroplanes appeared and reappeared throughout the afternoon but they were at extreme range from their bases and did little other than shadow them and the big problem still lay ahead. The second day was much the same as the first, not too dangerous but nerve-wracking in its tenseness. In a way, the aircraft enabled everybody to let off a little steam, and the sound of the guns, though they weren’t doing much but frighten off the Italians, at least were a sop to edgy nerves.

On the morning of the third day, the flotilla signals officer appeared with an intercepted signal from one of the submarines watching ahead.

‘Italian heavy ships have left Taranto, sir. Submarines report their course as 270 and speed as 23 knots. They don’t give number and class.’

‘So they’re out at last,’ Kelly said. ‘Repeat it to Nineteenth Flotilla and tell Hallamshire, Indian, Inca and Impatient to conform to our movements.’

Shortly after midday another signal was received: two battleships and six cruisers were across their path. For a moment there was a heart-stopping pause as the talk on the bridge quietened. Two battleships and six cruisers were too much even for the best of destroyers.

Then Kelly spoke dryly: ‘They haven’t got that many cruisers,’ he commented. ‘And they’d be bloody fools to risk them against us with Cunningham in Alex itching to catch ’em with their trousers down. Somebody’s being too enthusiastic and mistaking destroyers for cruisers and cruisers for battleships. In the Italian navy, the silhouettes are the same.’

The sun was sinking towards the horizon now and the sea had become a deep navy blue. Eyes were turned towards the bridge in expectation. The buzz had already gone round that the Eyeties were out, and the attitude, despite the imminence of death, was not one of trepidation but of excitement and anticipation. They could wipe up the Eyeties easy. No one had the slightest doubt about it and it was strangely reassuring to be so confident.

The ship’s cat, an enormous ginger tom, which spent half its time asleep in a miniature hammock made for it by one of the petty officers, had deigned to appear above deck and was stretched in the sunshine in a sheltered part of the bridge shield.

‘Better remove Leading Cat Pluto,’ Kelly suggested to Rumbelo. ‘He’s bad-tempered enough as it is and he’ll be diabolical if the guns disturb his afternoon caulk.’

By this time, Impi, Inca and Impatient were steaming two miles ahead of the convoy, which was guarded by Chatsworth, Ashby and Rushden, with Indian and Hallamshire in between ready to screen the merchant ships with smoke. The Mediterranean was looking more like the Atlantic than anything else by now, the ships rising and falling like horses on a roundabout, but the sky remained blue, and the tossing sea blended with it exquisitely, the white caps and the wake of the ships completing the picture. From Impi’s bridge, Kelly could see the guns’ crews relaxed with the ease of veterans. Most of them had already seen eighteen months of war and they handled their weapons with the skill of professionals. Below decks, food was arranged for those who had to remain at their stations and men were already collecting it for their shipmates.

As the ship rolled in the quartering sea, Kelly glanced about him. Somewhere astern, Verschoyle was handling the convoy. It couldn’t turn away because there was nowhere for it to run to. And it had to reach Malta. Since the arrival of the Luftwaffe, the situation there had grown perilous, and there were thousands of people who had to be fed. The island had become a thorn in the Italians’ side and they all knew that when the tide turned, as turn it eventually must, it would become not merely a thorn but a huge battery directed at the Italian mainland. It had to be held just as surely as for the enemy it had to fall. If Malta fell the Italians would find it safe enough to tow barges across to North Africa.

A slash of spray across the bridge made them duck, and brought the realisation that they were protected neither from the weather nor from enemy shellfire, because the thin plating was heavy enough only to keep out the green seas. Nobody seemed nervous, however. There were still many Regulars in the ship’s company, all trained – officers and men – for years for such a moment as this. Their actions were disciplined, sparing of effort and confident. Perched on his stool, Kelly felt quite calm and not in the slightest troubled by the weight of his responsibilities. He’d spent the whole of his life from the age of thirteen learning how to behave in the face of an enemy. He’d served in small ships and big ships, on shore stations and in offices in London, and had attended staff courses and listened to admirals laying down the law. He knew his job. He was confident in himself. What to do in any given situation was in his mind as clearly as the Lord’s Prayer.

The sun was bronze-gold now and the sea was darkening to purple. He glanced at his watch.

‘If they leave it much longer, we’re going to dodge ’em in the darkness,’ he said.

Even as he spoke, the buzzer went and the officer of the watch answered it.

‘Radar has them, sir,’ he reported. ‘Eight vessels. They can’t tell yet what they are.’

As he replaced the instrument, the masthead buzzer followed at once. ‘Masthead reports smoke, green three-oh, sir.’

‘Thank you.’ Kelly settled himself more comfortably on his stool. ‘So they’ve decided to have a go after all. We will now proceed to kick Mussolini’s backside round the Mediterranean.’ He looked quizzically round him at the expectant faces. ‘How do you suggest we set about it? You’re the staff and you’re supposed to offer advice.’

There was a short, pungent and very earnest discussion with a lot of emphasis laid on caution. Kelly stared at them, his eyes amused.

‘What a lot of lily-livered skunks you are,’ he said cheerfully. ‘Delay favours the defence. We’ll go straight at ’em.’

There were a few grins. It was part of his job to make everybody feel they couldn’t lose even though he had a pretty shrewd idea himself that they could. How many of the Italians there were and how big they were was something nobody knew, but he guessed they wouldn’t come out after Taranto unless they were expecting success, and that meant they would be big and there would be plenty of them. If they appeared, he intended to attack them. A defensive role was objectionable to the deeply rooted naval philosophy in him and alien to his closed world of unquestioned loyalties and rigid values. Retreat could be accepted only after the most unemotional calculation; and emotion, warlike and vengeful after Dunkirk, was strongly present in him.

He became aware of the officer of the watch speaking. ‘Masthead reports smoke now green two-five.’

Lifting his glasses Kelly saw it himself, heavy and black on the horizon. The Italians were moving across their bows and that meant they intended to bring him to battle, come what may. He glanced at Impi’s funnels and was pleased to note that there wasn’t sufficient smoke to reveal their position. The Italians had no radar worth speaking of, so perhaps they had no idea yet how close they were.

The wind lay in exactly the right direction for a smoke screen and, hidden by it, the British ships would be able to approach to close quarters. Behind them, Verschoyle’s ships were already making enough chatter on the radio to draw the Italians’ attention and convince them there were plenty of them and that they were bigger than they really were.

The destroyers were turning now and increasing speed to place themselves between the convoy and the Italians. They were too far ahead of the merchant ships by this time to expect Verschoyle to come to their assistance, and were rushing down on the Italians, whatever they were, at a combined speed of fifty-odd miles an hour.