A prize crew would have to be made up – led by Bray, for this was a significant possession to bring in. But there were more than a few problems to face. A crew of several hundred would need strong guarding, and a full-rigged ship of a size with their own meant providing a full watch of the hands just to handle the ship. Others would be needed to attend to any damage threatening its soundness. All in all, he was looking at sending away near half of Tyger’s company.
This would require him to abandon his cruise to escort the prize back – and where to? Gibraltar or the Cadiz anchorage?
The latter: it was his working base and he’d be able to return to his cruise quickly. As well-
‘Trouble, sir,’ Bowden muttered, his gaze on the boat returning. It had only one passenger. Midshipman Gilpin and the men at the oars were at sixes and sevens, catching crabs and floundering as if driven by great fear or superstition.
Kydd went cold. A fever ship? Some terrifying, ghastly object discovered in the hold? All the half-remembered fables and dread lore of the sea that he’d absorbed as a young seaman began surfacing as the boat neared.
It hooked on and Gilpin stared up, his face working. ‘Sir Thomas, Mr Bray desires as you shall join him wi’out delay. There’s a matter he can’t … that is, he doesn’t know how to deal with.’
The boat’s crew were acting in the strangest way, glancing back at the prize and refusing to answer any questions thrown at them by anxious shipmates.
Kydd called for Dillon to join him.
Moments later they were beside the frigate. ‘What is it, Mr Bray?’ he asked nervously, as he went aboard the Spaniard. There was the usual pitiable scatter of battle wreckage and bloodstains but nothing he could see out of the ordinary that would set his lion-like first lieutenant to this agitated and keyed-up state. The Spanish stood in a sullen group, their expressions murderous.
‘Down in the hold, sir, if y’ please,’ Bray said hoarsely, thrusting ahead. ‘It was one of the carpenter’s crew found it. I’ve had to put him under restraint.’
It was hot and claustrophobic in the lower hold, smaller than English practice, dark and noisome.
‘Light!’ Bray called thickly. A lanthorn on a pole was handed down to them and they stumbled forward over casks and stores. Beyond was a cleared section in which three Tygers, with their own lanthorn, stared back at them, the whites of their eyes startling in the blackness.
Heart in his mouth Kydd reached them. Wordlessly, one pointed to his feet. He was standing on a line of crates. Each had a plaque attached to it: the Royal Arms of Spain.
One had been ripped apart. Inside stood a series of barrels, each not much larger than a country kilderkin. Each held, tightly packed, three leather containers, laced at the top. One had been opened. Dillon dropped to his knees to peer at it.
‘S-sir, it’s … it’s …’ he breathed. He held up a stout glass bottle and in it was the unmistakable gleam of mercury.
No wonder Bray and all who’d seen it were thrown into a moil. Holding up the lanthorn Kydd saw lines of crates leading away in neat parallel rows near a hundred feet forward, and who knew how many layers deep? An immense fortune.
This was a near mythical mercury ship, and as of this moment every man jack aboard Tyger had become insanely rich, for there had been no others in sight to claim a share – this was entirely theirs.
‘Um, a guard, then, Mr Bray.’ Even the best-tempered crew could become unpredictable in the presence of such wealth.
Kydd returned on deck, his mind still on the serried ranks of quicksilver below. His share would allow him to present a castle to Persephone, an estate of boundless extent, a matchless inheritance for their children.
And for his seamen – some would carouse until their bounty ran out, others buy a sailors’ tavern, naming it Tyger and Spanish Silver and regaling their customers endlessly with the story of this day.
He pulled himself together. Nothing had changed, merely the value of their capture. An effective prize crew had to be found and the ship secured in the usual way.
They returned to an expectant Tyger where the news was met with a roar of excitement. Kydd, however, spoke firmly to his distracted first lieutenant. ‘Mr Bray, you’ll take the prize to Cadiz. I’ll give you a full watch of hands and all the marines. You’ve no need to fear a rising. I’ll be sailing in company within hail at all times. If you need to, don’t hesitate to shackle the prisoners. Clear?’
‘Um, yes, sir.’
‘Then we’ll-’
A startled cry from Tyger’s masthead came down to them: ‘Sail hoooo! I see one, no, two tops’ls to weather, four points!’
It would be too late for any coming on the scene now, Kydd thought smugly.
‘Deck ho – now five, seven – it’s a fleet o’ sorts standing to the nor’ard!’
Instantly the situation had shifted.
Out of sight below the horizon on deck he had to see who they were and leaped for the shrouds.
Panting, he arrived in the top and the lookout gestured. Along the rim of the horizon were the regular-spaced pale rectangles of a progression of ships, proof that this was a disciplined squadron or fleet, not the blocked-in huddle of a convoy.
He fumbled for his pocket glass, wedged himself against the topmast and saw more. These were big, some of them at least two-decker ships-of-the-line. Far off as they were, if Tyger and the frigate were sighted, it would be to end well and truly boxed in against the land in this bay. If they were the enemy.
Feverishly he ran over the dispositions of their own forces and realised that these were not regular cruisers or even a detachment. Fleet movements on this scale were not a trivial happening and were notified well in advance. He’d never heard one mentioned.
They were all in sight now and he counted them. And again, slowly.
Five ships-of-the-line, two frigates, and, after a decent interval, a swarm of sloops and brigs, resolutely under sail for the north. Exactly the number expected if Allemand was returning from Toulon to join the Rochefort squadron in Basque Roads, north of Spain.
They were well abeam by now and Kydd knew that the focus of attention of lookouts was generally in the forward-looking sector. If they hadn’t been spotted by now, their sails doused and against the land, they’d probably got away with it and were safe.
As a cruising frigate, his response should be to drop everything and attach himself to the menace to see where it was headed, as he had with Allemand on his outward sortie.
But if he did that, what about the prize?
Let Bray take it on to Cadiz while he went in pursuit? But there would be problems if he did so. The first and insuperable one was that he couldn’t let Bray have half of Tyger’s complement. He’d need a near-full crew himself to maintain a day-and-night chase and perform daring sail manoeuvres as Allemand tried to shake off their dogged pursuer. As well, there was no knowing where the fleet was headed, for if the French admiral was performing the same seaward dogleg to avoid the ships clustered around the blockade ports, and if Tyger wasn’t there to follow, he’d be crucified by an angry Admiralty.
In dawning horror, the inevitable was forcing itself upon him. He must abandon his prize to go after them.
His mind at first refused to accept the conclusion – a siren persuasion rushed in that no one would know if he let them go on their way, quietly lying out of sight until they’d gone past, then seeing his prize safely home.
He crushed the thought. Everything that he’d stood for, fought for, striven for over his years of service would not allow it.
Was there another way? Leave a smaller force on board? It would be asking far too much of them to guard the hundreds of prisoners and work the ship. They would be slaughtered in mutiny long before they made port.
Then perhaps take off his men but first render the ship disabled by cutting every line that went aloft – shrouds, halliards, braces, tacks and sheets – then returning later. It wouldn’t work: even with such a crippling it was not outside the resources of two hundred men to contrive a workable sail plan to make a nearby port, and who knew how long Tyger would be away?