The Baltic Prize

Chapter 51

It was time. Kydd had to ignore any unease he felt at their slender numbers, the lack of more naval support. The operation must go ahead. But he was also aware of a swelling feeling – that he had the very best ship and men that ever sailed the seven seas.

In past battles he’d looked aft to the quarterdeck, seen the captain stand a-brace, the picture of contempt for the enemy and the hazards of war – and found strength. How ironic: it was probable that that captain, like himself at this time, would have been imbibing strength and resolution from the sight of his men.

Hull-down from the Bornholt light, Clinton’s marines boarded the dozen boats that had been under tow since Vinga, already loaded with their impedimenta. The little flotilla assembled and, with a highly vocal Bray in the lead, they set off with an easy stroke for the several miles it would take them to pass the lighthouse for their beaching point on the southern shore.

Kydd tested the wind, a light and cheerful easterly but one that had been easing since they left Vinga. Nevertheless this was precisely what he wanted: from their position at the light they could come down on an enemy sailing from the west along either coast.

The sloops departed on their patrols, leaving the two frigates hove to together. They would make their feint towards the lighthouse when the boats were ready for their final dash.

It was going well. The boats were in a disciplined double line and making good progress down the coast. So far there were no signs of alarm or even that the fortification had noticed them.

‘Flat the jib out, if you please,’ Kydd said to Brice, ‘and sail on aft if she needs it. I want to stay this side of the reef.’

The charts gave a steady northerly current for these parts and, hove to, they would slip north unless measures were taken to prevent it.

A mild drift southwards resulted and Kydd was satisfied. The manhandled sail was enough to keep them clear.

He glanced across at Riposte. She was now at some distance and seemed not to have noticed Tyger’s prudent move. It was not his job to teach seamanship but, on the other hand, he wanted the frigate to be available at rapid notice for response against a sudden threat. A complicated instruction about reefs and weatherliness seemed unnecessary so he turned to the officer-of-the-watch: ‘Riposte’s pennants: “keep better station”.’

Then several things happened at once.

At the boats Bray put his tiller down and the line of little vessels began their run-in to the beach. Almost immediately several puffs of white smoke were rising in the dunes in the distance, too far away to make out how many.

And the wind died away to a faint whisper, with a backing that Kydd knew usually preceded a calm, and then opposite wind, foul for their careful plan.

Then came a startled hail from the masthead. ‘Deck hoooo! Coming around the point, I see three – no, five, more gunboats!’

‘Get on all sail! To Riposte – close with the enemy.’ All sails spread and drawing, Tyger made for them as well, more gunboats still issuing around the point, but the bulldog-breed vessel was not at her best in light airs.

It could not have been a graver situation.

The gunboats were in a perfect situation to set upon and slaughter the boats, strung out in their haste to make the beach. It was obvious that the expedition had been betrayed. In Vinga there would be those who’d sell information to the Danes if the price was right, and word had reached them in sufficient time to send a force from the mainland three or four hours away.

They’d been hiding out of sight at the other end of the island, quite safe in their reef-strewn waters, waiting for the right moment.

Urgently, Kydd looked behind him for Riposte and saw a shambles. The frigate had not complied with his earlier signal to take steps against the northerly current and had found herself beyond the reef to the north. Now required to come down on the enemy, Mason was faced with a lengthy track back against the wind up the reef to its tip and tack about to Kydd’s side, or continue on along the northerly shore and intercept the gunboats by going around the other end.

In the lazy airs he’d missed stays and had no option other than to wear about and take the northerly route, but that carried a penalty that made it a near hopeless course. Unlike the south, the north coast possessed a sprawling reef of its own, which would require Riposte to round it – a trip of some fifteen, twenty miles to reach the gunboats, which would by then have done their worst.

Forward in her outer patrol was on the same side as Riposte and would also face the problem. Tyger would meet the threat alone.

Kydd stared ahead, knuckles white on his sword hilt.

Bray was urging on the boats and now they were strung out in a frenzied dash for the beach – and the first gunboat fired a ranging shot. It mercifully passed between them but Kydd knew that time was against them. The warship boats, crammed with men and equipment crowding the rowers, were no match for purpose-built oared galleys manned by professionals, who could quickly close and finish them.

And the worst: the gunboats were within range but he couldn’t open fire on them: the boats struggling in for the assault lay across between Tyger and the enemy – he’d be firing into his own. The Danes would know it, and could boldly go in for the kill without fear of retaliation.

In just a catastrophic few minutes the entire undertaking had turned to a disaster.

In a cruel haze of inevitability Kydd saw how the gunboats were holding fire as they grouped together for a concerted lunge at the boats; and here he was, in a powerful frigate and completely helpless, Tyger closing at half a walking pace in the calms, far too late to make a difference.

He willed his mind to a cold-blooded concentration.

The elements were plain and the foremost was to stop the gunboats. Only if-

And then he had it. ‘The gunner and his mate to report to me this instant!’ he roared at his startled messenger, who scuttled off to the main magazine at speed. Those on deck, held in fascinated dread by what was unfolding, turned and stared but Kydd didn’t care. This was the only hope.

Blinking in the light of day, the laconic gunner Darby and his mate, Stirk, hurried up. In a few short sentences Kydd pointed out the situation. It was quickly appreciated and then he asked a crucial question.

‘Well, and I hasn’t heard of it done, ever,’ Darby answered, stroking his chin.

‘It’ll go, sir!’ Stirk was emphatic, his dark eyes glittering in something approaching amusement. ‘Could be y’r cartridge splits in the loadin’ but with double wadding it’ll serve, I’d wager on it.’

Darby was less sure. ‘And if it don’t, why, we’ll be murtherin’ our own.’

‘We do it,’ Kydd said, with a steely determination.

The gunner departed quickly for the magazine to prepare, leaving Stirk with his captain. ‘Make it work, Toby,’ Kydd said softly, to his old shipmate. ‘I’m depending on you, cuffin.’

There was a brief easing of the hard features and then the weather-beaten seaman loped off to the line of guns.

In a very short time they were ready.

‘Eight points to larboard and hold her,’ Kydd barked, breaking the stillness.

‘Sir?’ Bowden looked at him in astonishment. Tyger was now apparently thrown off course and heading away into the open sea.

‘Carry on.’

Stirk would take the first shot.

The powder monkey brought up the charge in his salt-box. In place of the fat sewn grey serge of an eighteen-pounder full charge, there was one of half the size and bore.

‘Load!’ Stirk snarled at the gun-captain.

The gun’s crew gingerly went through their motions. ‘Tomp down main well,’ Stirk told the rammer who, taking him at his word, stabbed in viciously, Stirk’s thumb over the vent-hole at the breech telling him just when it was seated to his satisfaction. ‘Place y’r quoins, then!’

Beneath the breech on each gun was a stout wooden wedge. It rested on the carriage bed and acted as a crude elevating mechanism, being knocked in or eased out to raise or lower the breech. This was the quoin but now it was going to be used in quite another way.

Snatched out of their usual place, together with those belonging to the opposite guns, they were positioned at the ship’s side, high end out, in front of each loaded gun.

‘Run out!’

With double the usual men on the tackle falls, the gun rumbled out with a will – and when the trunnion wheels met the thin edge of the quoin it reared up, muzzle cocked crazily skyward, thumping into the gunwale ready.

Stirk took his time, motioning the men at the crow to bring the gun more to the left, then gave the firing lanyard a smart tug.

Kydd was ready for it: the gun’s unnatural higher-pitched blam, the much-reduced recoil but, above all, the flight of the ball.

It had worked!

Lofted high by the added elevation over their own boats, then brought down by the weight of an eighteen-pound ball fired only by a nine-pounder charge, the shot struck the sea well in advance of the leading gunboats, ricocheting on to take all the oars from one side of a hapless craft.

Roars of pent-up frustration burst out up and down the gun-deck and the men threw themselves at their iron beasts in a fury of action. First one, then another joined until the guns had every one blasted forth. And by the time Tyger had gone about to bring her opposite broadside to bear it was clear the enemy wanted no part of it, wheeling in flight, their prey snatched from them. They disappeared beyond the point whence they’d come.

Tyger turned to resume her position off the lighthouse. There was fitful firing from the dunes but already boats were grounding and the red coats of marines flooding up the beach. On the other side no doubt the gunboats would be receiving the unwelcome attentions of Riposte.

Again everything had changed. But now there was little doubt that the day was theirs.