The Baltic Prize

Chapter 16

Night drew in. It was calm and tranquil but, with the moonless dark, few conditions were worse in approaching a low sea-coast at night. Sailors took a brisk wind as welcome, for a line of startling white breakers was fair warning of a nearby shoreline and the same winds were useful in hauling off quickly. Now there was nothing but clamping gloom and from the deck all that could be seen was an impenetrable blackness with an occasional white wave lop flicking into existence and disappearing as quickly.

‘Shorten sail, sir?’ queried the first lieutenant.

‘No need, Mr Bray. Ease to starboard a point and we’ll crack on.’

That brought frowns of apprehension but few dared object and, under full sail, Tyger sped on into the night on a direct course for the Danish shore.

‘Sir, I really-’

‘Keep on, if you please.’

Kydd knew there was really no danger, and before midnight, first one, then several points of light glimmered into existence, spreading miles up and down the coast, an unmissable show.

Bowden caught on first. ‘Ah. Of course – the Bight, I should have smoked it!

‘Where all the merchant vessels go to anchor who mean to take passage through the Sound but must remain for a fair wind. It’s not foul for the south so they must be waiting for our Baltic Fleet to take ’em through.’

Even in the dim light of the binnacle Kydd could catch the man’s admiring look and he smiled to himself. ‘Yes, Mr Bowden, and I shall have intelligence from them.’ The scattered points of light came from the cabins and stern windows of anchored ships and Kydd could take his pick.

Bowden was boarding officer and returned in a short time. ‘They’ve been here these four days and have seen no ship-of-the-line of any kind.’

Kydd nodded his thanks. It only meant that the 74 had not passed this way, not proof that it had taken the other route into the Sound. The search must go on.

It would be much more difficult now. They had reached the north coast of Sj?lland as per orders. From here on they must turn west to edge along the coastline, knowing that at any time – around the next point or deep into a bay – they could be flushing out a dangerous opponent and be forced into a critical decision.

There was no point in continuing in the darkness: he was in position, and could make the sweep along the forty-odd miles to the entrance of the Great Belt in a morning; to overlook the menace they were all seeking was out of the question.

At first light they secured for sea and, with the brig-sloop Falcon dutifully taking post astern, they slipped away from the scores of huddled merchant ships to begin their search.

Lookouts in the tops and crosstrees scanned ahead and to the low, smooth coastline, splotched with the dark green of vegetation and an occasional settlement or windmill.

Quite soon the sandy hillock of Gilbjerg Head came into view, the chart importantly noting that, as the northernmost point of Sj?lland, it marked the boundary between the Sound and the outer Kattegat. It was the first substantial land with height sufficient to hide a large man-o’-war on the other side. If the 74 was beyond it, guns would be in play in a very short time.

Kydd couldn’t take the risk. ‘To quarters, Mr Bray.’

Steadily, with practised movements, Tyger cleared for action.

The ship quietened as they neared the cliffs, with the light breeze fair on the beam and every man at his station. Kydd paced slowly, Dillon at his side, notebook in hand, a study of indifference.

‘Sir, purely out of interest, if the beast be lying in wait beyond, what will be your motions?’ he enquired.

‘Should he be at anchor, I shall lie off while Falcon brings up our big brothers, in course.’

‘And if at liberty to sail?’

‘Why, then …’ This would be the moment when life and death hung in the balance, depending on his decisions in the face of the enemy. Kydd paused, then continued strongly, ‘If the enemy is a-sail, we shall do all we can to delay or disable him.’ By manoeuvre, stratagem and cold-blooded courage in closing with a battleship.

They swept around the point but beyond it was only the sandy shoreline, falling away to the south-west in an unbroken line. Nowhere the shocking sight of a ship-of-the-line.

‘Sir, stand down from quarters?’ Bray asked. Balked of action he looked crestfallen. Custom dictated that after a famous battle a first lieutenant stood to get his own ship. ‘No, we’ve a deal of searching still to do – the brute could be anywhere. Do stand down the men at the guns for now.’ In his bones Kydd had the uncanny feeling that in a short time there would be a reckoning.

The shoreline was featureless, low and sandy for miles, but the chart showed a large inland stretch of water not so far ahead, marked as Isefjord. The hydrographicals with Keats the previous year had not had time to survey it but at six or seven miles across inside, if there were depth of water, it was an obvious haven for the big ship.

Well before noon they were up with the mile or so gap in the endless tedium of vegetation-topped dunes and were looking into Isefjord. Kydd’s heart sank – it was a broad stretch of inland water that extended way beyond any sighting from the masthead. The Dane could be anywhere within.

Should he send Falcon in? How long would it take to cover the area? If they flushed it out, was this any place to clash in battle with such an adversary? The questions hammered at him.

Then he had it. If this same entrance did not have depth of water enough for a ship-of-the-line, without any doubt it could not be anywhere inside.

‘State o’ tide, Mr Joyce.’

‘Not t’ worry of in these parts, sir.’ Therefore no allowance needed for high or low water.

‘Mr Brice, Mr Bowden. Take a good man with a hand lead and I’ll have soundings out from each side to midway as soon as you may.’

The boats put off and stroked strongly inshore on their mission and sensibly began work with the lead where the water deepened towards the middle of the entrance.

The two warships hove to were attracting attention, however. There was a small hamlet on one side with a prominent church and windmill, and on the foreshore figures were gathering.

‘Ha! They’s sore puzzled what we’re doing,’ chuckled the master.

It would be a dismaying sight – out of the blue two enemy warships appear to launch boats, then engage in menacing and baffling activity close to their homes.

The boats were back quickly, reporting no depths beyond three fathoms – so Prinds could not be anywhere in Isefjord.

The last stretch of coast before the turn south into the Great Belt was going to be the worst.

The island of Sj?lland came to an end in a slender finger of land hooking around in a wicked finality at the notorious Sj?llands reef. In a series of invisible rock ledges and treacherous sand shoals it extended more than five miles out into the open waters of the Kattegat – and the Danes had removed the light at its tip.

To keep in with the shore in search would be hazardous in the extreme, but Kydd spotted that the charts revealed just one little fishing harbour of note, Havnebyen, in its entire length, and thus no hiding place would be possible until the swing down into the Great Belt, so Tyger was free to give the reef a wide berth.

In the early afternoon, with men still at quarters, the helm went over and, with a gentle northerly breeze, they entered the Great Belt proper.

This was well surveyed by now, and it wasn’t the first time Tyger had been through. But the detailed charting only served to throw up the uncountable number of islands and headlands, any one of which could be concealing the 74.

Kydd took stock. The big ship was presumably on its way to the other end of the Sound, then to the south part of Sweden, where at the choke-point of shipping entering the Baltic it would set about the slaughter of the trading fleet. It was consequently not interested in hiding or delaying its arrival there, so if Tyger did not overhaul it in the Belt, he could be certain it had made passage to the open sea and would then be a concern for the 64s.

He ordered course to be set for mid-channel and the frigate drove on under full sail, alert for the sudden cry of discovery at any moment. On each side islets and shoals sprawled, their names alien and incomprehensible, Gniben, Samsoe, Vollerup, some with a scattering of red houses and a small, austere church. One or two fishing boats dared the inshore waters but in the main it was a passing series of endless low islands in an ominous placid grey-blue sea.

By mid-afternoon they were approaching the middle section of the Great Belt and still no sign of the battleship. A long, sinuous peninsula lay across their path and Tyger eased to starboard to round it – and directly ahead, at less than a mile distant, a full-rigged ship was under comfortable sail.

In an instant Kydd had his glass up – but this was no 74. In a surge of relief he realised he was looking at Sybille, one of Keats’s frigates of the previous year, part of the squadron patrolling the Belt, evidently still on station.

That would be Jonas Upton in command, older than Kydd but junior to him on the captain’s list. He gave orders that had Tyger heave to, secure from quarters and a signal made requiring Upton to report on board.

‘Sir Thomas, I hadn’t heard you’re back with us,’ he began, seemingly put out by Kydd’s abrupt summons.

Kydd lost no time in setting out the situation. ‘So you haven’t sighted a Danish 74.’

‘I didn’t know such still existed.’

With relief, Kydd accepted that, with Tyger coming from the north, Sybille the south, between them they would have seen Prinds if it’d been in the Belt. They hadn’t and therefore it must have gone the other way.

There would be no desperate delaying action.

Night was not far off but there was no great haste that demanded he hazarded his ship in the maze of skerries and sandbars about Sj?lland reef in the darkness.

‘I shall anchor until morning, Jonas. I should be glad of your company at dinner.’

The man looked mollified. ‘If I should be so bold, Sir Thomas – this is the southern end of my patrol and marks the northern point of Tribune’s.’ Hesitating, he went on, ‘Sir, we’re accustomed to …’

‘Then we shall be a threesome. At seven?’ Kydd would not be the one to set aside the comfortable practice of these frigate captains chained to the monotony of patrol and finding ways to deal with it. And with Tribune’s Saunders junior by a year as well he could afford to be magnanimous.

Tribune appeared later, under lazy topsails, effortlessly taking advantage of the swift currents to make progress and no doubt startled to see two frigates at anchor.

The captains were piped aboard, the men cheerfully at their grog below. In the great cabin Tysoe saw to the table silver and the officers’ wine, and a hearty evening promised.

The two had been on station since the ice had retreated, their continuing task, as with the other three around the island, preventing, by their very presence, any communication or reinforcement of Sj?lland. In their lonely vigil they’d had no recent word of developments and were grateful to hear of them along with any news Kydd could tell them about England and home.

Not long into the first remove the conviviality was abruptly cut short.

Muffled cries from on deck stilled their conversation and froze the motion of their glasses. Their eyes met in apprehension.

An indistinct order roared out. Running feet were followed by the clatter of steps on the after hatchway and a breathless figure appeared at the cabin door. ‘Respects from Mr Brice an’ the Dansker’s sighted above the point!’

With an appalling crash of crockery all three shot to their feet and bolted for the upper deck.

In the gathering dusk above the Rosn?s peninsula they saw the unquestionable top-hamper of a ship-of-the-line slowly moving along and about to appear in full view before them.

They were caught in the worst possible situation: they could either man the guns or win the anchor, not both – and well before either, the 74 would be on them.

As if mesmerised they saw the big ship pass beyond the wooded tip of the point and burst into sight, a chilling menace in the last of the light.

Rowan was at his place by the deserted helm as part of the watch-on-deck at relaxed readiness. In one moment the seamen were idly dismissing the Dane as a shab, frightened of a single frigate, and the next it was there before their eyes, soon to fall on them with death and destruction … a terrifying reality, which he must now face like a man. His heart thudded painfully.

‘To quarters, Mr Bray,’ Kydd blurted.

From Sibylle and Tribune came an answering thunder of drums, the two stranded captains shouting maniacally for their boats.

It was the Danish 74 right enough, and the question now was, how would the destruction begin?

The answer was not what Kydd expected.

Trimming sails, the battleship put over its helm and came into the wind, hanging there as if considering its next move.

And then an utter surprise. Squarely across the mid-point of the channel Prinds struck sail and anchored.

Open-mouthed in astonishment, Upton gasped, ‘He’s moon-struck! Why doesn’t he go at us before-’

In a gust of relief, Kydd answered him. ‘Not so, Jonas. Can’t you see? He doesn’t care for a fight in the darkness among these shoals and reefs. He’ll wait for daybreak because he knows we won’t run.’

For the moment it was a stalemate. There would be no night action in these treacherous waters, and a cutting-out expedition against an alerted battleship was an absurd notion. Falcon had already been sent flying off with the news. What more could they do?

‘So, gentlemen. We’ll stand down from quarters and wait for the morning. I see no reason why we shouldn’t finish our dinner.’

The meal resumed, the enemy – no less than a full-sized ship-of-the-line – anchored peacefully over in the shadows beyond the point, manned by sailors who were sworn to destroy them, no doubt sitting down to dinner in much the same way.

Down on the mess-deck of Tyger, there would be similar thoughts but expressed more pithily, and as well some would be weighing their chances against such odds.

As the cloth was drawn Upton, with an appreciative sip at Kydd’s fine brandy, murmured, ‘Should be interesting times come daybreak.’

‘Will he wait for full light before he makes his move, do you think?’ Saunders wondered, idly twiddling his glass.

‘It’s what happens when he does that’s my curiosity,’ Upton said, with a sideways glance at Kydd. ‘Three on one, should be a stout milling match, b’ God.’

Kydd came back, ‘I’d not take it as a holiday, any number of frigates facing a sail-o’-the-line. Why do you think we’re kept out of the line in a general engagement? If they get in a single broadside from those great guns it’ll finish us.’

Upton put down his glass and glowered. ‘The three of us? One raking by turns while the others are entertaining with manoeuvres or some such. That’s what’ll give us our famous victory!’

Saunders gave a twisted smile. ‘No signals, we just go at him – like Nelson.’

The talk went on, bold and aggressive.

Kydd needed to take the air. Excusing himself, he reached the upper deck with its anonymity in the darkness and cool night breeze. He was senior – all decisions were his and his alone. In the morning men would go to their deaths because of them. His fellow captains were obviously mystified as to why he hadn’t been more bloodthirsty or loud in an urging to battle. Was he becoming soft now that he was married?

He gazed out at the larger blackness in the night, knowing that as first light began to steal in, he had to be ready with a plan and orders.

An image came to him of Persephone, that unbearably tender special look that was for him alone, but extraordinarily, in the same moment, came resolution.

If he wavered, for any reason stepping back from the field of trial, as daughter of an admiral she would think less of him, be disillusioned, disappointed in him as the man she had thought him. He would have failed her and therefore be undeserving of her.

She expected him to do his duty – and that was what he would do.

In a wash of relief he saw that he could continue his dedication to the sea service and make decisions that were based solely on the martial elements before him. The only difference now was that after the fires of combat he would be cherishing the vision of returning to her, head held high, the conquering hero.

If the fortunes of war dictated otherwise, so be it. That had always been the warrior’s lot and always would be, and that, too, she would understand.

He drew a deep breath. Whatever he decided, she was giving him the strength and will to see it through.

Almost immediately his mind began to work. The presenting problem: there was no possible end but piecemeal destruction if they took on a ship-of-the-line in these restricted waters. Should they refuse battle, retreat? In England it would be seen by the public as cowardly, given they outnumbered the enemy three to one. This was not an argument: men’s lives were more important. Only the objective was sacred.

A glimmering of something started to coalesce, triggered by his mulling over what Jessen would likely do next. And that depended on what the Dane’s objectives were. A veteran captain, widely experienced, he would be reaching for his own higher purpose.

What were his orders? If these included the preservation of the Danes’ only major warship whatever the provocation – a reasonable assumption – they were in no danger. But if that was so, why had he anchored? The only possible reason would be to open hostilities at daybreak.

Just why had the big ship been sent at such hazard in the first place?

The bigger picture: the Swedish as the only British ally. If they were knocked out of the war there would be incalculable consequences, but if this were to be brought about, it had to be before the Baltic Fleet of Saumarez came on the scene. Yes! Something was most certainly afoot for the Danes to risk this, their most valuable asset.

Was it coincidence that Prinds was taking the Great Belt route rather than the more direct Sound? But, if so, it would know it had to deal with the frigates on watch so why … That was it! His head cleared. He knew the purpose now – and it threw everything into a different perspective.

Keats’s frigates were there for a very good and effective reason: to stop the movement of troops and munitions to the main island of Sj?lland, which until now they’d handsomely achieved. But if Bernadotte could flood the island with his army, they would then be looking directly across at Sweden’s flat coastline no more than ten miles distant. Victory would be theirs in an hour’s sail.

Prinds had been sent on a mission – not to disrupt trade but with the far higher aim of luring the frigates away while the tide of war quickly crossed from Fyn to Sj?lland.

Kydd knew in his bones he was right. And now the stakes had immeasurably increased: well before any of the Baltic Fleet could arrive to intervene, it would all be over. Only he could stop it happening.

He returned to the great cabin. ‘Well, gentlemen, what do you think of my brandy?’ He chuckled, resuming his chair.

They looked at him, bewildered.

‘As I wish you to raise your glass to our success of tomorrow.’ Kydd leaned back expansively. ‘I’ve made my dispositions, and I will brook no argument.’

He waited until they had given a troubled acknowledgement.

‘My orders are simple, and they are this: that tomorrow you will both return to your usual patrol. That is all.’

There was an incredulous gasp, and both broke into loud protestation. Kydd held up his hands. ‘No, this will not do. I’m issuing written orders to that effect, which you will disobey at your peril.’

‘We’re entitled to an explanation, I believe,’ came Upton’s surly response.

His seniority was junior to Kydd’s by months only – and probably he had the notion that Kydd wanted the battle all to himself. This was a flattering perception of his powers but he would tell them the full story.

He outlined his reasoning: that it would need a bait as potent as a ship-of-the-line to draw away all the frigates and the Danes had provided it.

‘Sir, have you any proof of this plan o’ theirs? I say we’ve sighted a Danish sail-o’-the-line and it’s our bounden duty to settle with him before he gets in among our trade.’

‘I have proof,’ Kydd said mildly.

‘Being?’

‘At dawn you will see Prinds win its anchor – and then it’ll sail north, back into the Kattegat.’