Tyger (37 page)

His towering exhaustion gave rise to a feeling of unreality, a floating of the mind outside the body that brought a calmness, a strange tranquillity. The men at the oars pulled slowly, their red eyes in pits of white against the grey of smeared powder-grime, their clothing torn and stained.

No one spoke. There was no exultation, no cheers as they approached the vanquished. Too much had happened.

The bowman hooked on at the main-chains and stood aside to let Kydd mount the side-steps.

This close, the marks of the recent encounter were stark and plain. Great shot-holes in the wales, an infinity of lesser scars, the brightness of shattered timber against the black hull, a snarl of forlorn ropes and blocks dangling from above and trailing in the water.

Weighed down by fatigue, he pulled himself slowly up the lacerated sides. On deck he found a group of officers, grey-slimed and red-eyed, but one held himself erect, thin-lipped and grim.

Kydd recognised the lace of a frigate captain and crossed to him, ignoring the others. The man’s arm was in a sling and blood seeped but there was nothing in his cold, hard expression to betray his feeling.

For a long moment they faced each other without speaking, then the Frenchman bowed painfully.

“
Capitaine de vaisseau
Jean-Yves Marceau. I have the honour to command the French National Ship
Preussen
.” The voice was husky, controlled, the eyes coolly taking Kydd’s measure.

“Captain Sir Thomas Kydd, of His Majesty’s Frigate
Tyger
.”

The expressionless gaze held, then eased a fraction. “I should say that you have been favoured beyond the ordinary by the gods of war, Sir Thomas.”

Kydd inclined his head and waited. Behind him Halgren stood loosely, huge and impassive. Next to him were Clinton and three marines.

“But I will not. It has been a hard-fought action and against great odds—but this contest has been fairly won by you, sir, and I honour you for it.” There was a glimmer of a smile, then a sigh. “So I do invite you to take possession of my ship, for it is yours by right of conquest.”

A lieutenant stepped up with rigid control, thrusting out a sword and scabbard.

Kydd ignored it. “Sir, your ship fought to the very end. The outcome could have been very different. I cannot take the sword of a brave man.”

An unreadable shadow passed across the hard features, then wordlessly the man snapped to a low bow, which he held.

“I must nevertheless ask you for the key to the magazines, Capitaine,” Kydd said formally.

Another boat was already on its way. The rest of the business of the yielding of the vanquished could be left to others.

B
RAY GRAVELY HANDED
K
YDD
a folded paper and
Tyger
’s captain sought the privacy of his cabin.

He’d instantly known what it was, the butcher’s bill. Those who had turned to that morning after a tense sleep had been doing their damnedest for their captain, their messmates and their ship and had seen the day go against them. Some had been touched by death, others suffered mutilation, many condemned to … The rest of their shipmates had life and a future. Where was the meaning in all of this?

Kydd held the summary rigidly. In Bray’s hasty scrawl were numbers that clutched at his heart—thirty-six of
Tyger
’s crew had been chosen by Fate: eleven killed, nine wounded severely and sixteen who in some way would be reminded of this day for the rest of their life.

The list was baldly stated and in no particular order.

Digby, the young and bright quartermaster’s mate, who delighted in races to the tops—right leg shot away, an amputation. Even if he recovered he could now only look on as others raced by.

Borden, master’s mate. Head taken off by a round-shot. Kydd recalled cursing his absence at one point and felt a twist of guilt.

Dawkins, a long-serving able seaman whose work with sennit was legendary. His seamed face had been the “sea-daddy” memory that countless young seamen would take with them. A splinter in the lower abdomen, he’d lived for an hour.

Others …

The boatswain, Herne, had been savagely lacerated. Kydd had seen him imperturbably going about the bloody decks looking for damage. Twice he had spotted him through the smoke, steadily going aloft into the lethal storm on some urgent mission.

A carpenter’s mate, Gordon. Taken by a splinter to the bowels while stemming a shot-hole with Legge, the carpenter. Kydd knew they were fast friends, always to be seen together stepping ashore. Not expected to live.

Legge himself had been wounded, probably by the same ball bursting into the dark of the hull. He was marked as continuing duty but what grief he would be carrying.

Three marines dead. Eight wounded. They had plied their muskets without flinching and had paid the price.

The master, Joyce. Wounded in the ear. So that was the bloody bandage he’d seen on him. His cheery attitude had never faltered.

Three gun-crew of number-five gun dead. He’d seen the ball strike and dismount the gun, the sprawling bodies. The gun-captain had been transfixed by hundreds of shards from the shattered gun carriage and was now below in the most hideous pain, craving death as a release from his torment.

Then … Stirk, gunner’s mate. Kydd froze, his eyes pricking. Not Toby Stirk! The big-hearted tar who’d known him since those unbelievably distant days when he’d been a raw landman in his first ship.

He blinked convulsively and read further.

Gravely concussed, still unconscious. If he lived there was every chance he’d end in Hoxton, the asylum for lunatics maintained by the navy for cases like his. What an end—and to the bravest, truest man he …

Kydd couldn’t go on. Racking sobs seized him. He buried his face in his hands and wept like a child.

When it was over he sat back, shuddering waves of emotion receding—then he saw by his side a single glass of whisky. His eyes stung again at the realisation that Tysoe must have seen him in this state and left it there, then quietly withdrawn.

It pulled him together. This was no time to indulge his feelings: his ship needed him. He had no idea how much she had suffered: he had to find out urgently and act decisively.

“Tysoe,” he called. His valet was before him in seconds, grave and attentive.

“Desire Mr Bray to attend on me at his convenience.”

The first lieutenant arrived with suspicious promptness.

“The ship—I’ll have a report by part-of-ship concerning all damage and—”

“Sir. I’ve the heads of the matter here. We’re takin’ water into the hold, the carpenter’s down there now. The mizzen’s in sad state—we’ve fished with capstan bars above the tops but I doubts if she’ll—”

“Anything else as will cause concern, Mr Bray?”

“We can’t set any sail on the mizzen—the backstays are both stranded. Mr Herne is taking hawsers to the masthead and swears this will answer. The larb’d main-wale has sixteen shot-holes as are being plugged now, there’s a mort of splicing and we’ve only the barge and pinnace will swim.”

It could have been far worse. No grave structural damage, but the leak was worrying.

“So nothing as will see us embarrassed in the article of getting under way again?”

Bray went to speak, then looked away.

“What is it, Mr Bray?”

“Sir. I … that is, there’s a mountain o’ work needs doing afore we’re square … but the people, they’re dropping as dead with lack o’ sleep, there on the decks, work in their hands and … well, I—”

A hot flush of shame washed over Kydd. A fire-eating driver like Bray caring more for his men than he. “Leave it with me,” he snapped.

Dart
and
Stoat
were summoned alongside and in short order they were secured astern and every man jack of their company was haled aboard to relieve the Tygers.

Head swimming, Kydd summoned their captains to his cabin and learned the full story.

They had correctly interpreted his actions and had stood by the transports, which had successfully taken off the army who were now marching to Königsberg from Pillau.

“And the rearguard, have they been retrieved?”

“No, sir. They’s to be what stops the Crapauds from interfering with the embarkation. They’re still there.”

“Still there?”

“That’s to say, they’s all dead, sir.”

A wave of desolation swept over Kydd.

“To the last man. Their captain, never forget him. Rode a white horse, full kit an’ all so everyone can see him, the enemy as well. Got around to the men, they heard him an’ followed him whatever he did. Brave as any I’ve ever seen.”

“Still there.”

“Aye, sir. I met the beggar several times. Seems he was somethin’ in Headquarters, safe and all, but volunteered for the job.”

“What was his name?” he asked, with a sense of foreboding.

“Oh, it was Gussan, Gusten, something like. A right valiant sort, I’ll give you that.”

The pity of war. The crying, howling pity of war.

“Th-thank you, gentlemen, for all your assistance to
Tyger
at this time. I find I’m overcome by fatigue. I beg you’ll forgive me but I really think I should rest …”

HMS
Tyger
, under jury mizzen and an hour at the pumps every watch, took her leave of the Baltic shore. Her sick bay full of moaning, agonised humanity, splints and lashings keeping her sails aloft, she set course for home.

At three knots she painfully passed through the Sound, unchallenged by the officious Danes, and in lowering, blustery winds, sailed around the Skagen and into the wider world.

Days later they raised the North Sea squadron and Kydd reported to Russell.

“… and I pressed redcoats to do duty as prize crew until we could get ’em to Pillau.”

Russell leaned back, his eyes alight. “And your Prussians, what do they think of it all? A right glorious occasion, I’d say!”

“They’ve other worries now, is my thinking, sir. Boney is making moves as will see him at the gates of their capital within the month. There’s nowhere left they can run to, and what then?”

“Well, that’s not our concern, of course. We keep well out of such, thank God. You’ll be off to Sheerness for survey and repair, I believe. I can give you
Stoat
as escort, enough do you think?”

If
Tyger
foundered on her way, that was just a cutter to take off all her crew. “I’d be happier with another, sir,” Kydd replied.

“Very well, you deserve the best. We’ll ask
Lively
, even if it leaves me short a frigate.”

“I’m indebted to you, sir.”

The weather had not improved, and the blustery, ill-tempered easterly had set
Tyger
to an edgy roll that was trying their temporary repairs to their limits.

As so often in these waters the weather then changed. The clouds scampered away and sunshine beamed down as if to speed the injured vessel on her way.

But before the sun had gone to its rest it had changed again.

In cold gusts, the easterly took charge. Flat and hard, it had the feel of the unknown regions of the limitless landmass of Asia about it. Coming in from astern, it strained the jury backstays and the multitude of other patches and repairs.

There was nothing for it but to take sail off her, but this brought other dangers. The pumps were holding for now but the carpenter had not yet found whatever other wounds
Tyger
had suffered in her bowels below the waterline. In the bracing weather in which the action had been fought, the ship had been rolling, exposing her hull, and shots would have struck between wind and water.

The ship with the wind aft and less steadying sail had a lively roll once more—and this was bad news. As she heeled to whichever was the side of the shot strike, the wound would be plunged deeper, and on each roll the ingress of water would change from nothing to a hard waterfall directly into her innards.

It was a race against time and the weather.

Kydd remembered the harrowing struggle after Trafalgar when a storm had overtaken the battered fleet and their prizes.
Victory
herself had been threatened and battle-weary men had gone to their doom as shattered prizes foundered in the night.

For them, however, the reassuring bulk of
Lively
was out on their beam, heaving and lifting as she conformed to their reduced sail. He glanced up at the shot-torn sail that still fluttered and bellied and eased his thoughts. It would be an uncomfortable several days but they’d make harbour.

Only two hours later it was a different story. The sharp blow had turned to a fresh gale, something that
Tyger
would have scorned in normal circumstances—but these were not normal.

A gale-driven swell had risen with it and this had increased her movement and, therefore, the whipping strain on damaged shrouds and stays.

Kydd gave the order to take in more sail—there was little else that he could do.

This sent seamen up in grim conditions with more than the usual dangers. High aloft there would now be severed footropes, lines giving way that men placed their trust in, shattered spars with cruel timber spikes gouging their bellies while they reefed, and always the sullen roll.

As night fell there was no sign of the gale easing.

Lively
sent lanthorns to each masthead telling of comforting human presence nearby, but aboard
Tyger
there was misery and hardship. The galley fire could not be lit, and without good hot food the men must face the labour of saving their ship with hard tack and cheese on a mess-deck that swilled with water entering through so many shot-holes.

The glow of lights that were
Lively
’s lanthorns receded to pinpricks as the frigate kept at a cautious distance for it was all too easy in such a night to come to a disastrous encounter. Lookouts were posted in both ships with the sole duty to keep the precious lights in sight.

And those aboard
Tyger
endured.

Men whose bodies ached from their heroic exertions at the guns were now being asked to go to the pumps, the dreadful clanking monsters that needed brute force even to overcome the friction of the many valve parts, a heart-breaking grind.