Three Kings

“Well,” he said quietly. “These developments will force me to wait. Mister Churchill won’t like it, but I shall have to hold the ANZAC divisions here in Egypt for the time being. Yet given that order of battle you have just handed me on the German strength in the Balkans, it appears we will not have much time at all. As to the movement of the Italian ships, I must leave that to the Royal Navy. I’ll have enough to deal with on the ground in Libya.”

“We’ll deal with the Italians easily enough,” said Cunningham, his confidence unbowed.

“We must also consider the French and German squadrons,” Said Tovey.

“Yes, but at the moment those ships are still well west of Sicily. If we make a hard run at Malta now, the Italians will have to cover this German parachute operation, and come looking for us.”

“That they will,” Tovey shrugged. “They’ll have six battleships at sea now from this latest report. Duilio and AndriaDoria have just left Taranto.”

“And we’ll have four. Good enough.” Cunningham was ready for a fight, though he knew the odds were against them now, an unusual situation for the powerful Royal Navy.

Tovey was more cautious. “Now we see the hardship imposed on us with the loss of Gibraltar,” he said grimly. “Somerville would normally be in the Western Mediterranean with three more battleships in Force H, and we always had two good arms when we thought to spar with the Italians. Now we’re fighting with one arm tied behind our backs., and two other fellows have jumped in the ring! There is no way we can expect help from Force H. Even if Somerville could run the Straits of Gibraltar and survive the thickets of U-boats and Stukas there, he would soon find himself facing the entire French Squadron at Toulon, lately reinforced by the battleship Normandie from Casablanca. Throw Bismarck and Hindenburg into the mix and any sortie on his part would be suicidal. So we’re in this fight alone here, gentlemen, and as I count it now, we will be outnumbered eleven capital ships to four adding in both Strasbourg and Dunkerque, and two to one in cruisers and destroyers.”

There was a long silence and Cunningham folded his arms, looking at the map. The second knock on the cabin door seemed loud when the adjutant came again with another message. Wavell took it and read quietly, expecting it was an update on the situation on Malta, but seeing more bad news instead. He cleared his throat, and the other men looked up from the map, waiting.

“Well,” he began. “It seems we have lost our General O’Connor.”

Nikolin had been quietly translating all this, whispering near Fedorov, who shrugged when he heard this news. He knew that O’Connor had been captured during Rommel’s advance, just as he was about to turn operations over to GeneralNeame. He had hoped to prevent that at this meeting, but it seemed fate had a way of keeping its hand on the back of a man’s neck, no matter what world he served in. Yet this time the news was different.

“O’Connor’s plane ran afoul of a German fighter and was damaged,” said Wavell. “They ran south into the desert to evade and were forced to make an emergency landing somewhere north of the oasis country near Giarabub andSiwa. The Italians still have troops at Giarabub, and we have a few patrols operating out ofSiwa. We got one radio message, then lost contact. The good news is that O’Connor is alive, but given his circumstances surviving out there in the desert is no easy matter. The Italians might be also out looking for the plane if they saw it go down. I would hate to lose a man like O’Connor, but his chances may be very slim.”

Fedorov’s eyes brightened at this, a quiet fire there, and he whispered in Admiral Volsky’s ear, an urgent tone in his voice that even Wavell could pick up from where he stood across the table. On the spur of the moment, he had come up with another of his crazy ideas.

Chapter 21

“This news seems to have your interest,” Wavell said in Russian, catching Fedorov’s eye.

“Excuse me, sir,” said Fedorov. “After such a brilliant campaign against the Italians it would seem a cruel fate to lose General O’Connor at a time like this.”

“That it would,” said Wavell. “I shall have to make arrangements to see that GeneralNeame hangs on to what is left of the Western Desert Force. This General Rommel has moved like quicksilver, and stolen back everything O’Connor had in hand after his operation out west. Losing O’Connor will be salt in the wound, but we may be deprived of his services for some good while.”

Now Admiral Volsky cleared his throat, speaking up.

“Well, he said quietly. “Then we must do something about this situation. Yes? I have some very good men aboard my ship, and the means to get them anywhere in the desert in a matter of hours.”

“A matter of hours?” Wavell smiled politely. “The desert is quite extensive out west, Admiral. It is well over 250 miles to Giarabub from Alexandria, and given the terrain and lack of useful roads, that is a journey of many days.”