“The Spanish, a mixed Cuban and Dominican force, we think now,” he was informed, “have landed three separate forces and have clearly achieved a decisive lodgement on Great Inagua, sir.”
Collingwood nodded.
What the Devil were the blighters doing throwing thousands of men and at least a dozen major surface units at a couple of sand-covered rocks which were – the salt flats on the larger island excepted – strategically irrelevant. The harbour at Matthew Town was small, ill-equipped and there was no militarily viable airstrip on either island. Tactically, as a stepping stone to the Turks and Caicos Islands a case could be made – although, hardly a compelling one – for investing the mostly barren archipelago but…
It was hard to get inside of a medieval mind!
But his enemy was not thinking like a late-twentieth century military planner; his stratagems were not those of a modern admiral or general, uncluttered by contemplation of the juxtaposition of the air-sea-land theatre of operations but, it seemed, by slashing, bull-like aggression, not applied consistently or against a particular objective, rather wildly, at this and then that objective… almost as much for show as for military advantage. There was a randomness, an unpredictability about the deployments of the Triple Alliance that had already convinced many of Collingwood’s staffers that they were dealing with an angry giant, incapable of delivering rapier-like blows to the heart…
Collingwood was not seduced by this notion.
Granted, only an imbecile was going to believe that taking possession of, say, Grand Turk was worth the candle. Surely, southern Florida was in the enemies’ sights, anything else was a wasteful diversion. Unless, of course, the object of the exercise was not to take, or to hold territory, per se, rather to attract, in the manner of honey to a bee swarm, the Atlantic Fleet’s main striking power down into Bahamian waters within range of the air forces on Cuba and Santo Domingo?
And of course, those bloody submarines!
Project Poseidon was only rarely out of Cuthbert Collingwood’s thoughts. One part of him ached to deploy its incomparable ‘assets’ against the Spanish, settle the triple Alliance’s hash in an afternoon; the sane half of his brain told him that to so do risked steaming at full speed straight down the road to perdition.
So, maddening as it was to have to fight, for the moment at least, with one hand tied behind his back – not to mention his ankles metaphorically chained together – he was reconciled to doing what needed to be done solely with the tools he had to hand, and in the coming weeks and months, because this was going to be a long slog, those men, ships and aircraft his principals in Whitehall saw fit to place in his hands.
The torpedoing of the Indomitable added an unwanted complication to the situation map; a shock and a complication which he suspected would prompt debate among those who knew the full extent, and capabilities of Project Poseidon to question whether or not, the partial unveiling of the monster they had created, ought not to be revealed to cut short the coming war. That, the C-in-C Atlantic Fleet, guessed would be predicated by the Government’s assessment of how urgently the German Empire needed to be ‘warned off’.
In the meantime, Indomitable, gallant old ship that she was, was badly damaged, and had to be recovered to a safe port through hundreds of miles of potentially hostile waters. That would, of itself, demand the diversion of significant resources from the forces now converging on the Caribbean.
First the Achilles outrage and the invasion of Jamaica.
Then the occupation of Great Inagua.
Now the Indomitable was out of the fight.
And the war had hardly begun!
“You say that at least a couple of the old Ferdinands are involved in the operations off Inagua?” Collingwood asked, thinking out aloud as his mind ranged over other great issues, far, far away from the low-lying, forgotten islands of that sparsely populated archipelago.
The CAF had flown and continued to fly a shuttle program of Albatross aerial reconnaissance missions high above Cuba, Santo Domingo and the seas between those lands and the Florida Keys.
“What about those blasted German cruisers?”
“Guantanamo Bay is virtually deserted, sir.”
The C-in-C grunted, held his peace.
“We anticipate receiving the latest reconnaissance pictures from Jamaica in the next hour or so, sir. Apparently, the Albatross tasked with that mission has just landed.”
Cuthbert Collingwood realised that he must seem to be brooding overmuch to his hard-working, hard-pressed staffers. With an effort he forced a smile.
“Everything always takes longer than you think,” he quirked ruefully. “Especially, in war, gentlemen.” He moved on. “Perseus is still on schedule to clear Norfolk by dawn tomorrow?”
“Yes, sir.”
Back in London the First Lord of the Admiralty was already coming under pressure to ‘jog Collingwood’s arm.’ That was not going to happen. The C-in-C Atlantic Fleet had no intention of deploying his ships piecemeal in the manner of a man plugging successive cracks in a dyke with fingers, hands, arms and so forth. The object of the exercise was, in the following order, to take command of the seas between the Delta and the Floridian isthmus, hold the line of the Bahamas, and thirdly, by patrolling the surrounding seas of other imperial colonies and protectorates in the eastern Caribbean – the Leeward and Windward Islands – to limit the spread of the oceanic war. Once the conflict was contained within the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, regardless of what transpired on the ground in the South West, thereafter, it would simply be a matter of – boa-constrictor like – squeezing the life out of the Triple Alliance and its collaborators. Needless to say, there would be fleet and raiding actions by his ships and aircraft, and if the opportunity arose, he fully intended to seek decisive surface encounters with enemy forces. However, what he was not about to do was rush in like a bull in a china shop!
Not least because with the Ulysses and the Perseus in hand he possessed the priceless advantage of having two highly mobile major seaborne airfields at his disposal. In the old days the big ships would have steamed over the horizon and blasted away, these days his big ships need never go into harm’s way other than when the candle was well and truly worth it.
Of course, Indomitable was already as good as removed from the chess board. Worse, if that blasted submarine turned out to be of German design, or to have had any more of the Kaiserliche Marine’s bloody ‘advisors’ on it, there would be Hell to pay!
He would worry about that later.
He had requested the latest underwater – echo-location and listening technologies – to be installed on his ships soon after he had assumed command at Norfolk, that was eighteen months ago and he was still waiting.
Again, the underwater detection technologies, digital communication capabilities and remotely guided weapon systems under development and already deployed as part of Project Poseidon, would have been of incalculable value to the men manning the ships escorting his aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers but all those systems were still so deeply classified that no inkling of their very existence had yet leaked out.
One fights wars with the ships, aircraft and men one has; not the ones one wishes one had!
Presently, Indomitable’s escorts were equipped with 1950s hydrophones and half-a-dozen ‘dumb’ depth charges likely to blow the stern off a ship when they were rolled overboard. If the submersible which had attacked Indomitable had been in deeper water the damned thing would almost certainly have got away.