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.”
While the dragoman translated, Kydd tried to think of an expression of military courtesy. There were no forts visible with flags proudly flying to receive and return gun salutes but neither was there a single warship in sight.
“We are honoured to visit this port and, as an ally of Russia, His Majesty wishes me to pay our respects to the-the governor in charge.”
It was received with puzzlement and dismay but Horner came to the rescue. “There ain’t any such thing in this place. A mayor or such, but nothin’ else as would stand next to youse.”
It was apparently so outlandish for a warship to appear that there were no procedures the good kapitan could think to apply. Port clearance, merchant papers, manifests and, of course, Customs appraisal were the usual but in this case …
“Kapitan, he say welcome an’ he report to his superior.”
It was clear there had been no French or any other naval visit of significance here for some time. The open reason for their voyage therefore was answered, but he had the other discreet task to complete-and for that he had to get to Archangel itself.
The boat put off and Kydd turned to Horner. “I’m supposing I should pay a visit to your mayor or someone.”
“He won’t thank you for it.”
“Pray why not?”
“Cos he’s a Dutchman an’, like most of ’em, hates your kind.”
“How can this be? They’re an enemy of Russia as they are of us.”
“They’s merchants who sit on all the trade hereabouts and t’ stay loose buys their papers as a Russky.”
Kydd’s heart sank. What with shoals, a bar and channels unnavigable by vessels of size, the prospects of Archangel as a port to rival the Baltic were not promising before he’d even started, and with the Dutch in a position to obstruct and disrupt he might as well sail for home now. “Nevertheless, I’m going. Mr Hollis, my barge.”
“That’s not how it’s done here, Cap’n. They likes you should use their traps. Hoist a red flag on the fore an’ see what happens.”
It brought a peculiar craft beetling out from the shore. A wide, shallow-draught boat, it had a flat railed-off area raised on posts above the rowers with banks of seats atop.
Coming alongside, a hinged gangway swung out neatly and Kydd could step directly from his ship to the platform. In the shadows beneath the anonymous figures of rowers were still and bent, in pitiful rags. Were they convicts or serfs?
“Carry on, Mr Hollis,” he instructed, and took his place at the front, Bowden beside him and Dillon in his best secretarial garb behind. He’d had to refuse Clinton’s offer of a ceremonial marine guard: in any foreign land it was a provocative act to land an armed party without due permission.
Their progress through the marshy landscape was slow but methodical. They finally turned around the last point to reveal Archangel, port city of the High North.
A mile-wide peninsula set out into the confluence of countless muddy streams and rivers of the delta, it was perfectly flat. The waterfront was lined with warehouses and at one point there was a lengthy grand building with a fat white tower. Further inland, Kydd could see a peculiar lofty building of many storeys, sharp curves, rickety balconies and a spire, and to the left a quaint five-domed church with a distinctive bell-tower.
He looked about carefully. A number of ships were working cargo but all were of a modest size, and as they drew nearer the high, angular jetty, the whole prospect resolved into one of shabby decay. Any thoughts of diverting the great Baltic convoys were rapidly dwindling.
Kydd wondered whether it might be possible to dredge a channel for deeper-draught ships. The wharfage looked capable of some hundreds of ships, especially the timber yards to the left. Could they separate in- and outbound?