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.