The Baltic Prize

Chapter 42

The low grey coastline of the southern shore rose and firmed. It was time to begin.

Kydd had in all five supporting vessels, Bruiser, which was an elderly sloop, Lapwing, Stoat and Larch cutters, with a local-built gun-brig, Vistula.

He’d asked for Fenella but it seemed that Commander Bazely was indisposed at this time and unable to comply. It hurt when he heard this but he wasn’t going to insist on it, or demand he join at a later time, and had to be satisfied with Bruiser and her cautious captain, Eliot. The cutters were small but handy and commanded by competent-looking lieutenants that he’d soon get to know more about, while the gun-brig was in the charge of an acting lieutenant, newly promoted from a master’s mate and said to be from humble origins.

The cutters had been acquired from the Leith station and therefore were used to convoy operations and the all-important contraband searches of the North Sea. Bruiser had seen long service in the Channel and, like his old Teazer, would be no stranger to privateers.

It was not long before they were intercepted by Diomede, the frigate they were relieving. The two ships lay off each other and exchanged gossip, the burden of which was that things were bad, if not worse, than Saumarez knew. The Prussian ports were now being obliged to take French douaniers, officials to ‘advise’ port authorities on how to treat cargoes in accordance with Bonaparte’s Continental System, but whose barely concealed job was to ensure that any taint of a British connection was rewarded by instant confiscation of ship and cargo.

Past the Niemen river it was no different. This was Russian territory and all the old medieval ports that England had been trading with for centuries – Memel, Riga, Reval – were now in the grip of the Tsar and his agents. It was a strange and fearful situation the merchant-ship captains were now finding themselves in, with Napoleon’s decrees only months old and everywhere beginning to bite.

The privateers were making a rich haul, taking every opportunity to converge on the helpless merchant ships once they’d left the protection of convoys. It was going to be a hard fight.

Kydd saw the worn frigate sail away with mixed feelings. He was now on his own to do as he wished, but the stakes were getting higher.

He had no need to call a council-of-war with the captains of his little convoy. They knew their duty: the sighting, stopping and boarding of every sail, setting the wits of the boarding officer against the cunning of the merchant captains with the incentive of making prize of those in transgression.

He kept Vistula and Lapwing with him; Stoat and Larch were dispatched in the opposite direction with Bruiser. From now on their task would be to criss-cross off the ports, their presence a deterrent, but there were hundreds of ships to deal with so it would be a long job.

Kydd sent the little Vistula close inshore, her local appearance less likely to alarm, while Tyger kept her distance offshore, Lapwing well out on her beam.

The sweep began.

Within the hour sail was sighted, heading in to the coast. The comfortable, grey-weathered sail of a merchant brig, as usual flying no colours.

Kydd swung Tyger towards, and the ship hove to without being told, waiting patiently.

‘I’ll take this one,’ he grunted to Brice, who, as third lieutenant, would normally expect this task, but Kydd wanted to get a first-hand feel for the kind of tricks current in this part of the world.

The boat put off the short distance to the vessel, which lay to, the picture of innocence. Without comment Kydd hauled himself aboard over the bulwarks and snatched a glance about the ship. Plain, utilitarian, with the master standing blank-faced by the main-mast.

‘Good morning, Captain,’ Kydd said, noting the battens on the main-hatch were loose. Ready for discharging or evidence of breaking bulk to stow an illicit cargo?

‘Aye. Success o’ Peterhead, Joscelyn, master.’

‘Won’t detain you more than we have to, Mr Joscelyn.’

‘Well, here’s m’ papers, Admiral,’ he said, as he handed Kydd a small bundle.

‘Thank you,’ Kydd acknowledged. He had no intention of being chivvied into a cursory examination. ‘Your cabin?’

He laid them out, his experienced eye taking in the last port cleared, Hull, the bill of lading and other passage documents. Headed for Konigsberg in iron goods and the crew-list showing no surprises.

‘Which convoy did you take?’ Kydd asked, knowing if he could not answer he’d catch him out instantly.

‘Second o’ the month, which is Cap’n Williams, Steadfast in escort command,’ the man replied instantly.

‘The thirty-eight with an odd patched fore-topsail?’

‘No, sir – he’s only a twenty-four and looks bonny an’ trim.’

It was enough. With a last shuffle of the papers, Kydd looked up with a grin. ‘Won’t be detaining you longer, Mr Joscelyn. Best o’ luck shoreside.’

He was one of the hundreds of humble British ships making possible the war with their stream of revenue, at the cost of so many lost to the enemy and weather. After coming this far, the old captain had now to navigate the rocks and shoals of paperwork in the knowledge that his ship and cargo would be forfeit if he made a single error of sin or omission.

The old masters, however, knew all the tricks, and if any could get through, they would.

Kydd let Brice go to the next. At a little before noon he returned with his report. ‘Leith, in sea-coal. Prussian mate, short-handed and hoping to pick up some crew in Memel.’

Brice had been in these parts long enough to know the snares and blinds but a collier could not be disguised as anything else. Kydd nodded as he finished his report; the next time he’d make sure Bowden had his turn.

As dusk began closing in they sighted their first privateer.

Startlingly pale in the fading light, the sails of two interlocked ships showed against the darker mass of the coast-line. There could be only one reason for the embrace and Tyger hauled around to run down on them, Lapwing, further out to sea, following.

Cool and deliberate, the predator brought its men back aboard and poled off, taking the wind immediately in a curving flight away. A topsail schooner, it sheeted in hard, its course clearly for the distant coast and no doubt one of the many small harbours scattered along it. It was sailing at least two points closer to the wind than Tyger so there was little point in a chase while the cutter-rigged Lapwing was coming up from miles astern.

This was likely to be the pattern for the foreseeable future – a privateer lurking offshore to take merchantmen bound for a given port and, if trouble eventuated, a quick dash back to the safety of the coast, all of which was friendly and available to it.

Over supper the previous evening Kydd had come up with a plan and was determined to try it out.

A little before eleven in the morning, the mist cleared, revealing a merchant brig under as much sail as she could show being overhauled by what was possibly the same schooner as before.

As soon as Tyger was spotted, the privateer broke off the chase and hauled its wind for the land – where Lapwing cruised. Cut off from its escape it put about quickly but by this time Tyger had the bit between her teeth and converged on the fleeing craft in a storm of cheering. Caught between the man-o’-war’s guns of the cutter and the unanswerable menace of a frigate it gave up without a fight.

In a generous gesture Kydd allowed the young lieutenant of Lapwing to take possession and, with Vistula, sailed on to see if the trick could be repeated. But after wearisome hours it became clear it was too much to expect that they would reliably come upon a privateer in the very act of falling on a victim. It needed more thought.

Three days passed of quiet cruising, doubled lookouts, stopping and examining every sail that came into sight, outward bound or making landfall on Libau, Riga, Memel and other ports.

It was vital work, but after a week and only one privateer put down, it was tedious and unrewarding for a top fighting frigate. The main problem for Kydd was that any marauder in the business of capture for profit would instantly turn tail at the sight of a frigate and the chances were slim that he could bring many more to account on his own.

By tying up his assets in a co-operative sweep, he was bringing down the search focus to a few miles and depriving the larger picture of the services of the two smaller ships. In all his previous experience, the war against privateers had been always in the background, a necessary but incidental task. On this station it was different – it was the chief and foremost burden of his cruise – but in the face of this great threat to the Baltic trade he was achieving little.

Well into the second week, there was an additional and unwelcome element.

They spotted a deep-laden merchantman, its course unusually to the north-west. On sighting Tyger, it put over its helm in a hopeless attempt to flee.

‘Bad conscience,’ murmured Bowden, going below to get his boarding officer’s kit.

A single shot athwart the vessel’s bows was enough to bring it to.

As Bowden was carried across in the launch, five marines with him, the usual speculation broke out aboard Tyger.

‘A Dansker in grain. Stands t’ reason, headed nor’-west for the islands where they’s a mortal need for same.’

‘Loaded like that? A Prussian, in iron ore and off to Lubeck.’

Brice waited and, with a superior smile, added his contribution: ‘She’s Barrow-built and, with those crossed mizzen braces, country-manned. No colours but you can be sure she’s a true Briton by her topsides, bright-sided and tar-black both. Only an owner as cares for his ships lays out coin for this.’

‘Then deep-laden, why was she on a course out of the Bight?’ Kydd asked.

Bray was in no doubt. ‘British she may be, but we’ve just boarded an’ recaptured a Frenchy prize! Accounts for her sheering off when she sees us and why she’s away to the nor’-west, being carried off as prize.’

With some interest they awaited Bowden’s return: if a recaptured prize, they stood to make a respectable amount in salvage.

The second lieutenant arrived back, accompanied by a slight-built man in a long coat and old-fashioned tricorne.

‘Ah, Mr Wynn, master of the Bristol Trader, sir. I believe you’d want to hear what he has to say.’

So Brice had been right. This was nothing but a common Baltic trader with, no doubt, an elaborate excuse for his behaviour. Kydd took him down to his cabin and courteously sat him down.

‘M’ apologies I didn’t strike sail when I first clapped peepers on ye,’ the master began. ‘As I got good reason for it.’

‘What’s that, then?’

‘You’re full-rigged, a frigate.’

‘I am.’

‘Just the same as the monster who’s taken t’ cruisin’ about off Riga after our kind. That’s why I runs.’

Kydd looked directly at him. ‘A privateer?’

‘The same. Excepting he’s a beast o’ size, one we can’t hope to beat. Your reg’lar run o’ the scum, why, you might have a chance with. This ’un is ship-rigged like you, carries men an’ provisions for a long cruise so he can range out as far as he chooses.’

‘Size, you said.’

‘Aye. Six, seven hundred ton, sixteen long guns – and fast. Glory be, fast!’

‘Mr Wynn, how do you know all this without you’re taken yourself?’

‘It’s what’s said among the captains. Three captured this month – one got clean away t’ tell the tale and it’s this. In the offing, a league or two distant, he looks like one o’ yourn. Throws out a signal, confuses us, like. Then comes up and hails, we has to heave to. In a trice he’s alongside, swarms aboard and it’s all over for us.’

A privateer masquerading as one of the Saumarez fleet was bad enough, but this was destroying trust and confidence in the very merchant shipping the navy needed to win over. A double-edged stroke by the enemy and damned effective at that.

‘You were on a nor’-westerly course when we raised you. Not to Matvig or …?’

‘Aye. You’re not to know, but it’s a right dangerous place now, Konigsberg and the others on this side of the Baltic. These douaniers, they’ve got Boney at their backs when they talk t’ the port agents. Makes ’em slap the law on all who even smell of an English cargo or such. And that’s a grievous thing – with a bit o’ paper they confiscates ship an’ cargo both for tradin’ false. This means as it’s gettin’ too tough a thing to try to land a cargo. Like most now, I’m not even goin’ to try after what I heard, an’ I’m turned about and bound for Rostock, Lubeck, whatever, where they’re not so fond o’ the tyrant.’

‘Papers showing you’re cleared for this port?’

‘For a rub o’ silver it’ll fadge.’

Or cynical betrayal for reward. From bad to worse: but first to deal with the rogue privateer.

‘Thank you, Mr Wynn. I’ll see you on your way.’

Kydd returned to his cabin, slumped into a chair and gave himself over to deep thought.

From the description, the privateer was probably something like a corvette, which some called a ‘petty-frigate’, larger than a British ship-sloop but smaller than a full-rated frigate. Whether it was a true privateer in the business of predation or a French national ship, manned by the navy, couldn’t be known. What was plain was that it had to be found and dealt with – soon.

Item. It was reputedly fast, conceivably speedier than the foul-weather hero Tyger, whose performance in light airs was something less than sylph-like. Therefore merely sighting the creature was no guarantee of success.

Item. Combing the seas with Lapwing and Vistula in extended order was out of the question: either of them taking on a corvette was courting destruction, but if not, then it was a search of thousands of square miles by a single ship.

Item. Bruiser and her supporters were at an unknown distance and direction and could not be expected to join in the hunt, and the frigate further along on station somewhere off Reval would need something more tangible to entice her to join him.

Conclusion: there was nothing left but the hope of a chance meeting in conditions that suited Tyger. The odds on that? Near vanishing.

For something to throw into the conversation that night at the accustomed Friday gunroom invitation dinner, he put it to the table.

Bray’s determination to convoy right up to the port itself was blown out of the water by Bowden, who pointed out that to convoy any ship was only announcing to the world that this ship had a cargo so valuable to the British that they needed to protect it. Any defence of the master that he was innocently conveying neutral goods would be laughed out of court.

Asked to better it, Bowden’s scheme was to plot the prize-takings to get an understanding of the movements and practices of their opponent and lie in wait. Brice was the one who sorrowfully pointed out that, by definition, those who’d been taken were not in a position to report back the necessary positions.

The quietly spoken sailing master broke his silence to offer one possibility that had the fighting officers looking thoughtful. ‘We’ll never find him in these waters as are his own. Instead we lets him come to us.’

‘How?’

‘We sails a juicy-looking merchantman as bait with a parcel o’ seamen and marines hidden aboard. They’ll wait until he’s alongside, then rise an’ storm the devil.’

‘Hmm. I like it,’ Bray said, rubbing his chin. ‘Except what if he’s a fly one, and lies off the minute we stands and pounds us to a ruin? I’d rather Tyger was there t’ share the glory.’

‘Can’t have her near. She’ll tip the beggar off,’ Kydd said, and ruminated. ‘But it’s a good idea and worth our thinking.’

‘Grapnels.’

‘Mr Darby?’

‘I said, grapnels.’ The grey-haired gunner was not one to volunteer words unnecessarily and the cabin stopped talking respectfully to listen.

‘He likes t’ come alongside to finish it. Our men aren’t there as boarders. Instead they heaves grapnels over his bulwarks to hold him fast. Behind these are Royals wi’ muskets, whose job it is to pick off any who dares touch the grapnels.’

‘To what end?’ Bowden wanted to know.

‘This is Tyger. She’s hull-down to wind’d, no sail higher than her courses so can’t be seen. She’s waiting for a rocket. If she comes quick, like, our men only has to keep ’em from the grapnels while she comes up on us.’

‘Ha! You’re a caution to us all, Mr Gunner.’ Bray chuckled. ‘The way we did it in King Richard’s time with bows an’ arrows!’

‘Hold hard, Mr Bray,’ Kydd said seriously. ‘This could work out – while he can’t cast off the grapnels he dares not let go with his long guns for fear of setting both ablaze. And we reducing to courses – our main-yard at about sixty feet puts us below the horizon at less than ten miles. Double this for their lookouts’ height-of-eye and we’ve got ourselves upwind of the rascal, ready to loose all sail and be down on him in an hour or so while he’s held to a check. Yes?’

‘It’ll be hot work,’ mused Clinton, the captain of marines. ‘Say five grapnels, three pieces covering each, reloaders, replacements – but a workable plan, with an assist from sailors.’

‘We can do it!’ burst out Bray. ‘By God, but it’s possible!’

Kydd let the table erupt into a happy buzz before intervening with a settler. ‘I grant it’s thinkable, even probable – but there’s a detail that scuppers the whole.’

‘Sir?’

‘Your bait. I know a gallows deal more about merchant jacks than you gentlemen, and there’s a score of reasons why a master of a fat merchantman wouldn’t offer himself up as bait. Here’s some. One, you’re at the least obliging him to a delay as will be an embarrassment to his freighting and other arrangements. Two, his owners would offer him over to Davey Jones if he risked his ship and cargo so, and he would know it. Three, and here’s the worst: he’d be stepping well outside the clauses of his insurance. If there’s a bad turn which sees the barky taken, then we’d be liable to pay up, and I mean we – the Navy Board won’t in any wise cover an action not approved by them. So?’

The let-down was hard to take, snatching away the only prospect of going active in this privateer war.

With the days that followed came news of other seizures by privateers. And twice a naval intervention ended with the sharp-lined corvette effortlessly making its escape.

On one boarding of a British merchantman Bowden broached the idea with its master but was laughed at to his face.

The fifth day brought an even worse outcome. They came upon their quarry – but it slipped away before their eyes.

A lookout watching downwind saw two sail together and unmoving. He hailed the deck and Tyger, under a press of sail, went in pursuit. Even before a mile was passed the corvette had recovered its men and was away in a slather of foam, an impossible chase.

In his cabin, some time later, Kydd found himself listening to a white-faced young man. ‘It were a mistake. My pa should never have done it, God rest his soul.’

A brave but doomed attempt to prevent the boarding had cost the life of the master, the man’s father.

‘I’m truly sorry to hear it, Mr Gower,’ Kydd said softly. In a tradition of centuries the ship was family-owned, the father having stakes in it, this eldest son the first mate.

‘How’s the vessel? Can we bear a hand?’

‘No. It’s only blood they won,’ Gower said dully. ‘Ship’s left alone.’

‘Then we’ll have to be on our way. Again, my sympathy on your loss and-’

Gower abruptly raised his head. ‘Sir, you’ll oblige me on one thing.’

‘Oh?’

‘Do you hunt down the bastard and hang him from y’r fore-yard!’ he burst out.

Taken aback, Kydd was about to reply when a sudden thought struck. ‘I can and will – if I get the right kind of help …’

It took moments only to tell of the plan.

‘Be damned, and I’m in it!’ Gower spluttered. ‘Cargo’s iron-goods as won’t go rotten, consignee is m’ uncle, insurance don’t have t’ know. We’re to do it, I think.’

An impromptu council-of-war was brief and decisive. If the merchant jacks were going to risk it, the King’s men would surely do their part.

A likely ground was found: the broad sea approaches to Danzig, sixty miles to the west and the probable next move for the privateer disturbed from his profitable ranging off Konigsberg.

Hope of Maryport was not designed for war – but her stout sides were topped with high bulwarks to keep her decks from being swept by seas when rolling deep-laden. These and the raised hatchways would make fine parapets. What was to be done when the fateful lunge took place was rehearsed well: her crew would flee panic-stricken down to the fo’c’sle, leaving the concealed marines and naval seamen to do their work.

Tyger would take station below the horizon, her pin-prick bare masts near invisible in the light haze at the edge of the skyline, keeping track while upwind.

It all depended on the enemy now – if he was as rapacious as he seemed, he would strike, and soon.

Slow and cumbersome, Hope, with concealed drag sails, sailed back and forth over a forty-mile track, the image of an enticing prey. The red coats of marines were covered with oilskins as they lay on the deck, as many others finding hiding places below.

On the third day there was a response. Far to leeward the three upper sails of a full-rigged ship appeared above the horizon, keeping pace with them, like a wolf padding close to a frightened quarry.

Hope bore away nervously, her motions noted and followed. In a deliberately slow performance she put about to go back. The distant ship did likewise, no doubt encouraged by the laggardly show as proof of a small crew.

Keeping well down, Tyger’s seamen slithered to the opposite side. Theirs was now a waiting game.

Then their pursuer’s helm went over and, hard by the wind, it closed on the frightened merchantman, which sheeted in and tried to run from the menace – but the bait had been taken. It slewed about to a parallel course and, to the relief of the helpless victim, English colours broke out. They ran together as the other closed the gap between them to hailing distance.

Just as Kydd would have done, a voice blared out from her quarterdeck. ‘HMS Valiant, and I mean to examine you. Heave to, I’m coming alongside!’

Obediently Hope backed her main and the vessels slowed together.

Tucked in below the main hatch coaming, the sailmaker was leisurely mending a sail. Out of sight, on the other side of a chain of lashed barrels on deck and below the bulwarks, seamen waited, tense and fingering their weapons. And at the helm there was no common sailor – it was Bray in seaman’s rig with every detail under his eye.

There was a bump and a lurch as the two vessels touched. On the corvette a dozen men leaped to their feet with a hoarse yell and vaulted across, landing with a shout, bright steel in their hands.

‘On ’em, Tygers!’ Bray bellowed happily, and threw himself at the nearest.

There was a frenzy of action: boarders fighting for their lives as a flood of men boiled up from below with terrible shrieks, some with muskets, others clutching grapnels and, ignoring the vicious fray, behind them the red coats of marines taking up position.

The grapnels sailed out and thudded down.

Too late the corvette’s commander realised what had happened. Desperate to free himself from the scourging attacker, he screamed orders for the grapnels to be thrown off – but the first few to try were mercilessly brought down. The rest cowered.

In minutes it was over. The grapnels that had last been hurled at a Russian fort were now being firmly belayed, locking the vessels together.

Muskets came into play, but against disciplined Royal Marines, they were of no use – trained for the battlefield, the redcoats methodically fired as targets appeared and swept the field.

There was no attempt at storming the big privateer. There was no need to: when Tyger’s sails were loosed and she sailed vengefully down from the eye of the wind, the sight was too much and a white flag was hastily flown.