The Iberian Flame

Chapter 25

Aboard HMS Tyger

From her deck Cape Trafalgar, abeam to larboard, was unimpressive, simply a low bluff on a sandy tongue of land with a stumpy lighthouse atop. It had not only witnessed the greatest sea battle in history but was one of the major seamarks between Cadiz and Tarifa, the privateers’ nest sixty miles on at the entrance to the Mediterranean.

Even the lowliest midshipman knew it well, sighting it for exercise in running fixes, and aware of the numberless offshore sandbanks and rip-currents that made it notorious to every sailor. Most often it was given a generous offing and course laid direct for Tarifa across the bay.

This day, however, the wind being fair, Kydd ordered the helm put over to follow the bay around. There was nothing of significance within before it came out again at the seamark of Cape Caraminal, past the little fishing village of Barbate on its river, but it varied the scenery.

In a mile or two they raised the nondescript scrubby heights that led along the coast, and after another few miles, set back from the monotonous flat sand dunes, reached Barbate. It was time to ease south-east.

A sudden piercing hail from the masthead brought the deck to an alert. ‘Saaail! Sail two points t’ larboard agin the land. A frigate!’

Kydd was rudely jolted out of his reverie. A frigate – this was no English vessel, Tyger was southernmost of the blockade cruisers, and in any case, what was it doing so close in?

He crossed to the leeward side and raised his glass. It was full-rigged, certainly no merchantman with that single gun-deck and low, war-like lines. It could only be enemy.

‘Quarters, Mr Bray,’ he ordered crisply. A chance encounter, an opponent of equal size, guns ablaze in the forenoon. Precisely what Tyger was built for.

In the commotion of readying he studied the situation. It was almost as if the frigate had recently put to sea from Barbate, the near parallel river mouth delivering the ship in a wide curve to seaward. But why in Hades was a ship of consequence visiting the humble village?

The frigate seemed untroubled by what it must have seen and, under all plain sail, continued out to sea towards Tyger.

Uneasily, Kydd kept his glass on it. Something about the confident standing on, the gun-ports still closed, so many men about her decks …

Almost lazily it went about and headed out to sea, royals appearing above its topgallants as if spreading its wings for an ocean passage.

Astonished, Kydd followed its track. It would intersect with theirs about a mile ahead. ‘Close with the beggar,’ he ordered. ‘And keep our gun-ports shut as well.’ It meant hauling in each gun and dropping the lids but if the other was determined on a peaceful aspect so was he, until he learned otherwise.

The frigate picked up speed but Tyger was in place to intercept in time – and all became clear.

‘He’s a Yankee,’ he said, the colours now no longer end on. But this brought with it a new mystery: what was an American doing this side of the Atlantic, given that Congress, with its Embargo Act, had recently made it near impossible for their merchantmen to trade and therefore need protection?

‘I’ll speak with him, I believe. Lay me a pistol shot to wind’d, if you please.’

There was no sign of fear or trepidation as Tyger eased up on the American. Neither was there any show of respect, but that was to be expected. Kydd had served with their young navy some years before and knew them to be a proud race, not inclined to bow and scrape to any.

The two frigates surged along side by side in the pleasant breeze, giving Kydd time to inspect the American.

He knew that the US Navy had six frigates at least, big ones and well able of handling all in their class, but this was more like a Royal Navy vessel, a mid-range eighteen-pounder and to all appearances as capable.

Scores of curious faces looked back at them from the deck-line as Kydd stepped up to hail. ‘The American frigate, ahoy! What ship?’

A plainly dressed officer on its quarterdeck raised a speaking trumpet. ‘United States Ship Concord, Sam Brightman commanding,’ he replied, in a broad nasal twang. ‘Out o’ Boston. You?’

‘His Majesty’s Ship Tyger, Sir Thomas Kydd commanding, of the Cadiz blockade.’ He hid a smile to hear the colonial accent he’d been introduced to those years ago.

‘What do ye want then, Mr Kydd?’

The curt reply did not invite a conversation but, then, since his time in the USS Constellation things had changed. In an ill-advised show of superior might off the New England coast, HMS Leopard had fired into USS Chesapeake when she’d refused a boarding to search for deserters. It had nearly brought about a war, and relations between the two navies were now delicate.

But did this explain why the crew opposite to a man were silent, tense, watchful – it would be much more in character for them to jeer and hurl insults, good-natured or otherwise.

The two ships seethed along together, the swash and hiss making it hard to discern the words.

‘Just wondering what brings a Connecticut Yankee this side of the ocean, is all.’

A pause before the answer showed that his recognition of the accent had been a surprise, but it brought no warmth in the reply. ‘That’s my own darned business, sir, not yours!’

Kydd’s intuition pricked. Something was not square with his memory of the new navy but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

‘And I’ll thank ye to get out o’ my wind,’ Brightman added venomously.

‘Take us to loo’ard,’ Kydd ordered, racking his brain for an answer.

Tyger spilled wind and eased back, then manoeuvred around the other’s stern, coming up on its leeward side. If he was not careful, this could lead to an incident of international proportions. Should he simply let it go, see it on its way, or …?

If this was a merchant ship it would be easy. Stop and board, let its papers tell the story. But this was a warship and there was no question of a boarding and therefore no way of establishing its legitimacy. He would have to let it go.

Then a glimmer of something began to firm.

It was midday, time for the noon meal, and so close, downwind, snatches of the fragrance of their cooking came on the light breeze. ‘Get Petty Officer Pinto here,’ he rapped. ‘Quickly!’

The thick-set seaman padded up, clearly mystified as to why, with the ship closed up at quarters, Kydd had summoned him.

‘Pinto,’ Kydd said, ‘the barky over there is going to dinner shortly. I want you to take a breath and smell, then tell me what they’re having.’

Around him officers and men recoiled in amazement but they did not dare to make comment.

Taken aback the Iberian-born sailor nevertheless did as he was bade. ‘Why, an’ it’s a right good serve o’ bacalhau to be sure,’ he said mildly, scratching his head. ‘Wi’ garlic and-’

Kydd couldn’t help flashing a grin of triumph at the others. ‘Thank you. Carry on, please.’

It was no American, that frigate. He knew it because his unconscious had told him its smell had not been right. But should he go into action only because of its reek? If he did and the frigate was from the US Navy, it could be a prelude to war and his disgrace. He had to find more.

A sarcastic bawl came from Concord’s quarterdeck. ‘You planning on gabbin’ some more, or do we get about our business?’

He had seconds only to … There! He had it! The frigate’s proud colours aloft – thirteen stars for the thirteen colonies that had rebelled.

With rising elation he remembered that in Constellation they’d been at pains to show him the new flag authorised only two years before – and it had fifteen stars. Whatever this ship pretended to be, it most certainly was no proud member of the US Navy.

‘Run out the guns!’ he ordered crisply, then bawled, ‘Concord frigate – heave to! I mean to board you!’

There was hesitation and Kydd thought he hadn’t been heard. Then the American colours were snatched down and the familiar red and yellow of the Spanish took their place. At the same time a savage chorus of squeals sounded as gun-ports opened, and down its length the black snouts of guns appeared.

Kydd acted instantly. ‘Helm hard up!’ he roared and Tyger swung immediately downwind – but towards Concord, her bowsprit slewing in an arc until it aimed like a spear into the enemy’s bowels. Taken utterly by surprise, the frigate hesitated – fatally.

One or two of her guns fired, the shot going wide, but its captain had seen the trap: if he did likewise his stern-quarters would rotate obligingly past Tyger’s broadside and he would be disembowelled. Flinching from Tyger’s coming fire, he went the other way and inevitably caught the wind aback, slowing in a cloud of flat and angrily flapping canvas.

Tyger completed her turn and, under the impetus of the breeze, gathered way and passed by the high stern of the helpless ship, her guns steadily crashing out one by one, the mullioned windows dissolving into flying shards leaving smoking black cavities and trailing wreckage.

Just as soon as she was past, Tyger wore about in a wide circle.

It gave Concord the slenderest margin to recover, to throw out jibs and staysails a-weather to fall back on her original tack, but by then Tyger was fast coming up – with her opposite broadside.

There was chaos on the enemy decks as they bore down, Kydd saw grimly, but it was no time for pity. Once again she passed the battered stern and her guns began their execution.

Afterwards, with perfect discipline, Tyger prepared to go round again but there was no need: colours jerked down wildly and Tyger came to a graceful stop, the enemy lying to under her guns.

‘Mr Bray, do take possession, if you will.’

The kill had been rapid, efficient and bloodless, as far as his own ship was concerned. It was clear evidence that this Spanish captain had little combat experience and he felt a twinge of sympathy for the man that he’d come up against a veteran like Tyger.

Bray needed no urging. Blaring for a boat’s crew and marines, he was off promptly, the rowers bending to it with a will. Not only was there head money, gun money and the rest, but there was every prospect the fine-looking frigate would be bought into the Royal Navy to the satisfaction of their purses.

For Kydd it was the more serious business of securing the vessel.

A prize crew would have to be made up – led by Bray, for this was a significant possession to bring in. But there were more than a few problems to face. A crew of several hundred would need strong guarding, and a full-rigged ship of a size with their own meant providing a full watch of the hands just to handle the ship. Others would be needed to attend to any damage threatening its soundness. All in all, he was looking at sending away near half of Tyger’s company.

This would require him to abandon his cruise to escort the prize back – and where to? Gibraltar or the Cadiz anchorage?

The latter: it was his working base and he’d be able to return to his cruise quickly. As well-

‘Trouble, sir,’ Bowden muttered, his gaze on the boat returning. It had only one passenger. Midshipman Gilpin and the men at the oars were at sixes and sevens, catching crabs and floundering as if driven by great fear or superstition.

Kydd went cold. A fever ship? Some terrifying, ghastly object discovered in the hold? All the half-remembered fables and dread lore of the sea that he’d absorbed as a young seaman began surfacing as the boat neared.

It hooked on and Gilpin stared up, his face working. ‘Sir Thomas, Mr Bray desires as you shall join him wi’out delay. There’s a matter he can’t … that is, he doesn’t know how to deal with.’

The boat’s crew were acting in the strangest way, glancing back at the prize and refusing to answer any questions thrown at them by anxious shipmates.

Kydd called for Dillon to join him.

Moments later they were beside the frigate. ‘What is it, Mr Bray?’ he asked nervously, as he went aboard the Spaniard. There was the usual pitiable scatter of battle wreckage and bloodstains but nothing he could see out of the ordinary that would set his lion-like first lieutenant to this agitated and keyed-up state. The Spanish stood in a sullen group, their expressions murderous.

‘Down in the hold, sir, if y’ please,’ Bray said hoarsely, thrusting ahead. ‘It was one of the carpenter’s crew found it. I’ve had to put him under restraint.’

It was hot and claustrophobic in the lower hold, smaller than English practice, dark and noisome.

‘Light!’ Bray called thickly. A lanthorn on a pole was handed down to them and they stumbled forward over casks and stores. Beyond was a cleared section in which three Tygers, with their own lanthorn, stared back at them, the whites of their eyes startling in the blackness.

Heart in his mouth Kydd reached them. Wordlessly, one pointed to his feet. He was standing on a line of crates. Each had a plaque attached to it: the Royal Arms of Spain.

One had been ripped apart. Inside stood a series of barrels, each not much larger than a country kilderkin. Each held, tightly packed, three leather containers, laced at the top. One had been opened. Dillon dropped to his knees to peer at it.

‘S-sir, it’s … it’s …’ he breathed. He held up a stout glass bottle and in it was the unmistakable gleam of mercury.

No wonder Bray and all who’d seen it were thrown into a moil. Holding up the lanthorn Kydd saw lines of crates leading away in neat parallel rows near a hundred feet forward, and who knew how many layers deep? An immense fortune.

This was a near mythical mercury ship, and as of this moment every man jack aboard Tyger had become insanely rich, for there had been no others in sight to claim a share – this was entirely theirs.

‘Um, a guard, then, Mr Bray.’ Even the best-tempered crew could become unpredictable in the presence of such wealth.

Kydd returned on deck, his mind still on the serried ranks of quicksilver below. His share would allow him to present a castle to Persephone, an estate of boundless extent, a matchless inheritance for their children.

And for his seamen – some would carouse until their bounty ran out, others buy a sailors’ tavern, naming it Tyger and Spanish Silver and regaling their customers endlessly with the story of this day.

He pulled himself together. Nothing had changed, merely the value of their capture. An effective prize crew had to be found and the ship secured in the usual way.

They returned to an expectant Tyger where the news was met with a roar of excitement. Kydd, however, spoke firmly to his distracted first lieutenant. ‘Mr Bray, you’ll take the prize to Cadiz. I’ll give you a full watch of hands and all the marines. You’ve no need to fear a rising. I’ll be sailing in company within hail at all times. If you need to, don’t hesitate to shackle the prisoners. Clear?’

‘Um, yes, sir.’

‘Then we’ll-’

A startled cry from Tyger’s masthead came down to them: ‘Sail hoooo! I see one, no, two tops’ls to weather, four points!’

It would be too late for any coming on the scene now, Kydd thought smugly.

‘Deck ho – now five, seven – it’s a fleet o’ sorts standing to the nor’ard!’

Instantly the situation had shifted.

Out of sight below the horizon on deck he had to see who they were and leaped for the shrouds.

Panting, he arrived in the top and the lookout gestured. Along the rim of the horizon were the regular-spaced pale rectangles of a progression of ships, proof that this was a disciplined squadron or fleet, not the blocked-in huddle of a convoy.

He fumbled for his pocket glass, wedged himself against the topmast and saw more. These were big, some of them at least two-decker ships-of-the-line. Far off as they were, if Tyger and the frigate were sighted, it would be to end well and truly boxed in against the land in this bay. If they were the enemy.

Feverishly he ran over the dispositions of their own forces and realised that these were not regular cruisers or even a detachment. Fleet movements on this scale were not a trivial happening and were notified well in advance. He’d never heard one mentioned.

They were all in sight now and he counted them. And again, slowly.

Five ships-of-the-line, two frigates, and, after a decent interval, a swarm of sloops and brigs, resolutely under sail for the north. Exactly the number expected if Allemand was returning from Toulon to join the Rochefort squadron in Basque Roads, north of Spain.

They were well abeam by now and Kydd knew that the focus of attention of lookouts was generally in the forward-looking sector. If they hadn’t been spotted by now, their sails doused and against the land, they’d probably got away with it and were safe.

As a cruising frigate, his response should be to drop everything and attach himself to the menace to see where it was headed, as he had with Allemand on his outward sortie.

But if he did that, what about the prize?

Let Bray take it on to Cadiz while he went in pursuit? But there would be problems if he did so. The first and insuperable one was that he couldn’t let Bray have half of Tyger’s complement. He’d need a near-full crew himself to maintain a day-and-night chase and perform daring sail manoeuvres as Allemand tried to shake off their dogged pursuer. As well, there was no knowing where the fleet was headed, for if the French admiral was performing the same seaward dogleg to avoid the ships clustered around the blockade ports, and if Tyger wasn’t there to follow, he’d be crucified by an angry Admiralty.

In dawning horror, the inevitable was forcing itself upon him. He must abandon his prize to go after them.

His mind at first refused to accept the conclusion – a siren persuasion rushed in that no one would know if he let them go on their way, quietly lying out of sight until they’d gone past, then seeing his prize safely home.

He crushed the thought. Everything that he’d stood for, fought for, striven for over his years of service would not allow it.

Was there another way? Leave a smaller force on board? It would be asking far too much of them to guard the hundreds of prisoners and work the ship. They would be slaughtered in mutiny long before they made port.

Then perhaps take off his men but first render the ship disabled by cutting every line that went aloft – shrouds, halliards, braces, tacks and sheets – then returning later. It wouldn’t work: even with such a crippling it was not outside the resources of two hundred men to contrive a workable sail plan to make a nearby port, and who knew how long Tyger would be away?

Transfer the mercury? The substance was heavy, each bottle a hundredweight of fragile glass, which must be left in its crates to be swayed up by yardarm or stay tackle. It would take far too long – it could be that this was the latitude that Allemand put out to sea on his dogleg, and by the time the transfer was complete, the fleet would long be out of sight before they could follow. That couldn’t be risked.

He pounded on the fighting top grating in frustration, the lookout shying in bafflement at his behaviour.

Taking one last glance at the stately line of pale blobs disappearing over the horizon, he swung out into the shrouds. He’d give himself until he reached the deck to come up with something or accept the inescapable conclusion.

Anxious upturned faces greeted him as he landed on deck.

‘Cruel luck,’ he said heavily. ‘We have to go after them.’

A babble of voices rose until Kydd cut in: ‘No arguments! We’ve a duty to follow.’

‘The prize?’ Bray demanded. ‘We can’t leave it here!’

‘We can, and we will,’ Kydd answered curtly. ‘Recover all our people from it and prepare to set all sail conformable to the weather.’

The voices grew charged, fretful.

‘Silence on deck!’ Kydd roared. ‘I don’t like this any more than you, but we have our duty, I’ll remind you!’

Seamen came running up, disbelieving the news.

‘Mr Bray! Any man who isn’t at his post will taste the cat and that’s my promise!’

From out of sight below, cries of outrage were soon joined by more. Accusing looks darted his way, unvoiced but venomous.

‘Find out who those mutinous dogs are and bring them before me!’

Bray stomped forward and stood before Kydd, his eyes dangerous. ‘There’s time to save our prize and-’

‘No, there isn’t, Mr Bray, and you know it. Give me a plan that lets us also get after the Crapauds right now and I’ll listen, else we sail.’

Lieutenant Bowden remained silent, his features unreadable, and Brice had taken to pacing the far end of the quarterdeck.

‘Nothing? Then we get under way this hour.’ Turning away he realised that, caught up in the confrontation, he was forgetting something. ‘The gunner to report to me,’ he snapped.

Darby finally appeared, touching his hat with a set expression. ‘Sir?’

‘Take a party and lay a charge to Concord’s main magazine.’

Kydd turned and found Dillon. ‘Go with ’em and tell the crew to be off their ship immediately. Boats, rafts, anything. Barbate is close so they’ll be picked up quickly.’

The Spanish had tried hard to get through by a well-thought-out plan that would have succeeded with the usual run of naval officer but it had been their ill fortune to come across one who had experience with the United States Navy and had uncovered their trick.

When it came, the detonation was a dull crump and brief flare – this was no real frigate on a war-like cruise and wasn’t stored for any protracted fight with tons of powder. Nevertheless the ship took the blow in its vitals and bowed in agony before disappearing beneath the waves.

Kydd turned on his heel and went below.