This was far more than a handful of coastal brigs could handle. And when the French saw what was going on they would throw everything at them …
Kydd’s expression was grave. “I can—but only if we have regular military transports. They have the right gear and capacity to take men, horses and guns aboard in a short time.” Where the devil these could be found short of Portsmouth or Plymouth he had no idea, or whether they could be released, and on whose authority.
“I understand you,” Blücher responded crisply. “We ask Sweden. I know they have these at Stralsund and more at Karlskrona. It is a matter for diplomats. You will leave this with me. Do maintain your resupply until the transports arrive, four, five days.”
In a way it was a relief for Kydd, for now the end was in sight. This mass continental butchery was not to his liking and it would be good to get back to the blessed reassurance of sea routine.
Tyger, in her slow offshore cruising, had been able to put the time to good use. The new boatswain had tut-tutted about the condition of some of the rigging and fittings and set to with his mates to bring her to rights. Bray had made sure of an unvarying hour at the guns every morning and, on Kydd’s instructions, this was followed by sail-handling.
Kydd had allowed his officers leave in pairs to Königsberg, as much to see something of what lay behind the strategics of the armies that were deciding Europe’s fate as to make acquaintance of the ancient city.
But two days later catastrophe struck. The plan for taking off von Hohenlau’s troops was uncovered, and before the transports could arrive, the French made their move in an intelligent and daring expedition.
A force of dragoons dragging field pieces had crossed the marshy flatlands at the far end of the Frisches Haff on to the Vistula Spit. Now, along unused trails of the old native peoples, they were advancing rapidly up its length, followed by reinforcements of regular troops.
They would be at the resupply crossing in little more than a day.
The move was well thought-out and in keeping with the main outflanking thrust—it was in Bonaparte’s interest to keep a full corps of his enemy in idle helplessness while he brought the Russians to battle.
At the council-of-war that evening it quickly became clear that to counter the manoeuvre in a formal way would be impossible. In the time they had, it would be hopeless to attempt to effect fortified works on the sandy terrain and therefore it would descend into a brutal hacking match, which, without cavalry, the Prussians would certainly lose. Besides, Blücher was bleakly insistent that the Prussian Army should be preserved for the cataclysmic battle at the gates of Königsberg, which was still to come.
The occupation of the spit would therefore not be contested. The army would once again be left isolated and under siege.
Blücher turned to Kydd. “We don’t know when the transports arrive. Can you maintain resupply along the Frisches Haff?”
He had been dreading the question. The shallows couldn’t take a reasonable-sized ship, and now that both sides of the lagoon were occupied by the French with guns, any attempt by boats would make them sitting ducks.
But somehow it had to be done.
“I’ll think on it, General,” he murmured, feeling eyes on him from around the room. It was no use giving false hope with impossible promises and he left quickly.
The French dragoons made good time and were in position opposite before the next morning was out. Now even communications with von Hohenlau were severed.
Kydd ordered Stoat, his armed ketch, to be readied.
Taken up by the Royal Navy desperate for anything that sailed, she was as elderly as her commander, her sharp stern giving her away as a native of the Baltic. A relic of the far-off days of peace, the varnish of her upper-works hardly concealed the dark weathering of her timbers underneath.
Rogers, an elderly master’s mate, was her captain.
“I shall want to wake up the French guns, see where they’re positioned, how many and so forth.”
“Aye aye, Sir Thomas.”
“No heroics, in and out only.”
“Sir. How long should I—”
“I shall be the judge of that, Mr Rogers, as I’ll be aboard with you.”
They put out from Pillau and passed into the lagoon. Stoat glided slowly along.
There was no gunfire: to the right there would be no point in the French occupying any of the spit past the crossing point, and the left was still Prussian-held. It was calm and the watery expanse glittered in the sun, ruffled here and there by small flaws in the breeze.
It couldn’t last. Well before they were anywhere near the besieged Prussians the shoreline to the south sprouted puffs of white. The thud and rumble of the guns followed soon after. It was at long range but, even so, balls skipped and flew, some of respectable size, eight-pounders, Kydd surmised. He smiled grimly. It would have been better for the French gunners to hold their fire and trap the little vessel.
He spotted the far-off besieged encampment well down the lagoon. His heart sank with the realisation that as the range closed they would not survive: the French would undoubtedly have worked out that this was the only way to relieve the army and brought up many more guns to make it impossible.
“Take us back, Mr Rogers,” he muttered.
The idea came to him as they went about to go alongside the jetty at Königsberg harbour, where the ships lay together in idleness. On the short walk to the Grand Palace it took form and detail. There was great risk. But it could work …
“The relief will resume in a day, General,” he said flatly, “provided I shall have what I desire.”
It all depended on his observation that both sides of the lagoon were completely flat, no high ground of any sort. This had one priceless consequence: at night even in moonlight the width of reflecting water between the shores would appear narrow, and targeting an object with the majority of its silhouette invisible against the darkness of the opposite shore would be damned difficult.
The other part of his plan was to use harbour lighters for the cargo-carrying. These were simple hollow craft brought up to a merchant ship at anchor offshore to allow discharge of cargo into them. Fully laden, only a foot or two of their gunwales would show above water, a near-impossible target compared with anything carrying sail.
Finally he had to find an alternative to boats in towing them. His solution was simple but back-breaking. The boats would tow the lighters as far as they could, then cast off. Aboard each one, they would have two grapnels on a line. The idea was to cast them ahead as far as possible and on the little after-deck a makeshift windlass would haul in on the line, propelling the lighter ahead for the distance of the cast and length of the lighter. To keep a steady momentum, there would be one line on each side, out of sequence with each other.
That was the best he could do. Their silhouette would be very low but this was achingly slow work and it was to be expected that they’d be under fire most of the time. And without doubt they would take casualties.
The first four harbour lighters were fitted out and the next night they were loaded, the tow-lines passed. When all was in darkness they set off into the gloom.
Kydd was in the first boat and kept them together as they passed across the entrance by Pillau, only too conscious that tonight moonrise was scheduled for ten.
In the boats a heavy silence was broken only by the slither and thump of oars—no one was in doubt about what lay ahead for the lighter crews who squatted in readiness.
“Put some heavy in it, then!” Kydd growled. The men at the oars wouldn’t understand a word of what he was saying but the deep-laden craft were going agonisingly slowly through the calm waters.
They would eventually be seen. The French would be expecting some sort of attempt and would be looking out for it. The only question was when.
The camp fires of the friendly Prussians fell away abruptly to an unrelieved darkness. This was the forbidden ground between the two armies.
On they crept,
into the blackness and silence.
More camp fires. With a prickle of tension Kydd knew that these were enemy positions now and at any moment …
The moon emerged above low cloud and, although only quartering, the night had lost its cloak of anonymity. It bathed the tops of the woodland in silver and laid a sheen on the Haff that could only reveal the intrusion.
Feeling exposed in the unearthly shimmer, Kydd tensed.
First one gun, then several—and the whole shore burst into life with the thunder of cannon fire.
The boats could go no further. “Cast off the tow. Good luck, you men!” he roared at the lighters.
He watched as they began their furious work with the grapnels, slow at first, then increasing to one or two knots as they found their rhythm.
As they moved away Kydd saw that gun-flash at the emplacements was making nonsense of aimed fire. The low shapes would thus not have to suffer a concentrated barrage directed on them. On the other hand the scene was alive with the crash and skitter of shot, some of which must find a target.
His instructions were to advance the lighters together to minimise time of exposure but stagger them in order that one shot striking would not take another beyond. It was all very well in theory but these were desperate men who would care little about formation once the guns opened up on them.
Straining his eyes, he followed the creeping shadows until they faded into the dimness among the leaping splashes and skipping of ricochets. If they succeeded, the army was safe for another two days on iron rationing.
“Return,” he snapped, gesturing back. The men and lighters would stay with von Hohenlau: there was little point in braving the holocaust again to bring back the empties. With luck, there would be just one or two more of these heroic sallies before the transports came.
Next day word was returned that three of the four lighters had got through, the fourth taking a hit and sinking quickly. There had been no survivors.
Another gallant sortie had been completed when Dart came streaming in from seaward with signals flying. The transports!
Heaving to well out of sight of the enemy, as instructed, it was at last time to put the grand plan into operation.
“We move tonight!” grated Blücher, unrolling a map.
The general had kept his preparations a close secret but had promised to bring his army to the water’s edge.
The plan was outlined with an economy of words. It was simple and brutal: a suicide battalion. A picked body of troopers with light guns would be landed at the unoccupied opposite tip of the spit. Their mission was to ride down its length until they met the French and by any means to drive them clear of Kydd’s crossing point, then keep them back, whatever the cost.
Tyger would have a role: in the minutes before they clashed at the crossing the frigate would close with the shore and smash in a broadside at the French positions, go about and hammer them with the opposite side of guns, then keeping up a withering fire until the French had been driven clear and a line of defence for the crossing established.
This was the point where the transports would come in to take the first wave of troops that had been brought across on rafts.
It would be decided by the timings. The Prussian force would land on the spit in darkness and aim to begin their assault with the dawn at precisely the time Tyger opened fire and the first of the besieged put off in their rafts. The French at the crossing could not count on reinforcements down the far length of the spit for some time but if there were delays they could be expected to enter the battle decisively. There was every need for a smooth operation at the transports.
It would be a bloody affair—but, one way or the other, by the end of the next day it would be over, and Tyger could be quit of this unnatural existence.
Kydd had last words with Blücher, who was dismissive of his sincere wishes for good fortune, coldly dictating orders to his staff officers and neatly pencilling in marks on his battle-plan.
Gürsten had no further part to play, but when Kydd found him to say his farewell he insisted that they go to a private room.
In broken but passionate English, he thanked Kydd for his services to the Prussian nation and assured him that His Majesty would never forget such. He reached into his military satchel and drew out two glasses and a wicker-covered brown bottle. “I am grateful, we toast to our tomorrow,” he said, with disturbing intensity. “Pliss.”
Kydd held out his glass, which was filled with a light golden liquor.
“To the new day, and may it go down in history as a glorious occasion for the Prussian military.”
Kydd went to raise his glass but stopped when he saw Gürsten hesitate.
“Sir, I cannot. This is retreat, not victory. No one remember glorious retreat.”
“Then—”
“Sir Thomas, can we drink to we both spared, do all our duty to the end, and then meet again.”
“I gladly toast to that, Klaus,” he said, and drank deeply.
It was a mistake—the thick liqueur nearly took his breath away with its potency.
“You’re not liking?” Gürsten asked in concern. “It is our Bärenfang from here in Königsberg, much esteem in East Prussia. A vodka liqueur of honey. The bear-trapper,” he explained, pointing to the illustration on the label.
“Oh, it was … delightful—I was not ready for it.”
Kydd had to accept another but then made his excuses, pleading his need to return on board his ship without delay.
Almost shyly, Gürsten felt in his satchel and pressed a different bottle on him. “Sir, when all is over, whatever fortune bring, I beg you will drink with your officers to our fighting, we together.”
“That’s so kind in you, Klaus,” Kydd said, touched. “And what is this, pray?”
“A fine Kopskiekelwein, much loved in Königsberg.”
“Which means?”
“Sir, pardon the Low German. They make with redcurrant, and its meaning, that you’re too fond of it, you fall down head over …”
“I do promise on my honour we shall raise a glass to you, my friend.”
It started well. At dusk the troopers and their equipment were transported over from Pillau to the end of the spit, despite a four knot cross-current set up by an increasingly brisk southwesterly.
Tyger lay offshore, and Kydd watched developments through a night-glass.
He could make out where they assembled together, in every kind of uniform in a brave show—these were volunteers from every regiment, united in one heroic purpose. Cuirassiers in mustard with the white slash of baldrics and magnificently plumed helmets; hussars in elaborately frogged chests and a shako in silver; among them, too, the darker and more utilitarian garb of artillerymen.
One stood out. On a white horse and in full dress uniform he was everywhere, imperiously commanding, gesturing: the captain of this gallant band—whose bold appearance would hearten his men but would inevitably ensure he could not survive.
Formed up, they marched off, the dragoons walking beside their horses, sparing them for the last wild ride, the infantry in column, the field pieces and limbers following behind. Almost immediately they entered woodland and were lost to view. The next act would be when all the players came together at dawn.
During the night Tyger stood out to sea, lying with the transports to avoid giving the alarm.
Their task now was to rendezvous off the crossing at dawn. Kydd had been careful to reach an understanding for, while the military regarded it light enough for operations at anything up to half an hour before the sun rose, the navy’s definition was the point at which the horizon itself could be distinguished.
Thus when the stars paled and visibility began to extend over a colourless sea, course was shaped inshore.
Even as the grey low-lying land firmed ahead, the masthead lookouts, then the quarterdeck, saw that the encounter had begun. The livid flash of guns and musketry had already started about the crossing and nothing would be gained by a stealthy a
pproach.
With Tyger in the lead, the armada made directly for the firing. There was every hope that the French would see the approaching transports and assume that they were landing an overwhelming force and fall back, but as they sailed closer in the growing light there was no sign that this was the case.
Rounding to, with two leadsmen in the chains chanting soundings, the frigate steadied and ran down on her target.
It was easy to see the line of division between the opposing sides by the furious musket fire and the dead ground in between, and Kydd sent a message to the gun-captains that this would be their mark.
Coming up slowly on the French lines he waited for the right moment.
“Open fire, if you please.”
With a bellowing crash the double-shotted eighteen-pounders spoke as one, powder-smoke driven away downwind in time for the gunners to see the result. Hidden by the trees a storm of fragments and darker objects was flung into the air as the shot tore into the French positions in a rage of pitiless death.
Nothing could stand against it, and as it subsided, Kydd could see the fire had slackened significantly.
Tyger put about for her other broadside but from the absence of firing it was clear their quarry had taken heed of what was coming and fled their ground.
Shivering sail he slowed his approach in time for messengers to warn off the gun-captains to shift their aim to allow the Prussians to move forward. Then he moved in and Tyger’s guns blasted out in another smashing rampage of destruction.
There were no individual targets, for the enemy was concealed in the woods—but if they thought that would protect them they were sadly mistaken. The spit was only a few hundred yards across, perfectly flat, and at a low trajectory the heavy-calibre battering would be causing untold carnage.
Even as the sun began tentatively peeping above the flat land it appeared that the French had been beaten back.
But little could really be seen of what was going on—gun-smoke wreathing up through the evenly spaced tree-tops, occasional flashes and a faint but continuous din of battle, leaving the imagination to picture the hand-to-hand savagery that was taking place within the woodlands.
Tyger: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures) Page 26