The Baltic Prize

Chapter 17

In the cold pre-dawn dark Kydd stood watching as preparations were made for unmooring and fighting. The men worked silently, their movements concentrated and deliberate. He knew the signs and could tell that they realised what was being asked of them but there was no hanging back. For himself there was an additional tension: was he right in his assumption?

By imperceptible degrees a tentative light stole over the scene, the distant dark bulk of the battleship taking on clarity, colour. It was definitely making ready for sea.

Kydd sniffed the wind. A gentle north-easterly. Fine for a quick passage south – but chancy for any return north and too light for his liking. If he’d guessed correctly Captain Jessen’s intent would be to lure the three frigates north and out into the open water of the Kattegat – but only one would follow: Tyger must trail the menace closely to see where it was headed and, if necessary, bring it to a delaying action.

While their anchor was hove in, he fixed his gaze on the Danish ship with a fierce intensity. Before it could trip its hook, sails and rigging had to be braced around to catch the wind in the right manner to take up its intended course – smoothly to lay over and away. This would be a give-away of that direction.

Prinds and the British frigates were tide-rode, facing south, stemming the strong current. If Jessen was going on to bring them to battle he need do no more than set sail and advance. But if Kydd was right, it would be sail aft that was spread to swing the ship around the pinioning anchor until facing the other way before headsails were thrown out to bring the vessel evenly on to the starboard tack, close-hauled and away.

And there it was! The big driver aft was hoisted and hauled to the wind, the mizzen topsail loosed with seaman-like skill and stay-sails soared up.

He was right! Kydd saw the big ship swing and, at just the right moment, her anchor emerge in a swash of white. She paid off to larboard and, under topsails, made off to the north and the Kattegat.

In exactly the same sequence Kydd brought Tyger around and, less than a mile behind, she followed, Sybille and Tribune returning to resume their patrol.

The breeze was frustratingly light but Prinds seemed in no hurry, gliding through the glittering waters of the morning, with her distinctive swallow-tailed orlogsflag proudly at the main and her rows of gun-ports with the black muzzles of her guns visible, token of her battle readiness. If she was disappointed that she was luring only one frigate away there was no sign of it.

The Rosn?s peninsula to starboard, the Stavnsfjord to larboard, the hours passed.

Now with Sejero abeam they were only a dozen miles from the open water, and once sea-room was reached, Jessen would turn on his pursuer. Probably his original plan was to take on all three frigates where space to wheel and charge was vital.

The wicked hooked tongue of Sj?lland Odde was way over to starboard, its hidden reef extending underwater for miles. Kydd had ordered the chart to be brought up with a table, and as he followed their track, it told of a maze of sub-sea horrors from which the prudent mariner was advised to lay well off.

But Prinds, with its local knowledge, was confidently making more to larboard and Kydd had no other option than to do likewise. Yet if this course was followed for long-

With preternaturally tuned senses, he caught a very slight judder through the timbers of the deck and moments later the bow fell off course with a cry of alarm from the helmsman. Kydd raced to the side as the ship slowed, dreading what he’d see – and there was the fearful sight of clouds of particles boiling up from a sand-bank.

This was the very worst: to run aground in the presence of an enemy. Heart pounding, he roared orders to clew up the sails to take the strain off the masts.

There was no clue how the bank was oriented as the calm seas left no distinguishing ripples but one thing was sure – if the 74 caught sight of their predicament their future would be brutal and short.

‘Mr Joyce – into the jolly boat with a leadline. Tell me how she lies.’

White-faced, the master started to sound along the length of the ship to build a picture of their plight.

But then ahead Kydd saw Prinds had altered its perspective, the three masts opening up as it wore about – their situation had been seen!

It could only be the end for Tyger, lying helpless: the bigger ship would choose an approach that avoided her guns and enabled it to destroy the frigate with a pitiless raking down her length.

Joyce knew what was looming but he kept up his steady bellow of depths and soon it became clear to Kydd that while Tyger was gripped all along her larboard side, there were soundings enough to starboard.

‘Mr Bray! All hands to cast off all guns to larboard and move ’em to the other side. Now!’

Each eighteen-pounder, with its truck and gear, some two tons of weight, would create a heel to starboard and, even if it were by inches, it would free the ship for forward movement. It was their only chance – but it would leave them helpless.

With a roar the boatswain leaped into action, bullying gun-crews and a growing crowd of seamen, sweating and fighting with the iron beasts in the fearsome toil of shifting the guns one after the other across the deck.

Prinds was wearing ship around the wind, a slower but surer means to stay about, and a measure of Jessen’s confidence. The end was now certain.

By eye Kydd could see the course he was taking to bring destruction to Tyger. With the wind large it seemed it was to be bow to bow until point-blank range, in the perfect confidence that at that angle Tyger could not fire a single gun in her defence. At the last minute the 74 would yaw and open with her full broadside, leaving a shattered, smoking hulk running with the blood of her crew.

Kydd sensed Persephone with him. A steady warmth of presence, of understanding, even as he faced his fate in the knowledge that he had done all he could in obedience to his loyalty to Crown and country.

Then he felt a movement, a sudden canting to starboard. Was it …?

Prinds kept on, its heading precise and deadly, as he’d expect from one of Jessen’s experience.

A definite shifting – and then a relieved wallow. They were free – but it was too late. Nothing they could do now would change the onrushing charge of the big ship. He braced himself for the onslaught, mind freezing in anticipation of the killing blast – but incredibly, wonderfully, it didn’t happen.

The 74 was yawing, turning, but there was no obliterating broadside, the ship continued until it was right around, close-hauled and heading northward again.

It didn’t have any meaning.

An incredulous shout came from forward. In the distance, two ships were cautiously finding their way around the far extremity of Sj?lland Reef and, Heaven be praised, they were quite unmistakably Stately and Nassau, sought out and summoned by the faithful Falcon.

The Danish 74, it seemed, was not going to waste its broadside on Tyger with greater prizes in the picture, and it steadied on a closing course for the 64s.

‘Get those guns back in place!’ Kydd roared. This was an action between battleships, but there had to be a part they could play, even if it wasn’t immediately plain.

Under way again, he followed in the wake of the 74, ready for any move.

It came well before the Dane closed with its two adversaries.

With the distant British ships wary of the shoals and beyond the last of the reef, Prinds executed a smart turn to starboard, tacking about and insanely making straight for the hidden rocks and shoals of Sj?lland Reef.

In a leap of insight, Kydd saw why: Jessen didn’t want to tangle with the 64s – even if he were only damaged in the encounter it would put paid to his vital mission. Instead he seemed to know a safe channel through the middle of the reef, which would allow him to make for the shelter of the guns of Fortress Kronborg, back along this north coast, there to wait until the British gave up and left.

Kydd saw that Tyger now had her purpose. He would shadow the 74 closely, keeping to the shoreward of it.

This would have two vital results: the Dane must keep clear of Tyger’s guns for fear of a chance crippling hit, and this would force her to seaward towards the 64s. On the other hand, its very presence inshore would give confidence to Stately and her consort that there was depth enough to manoeuvre and grapple.

It would take seamanship of the highest order for he must go into the reef with Prinds without charts or knowledge of the deadly ground.

He had one priceless advantage: once in the brig-sloop Teazer he’d served in the Channel Islands, probably the worst rock-and-reef-strewn sea area of them all, made more terrible by the greatest tides found anywhere. He knew the sea-lore he’d gained in those waters was what was needed now and he would damn well take his ship through.

‘We follow him,’ he snapped at the group at the conn.

‘But, sir-’

There was only one practical way he could do it. Throwing aside his coat and hat, he swung into the fore-shrouds and mounted steadily. In the fore-top he took in the scene. The square sails were all behind him, only the soaring head-sails in front end on, giving a fine view of the sea ahead.

With a seaman in either shroud below, in sight of both him and the wheel, he was ready.

A mile or so ahead Prinds was making for a particular location – he could tell by its slight alterations of course as the wheel was aligned more finely. Taking out his pocket glass he concentrated on the sea surface either side of it.

The wind was fluky but had picked up a little and now there was sufficient liveliness to show lines of darker wave hollows and therefore the betraying trend of the currents beneath. He widened his view: there was a definite curving conformity to her larboard where seas were crowding through an unseen cleft, and on the other side there was a suspiciously glassy-smooth expanse, which told of an extensive ridging of the sub-sea rocks.

Light winds made progress trying, hours of sailing passing uneventfully. No doubt Jessen wouldn’t mind: if it came on to night, all the better for him to escape in the darkness – except that Tyger would be at his heels.

Warily, the 64s kept well clear, Parker probably wondering at the foolish stubbornness that had Tyger plunging after the 74 into such danger.

Tyger reached the reef. The lengthening shadows of evening made it even clearer: the gyres where invisible sea-bottom hollows lay not so far below, the fan-shaped rush of waters over a rock, the line of confusion above a sub-sea cliff – and, as well, the regular advance of waves on a broad front, which told of deep water.

Kydd’s crisp arm signals were relayed to the wheel and, with increasing confidence, the frigate won through and into the sweeping bay of Sj?llands Odde beyond, with, less than a mile ahead, Prinds standing for the far headland and escape.

Kydd returned to the deck in the knowledge that very soon he would be forced into another decision: whether or not to throw his ship at the 74 in a desperate attempt to delay its retreat.

But by this the 64s had been spared the need of rounding Sj?lland Reef and, with the winds now on their quarter, made good speed compared to Prinds hard by the wind, and began converging. It was a race – not between ships, but to join action before darkness gave the bigger ship the chance to get away.

Yard by yard the ships plunged on, Tyger slowly closing on the stern of the ship-of-the-line to be in position for the final act – when the big ships would be locked together in the striving of mortal combat.

In that hour the fortunes of war turned decisively against the cool and intelligent Jessen. The light winds chose that moment to falter and die, then picked up again, but now veered more to the east, heading Prinds. There was now no possibility the unhandy ship-of-the-line could weather the headland on this board.

Kydd could only admire the swift decision that had Prinds wheeling about on the other tack, clawing directly out to sea to make the necessary offing – and into the path of the oncoming 64s. At the last possible minute he fell back on his old tack for the headland, but things had now changed.

The wind was dropping to little more than a whisper and the big 74 slowed to a crawl. Tyger was close enough that even when darkness fell the faster frigate could stay with him and, fatally for the Dane, could indicate to Parker his location at any time. Darkness could not save him now.

As the day ended and a dusky twilight gave way to gathering darkness Kydd saw how the battle would develop. Stately and Nassau began to diverge as they approached Prinds, now pinned against the shoreline. It was obvious Parker was aiming to take the 74 on both sides, a simple smashing match between line-of-battle ships, and this would be no place for a frigate.

Darkness lay over the scene like a cloak and Kydd had a vital part to play.

‘We’ll have a blue light both fore and aft. Lay us off her quarter and stay there.’

Two lights. Parker would know what it meant: the higher aft, the lower forward would be a direct pointer at Prinds. If the distance between foreshortened, it meant that the 74 was changing course or putting about and he would be warned accordingly.

The dark bulk of Prinds showed ahead but by now out to sea Parker’s invisible ships would be making for Tyger’s lights. It would be galling for Jessen – would he lose patience and turn on the betraying frigate?

They were running along the low shoreline almost invisible in the gloom. The charts gave good bottom this side of the reef, and Kydd could rely on keeping in just a couple of cables offshore to enable him to see the stolid blackness of the land against the gleam of the sea. And if ever-

A livid gun-flash lit the sky and a sullen boom rolled across the water. A ranging shot – the two sides were in contact.

More, and these from different sides. Parker had his disposition, thanks to Kydd’s initiative.

‘Stand down the lights!’ he bawled, their duty done.

The firing quickly became furious, the stabbing flash of guns illuminating the sea and the ships in a fiendish glare, with a rolling bass thunder that could be felt in the stomach.

It grew rapidly savage, prolonged, details of the combat now and then hidden in swelling clouds of red-hued gun-smoke.

Mr Midshipman Rowan, a messenger by the side of the first lieutenant, was transfixed for long moments. Guns! These were not only the first great guns he’d heard in his life but he was in the middle of a real battle, one which could sway either way. Tyger was remaining silent in the outer darkness and he could hear clearly the sounds of the furious contest. To his surprise, the guns didn’t give a colossal bang but much more a heavy blam, which was felt as much as heard.

In the dark, leaping gun-flash illuminated the ships in stark silhouette, roils of smoke hiding detail, and on its underside redly reflected the firing, while the combat arena was a calm black sea that mirrored the savagery above, a grand and fearful sight.

But locked in a merciless duel the knot of ships were unknowingly in a current drift to the shore. As if in a nightmare Kydd saw an end to the battle – all three helpless wrecks on the strand.

‘Quickly, damn you – as before, but rig red lights!’

He could make out the shore but, blinded by gun-flash, the others couldn’t – yet they would see his flaring marks at the limits of depth.

The lights spluttered to life. Tyger came to precisely the point where she was between the raging fight and the shore, where she lay, a warning to all.

For an hour, more, the ships hammered into each other in the night, the stink of the gun-smoke raw on the night air.

It was impossible to tell which way the battle was going. From reflected glare Kydd saw that all had their masts still but the fury of the contest would without doubt cause ruin and destruction in spars and rigging.

The Danish 74 was fighting for its life, serving both sides of guns, but the 64s needed only to serve one side, that facing the Dane. Would this make up for their lesser weight of metal?

It was a hard-fought, cruel contest and, as at Trafalgar, Kydd knew there was nothing a lone frigate could do to intervene.

At about nine the fire slackened and died to an eerie silence.

If the 64s had been crippled or were retreating, this left Tyger trapped against the shore to become the sole attention of a vengeful ship-of-the-line, or was it that Jessen had struck after a fearful mauling?

There was only one way to find out.

Tyger ghosted seaward, the terrible silence broken only by the occasional thumps of floating wreckage shouldered aside and the plash of her bow-wave.

Quite suddenly the massive bulk of a ship-of-the-line loomed out of the blackness. Lanthorns were being hung in the rigging to illuminate the deck, and as they drew nearer Kydd could hear alien cries and shouts, and the heart-tearing shrieks of wounded under the surgeon’s saw. In the dim light the ragged upper rigging was visible, all torn sails and trailing rope but nowhere was a flag or ensign to be seen.

By its size it had to be Prinds.

Beyond was the dark shadow of another vessel lying off. It had a pair of command lanthorns in its fighting tops – it was Stately.

Aboard, they, too, were raising lights, and he could hear the sounds of hurried repair above the muffled shrieks of the wounded. There was similar destruction: lines in the water, yards askew, the same shot-torn sails.

As Tyger came abeam she was hailed. ‘The Dane has struck. Prepare to make boarding to prevent loss of the prize on the shore.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

‘Er, and do send a boat, old fellow. Ours are all shot to pieces and I mean to take possession.’

Kydd turned to his first lieutenant. ‘Mr Bray, away all boats with the carpenter, his mates and as many good men as you can spare. We’ve a prize to secure.’

‘Aye aye, sir. First division o’ larbowlines, muster in the waist,’ he bellowed.

Appalled, Kydd saw young Rowan hurry to join them. ‘What’s that, Mr Bray? Send back the boy this instant!’

‘He’s a larbowline, sir!’ Bray’s indignant bawl came back.

‘Send him back!’

Kydd had too many times seen the aftermath of a close-quarters action: it was no place for a stripling.

He caught Rowan’s look of disappointment, but he wasn’t about to expose the child to the sight of decks running with blood and worse.

His barge was quickly in the water and pulled briskly to Stately, Kydd aboard to act as Parker’s second.

Parker lowered himself heavily into the boat by the dim, flickering light of the lanthorns, his uniform stained grey and rent open in one place.

‘A hot night of it, sir,’ Kydd opened, as they stroked to the motionless hulk of the now vanquished ship-of-the-line.

‘Aye, it was.’ He did not seem inclined to discuss it so Kydd refrained from conversation.

At the top of the side-steps of the 74 there was a lanthorn and a small group of men, who pulled back as they came aboard. A dull-eyed but dignified officer stepped forward. ‘Kaptajn Carl Jessen. I find I must yield the vessel I have the honour to command to you, sir.’

‘Captain Parker, His Majesty’s Ship Stately. The gallant defence of your ship does the greatest honour to your flag, sir.’

‘Even as it came at grievous cost,’ Jessen said, in a low voice, gesturing at a still figure lying by the main-mast covered with the Danish ensign. ‘Lojtnant Willemoes, who may be known to you from his valour before Nelson in a previous age.’

‘Indeed. Shall you …?’

Jessen slowly unbuckled his sword and offered it to Parker. After the barest hesitation he passed it on to Kydd.

‘Thank you, sir. And the keys to the magazine?’

It was a mean act – in his place Kydd would have returned the sword. Cynically he reflected that Parker would know the action had not been one that the public would take up by reason of the odds in two against one, however hard-fought, and he was claiming what glory he could.

Tyger’s boats came alongside and her seamen boarded, many awed and subdued by the carnage and destruction, others hurrying to the more obvious ruination.

‘I shall send report, sir,’ rumbled Bray, who was clearly seeing it as his business to take the matter in hand.

Kydd left him to it, now drained and exhausted by events. After seeing the prisoners on their way out of the 74, he returned to Tyger.

He dozed off in his armchair, still dressed, without touching Tysoe’s ministering whisky, but was wakened a short time later.

‘Mr Bray’s respects, and says as how he can’t save the ship.’

Shaking his head to clear it, Kydd got to his feet. ‘Coming,’ he croaked.

Bray met him at the side.

‘Rudder stock took a hit so we’ve no steering. Means we can’t spread sail and I fear boats in tow wouldn’t make much way in this.’ The night breeze was blowing broadside on to the damaged hulk, its obvious fate now to be driven ashore.

‘Then anchor.’

The bluff lieutenant gave a twisted smile. ‘Danskers cut the cables before they took their leave.’

Even in his tiredness Kydd could see that there was nothing more to be done. The ship was no longer a threat and that was the chief concern. ‘You’ve done your best. She’ll go aground but it’s two hours to daylight. We’ll see what we can do then.’

A cold grey dawn revealed a shattered wreck aground on the foreshore, not far from a hamlet, while the two 64s were anchored offshore and under repair. It took little time to survey the remains and realise that nothing short of a massive salvage effort could free the vessel.

Parker took the news petulantly. ‘Can’t see why you couldn’t think of something to stop the beggar driving ashore.’

‘A lee shore, no steering?’ Kydd couldn’t help himself. His men had laboured for no result, but all Parker could see was a prize going to waste.

‘That’s as may be. You know what to do,’ he snapped peevishly.

In the early light, villagers had seen the huge bulk of the ship in the shallows and a small crowd gathered when the gunner’s party arrived in boats. They climbed aboard and disappeared below for a time, then hastened back to the boats and put off.

A little later the first wisps of smoke rose, increasing until the flames became visible, catching the tarred rigging, flaring up and spreading fast. Within an hour the battleship was ablaze, a crackling inferno.

The crowd held back from the appalling sight and in another hour the inevitable happened.

In a cataclysmic eruption Prinds exploded, wreckage tumbling and pattering from the sky, leaving a blackened and smoking length of ribbed timber where once the last of Denmark’s proud battle-fleet had found its rest.