The Iberian Flame

Chapter 59

Two days later, Tyger put to sea, sailing north out of Portuguese waters and to the extreme north-west tip of Iberia, her captain little the wiser for what they would do after they put over the helm for the run along the straight length of the rocky spine that was northern Spain.

For all this distance tortured rocks faced the Bay of Biscay, more often than not half glimpsed through the drifting mist of rain and squall, mile after mile the same blustery wretchedness and almost always as a deadly lee shore. What possible duty were they performing? There would be few privateers, and coastal shipping in support of French garrisons must have ceased. True, the French naval bases lay across the Bay but until it was evident what the British were doing – which was not clear to themselves – there would be no sorties from there to menace any landings.

The autumn gales were on them and there were few worse conditions for sailoring than Biscay in season.

Not long after rounding the furthest tip of Spain, Cape Ortegal, a ship was sighted. Full-rigged, much the same as themselves – a frigate!

This couldn’t be an enemy, not in this part of the world. Kydd gave orders to close and the other did the same, at the right time a challenge being thrown out, which Tyger correctly answered. The two fell into company under easy sail a hundred yards apart.

The frigate was Menander 38, Captain Mowlam. As junior to him, Kydd took boat to visit.

‘All hail an’ well met, Sir Thomas,’ he greeted, as Kydd hauled himself over the bulwark. ‘And what brings you to these infernal regions?’

His cabin out of the raw breeze was grateful to the senses and Kydd was appreciative of the warmth.

It didn’t take long to give the essence, and Mowlam groaned. ‘I’m of the Channel Fleet, the Rochefort squadron. Why the devil your Lisbon Flag sees fit to send you here poaching into our little empire I’ve no idea.’

‘I’ve the feeling the shabs just don’t talk to each other,’ Kydd replied, with a grim smile. ‘I’ve a duty to do, and would be much obliged for a steer in the matter.’

‘In fine, naught to do. We’ve no idea where the Frenchies are, or what the Spanish are doing, and we don’t step ashore on account of some of Boney’s finest on the loose. I’d advise the same. That leaves us watching the only ports of size on the coast, all up against the French border and all well held by ’em.’

‘Putting down coastal support and similar.’

‘Yes. Well, if you want to hear more, should you venture as far as Bayonne you’ll find two more of we frigates, Seine and Iris, who’re doing just that. I’m more this end o’ Iberia.’

Kydd shortly took his leave, resolved on at least seeking them out to get the best picture he could. How like Rowley carelessly to waste the services of a valuable frigate in overlapping operations!

Tyger took up again, heading eastward, day after day, lookouts primed for anything including the two English frigates. There were no signs of these, coastwise shipping was nowhere to be seen, and while the north-westerly was fair for their track there was indication of a blow coming on.

‘If this is Santander we’ll look in, I believe,’ Kydd announced, with a glance at the log. The chill grey day with its occasional driving white rain squalls was not favourable but they had a duty.

‘Sir. If’n we lie off an’ take a line o’ bearing west-sou’-west we can see right in without we need to hazard ourselves.’

‘Well noted, Mr Joyce,’ Kydd said to the master.

‘Not as if I wouldn’t know,’ the grey-haired man said happily, puffing out his cheeks. ‘Was in Seagull sloop in the last war, chasin’ down a privateersman who thought to go a-hiding in Santander.’

‘Thank you, Mr Joyce. We’ll do as you suggest.’

‘Didn’t do the villain any good, as we had a Don aboard taken out of a coaster and he tips me the wink as we’d cut him the wheedle on anything we gets.’

‘Quite.’

‘Got our sightin’ and saw the chase alongside. Kept on past, but that night sends in our boat, wakens the whole town, ye’ve no idea the noise, but our tars took no notice an’ bent their oars in a-laying hold on it.’

‘A fine action,’ Kydd told him. Why begrudge him his yarn, if the core of it was to their own advantage?

‘Aye, sir. That I’ll agree. But then just as they’s a cable off, someone sees they’ve set the barky afire. Well vexed, they claps on speed and tumbles ashore on the wharf and goes f’r the beggar. Half on ’em hold off the townsfolk, the other goes to board but it’s too late, she’s well gone, flames up right t’ the masthead.’

‘Bad luck, Mr Joyce.’

‘Not luck, sir. She’s loaded wi’ coffins and these made a clinking great bonfire in a brace o’ shakes. Even set off some laid on the quay nearby, in case that was what we were after, like.’

‘Coffins?’

‘Ah, well, the weather’s blashy that day, we muddled up our sightings an’ found too late we was after the wrong ’un.’ He sniffed, then added, ‘Still an’ all, we got the right ’un the next day, scampering off to the east’d. But it seems we got a bad name, torchin’ their supply o’ coffins for the whole year.’

Joyce duly directed them around a headland, and beyond was a river mouth less than a mile wide, which they crossed, leaving a stumpy light at one side and heading for an island the other.

Kydd sighed for the simpler days of Joyce’s time: if a ship was sighted it would be an enemy and lawful prey. These days it could be anything – a merchantman taking advantage of the change in conditions, a Spanish trader now upon its lawful occasions and even a British vessel trying for new markets.

What he was after was evidence of a huddle of ships that pointed to support vessels for a French garrison, or even a man-o’-war or several, able to make sortie against them.

In the event, Joyce was proved right. Just three or four miles ahead, the docks of Santander were in full view and, apart from what looked like a fishing boat, empty. He could venture into the port, but what if it was in French hands, as it most likely was? He’d seen that there was naught of interest, so he’d move on.

‘Our nor’-westerly, sir.’

Scud was beginning to race overhead, sure portent of an increase to a gale – and this made it a dangerously lee shore.

‘Mr Joyce. Do you know-’

‘Santona. Less’n ten miles ahead.’

The master conned Tyger around the broad, rock-infested coastline, not deigning to make to seaward. The same hard wind gave them a rapid passage past, seamen glancing ashore with sombre faces at the ceaseless thunder and explosions of white Atlantic combers with a fetch of thousands of miles breaking at last against the land.

A dismal evening clamped in, the flat, hard blast of the gale wearying and tedious, and Kydd’s instincts were all for putting down the helm and going for the open sea before darkness set in.

‘Five miles more of this and we head out,’ he warned, but Joyce was confident, and shortly they sighted a long, flat beach and, beyond, a massive, rearing hill a mile or more across. They rounded it and, to Kydd’s grateful surprise, it went further, exposing a river mouth a bare couple of hundred yards wide, giving a snug lee of a good mile and a half.

The gale abruptly cut off as they felt the blocking effect of the four-hundred-odd-foot hill, and Kydd eased. A fine place to see out the gale. Both bowers went down and Tyger settled to her rest.

Shaking his oilskins, Kydd glanced round. There was little sign of habitation, what looked like an ancient town on the inner side of the island-like hill and marshes inland. Nothing to worry about, and he went below.

It was typical Biscay meanness but the gale blew itself out over two days.

Kydd gave orders to sail on the following morning. The crew would appreciate another all night in and, in any case, things could change back just as rapidly.

He took a light dinner and decided to continue his letter to Persephone.

This night he felt a special bond, a golden thread that connected them over the miles of sea. From their position he knew they were precisely at the longitude of Knowle Manor. If by some magic he could faithfully follow true north he would eventually end up in her garden, she tending the roses then suddenly looking up in surprise, running to him and …

Full of tender thoughts he pulled out the sheet of paper that he’d already begun writing on. Like those of all sailors, it was in the form of an endless missive that only concluded when a mail boat was about to sail for England. To put pen to paper so privately, just to her, was a warm and touching experience, the next best thing to being with one’s love. And, as he’d discovered, there was an ease to saying things in a letter that he was diffident to say face to face.

Suddenly weary, he turned in and the ship went to routine for the silent hours.

When urgent shouts pierced his sleep he was on deck before he was fully awake. More shouts, the thump of running feet. His mind scrambled to make sense of it – they were at anchor, and if it were any sudden sail it would have the officer-of-the-watch beating the ship to quarters.

He pushed past to the after hatchway, jostled by men recklessly bolting for the upper deck. The ship sinking? His heart started to pound at the ominous rushing for the open air and when he finally reached the quarterdeck he hurried over to the group around the wheel and Brice, the officer on watch.

‘What’s to do, sir?’ he blurted, breathless. ‘Why is the ship in such a confounding?’

There were now dozens, scores of seamen on deck, what they were doing unclear in the dark.

‘Didn’t know whether to call you or no,’ Brice said, the whites of his eyes showing in the dimness.

‘Well, quickly, man, I’m here now! What’s it all about?’ More seamen were racing up from below, a rising babble of confusion spreading fast.

‘I – I- Well, the fore larboard lookout, he, umm …’

‘For God’s sake! Get on with it!’

‘Well, sir,’ Brice gulped, ‘He thought it proper to inform me that he’d sighted an, er … mermaid.’

‘A what?’ Kydd gasped in disbelief.

‘A mermaid. That’s what he said, sir.’

‘And you-’

‘I went forrard and … and saw that he was, um, right in the particulars. I myself saw a mermaid out to leeward a half pistol shot, swimming as who’d believe it. I sent for a lanthorn and when the mermaid came close, the looby who held it took fright and dropped it, seeing it close up like.’

‘Have you called for another?’ Kydd snapped, although internally he felt the creeping chill of the supernatural invade his vitals.

‘Yes, sir. And sent for the doctor, he being in the physiological line and all.’

‘Where’s it now?’

‘Um, last seen close to the hull, making slow way aft, then out o’ sight under the counter. She – that is, it must be thereabouts at this moment.’

Kydd hesitated as all the sailors’ superstitions of his past came back to him. A mermaid – if it was – posed no threat other than luring the common sailor to his doom. Should he give orders not to let the creature come aboard, no one to talk to it?

Another lanthorn arrived. ‘Clear the after end of the upper deck and keep silent,’ he ordered.

When the noise had died, he went to the taffrail and looked nervously over the side into the inky depths, letting the light play down where the upper edge of the massive rudder could be seen … There was something down there!

Then, shocking in its unexpectedness, the form of a mermaid flicked into view, half clothed with pale arms and a pallid face with long dark hair, staring up at him with a piercing look of entreaty.

Kydd froze. She rolled on her back and called up at him in a thin, haunting voice, ‘Capitan! Do let me come on board your ship, I beg you!’

He jerked back – into his mind came a frightful thought: the mermaid was trying to lure him!

She shoved off effortlessly into full view, her face still on his, the voice calling, her legs a shimmer of-

Legs? Mermaid?

‘Mr Brice! Away seaboat’s crew. Get your mermaid inboard this minute, sir!’

The Tygers crowded round, goggling in fascination as a girl was brought in, her clothing plastered to her body, shivering uncontrollably in the blustering night wind. On the deck there were small wet female footprints. The practical Tysoe quickly appeared with one of Kydd’s dressing-gowns, which he fussed on before shepherding her below. Kydd followed, knowing every single eye was on him. ‘Get turned in, you blaggards! We sail at daybreak!’ he roared over his shoulder.

With the girl tidying herself in his bedplace, he snapped, ‘Get Mr Dillon.’

His secretary appeared with suspicious alacrity.

‘I didn’t see you to the fore when I went to find out what we’d snagged.’

‘Ah. I was … asleep,’ he answered, shamefaced.

‘Well, wake yourself up. I need some answers.’

The girl appeared shyly, so petite in Kydd’s gown. ‘I – I’m so sorry, Capitan,’ she said in delightfully accented English, clutching the robe, her tiny feet peeping out beneath.

‘Ah, yes. Now, we can’t have a young lady swimming about in the dark like a … like a mermaid,’ he harrumphed.

‘My name is Lucila Ochoa,’ she said, ignoring his clumsy fatherly tone. ‘I risk my life because I trust the English and swim to you from the land. For a very important reason.’ She could only be sixteen or so but her air was that of someone much older.

‘I am Captain Sir Thomas Kydd. This is His Majesty’s Ship Tyger. What reason have you for swimming out to us?’ Very few sailors could swim a stroke, he himself only barely.

She bit her lip. ‘Sir, I ask you to pity Spain at this time. The French are barbarians. They steal and destroy without mercy. It is a torment for the people. And so they have risen up. I am of a band of patriots, that of Koldo Uribe, and we have sworn to stay in arms until they are cast out entirely.’

It was odd, even disturbing, to hear such words from so young a girl.

‘Lucila, you’ve swum nearly a mile to my ship. What does this mean?’ It was not only the sheer distance, but when she’d reached Tyger she’d had to scrabble along the side of the hull to find some means of getting aboard.

‘Sir, I will be open with you. The French have Santander in their grip and they hold Bilbao as well. The people are frightened but they cannot act against them. Sir, if you help us we will strike against the French, give them hurt that they’ll pursue us into the mountains where there are many who lie in wait to slay them. Capitan Kydd, I beg you will help us!’

Help them? In the regular order of things a man-o’-war wasn’t fitted to join in an open-ended war, unless it was well planned and equipped. Now he was being asked in some way to be part of a force of irregulars on an ill-defined uprising that had no clear objective.

‘Miss Ochoa. I greatly sympathise with your cause but I’m at a loss to know how I can help. A man-o’-war is not fitted for army operations. I have very few men I can land to help you.’ All he had on board was Clinton and some two dozen or so marines, intended as a quickly deployable landing force, not to set before a French army of thousands.

‘Oh, no, sir! We do not ask for your soldiers but only to give us the means to do the work ourselves. Guns – muskets, powder, flints, shot! These we will use to bring vengeance down on the heads of the foe, to drive them back over the mountains until they’re entirely gone.’ Tears glistened. ‘If you could see what we’ve suffered, you’d understand, sir!’

Kydd softened, but it didn’t alter the fact that he had no spare muskets and therefore could do nothing for her. But what if he returned to Lisbon and arranged for a vessel to deliver arms from the depot there? It could certainly be justified, for here was a small band with the potential to tie down whole battalions of the French.

Before he put this before the army quartermaster or whoever, though, he would need numbers. He would look a prize looby if they turned out to be a dozen or two wretched peasants – or, on the other hand, if he seriously underestimated what turned out to be a great band’s military needs.

‘I do understand, please believe me,’ he told her. ‘But first I wish to see for myself your forces, meet your commander. Would this be possible?’

‘Of course! Of course!’ she said, clapping her hands in excitement. ‘General Uribe will adore to see you, Capitan.’