Peter had assumed this latter was an oversight since given the new profile of the ship with its towering radar masts and a superstructure that sprouted with fifteen to twenty foot long whip aerials, the Squid could never be safely fired over Talavera’s bow. Moreover, the destroyer’s sonar suite was the one element of her electronic armoury that was distinctly not state of the art.
As for the GWS 21 Sea Cat SAM system he reserved judgement. If the ship was under air attack she’d be manoeuvring like a scalded cat and he’d never successfully found a way his radars could generate viable target locks on close range very fast moving aircraft in that scenario.
These uncertainties aside — Talavera’s primary role was neither anti-submarine work, nor tackling fast jets at close range — Peter was convinced that the ship was more than up to her primary role.
Before the war the Navy had planned to build a new generation of big carriers and the converted Battles; Agincourt, Aisne, Barrosa, Corunna, Oudenarde and Talavera were going to be the state of the art fast radar pickets around which the escort screens for the big ships of the near future would be built. He doubted if there would be any new big carriers now. There were plans afoot to complete hulls of smaller warships already under construction but the order for the first of the new carriers hadn’t progressed beyond the drawing board before the October War.
He watched the Type 965 repeater returns — for much of the last hour a useless blur — slowly resolve into a coherent picture of the airspace in a vast radius around the destroyer. He re-checked the plot. Ark Royal was twenty-two miles almost due east, her return sometimes merging with that of one or other of her two close escorts. The Ark Royal’s combat air patrol was in a thirty mile wide holding pattern at twenty-eight thousand feet approximately thirty-five miles north-west of Talavera. Invisible somewhere to the south a second radar picket, Talavera’s sister HMS Aisne was quartering the seas astern of the carrier. The Aisne herself was below the horizon; only the signatures of her radars were visible. Like Talavera, she was broadcasting her presence fifty to a hundred miles distant depending on the vagaries of the ever-changing atmospheric conditions.
A buzzer sounded.
“Ark Royal’s birds have turned onto a reciprocal with Talavera, sir.”
“Very good. Paint them with everything we’ve got!” Peter Christopher allowed himself a half-smile. The veteran pilots of the carrier’s Sea Vixens were running in to test the green newcomers who’d thus far sat out Operation Manna in the comfort and security of their home port. They probably suspected the latest addition to the Battle Group was a barely seaworthy rust bucket crewed by conscripted land lubbers. They’d be partially correct in the latter suspicion. Talavera’s EWO chuckled to himself at the memory of the Captain’s short, pointed little talk with the members of the latest draft at Portland, while the rest of the deck division continued cross decking eighty-seven pound four foot long fixed rounds for the ship’s 4.5 inch Mark III main battery. The defaulters ‘odds and sods’ draft had come on board at Portsmouth just before Talavera put to sea and none of them had had a chance to get their sea legs yet.
It had begun to rain as the new men shivered on the stern, packed together around the tarpaulin shrouded Squid anti-submarine mortar, and crushed between the stern chains and jackstay rigging. The ship’s White Ensign had banged and crackled as brutal gusts of wind broke it out.
‘To a man you are a disgrace to the Navy,’ Captain David Penberthy had bellowed into the megaphone. He’d positioned himself on the aft deckhouse in front of the quadruple Sea Cat launcher. Spider McCann, the Master at Arms was at his shoulder, glaring malevolently at the upturned faces of the men on the stern. Two of McCann’s stone-faced Master’s Mates had corralled the new men in the open, where the rain swept hardest. ‘The only reason any of you are still on board my ship is because Queen’s Regs explicitly forbid me to throw you all over the side. However, Queen’s Regs give me, as your Captain virtually free licence to make each of your lives a living Hell and if any one of you gives me any cause to so do, I bloody well will!’
Peter had heard every word — as clear as a bell — from his watch keeping post on the bridge over two hundred feet forward from where he’d been observing the desperate race to get the last few 4.5 inch SAP rounds aboard. The ship had been quivering softly, grey smoke whipping away from her single stack as Number Two boiler came on line. The wind carried away the roar of the engine room blowers while, oddly, leaving the megaphone-enhanced words of the Captain audible in virtually every corner of the ship.
‘Coming aboard Talavera does not mean that any of you start with a clean slate. You will make a full report of the circumstances of your service in the six months prior to joining the ship to the Master at Arms. Failure to so do will incur brig time, loss of pay and seniority. Do not think for a single minute that because Talavera is short-handed any of you are indispensible, or that this fact will in any way mitigate any infraction, however minor you may commit on my ship. Right now you are a collection of useless, untrustworthy garbage. It is up to you to convince me that you have a right to remain with the fine men whom I have had the privilege to command this last year.’
The old man had wound up his welcome speech with a terse warning to the effect that if any of the new men found themselves before a Captain’s Table they’d be very ‘sorry’.
The entire draft had been assigned to the Master at Arms’ Deck Division. Overnight the Talavera had acquire a twenty-eight man cleaning, painting, rust scraping, head cleansing detail while CPO McCann oversaw the methodical sifting of the bad from the incorrigible.
The destroyer shuddered through each monstrous storm swell.
“We have bogeys at two-nine-one, angels three-seven!”
“Range five-seven miles, sir!”
“Label them Bogey A and B and vector the CAP onto them, please.”
Behind him a talker raised the Sea Vixens.
The two 893 Squadron interceptors changed course.
Peter snatched up his intercom.
“CIC to Captain.”
“What is it, Peter?” Captain David Penberthy asked, as if they were exchanging small talk at a cocktail party.
“Two bogeys on the plot, sir. I’ve vectored Ark Royal’s CAP onto them on my own authority, sir.”
“Very good. I’ll attend CIC shortly. Carry on.”
The CIC speaker called out.
“Ark Royal is talking to the CAP, sir.”
“Put it on broadcast, please.”
The carrier’s air controller was confirming Alert Status Two was in effect. Intercept with weapons hot but do not engage unless actively targeted or attacked. The bogeys were American aircraft. They knew the rules.
“We’re painting two more bogeys at two-nine-seven, angels one-zero!”
“Range four-three miles. Plot confirms CBC.” Constant Bearing and Course. A collision course in layman’s language. “Confirm reciprocal with Talavera, sir!”
The new bogeys were automatically labelled C and D.
Peter forced himself to think.
But only for a split second.
At that height and range the bogeys must have approached at sea level, only betraying their presence when they climbed — or in the jargon ‘looked up’ — to fix Talavera’s location.