The Baltic Prize

Chapter 5

‘A good leave, Sir Thomas?’ Bray greeted Kydd.

‘Yes, a good leave, Mr Bray, thank you. Now, you have something for me?’

Tyger was in immaculate trim, and his first lieutenant’s assurance that they were stored and watered in expectation was what he’d hoped to hear. He was lucky with his uncompromising second in command.

They lost no time in going below to Kydd’s cabin to open the orders.

Dillon looked up from his work and smiled winningly. ‘A good leave, sir?’

‘Yes, yes, a good leave. Carry on, if you please.’

The order pack was very slim – those concerning a foreign commission of adventure and far roaming were fat with injunctions, signal instructions, coded challenges and so forth.

Kydd broke the seal and on a single sheet all was made clear. ‘We are no longer with the North Sea Squadron, Mr Bray.’

‘Sir?’

‘We’re to join a venture named the “Northern Expedition” assembling in Yarmouth, under the flag of Vice Admiral of the Blue Sir James Saumarez.’

Bray brightened. ‘Damme, but this sounds more my ticket,’ he growled happily. ‘Swinging around an anchor for a couple of months and not a smell o’ powder, it’s not Christian.’

‘Don’t get too exercised, Mr Bray – it looks like it’s going to be fleet work, under eye of a senior admiral.’

There was a knock at the cabin door and Bowden appeared. ‘Oh, I didn’t wish to disturb, sir.’ He waited pointedly.

‘Very well, come in and take your fill of the news,’ Kydd said, with resignation and a weary smile.

‘Thank you, sir. I trust you had a good leave?’

‘Very fine, Mr Bowden, very fine. We’re off to Yarmouth to join an expedition and-’ He broke off at another knocking. ‘Come.’

Brice entered, his expression guileless. ‘Watch-on-deck mustered and correct, sir,’ he said crisply. Then he added shyly, ‘Did you have a good leave, sir?’

‘Be damned to it!’ Kydd spluttered. ‘I’ve a mind to turn up the ship’s company to tell ’em all at once that I had a thundering good leave, thank ’ee.’

The assembly date for the expedition was still three days away but Kydd was keen to know what was in the wind. ‘We proceed in the morning, Mr Bray. Ship is under sailing orders.’

‘Aye aye, sir!’

As his officers left the cabin, Kydd’s thoughts turned to Saumarez. He’d first known him while he’d been commander of the humble Teazer brig-sloop. So long ago now, another life, but he’d never forgotten the courtesy and understanding Saumarez had shown him at a particularly difficult time … and the wounding disappointment he’d made known in what he’d assumed was an incident of Kydd’s moral depravity.

Intelligent, a master of detail and with high expectations of his subordinates, Saumarez would be a fine but demanding commander-in-chief of whatever expedition this was.

The following day Yarmouth Roads were duly raised – and what a spectacle! It brought all Tyger’s crew up to marvel at the biggest assembly of naval might any had seen since Britain had stood alone before Trafalgar – and, glory be, wasn’t that the grand old lady herself, HMS Victory, there at its centre?

‘Their lordships mean some mischief on the enemy, I’m thinking,’ breathed Bray, in admiration.

No less than a dozen battleships at anchor in fine array, their lines of guns a stern portent to any who might think to challenge the rule of the Royal Navy on the high seas.

‘Isn’t that Nelson’s Vanguard – astern of Implacable?’

‘It is,’ Kydd confirmed. He would never forget witnessing Nelson’s selfless order, from that dismasted ship-of-the-line heading for the rocks, to Captain Ball of Alexander to abandon him and preserve his own vessel – and the stout refusal to obey orders that had finally saved Vanguard and the great admiral for further service to their country.

Joyce, the sailing master, rubbed his chin. ‘My eyes are on the barky yonder,’ he said with feeling.

‘Orion?’

‘Aye. Just think on it – she took her first knocks at the First o’ June, then St Vincent, an’ then the Nile before she’s there mauling Frenchies at Trafalgar. Seen her fair share of action, she has.’

Kydd recalled those fevered days. ‘Did you know that Saumarez was her captain at the Nile? Took a bad wound but kept on. I wonder what he’s thinking now.’

‘You were there, Sir Thomas?’

‘Yes, l’tenant only but saw much that night. There – Goliath. It was Foley who led us in, and it was he who had the almighty gall to sail inside their line of anchored ships, which saw us victorious that day.’

It was thrilling – and puzzling. Here was a constellation of names that had resounded down the years, battle-hardened veterans with the habit of victory. What audacious stroke was being contemplated that needed such a splendid band at its centre?