Grand Alliance (Kirov Series) (26 page)

“I think General Wavell will be
recalling the 4th Indian Division from the East African campaign,” said
Fedorov. “You’ll have the 2nd New Zealand Division too.”

“Even with those troops our
prospects for any further offensive will be slim. They will barely be enough to
hold a line along the coast near Mersa Brega, which is where I believe Rommel
is heading. Your Brigade can be the tip of the spear, General Kinlan, but as
you’ve explained, you only have so much ammunition in train, and you’ll need to
be supplied just like any other unit in this environment. My instincts tell me
to dash off in hot pursuit here, but that’s just what got Rommel into the stew
he’s eating now. No. I think it best we arrange these logistics before
contemplating any major move west. I’m sure this is what Wavell will advise.
Our men just made the long slog from Agheila to Tobruk, Bardia and beyond.
They’ll need rest and refitting before we can ask them to turn around and move
west again. Given your situation, I think we’d be much better off planning the
next offensive carefully, so we can get the most from your force while it
remains viable.”

There it was again, thought
Fedorov—the 7th Brigade represented power that was absolute, but finite. He
knew full well how Kinlan must feel now. He would have to get back to
Alexandria to brief Wavell, and then his own ship would be needing him soon. He
felt reluctant to leave, wanting to help guide and advise Kinlan at this most
critical initial phase of his experience here. At the same time, he harbored a
lingering feeling of guilt for being the man who had let the bear out of his
cave here. He knew the knowledge of Kinlan’s presence was very dangerous, and wanted
to watch over things and prevent further contamination. On one level, he knew
he was being foolish. Events had now been set in motion that would gather their
own momentum, for good or for ill. At least I’ve manage to move things in the
right direction, he thought. We’ve stopped Rommel’s advance, and saved Egypt
for the moment. That was no small feat.

Beyond all this he still had the
Germans to worry about, and yes, what they needed now was good intelligence. He
needed to get up and find out what was going on, but he had limited fuel. He
would have enough to get to Alexandria, brief Wavell, and then he would need to
return to
Kirov
to refuel and huddle with Admiral Volsky again.

For now, he thought, it will be a
long slow advance for the British as they try to re-occupy Cyrenaica, just as
O’Connor said. I’ll have to have faith in him, and in Kinlan. There is nothing
else to do. I certainly won’t be the man running operations here, so it’s time
I returned to the ship.

It was then that a runner came in
with more news off the radio, and it was most welcome.

“There’s been a battle at sea,”
he said. “Apparently the Royal Navy has given the Italians quite a beating.”

“Good show,” said O’Connor.
“They’ll be happy to know we’ve done the same to Jerry here, thanks to you
fellows showing up in the nick of time. Well then, I think we all will have our
hands full in the next few days and weeks. Let’s get on with it.”

Fedorov turned and shook hands
with both men, wishing them well. He told them that he would report soon on his
meeting with Wavell and relate the General’s intentions.

“Now,” he said himself in
English. “I have ten hungry Marines to feed, and a ship to look after. Good
luck to you both!”

He saluted, and took his leave,
heading for the KA-40 where Troyak and the Marines had assembled, more than
ready to be moving again. They had stewed in confinement for some time, until
Fedorov managed to forge his alliance with Kinlan. Most had no idea what was
happening, but they had followed Fedorov’s orders to sit tight and stay quiet.
He spied Orlov, a thought coming to mind.

“Chief,” he said. “What ever
happened to that thing you say you found in Siberia?”

“You mean this?” Orlov reached in
his pocket, producing the strange tear shaped object, about the size of a small
egg. Fedorov simply extended his hand, waiting for Orlov to hand it over.
“Something wrong?” he asked.

“I’m not sure,” said Fedorov,
“but I’d like to have a closer look at this thing, if you don’t mind. Maybe the
ship’s engineers can figure out what it is.”

“Dobrynin? I was going to ask him
about it, but he was too busy.”

“You say you were near the Stony
Tunguska River when you found this?”

“Very close. We spied something
from above, and I thought someone was signaling me. So Troyak and I went down
to have a look. I told you what happened. The Sergeant calls it the Devil’s
Teardrop. Good name for it. There was something very strange about that
place—very bad. In fact, it scared the crap out of me, and I’m not ashamed to
admit that. It was as if… well I could feel something was terrible there, a
real feeling of doom. Your senses were keened up like a grizzly bear was on
your trail, but it was deathly quiet. I never felt anything quite like it. All
I could think of was getting the hell away from that place.”

“Yes… Well, I think I’d better
hold onto this.”

“Be my guest,” said Orlov, “but
be careful. It gets warm sometimes. Damn thing almost burned my hand—right when
we saw those odd lights in the desert.”

Fedorov thought about that, but
said nothing. He took the object and tucked it into his service jacket pocket,
his thoughts musing on the possible connection between this object and the
incident involving Kinlan.

Just what I need, he thought,
another mystery to solve.

Part
VIII

The
Sheepdog

“While it's Tommy this, an'
Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the
wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir," when there's trouble in the
wind.”

―
Rudyard Kipling

Chapter 22

The British
fleet steered
south, away from the action and on a heading that would take it down to
Benghazi as planned. Tovey worried that the Franco-German fleet would attempt
an immediate engagement before they could slip away, but he was heartened to
learn that his radar picket,
Argos Fire
, reported the enemy was heading
east.

What could they be up to, thought
Tovey, but he soon realized that Crete could be the target, and the enemy might
be planning to strike there even as the Royal Navy steamed on Benghazi. Under
any other circumstances I would be trying to engage that fleet, but not with so
many ships licking wounds from that air strike. We were lucky to get off as
well as we did. Without that rocket defense things would have been much worse.
My God, they must have shot down sixty planes, a hard knock to the Germans and
Italians, but yet they kept on coming.

And that is the sticky wicket, he
thought. They
will
keep coming. All those planes can be replaced, but
not the missiles that shot them down. There is really only so much
Kirov
and
Argos Fire
can do for us. It will come down to a steady hand and
good fleet air defense from the FAA in the end, just as it always has. What we
need here now are more aircraft carriers.
Eagle
and
Hermes
can
barely do the job, and we simply haven’t the fighter strength in theater to
challenge the enemy.

In that he was very correct.
There were no more than 77
Hurricanes
in the Mediterranean theater at
that very moment, and the few FAA fighters that had been assigned to the two
carriers. Everything they had sent to Malta was gone. The 12
Swordfish
and the Wellington bombers had managed to evacuate, but none of the fighters
survived. Most of the German fighter strength had then shifted to North African
airfields, but most of the
Stukas
were still on Sicily, and as long as
they remained there, they could dominate the waters of the Central Med unless
we can challenge them with good fighters.

All that day the two fleets were
on divergent courses, but the British progress south was limited to the 16
knots that
Queen Elizabeth
could make.
Malaya
was in no better
shape with the torpedo she had taken, but the flooding had been controlled and
the ship was in no immediate danger of sinking. The three cruisers that had
also taken bomb hits,
Calcutta, Coventry
, and
Orion
, were all
still seaworthy, though they would all need repairs when they returned to
Alexandria.

Argos Fire
continued to
shadow the Franco-German fleet, steaming about 100 kilometers to the south on a
parallel course. Captain MacRae continued to feed updated reports on the enemy
location, and Tovey was amazed at the accuracy. There’s something to be said
for these advanced radars, he thought. They provide a situational awareness
that is unsurpassed.

With this knowledge, Tovey
concluded that the enemy was definitely heading for Crete, and warning alerts
were sent out to see if the RAF there could return the favor and hit the enemy
fleet. But in communication with Cunningham, Tovey received a coded message
updating him on current air strength for Crete. Twelve
Hurricanes
, and
eight old Gladiators made up the fighter defense. For strike aircraft they had
27
Blenheims
, and while the airfields had adequate fuel for operations,
there were no spare parts for maintenance. RAF had made the difficult decision
to eventually pull the remaining aircraft off to North Africa. Meanwhile,
disturbing reports continued to show German air strength building up in
Greece—over a thousand planes.

Crete will be next, thought
Tovey. So it looks like my little visit here will be extended. After all,
Hindenburg
is here, and there is simply no way I can return HMS
Invincible
to Home
Fleet at the moment, Cunningham will need me, and every ship I can give him.
For starters, I think I’ll have to bring in another carrier as soon as
possible. That thought immediately brought the face of his young protégé to
mind, Christopher Wells on the carrier
Glorious
. He turned to an aide
and asked for an update on ongoing operations with Force H, and he soon learned
that Somerville had concluded the occupation of the Canary and Cape Verde
Islands, and was now maintaining a guarded watch on Casablanca. There was a new
carrier just about to join the fleet, HMS
Victorious
. That now made it
possible to shift carrier strength here, so he cut orders to have
Glorious
steam for Alexandria at once.

Good enough, he thought. Now
we’ll give the Italians a good pounding at Benghazi, and hope our boys don’t
get too much of the same on Crete. Yet one day soon we’ll have to face that
Franco-German fleet, and that will decide who controls the Eastern
Mediterranean. At the moment, we risk losing the whole thing! I have
Invincible,
Warspite
and our friends from another time. Who knows how long it will be
before I get
Queen Elizabeth
and
Malaya
back in shape? I had
better get them to Alexandria as soon as I possibly can.

He made the decision to detach
those two old warriors, and send them home directly with an escort of five
destroyers and the cruisers that had also taken bomb damage. The guns of
Invincible
and
Warspite
would be more than enough to pound Benghazi.

* * *

“Any
deviation in that
course track, Mister Healey?”

“No sir. I still have the main
body heading 090, due east at 24 knots. But a couple of smaller contacts look
like they are getting a bit curious about us. I have two ships bearing on our
position.” He toggled his history track on those ships and saw they had broken
off from the main body just five minutes earlier.

“These ships are fast, sir. I’m
making them at 36 knots!”

“I knew we should have taken that
spotter plane out an hour ago,” said MacRae. They had seen a single incoming
aircraft coming in from the north, high and slow. MacRae had decided not to
waste a missile on it, and now knew that he must have been spotted. Fair
enough, he thought. Anybody gets too nosey and they’ll get more than a nasty
surprise for their trouble.

“Keep an eye on them, Mister
Haley. What is the range now?”

“Seventy five kilometers and
closing, sir.”

“Notify me if they cross the 50
kilometer line. Mister Dean, please message the British and see if they have
any sheep astray. I’ll be on the helo deck aft.”

About forty minutes later MacRae
got that notification at the fifty kilometer mark, and he was back on the
bridge, this time with Mac Morgan in tow.

“Two fast ships inbound,” said
MacRae. “We could give them a nice poke on the chest, but at this range I
really don’t know what I’d be shooting at. British fleet says they have nothing
on that heading, and this contact was seen to break off from the main body
we’ve been tracking at long range.”

“Easy enough to assume these are
a couple destroyers sent to look us over.” Morgan stroked his thick beard.
“Well don’t look at me to give you the name of the ships, Captain. I’m your
intelligence master, but nothing has come in over the black line from sources
since we arrived here, if you know what I mean.”

“Well enough, Mack. From here on
out we rely on conventional methods for intelligence gathering. You’re probably
correct, but I’d prefer to look a man in the eye before I punch him in the
nose.”