Kirov II: Cauldron Of Fire (Kirov Series) (37 page)

Fedorov looked at it, and looked at it, and he knew that
Karpov was right. “Very well,” he said. “I suggest you get a few hours rest
while you can, Captain, and a good meal. I’ll want you back on the bridge with
me at 23:00 hours, and we’ll make our turn for Cabo de Gata, come what may.
We’ll call the whole plan Operation Gauntlet.”

“Aye, sir. A good name for it.”

Karpov had his battle.

At that
very moment Admiral Tovey was also looking
at his plotting board on
King George V
, in the chart room with his Chief
of Staff, Michael Denny and the ship’s Captain Patterson. They were passing
Vigo, Spain and racing south for Lisbon, though they had many hours of sailing
time ahead of them.

“As things stand,” said Tovey, “we won’t get into the
western approaches to Gibraltar until 14:00 hours tomorrow.”

“I’m astounded we moved this quickly,” said Denny. “You
would think the entire war effort was riding on this sortie.”

A younger man at forty-six, he did not sport the gray
mantle that many of the senior officers had. After service on the cruiser
Kenya
and carrier
Victorious
, he had been groomed to replace Daddy Brind as
Tovey’s Chief of Staff, and he brought all the sharpness and energy of his
relative youth to the job. Still, Tovey was missing Brind at this moment, his
grizzled wisdom and rock hard common sense was ever a touchstone for him.

“That may not be too far off the mark, gentlemen,” said
Tovey. “I hope I don’t have to remind you what happened to the American fleet
last year. I’ve sent word to Fraser and told him to offer Admiral Syfret a seat
at the Round Table, so he’s been briefed on this
Geronimo
business at
long last. He’s still of the mind that this is a French ship—
Strasbourg
.
If that’s the case then we’ll all breathe easier and all we’ve lost in this
little trip is the fuel oil.”

“
Rodney
and
Nelson
will make quick work of
Strasbourg
,”
said Captain Patterson. “But if it isn’t a French ship?” He had seen what
Geronimo
could do, felt the hard impact of those rockets on his ship’s heavy armor.

“Then it comes down to guns and steel, gentlemen. Nothing
more; nothing less.” Tovey had a grim expression on his face. “What have we got
at Gibraltar?”

Denny spoke up, referring to a clip board where he had the
latest tally from the Rock. “Hudson bombers will be up from 233 squadron at first
light. Campbell’s 808 Squadron will give us strike capability with his Fulmar
IIs. Hutchinson with have his Sea Harriers up with 813 Squadron, and then we’ll
have a few more Beaufighters from Coastal Command and a handful of fighters in
804 Squadron on the
Argus
. That’s all of 48 planes. We darn near emptied
the cupboard for Operation Pedestal, but Syfret still has three carriers with
Force Z and they’ve got thirty-six Fighters, and another forty-two Albacore
strike aircraft between them. We’re bringing in 825 Squadron with sixteen
Swordfish and 802 Squadron with twelve more Sea Harriers on the
Avenger
.
That make s a total of 154 aircraft fit for duty.”

“That’s sounding much better,” said Tovey. “Submarines?”

“We’ve got
Talisman
in Gibraltar and we’re lucky to
have even that boat in position now. She was mistakenly depth charged by a
Sunderland in the Bay of Biscay and is docked at Gibraltar for repairs.
Traveler
is heading home as well, but has no torpedoes until she replenishes. Everything
else is in the central and eastern Med.”

“Not very promising, but
Talisman
will have to do.”
Tovey tapped his plotting pen on the map. “Gentlemen, here’s the plan. Force Z
is out looking for this
Geronimo
and with three carriers I expect to
hear from them shortly. It’s his job to bring them to heel, and that failing
he’s to hang on to their coat leg and buy us some time to get Home Fleet
further south. If our aircraft, this single sub, and Force Z can do the job,
all the better. But if things take a turn for the worse, then we’re the goalie
in this game. I’m not taking the fleet into the straits. Not enough sea room
there, and we’ll be bunched up like a row of fat geese. No, gentlemen, We’ll
fan out in a widely dispersed arc as I’ve drawn it here.” He gestured to the western
approaches to Gibraltar.

“We won’t be forming a battle line either. All those
tactics went down the drain the first time we tangled with this ship. So I plan
to spread our four battleships out along this arc, each one within supporting
fire range of the other three, but spaced far enough to force the enemy to
disperse his fire. The cruisers and destroyers will deploy as a forward screen.
We’ll keep the carrier well back and to the north along the Spanish coast.
Avenger
can launch everything she has. I’ll want all those Sea Harriers in her 802
Squadron armed with bombs. The Swordfish can go in low with the Harriers up
topside. They, too, will fly in a widely dispersed approach. There will be no
formation of squadrons and sub flights once aloft. It will be every man for
himself. These rockets were taking out two and three planes at a time in the
Atlantic. It won’t happen here.”

They looked at the plan, noting the careful dispersion of
forces to cover any route of escape if the enemy exited the straits, and Tovey
explained his reasoning further.

“If this ship is
Geronimo
, and they fling one of
those blasted wonder weapons our way as they did with the Americans, they stand
to hit no more than one of our capital ships in a single strike. It’s a damn
ruthless logic, but after what we saw a year ago, it’s the only way to fight
this engagement. If this ship breaks through Force Z, we had better be in
position and ready for anything. As soon as they put their nose into the Straits
of Gibraltar, I’ll order Home Fleet to go into action. It will be the charge of
the heavy cavalry, gentlemen. Every ship is to go in full out, and with all
guns blazing. Just counting the two forward turrets on the four battleships,
we’ll have twenty four 14 inch guns in play. If any ship gets the range on the
target and wishes to effect a turn to bring their rear X turret to bear, all
the better, but I want you to close the range smartly, and get hits. You can
expect hits as well if they fling those damn naval rockets at us again. As I said
before, it will come down to the armor in the end—the armor, good gunfire, and
a good measure of nerve. Now we’ve got
King George V, Prince of Wales, Duke
Of York
, and
Anson
. One of us has to run this bastard through.”

Part X

The Gauntlet

“
The soldiers in black uniforms
stood in two rows, facing each other motionless, their guns at rest. Behind
them stood the fifes and drums, incessantly repeating the same unpleasant tune.

'What are they
doing?' I asked the blacksmith, who halted at my side.

'A Tartar is being
beaten through the ranks for his attempt to desert,' said the blacksmith in an
angry tone, as he looked intently at the far end of the line.”

~ Tolstoy ~ After
the Ball

Chapter 28

It began
a little after 23:00 hours the 13th of
August, 1942.
Kirov
had raced south, undiscovered, and was now making
the turn Fedorov had planned to run due west to Cabo de la Gata. They would take
the 60 mile run in two hours. Reaching the cape by 1:00 AM. But as midnight
approached they saw three planes coming up from the south flying obvious search
patterns.

“These must be off the carriers,” said Fedorov.

“Shall we shoot them down?” Karpov had returned to the
bridge, rested and ready for action.

Fedorov thought a moment, and shook his head. “Why bother.
If we do kill them, that act alone will give the British our approximate
position, and immediately mark us as hostile. I want to see if we can try our
ruse as a French ship. It might buy us just a little time.”

So they watched the search planes grow ever closer, the
nearest no more than four kilometers out before they all turned, heading south
again. It was not long before Nikolin perked up, adjusting his headset and
waving for Fedorov’s attention.

“A radio message, sir. In English, and right in the clear.”

Nikolin put it on the speakers and they listened, eyes
drawn to the overhead grill, brows raised as Nikolin translated.

“Ship heading two-seven-zero, latitude thirty six degrees,
forty two minutes, longitude negative two, please identify yourself.”

Fedorov smiled. “Someone is ringing the door bell. They
must have some good men in one of those planes. Those coordinates are very
close to the mark.”

“What shall I do, sir?” asked Nikolin. “Should I ignore
them?”

“No, Mister Nikolin, now you get to practice your English a
bit. But if you can sound more like a Frenchman, that would be even better!
Tell them we are battlecruiser
Strasbourg
, and that we have broken out
of Toulon, fought off two Italian battleships that tried to intercept us, and
that we are running for Free French ports in Equatorial Africa to join Admiral
Darlan.”

“Very well, sir.” Nikolin translated, his big brown eyes
moving from his microphone to Fedorov and back again, excited. Time passed, and
then they heard the reply Fedorov expected.

“Sir, they want us to reduce speed and come to a heading of
255 degrees. They say they will escort us to Gibraltar and that we may arrange
passage south from there.”

“Very well. Tell them we are coming around on that heading
at twenty knots and will send up signal flares in thirty minutes.”

“You’re going to do what they say?” Karpov has a bemused
look on his face.

“Of course not. Helm, steady on 270 and ahead full battle
speed. Now we’ll see how cagy the British are. If they wanted us on 255 then they
should alter course to near zero degrees north to effect a rendezvous from
their present position. Any course they take west of that will mean they aren’t
taking any chances and are maneuvering to make sure they can cut us off. Even
if they do think we’re
Strasbourg
they would know we can run up to thirty
knots. Let’s see what they do.”

They had their answer shortly when Rodenko, now back on
radar, indicated the contact had altered course to 302 degrees northwest and
increased speed to near twenty knots.

“A careful breed, these British.” Karpov seemed restless,
arms clasped behind his back. “They made that course change before they even
gave us a chance to come round on 255.”

“They’ll probably move something that direction, but I
don’t think they are buying our apples today. They didn’t make the claim that
Britannia rules the sea lightly,” said Fedorov. “They know
Strasbourg
would not easily prevail over two Italian battleships. This is the one heading
they should have taken if they wanted to intercept us on our old reported
course and speed. Very well… we’ll play the game a bit. In a few minutes I want
a missile rigged with a star shell and fired right here, where we should be if
we had turned on the heading they requested. They’ll most likely loop those
planes back to shadow us, but this may prove a distraction.”

“We can just fire one of the
UDAV batteries,” said
Karpov. “A single rocket timed to explode in the air should suffice.”

They waited
out the interval, and fired their rocket at maximum range. All the while
Rodenko noted the steady approach of another aircraft. It was clear that the
British were taking no chances with them at all. The plane diverted briefly to
the location where they had fired their missile, then quickly turned northwest
on a heading to intercept them.

“Are they
seeing us on radar?” asked Karpov. “What’s wrong with our jammers, Rodenko?”

“Nothing wrong, sir. I have the all their bandwidths snowed
over.”

“They are just experienced and efficient men,” said
Fedorov. “That man is flying by the seat of his pants out there, but he knows
enough to get his plane northwest where we would be on our old heading.”

“At his present speed they will re-acquire our position in
approximately ten minutes,” said Rodenko.

“Let them. They won’t learn anything they don’t already
suspect. Our ruse is over, and now we run the gauntlet. Very well, rig the ship
for black. We should reach the cape at zero one hundred hours. I’ll want the
ship at battle stations by then, and we’ll alter course fifteen degrees to port
to avoid the Almeria sea transit lanes. There are good thermals along the
coast, and they make for excellent cruising stations for submarines. We’ll
avoid them if we can, but by 01:thirty we may be engaged. I suggest we take
whatever time remaining to check the weapons systems. I don’t want a repeat of
that accident we had with the Klinok missiles. We’ll need every round we have.”

Aboard
HMS
Nelson
Admiral Syfret had made the
early assessment that this was a renegade French battlecruiser, on one side of
the  French coin or another, and nonetheless maneuvered to get his battleships
in the best possible position to engage if they did not comply with his request.
He had separated his force at 18:00 hours earlier that evening, sending the
three carriers under Rear Admiral St. Lyster on
Victorious
some forty
miles south on a parallel course to his own, along with his last remaining
cruisers and an escort of five destroyers. It was also necessary to detach the
wounded destroyer
Ithuriel
, and he sent her off south with DD
Quentin
.
This left him with his two battleships and six more destroyers, more than
enough, he reasoned, to run this
Geronimo
to ground. When they got
within gun range, he would signal Captain Troubridge on the carrier
Indomitable
to launch his Albacore II torpedo bombers for good measure. He’d get his
battleships right astride
Strasbourg’s
line of advance and then have one
last word before he let his 16 inch guns do the talking.