The Iberian Flame

Chapter 65

Aboard HMS Tyger

It was tedious beyond the usual, this pointless cruise about the north. Tyger was hardly going to send ashore at every port and ask politely if anyone needed help, muskets or other – it was up to those on land to ask. In any case, with the French on the run for the frontier it was unlikely they’d need the small cargo of arms they carried now for such an eventuality.

Bray was becoming tetchy, finding fault with the men’s work and given to moods of silence. It was not hard to see why: the war was seemingly in its last stages and the chance of a brilliant action worthy of promotion was on the point of vanishing in those dismal seas. It had seemed a certain thing, first lieutenant in a crack frigate under a famous captain, but in these waters? He could look forward only to half-pay as a lieutenant in the peace, like thousands of others, instead of retiring in the dignity of a sea-captain.

Kydd knew the other officers would be weighing up their own prospects. There would be a merciless decimation of their ranks, their only chance being that Tyger was kept on in commission, not one of those endless lines of deserted hulks lying in ordinary at any British naval port. And then only to serve in some distant sea, with not even the chance of prize money once peace had been declared.

For himself, all depended on Tyger keeping the seas. In a way it was what would please Persephone most – regular, predictable home leave and freedom from the anxieties of war with a slow but certain path to his flag. Little ones to come, growing roots in the lovely countryside of Devon and trips to London for the season, while-

‘Sir? Mr Brice’s respects and we’ve sighted a frigate,’ reported Rowan, duty midshipman-of-the-watch, crisp and assured. What did the future hold for the lad? Midshipmen on the beach received no half-pay. ‘The lookout thinks it’s Menander.’

‘I’ll be up presently,’ Kydd said, coming out of his reverie. At least this would be a break, a distraction from the endless round.

The pattern of Menander’s masts and sails changed their alignment as she altered towards, and, Tyger doing likewise, they were soon up with one another, heaving together slightly on the grey Biscay swell.

‘Captain Kydd!’ came Mowlam’s blaring hail from the speaking trumpet.

‘Aye aye, sir!’ Kydd responded.

‘I’ve news for you, old fellow.’

‘Shall I come aboard?’

‘No. I’ve to find the rest of my brood and tell ’em. It’s this, and stand by to be well flummoxed.’

Mowlam’s tone was charged with a curious excitement, or was that nervousness? Kydd’s interest quickened. ‘Sir?’

‘Things ashore have changed very suddenly arsy-versy, as it were. We’ve word that the French have stopped running. They’re now readying a strike back into Spain.’

The light breeze and small slop of waters allowed every word to cross very clearly and Mowlam went on quickly, ‘Not your ordinary sortie but a vast one.’

‘Sir?’

‘At the Ebro – a quarter-million in arms against us.’

Kydd could hardly believe his ears. Where at this stage of the war were the French finding the men?

‘Led by Boney himself.’

Napoleon Bonaparte, who, the previous year on the battlefield of Eylau, had looked upon some twenty thousand corpses in the bloodstained snow where he’d beaten the combined armies of Prussia and Russia. Now he’d come to wreak the same in Spain.

It was the worst news conceivable.

‘Um, what about General Moore?’

‘Somewhere well into the centre of Spain – no one has any idea. Well, now you know, old chap.’

‘Ah, yes. So what do you believe we can do?’

‘Carry on until we receive orders to the contrary,’ Mowlam said decisively. ‘And if the Dons want help, give ’em all you have. By God, they’ll need it.’

The speaking trumpet fell and, with a dismissive wave from Mowlam, Menander got under way.

There was no need to tell Tyger’s company: they’d all heard the exchange and, for most, the ship had been off Prussia while that terrible carnage was taking place and needed no explanation.

Among all the grave and drawn expressions about the deck, there was one that had brightened considerably. ‘Be damned to ye all as a parcel o’ useless pickerooning lubbers! Get that fore tack inboard this instant or I’ll ask the bo’sun to tickle your backs until you do!’

Bray’s happy roaring was the best possible medicine for the long faces and Kydd went below. He realised there was nothing he could do, not without knowledge of what was happening in the interior, or without the real means to make a difference. It added up to continuing until, as Mowlam had suggested, he received further orders from one who was in a position to know.

When he emerged on deck, all eyes were on him. Without a word he paced over to the conn, peered approvingly at the binnacle and looked up. ‘Very good, Mr Brice. Carry on.’ There would be lively talk in the gunroom that evening but, without proven intelligence, there was no point in supposition and he wouldn’t be drawn into it.

Tyger lay over to the mild north-westerly with the swell on her quarter and sailed on serenely into the night.