Tyger

by Julian Stockwin

  On Friday captains were signalled aboard the flagship as usual and their small business conducted quickly and efficiently. Kydd had been greeted politely but for some reason the admiral avoided his eye, and when boats were called alongside, Russell quietly asked him to stay behind.

  “Sherry?”

  Kydd declined politely.

  “So you’ve men?”

  “Pressed is all, and a few volunteers.”

  “And the barky’s tight-found an’ all a-taunto?”

  “Not all as I’d wish yet, sir,” Kydd answered carefully.

  Russell found his chair, patting the one that faced it. “You’ve done well, m’ boy. Damn well. Can’t imagine how you did it, an’ I honour you for it.” He fiddled with his glass. “So it grieves me more’n I can say to have to tell you this.”

  A sudden stab of alarm shot through Kydd.

  “Y’ see, I’ve orders to tell you that when you make Yarmouth again you’re to give up your ship.”

  There was a moment of disbelief, then a wave of anger. He’d been pitchforked into an impossible situation and when, against all the odds, he’d succeeded, they’d cast him ashore?

  “No mention of another, I’m afraid.”

  Kydd stuttered his acknowledgement in sick dismay. They’d not succeeded in their object of seeing him fail but now they were turning over what he’d achieved to another.

  “I’ve heard from one o’ my officers about your falling athwart St Vincent’s bows over the Popham trial. A sad thing when a sea officer like y’self gets drawn into politicking.”

  “That cursed rag! I never said what—”

  “Doesn’t signify—it was published an’ that’s that.” Russell gave a small smile. “I’ve a guinea to a shilling that this’n is their way o’ thanking you for your labours. I’m sorry, Kydd, truly I am.”

  It was extraordinary that an admiral would criticise the Admiralty before one of his captains and Kydd was touched. But now he had to come to terms with the fact that his remaining sea service in the navy was to be measured in weeks only.

  “M’ dear fellow, we both came aft the hard way. If’n there’s anything I can do …?”

  “That’s kind in you, sir, but I can’t think what,” he muttered.

  After an awkward pause, Russell said doubtfully, “If you’ve a mind t’ stay in your ship for as long as y’ can before …”

  Kydd’s first instinct was to get it over with, put it behind him, but he knew in his heart he had to keep the seas for as long as he could, before the inevitable caught up with him. “I’ll stay with Tyger—she needs me.”

  “As I thought, m’ boy. Well, I’m a mort reluctant t’ put it to a first-rank cap’n as you are, but it’s in my gift to extend your cruise a while longer. Just a trivial bit o’ work—I’d normally send a sloop or such, but my orders say ‘send a vessel,’ which leaves the choice to me. Nothing to set before a prime fighting captain but—”

  “I’ll take it.”

  “It won’t be without its interest, but don’t think on prizes, or sport with the enemy.”

  “Sir. Where?”

  “North. As far as you may go. The High Arctic.”

  Blinking in surprise Kydd waited for him to continue.

  “Through the Arctic circle to the polar regions. Their lordships wish a man-o’-war sent right around the north o’ Norway into the Barents Sea and to the Russian port of Archangel.”

  “Wha’?”

  “There’s good cause, while the season allows, to make a neighbourly visit, simply to assure ourselves that His Majesty’s interests in the area—which’re pretty slim, incidentally—are safe and in order, but mainly t’ reconnoitre if the French have made any moves into the region.”

  “I see.”

  “We know for a fact they’ve not been spotted, but that’s not the point. This is only to give good public reason for you being there while you get on with a much more important and discreet task.”

  Kydd listened quietly.

  “You probably don’t know it, but less’n a century past, Russia had only one port connected directly to the outside world. Just the one, and that was Archangel. Then your tsar, Peter the Great, built St Petersburg, and it took most o’ the trade. Why? Because it’s mainly ice-free and Archangel is locked in pack-ice anything up to eight months in the year. And Petersburg is much closer to Moscow and the heart of Russia.”

  He gave a grim smile. “Well, now we’ve got a problem. While we’re allies of Russia we’ve a concern to keep their ports open and trade flowing free, but Boney’s latest victories are giving us a parcel o’ worries.

  “St Petersburg is at the head of the Baltic. When he’s finished with the Prussians there’s little to stop him sending his army north into Denmark—and then he’ll have seized the entrance to the Baltic and can choke off all access. We stand to lose our vital naval stores and Russia will be isolated—unless she can find another port. This is really why you’re going north. To see if Archangel can again be that port.”

  Kydd shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t just—”

  “Easy enough, really. All they want is a report on the depths mid-channel, working length of wharves, repair, warehousing—you know the sort of thing. It’s not your job to make judgement—there’ll be people in London to do that. So, no more’n a week or two at most—don’t delay leaving, you wouldn’t want to be iced in for half a year.”

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s a useful exercise you’ll be doing but it probably won’t come t’ much. Even Bonaparte would hesitate over attacking a strict neutral like Denmark, but we have to look to all possibilities.”

  “Sir. May I—may I thank you for—”

  “Be damned—it’s little enough! Off with you, m’ boy. I’ve a notion I’ll be receiving my letter concerning you tomorrow, too late to stop you going …”

  Kydd decided to tell nobody of his personal blow. It was hard enough to face up to it himself, let alone to bear any awkward sympathies. In any case, it would not be in Tyger’s best interests to learn that they would have yet another change of captain.

  For him their mission would be a tough challenge: to penetrate the God-forsaken wilderness between the extreme north of Russia and the polar regions where very few naval vessels had ever been—but for the seamen it would mean the harshest conditions that sea life could throw at them and Tyger was not prepared for it.

  He’d keep quiet about where they were headed until he had to admit it and trust he could carry the men with him.

  His orders were brief and to the point. They required him to put into Gothenburg where he would take aboard an Arctic pilot provided by the British consul. He was further authorised to secure a limited amount of clothing deemed advisable at that season for a voyage to the daunting latitude of seventy degrees north.

  The rest was up to him.

  The outlines of the Swedish town hove into view. They moored in the outer roads and Kydd wasted no time in getting ashore.

  The British consul was fat and expansive and read the admiral’s request with interest. “Well, now, and I won’t enquire what in Hades the navy’s doing in the far north but I’ve got just the fellow. Greenland whale fisheries, married to a Finnish lass. He’s a knowing cove but won’t stand for nonsense. I’ll see if he’s available to you and send him out.”

  It was no use delaying any further. The man’s arrival on board would give the game away and there was much to do.

  He summoned his officers to his cabin. “Gentlemen, I’ll not have you in doubt any more about our detached service. It’s to the north—the High North!”

  Briefly he explained that they were on a mission to show the flag and assure themselves there was not a French presence, without mentioning the real reason.

  There was an immediate ripple of dismay.

  “Sir, we ain’t equipped! I’ve charts for naught but—”

  “Then get some, Mr Joyce,” Kydd said bluntly.

  “It’ll be
mortal cold, we’d best lay in some—”

  “We’ve tickets to ship enough foul-weather gear for all the people. Any more questions?”

  Bowden looked concerned. “As far as I’m aware, Sir Thomas, there are none aboard who’ve been to the Arctic regions. How are we to navigate in ice and similar?”

  “A pilot is on his way out to us, who will also be in the character of a guide in these matters.”

  “He’d better be good,” muttered Joyce.

  “The man is from the Greenland whale fisheries and is accounted a taut hand, well experienced. And he’ll be berthing with you, sir.”

  The man standing in the door of his cabin was of an age, wiry but with a steady gaze from his soft grey eyes. “Cap’n? Kit Horner, an’ I hear you’re wanting a pilot.”

  Kydd motioned to a chair. “Tell me of your experience in the High North, Mr Horner.”

  “As I’m spliced to a Sami,” he said, as if it explained everything. Then he added, “An’ thirty years on the Greenland coast, I know the north …”

  “Very well, I’ll take you on. You’ll be—”

  “Ah, it’s four shillun’ a day, an’ five after we crosses the Ar’tic circle.”

  Kydd agreed with a tight smile. “You don’t come cheap, if I might remark it.”

  “An’ all found.”

  Then it was down to details of the voyage.

  Horner rubbed his chin. “Archangel? Bit late in the season, but shouldn’t be a hard beat. Merchant jacks do it every year, o’ course. Could meet wi’ some ice islands but you’ll find the White Sea clear o’ drift ice this time o’ the year.”

  “At seventy north?”

  “Cos there’s an up-coast current from the Atlantic passes right round an’ into the Barents. We’ll be snug if’n we sail soon.”

  His quiet certainty was reassuring and Kydd encouraged him to go on.

  It seemed greenstuffs were essential, although scurvy grass could be collected on some islands Horner knew of and provisions were to be had if necessary at certain remote Norwegian coast settlements.

  There would be no need for real Arctic clothing for this voyage but a chaldron or two of coal in place of firewood was a good plan to ensure a hot breakfast for the hands—and spirits were a sovereign cure against the cold of a night watch.

  Horner had his own rutter, which he would bring with him, and there were charts available from the chandlers, the Dutch being the best. As to the ship, no particular mind need be paid to her fitness in view of the small likelihood of ice but if the cap’n wished he might consider bringing along the makings of a Baltic bowgrace, reinforcing at the bows to shoulder aside small floes to save a constant battering at the hull.

  But Archangel was a run-down parody of its glory days. Timber and furs—and not so much of those. Located at the mouth of the Dvina river, it would be beset by ice in a few weeks and then there would be nothing happening for at least six months.

  Despite this, Kydd felt a thrill. Few naval officers would ever see what he was about to: the very top of the world!

  “Sir, eight have deserted,” Hollis reported, with an expression of rebuke at Kydd’s having granted liberty to men who hadn’t earned it.

  Kydd looked away, frustrated. This was more than an offence, it was a violation of trust. Were the Tygers still in a defiant mood, disaffected and hostile? “Who?”

  Hollis named them.

  All good men, no dregs of the press. And gone off in a body—this was no idle straggling. There would be more soon, for Gothenburg was a lively international port and they would have no trouble finding a berth on an outgoing merchantman.

  “Stop all liberty,” Kydd said heavily. This was punishing the innocent but he couldn’t risk losing more. He knew the reason: their destination had got out and they wanted no part of the hardships of an Arctic voyage.

  Only one of her company was rejoicing—Dillon, whose desire to see something of the world was about to be fulfilled beyond expectations. On ship’s business ashore he’d picked up more worthy tomes, some in Russian, for despite having the tongue he’d never heard it spoken in its native land.

  They sailed two days later, into the teeth of a northeaster straight from the Arctic, a bitter foretaste of worse to come.

  Leaden skies and white-streaked grey seas added to a feeling of unease at leaving the world of men for the boreal realm where they did not belong. With winds dead foul, only a hard clawing far to seaward would clear the long and formidable Norwegian coast, to be followed later by a board inwards to high latitudes to clear North Cape and into the Barents Sea.

  Tyger heaved and laboured, the spray driven aft, spiteful and stinging. A bitter wind cut into the muffled figures about her deck and the watch hunkered down behind the weather bulwarks. With canvas taut and hard as wood, the straining rigging strummed fretfully, a mournful drone rising and falling, like a funeral dirge.

  Kydd could feel the old canker. Them and us. The tyrants and the slaves. But in these conditions, at the very time it was needed, there was no possibility of bringing the officers and men together in traditional ways—at divisions, a church service, light-hearted competition mast against mast, an impromptu entertainment around the fore-bitts for seamen and officer guests.

  Instead there would be weary and bone-chilled men going below to take out their frustrations in cursing the fate that had sent them to Tyger. There was little he could do about it and virtually no chance of the ship’s company coming together as one to face the enemy. Tyger was as divided as ever.

  As the latitude grew higher, so did the ceaseless, long and immensely powerful seas charging out from their polar heart, a strength in them that made it a folly to confront. Taking them on the starboard bow one after another, Tyger reared and writhed to avoid their punishment, but in relentless, heedless succession they seethed past in a roar and clamour that had her twisting back as if in pain.

  It was hard, bruising work. Then they reached the same latitude as Iceland, out there far to their lee—but this meant only that they were less than halfway on their northward odyssey and now in waters near unknown to men.

  And further still, with the same battering onrush, on and on, until three things happened.

  During the night the seas eased and in the morning, like a miracle sent by gods relenting of their savagery, the skies cleared to a vast, innocent blue. At midday meridian altitudes were taken and, after careful correction for height of eye and refraction, the word came out: during the night they had passed the defining limit of their familiar world, the north polar circle, and were now firmly within the Arctic regions.

  But it was so unreal and unexpected—a placid, glittering sea and the sun with real warmth in it.

  The watch shed their coarse dark wadmarel pea-jackets for gear more in keeping with the south; fair-weather habits took over and, in wondering relief, Tyger surged on into the north.

  Now there was a hard, actinic edge to the light, a glare that had men shielding their eyes as it was reflected up, and the blue of the sky had a strange remoteness, an unearthly purity.

  The most eerie of all was after the last dog-watch was relieved and the sun began to set—but then it slowed and stopped. The middle-watchmen had the singular experience of seeing it rise again without setting.

  Kit Horner remarked drily, “The midnight sun—you’ll not see a shadow o’ night for another month or so. I’m thinkin’ you’ll save a bushel o’ money on candles an’ such.”

  Joyce came up from below, shaking his head. “The glass at thirty an’ a half. It ain’t Christian, begob!”

  The weather held. In a week they’d reached seventy-five degrees north and Horner allowed that it was safe to go about, to round North Cape.

  When at last they raised land it held everyone in thrall.

  A steel-hued row of massive headlands and bluffs with not the tiniest scrap of vegetation visible, or any hint of humankind. A stark, petrified wilderness with only the unceasing fringing white of the sea’
s assault on the iron-bound shore.

  North Cape appeared out of the blue haze one morning, vertical cliffs plunging into the icy-green sea and desolate flat-topped mountains, but it was the turning point: they were leaving the Atlantic to pass into the Barents Sea. On their right was the great continent of Asia, on their left nothing but the frigid polar sea until it met the edge of the ice pack reaching all the way to the fabled North Pole.

  That night they crept along under reduced sail to be ready in the morning to make entrance to the White Sea.

  The barren shore was riven with dark fjords, white streaks of snow showing stark in the fissures of desolate cliffs and peaks as they entered. The winds turned fluky and unfriendly, a frigid bullying down from mountainsides, which had all hands reaching for greatcoats and mufflers.

  Picking up the opposite shore it was then a matter of shaping course for the southeast and the head of the White Sea, where the drab brown of a great river delta appeared. Horner refused to leave the deck for hours as he conned them into the right channel, anchors ready for slipping fore and aft and a leadsman in the chains.

  Here at last were signs of man: cleared expanses of corn, recognisable orchards among wild flowers and birch woods down to the water’s edge, even grass, a thing of wonder after so long at sea.

  It brought other things: insect clouds, the rich stench of peaty vegetation, the fetid miasma of barely thawed bogs—and the first settlements of low, shabby huts.

  They rounded a point, and as it opened into a bay, Kydd saw at least thirty vessels at anchor. They glided in, the biggest ship by some margin.

  “Mud’yugsky, and as far as we go, Cap’n,” Horner said laconically. “There’s a bar an’ shoal water stops us going to Archangel, as is another four mile. Get the hook down an’ wait for our welcome.”

  A boat detached itself from a jetty at the tip of the point and bustled up to them.

  “Two to come aboard, Mr Hollis,” Kydd said, noting the florid officer standing in the sternsheets staring up at the big ship, another beside him.

  The little man spoke up immediately in passable English. “The Kapitan Voronov. He want your business, pliss.”