From the Captain’s Report:The behaviour of the ship’s company was most satisfactory . . .
THE Italian fleet was up over the horizon now, their upper works visible under the smoke, and the British squadron had wheeled about once more. The Italians were heading to interpose between the convoy and Malta; if it were not for that slow, lumbering convoy crawling along at its miserable eleven knots, the light cruisers could have circled round the Italian battleships like a hawk round a heron. As it was the British squadron was like a man with a cannon ball chained to his leg, crippled and slow, forced to keep its position between the convoy and the Italian warships—those battleships were designed for twenty-five knots and even when mishandled were quite capable of twenty. They could work steadil
