Julian Stockwin - 19 The Baltic Prize (Thomas Kydd #19)

‘What is?’ Kydd said, hiding his impatience.

‘Sir Thomas, you were at Copenhagen for the recent complications?’

‘I was.’

‘When the Danish Navy ceased to exist, everything that swam was carried off to England, leaving nary a thing under sail to the Danes down to their last admiral’s barge.’

‘Yes, I saw it.’

‘Then, sir, I’m desolated to have to tell you that the job was botched.’

‘What the devil do you mean?’

‘You quite overlooked a powerful 74 skulking in Kristiansand harbour in Norway.’

So, would it be a cutting-out expedition against a ship-of-the-line? A bloody affair, if that was the case, but why all the haste?

‘You said a puzzler?’

‘I did, Sir Thomas. A fine ship – Prinds Christian Frederik , commanded by one Carl Jessen, a veteran of the Caribbean against us there. And her premier, this is none other than Peter Willemoes, a hero of theirs at the first Copenhagen, facing Nelson himself.’

‘Damn it, sir, what is this to me?’

‘She’s sailed.’

‘What the devil …?’

‘We’ve intelligence from the Swedes that she’s been sighted leaving harbour and heading south with all speed.’

‘This way?’

‘Safely to seaward around our fleet. And directly towards the Sound.’

‘Then why haven’t our own sail-o’-the-line put to sea after the rascal?’

‘General Moore is in some sort of a tizz with the Swedes and won’t disembark his troops. Admiral Saumarez declares he can’t spare any of his ships of size until the expedition is established ashore, so …’

‘Are you telling me that a single frigate is being ordered to—’

‘No, Sir Thomas.’ The lieutenant straightened, realising that Kydd was not to be baited further. ‘There are two 64s joining as reinforcement, Stately and Nassau . They’re being dispatched south after them. You’re to accompany, flag in Stately , Captain Parker.’

‘And this is your puzzler?’

‘No, sir. I’m rather thinking it passing strange that the Danes are risking their only precious battleship to do what seems only to be a descent on our trade shipping into the Baltic.’

‘Rather than tying up the fleet in watching it. Yes, an odd thing, I’ll grant. Well, Lieutenant, you’ll be wanting to get back?’

It was all around the ship in a trice.

In the midshipmen’s berth a wide-eyed Rowan heard Teague give voice to his fears. ‘Neb, what’s it like? I mean, when you sights the enemy and—’

Gilpin leaned back and regarded them disdainfully. ‘Listen close, Tilly – and you, Kit. I’m older, I’ve smelt powder so I knows the griff. Like when we chased a whole convoy with only a pawky sloop lying off, rare do’s that.’ He rubbed his chin in reminiscence. ‘It’s when you sees ’em lifting over the horizon, guns run out an’ all, and coming at you like a dog after a rat that you knows in your gut it might not turn out well.’

‘What do you do then, Neb?’ Teague whispered.

‘Why, there’s only one thing you can do.’

‘What’s that?’

Gilpin snapped forward with a harsh glare. ‘Your duty! Stand afore the enemy, take the worst they can do – and ask for more!’

White-faced, Rowan ventured, ‘Then you’re not … scared, as who should say?’

‘Scared?’ he said scornfully. ‘What word’s that, then?’ Gilpin continued, ‘And when you sees Tom Cutlass on the quarterdeck, cool as you please, you worry more you’ll fail him as anything the Frogs can do. When you’ve been in battle as much as me, you’ll understand.’

Rowan heard the words with unease. Gilpin was much older and must have sailed with Tyger into countless battles. Would he himself be able to stand up in the face of an evil enemy like that? He hadn’t even heard a gun go off, let alone been in any fighting. What if the enemy came right up and made to board them? ‘Repel boarders!’ He’d seen it at the theatre but in real life … With his little dirk against a towering French officer who’d singled him out and …

He gulped and tried to smother the hot images.

Chapter 15

T yger lay at short-stay in readiness and her orders were passed up by a dispatch cutter within the hour.

It was much as Cartwright had said. A single objective: to seek, find, burn and destroy that Dane. But it implied that Tyger would be sent off in a fast dash south to interpose herself between the 74 and the haven of the Copenhagen defences until the slower 64s could come up and join battle.

This was a chilling prospect. No frigate could contemplate taking on a ship-of-the-line except in extreme circumstances. With double the guns, and these considerably larger in bore, it would rapidly turn into a scene of carnage unless aid came quickly. How long should he suffer, throwing himself back and forth across the bows of the battleship, waiting for the slow 64s to come up?

It had been done: Pellew in the frigate Indefatigable in the legendary action that had seen the destruction of the 74 Droits de l’Homme in Audierne Bay in a gale – but he’d had Amazon with him. And Kydd had no illusions about the tenacity of the Danish, or their motivation after the humiliation of Copenhagen.

They got under way without delay; the rendezvous was given for the south-west and Tyger stretched out nobly to her fate, whatever that was to be.

Kydd hadn’t yet briefed his officers but into his consciousness stole a new consideration. He’d long ago come to terms with the imperatives of combat: the primacy of cold rationality over hot blood-lust, the iron control over fear and the ruthless suppression of instincts of survival. Now for the first time there was an additional factor in the equation, one that threatened to overturn those tried and true responses.

As battle was joined she would be there with him. She, whom he adored more than life itself and who, he knew, bore him such love in return. When the time came, would he flinch from giving the orders to lay alongside the adversary, to fling himself at the foe with no thought for himself? Or with an enemy at the point of his sword, would her image rise before him, causing a fatal hesitation, a faltering?

There was no way to foretell. Only in the crucible of battle would he discover it.

In the late afternoon, well into the Kattegat, the main passage between Denmark and Sweden before it narrowed into the Sound, a cry from the masthead announced a successful rendezvous.

The two 64s were an odd pair: Nassau had been Danish, captured at the first battle of Copenhagen, her lines stumpier to take the Baltic seas more kindly. Although rated as a 64 she mounted only fifty guns under the British flag. Stately was old and slow, built as far back as the American war, a troopship, hurriedly fitted out as a man-o’-war for this Northern Expedition.

These to take on a 74? This was going to be a serious business, mused Kydd, as Tyger slipped into position to leeward of Stately , her neat motions so contrasting with the ponderous heave of the other.

He raised his speaking trumpet to the figures on her quarterdeck and hailed. ‘Joining in obedience to orders, sir. What are your instructions?’

A thin voice came back faintly against the swash of the seas as they lay hove to together. ‘It is imperative this vessel is found and put down. All else is inferior to this objective. Do you understand me?’

‘I do, sir.’

‘I have Lynx sloop in addition. I will keep her with me as I enter the Sound in search. You will not enter. Instead you shall cruise with Falcon sloop to the northward of Sjælland and into the Great Belt. In the event you come upon the Prinds you will dispatch Falcon to alert me, taking all measures necessary to delay and hamper her movements until I arrive. Clear?’