“Well, anything I can do, give me a hail. Go now, you’ve things to attend to. I’ll have Flags get your orders and signals to you as soon as I can. Then it’s up to you.”
Unfamiliar with the waters, Kydd carefully scanned the charts. He had a frighteningly short time to get to know them enough to risk throwing his frigate into action.
The Texel, their nominal blockade station, was an island with the naval base of Den Helder that lay strategically across the main entrance to Holland’s inland waterways. North of it were the Frisians, an endless stretch of sandy islands in a continuous chain to Prussia, nothing but low dunes and mud-flats. South of it were the fertile plains and main population centres of the Netherlands-Amsterdam was beside the waters of the Zuider Zee, safely inland halfway to Rotterdam in the south, itself not far from the great port of Antwerp and the Scheldt river.
He summoned the master, the only one in the corrosive atmosphere he felt able to turn to. “Mr Le Breton. As you know, I’ve not seen service in these waters and I’d value your advice concerning likely objectives for our operations.”
“Of course, sir,” he said politely, but with an odd avoiding of Kydd’s eye.
Was this a reluctance to be drawn into the often dehumanising confidences of preparations for warfare? What Kydd was asking was irregular: a master had no part in operational planning and he was in effect opening a discussion about a course of action, a matter more properly for his lieutenants. But Kydd didn’t feel inclined to rely on them at this time and continued, “I have it in mind to give the men a taste of action, a chance to pull together.”
“Sir.” The guarded reply gave nothing away.
“And what I’m thinking is, to do the Dutch a mischief on their own doorstep. Tell me, how does shipping go about its business in these waters?”
Le Breton rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “The larger ships may never put to sea for fear of the blockade and cruisers offshore, and only a gale of wind from the southeast will release them. The smaller-well, with the coast so risky for ships as we, these are really meat for our inshore squadron, the sloops and cutters.”
“I know that, but times are strange and we’ve a need to prove ourselves. So-what game is there for the taking?”
The master looked away, then turned back with an aggressive gleam in his eyes. “The coast trade, this is in sizeable fluyts, which are flat-bottomed with leeboards and can take to shallows that vex our sloops. They are then safe, for no lesser draught cutter or similar dare approach a vessel of such size.”
“So these then sail up and down the coast without being troubled by our cruisers?”
“A considerable trade. When they sight same they head inshore where we cannot follow and continue on. But if we could just …”
“I can see what you’re saying, Mr Le Breton. If we could …”
He traced the depth figures for the coast south of the Texel. It was certainly hazardous: sandbars marked that were twenty miles or more out to sea, reversing tidal currents and worse, but if they were bold and conditions were right …
Nearly halfway down, the five-fathom soundings closed with the shore until at one spot they were within three miles. If they dared everything they could be within full view of any watcher ashore.
It was what he wanted.
Kydd had at one time been a privateer master and knew the tricks. Now what he was after was a nearby cove, an inlet, perhaps, or a creek. There were few but there was a small river issuing out at a place called Breesaap and well within the area.
“Here,” he announced, tapping the chart. “And this is what we’ll do. I mean to cruise along the five-fathom line, give ’em all a fright, as we’ll be plain within sight. They’ll think it a lunatic captain to bring a frigate in so close, and to take no chances with such they’ll go to ground somewhere safe, which I’ll wager will be this pawky river here.” He smiled. “And then it turns into a cutting-out expedition.”
“Sir. The hazards are many. We draw twenty-two feet aft and in anything of a sea …” In a five-foot swell, at the lowest point there would be just the length of a man’s arm depth of water under their keel.
“Indeed so. But mark that we have at the moment a slight swell only, a fair sou’westerly as goes with the coast, and not forgetting that these depths are chart datum only. Should we have the tide in our favour I do believe we must attempt it.”
The full moon would bring spring tides, in this part of the world a good six, seven feet.
They had a chance.
“We go in, Mr Le Breton. Keep it quiet for now while I complete plans-and thank you.”
“You’ll be acting soon, sir?”
“That you may believe,” Kydd said firmly.
“Yes, sir. Then might I know what you have in mind until then?”
“With these winds, I’d think to press on north. Why do you ask?”
“Oh, just that I’d give it thought for anything I can suggest to you, sir.”
It didn’t take long for Kydd to work up the plan and he asked the first lieutenant to come to his cabin.
“This is by way of a bracer, Mr Hollis.”
“Sir?”
“I’ve a notion we’ll be seeing some action against the enemy this night. We’ve some preparing to do.”
The man jerked upright in astonishment, banging his head on a deck beam. “You can’t be serious, sir!”
“Why not, pray?”
“The-the men, they’re near mutinous, out of discipline!”
“All the better to find something to give ’em heart, don’t you think?”
Hollis looked incredulous. “How can you know they’ll fight? This is rank lunacy and-”
“Yes, Mr Hollis?” Kydd said dangerously. “Am I to believe you’re not in favour of taking the war to the enemy?”
“Well, I-”
“Then don’t you think we’d better begin our preparations, sir?” He pointed to the chart. “We close with the coast to the five-fathom line and cruise north. Then-”
“To … to five fathoms?”
“Yes. Tide’s with us from into the dog-watches-there’ll be fifteen feet or more under us. The Dutch run their fluyts inshore-you knew that, o’ course …”
“As you say.”
“We give ’em a fright by being so close, and they go for the nearest bolt-hole to wait it out until we’re past. That’s just what we want ’em to do, for that night we go in with the boats, cut out any we find and … What is it ails you now, Mr Hollis?” Kydd finished irritably.
“I can’t help remarking it,” the first lieutenant said stiffly, “we’re officers in the boats without marines, trusties? This is begging for calamity! The ship’s in a state of mutiny and we’re inviting anarchy. Have you never suffered mutiny? I have, and-”
“Enough!” Kydd grated. “There’s one damn good reason they’ll follow and you’ve not the wit to see it, sir!”
“Oh?” Hollis’s face was now a mask of hostility.
“This is not a yardarm-to-yardarm smashing match with a butcher’s bill to follow, all for the honour of the flag. No, sir! In this little exercise they stand to make a fat bag o’ prize guineas each, but only if we return to write their tickets.”
Kydd had the satisfaction of seeing the dawning of respect and continued, “I want the barky on a long board to seaward, to return on the starb’d tack to meet up with the coast at fifty-two twenty latitude where we’ll begin our cruise north.”
“Sir.”
“Carry on, then, Mr Hollis.”
After the lieutenant had left, Kydd reflected on what had been said. He, too, had suffered mutiny, the biggest the navy had ever experienced, but this was quite another species. At the Nore there had been good and clear reasons for the rebellion but here in Tyger …
He couldn’t put his finger on it; this was not how he’d foreseen things developing once they’d put to sea. There’d been no healing that he’d been able to detect. The same closed faces, silent and sullen working together, whispering, off-watch hours spent below instead of the usual hum of companionship on the fore-deck-all was profoundly disturbing.
Having served before the mast himself, Kydd knew what it was: the dire portent of a deeply riven ship’s company, the sign of “us and them” that was at the root of the most violent surges of discontent.