They were discovered-but what was it up to?
Horner said casually, “A fisherman. There’s a settlement up the fjord, for summer only. Takes seal, bear an’ eider as well.”
“So he’s off to his fishing grounds?”
“Can’t be. They fishes in the fjords. This ’un is probably goin’ to the whaling station for a bit o’ trading, picking up what’s needful for ’em.”
Kydd didn’t hesitate “Give ’em a gun!”
A slight delay and the fog swivel cracked out.
They kept on and Kydd ordered another. The lugger brailed up and slewed to a stop.
“Mr Horner, will you come with me? I’ve a mind to do some trading of my own!”
When he returned it was with a satisfied smile and the lugger obediently following.
As soon as Kydd stepped back aboard he called across his third lieutenant and told him of the furs, adding, “Mr Brice. You and my coxswain have just signed on as crew in this Norwegian fisherman. This is what you’re to do …”
They were to stay with the boat as it sailed into the next fjord, there to observe closely any shipping at the Barentsburg station and report back. Halgren was Scandinavian and could communicate with the fisherfolk.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. If all went well they would be back before dark.
The lugger disappeared around the other headland.
Dillon edged up to him. “Sir Thomas, I wonder at all, could we-”
“Just what I was thinking!” Kydd said instantly. “Mr Hollis, I’m taking a boat ashore-on a reconnaissance. Anything at all, a gun and flag at the fore.”
The cutter threaded through the floating ice-field so close they could feel its frozen breath, the men at the oars looking out each side apprehensively. The shore approached, rock the colour of old iron and then a dense beach of light pebbles. They crunched into it just below an old hut of bleached timbers, crazily tilted to one side.
Soaring far above them were stark, sere mountains and on the opposite shore the bluff cliff of ice that was a glacier disgorging into the bay. As the fitful sun caught it, the dull white was shot through with delicate sapphire and emerald tints and with a brilliance that almost hurt the eye.
On the air was a pungency of brine, a powerful smell that seemed oddly magnified by the intense clarity of the cold.
In awed silence they trod up the beach to the hut. It was open to the sky and empty of everything, except odd cast-off human articles. Behind it was a long pile of leviathan white bones, the skulls and ribs of long-dead whales. There was a whaling slip, with a rusty windlass at its head, and beyond a row of rude graves, unmarked but for a small cairn at the head of each. They stood for a minute by them, reflecting on the fate that had brought these men to their end in this unspeakable remoteness.
Further up, the beach ended and stony precipices and writhing crags cast in shadow were interspersed with scree slopes a thousand feet high and sharp escarpments rearing from the snow-covered uplands.
It was altogether an immensely affecting presence and there in the Arctic stillness Kydd felt a profound humility.
“Sir, you were right!” Brice said, in open admiration. “As bold as brass, lying by the jetty just along from us. A line of men coming down from some sort of ice-cave and loading.”
Kydd quickly had the essentials: that the fur transport was a full-rigged ship with gun-ports, but not a man-o’-war and inferior in size to Tyger. They had sighted its name: Grote Walvis, Dutch.
Unable to hurry the fishermen, Brice had been forced to watch the loading complete, the hatches put in place and secured ready for sea-with sail bent to the yards, it could be only a short time before it sailed.
Kydd was ready: at the outer headland with a view both to seaward and back to Tyger, the pinnace was waiting, concealed among the rocks. In this strange world there was no darkness and they should sight their prey making off past them to the southward in blithe ignorance of the hungry frigate lying in wait.
Their anchor was hove short and sail brought to readiness-in minutes their true purpose was known around the ship. Kydd sensed the heightened excitement but was mystified by the knowing smile Stirk gave him as he padded past.
In a distant flurry the pinnace began flying back to Tyger, an unmistakable signal to prepare for the chase. Four miles out, the Walvis under all plain sail was on her way to Bonaparte’s Europe.
There was no need for haste: it was necessary to let the vessel clear territorial waters to reach the high seas before they showed themselves, at which point it would be too late-the frigate would lie between them and safety.
He gave them two hours, then Tyger spread her wings for the open ocean.
It was the last act. But there was still one thing that, even at this late stage, could intervene to wreck their hopes: that this ship was intended to go on to break the British blockade of the continent. For this it would need to be equipped with appropriate papers-false, cunningly prepared and proving the vessel a sacrosanct neutral.
If this was so, then Kydd could intercept and board, but would have the mortification of being forced to let it go, no matter his suspicions. Violating neutrality was not to be considered.
He kept his fears to himself as they reached out over the grey polar seas under the steady northeasterly. The course was simple-due south to Europe, and in a short time there was a welcome hail from the masthead, then distant sails could be seen generally.
“Damn m’ eyes, but I’d like to be on their quarterdeck when they sights a frigate in pursuit!” chuckled Joyce, rubbing his gloved hands.
“An’ he’s putting about!” came an astonished cry a little later.
Instead of their view of the distant stern of the ship, now the three masts were separating in a turn-about.
Kydd watched intently … and the ship hardened on a course taking them at right angles away in a desperate flight close to the wind.
“Hey, now!” he couldn’t help blurting in satisfaction. “And he’s a bad conscience, I believe!”
No ship confident of its flag or papers would be fleeing so. This was now a straight chase!
“Follow his motions,” he instructed, and Tyger heeled as she put down her helm to run parallel some miles to windward. They could never escape this way, for with her superior speed, all Tyger needed to do was bear down and close until it was all over. And no darkness to put an unfair end to the pursuit, either.
Horner nodded at the binnacle. “You’ve seen what he’s up to? Headin’ north-into the pack-ice. Where no fool goes, ’less he wants t’ shake hands with a polar bear.”
The wind dropped to a whisper; the two ships ghosted on, a bare two miles apart. They stayed that way for half a day, frustrating to a degree, but then, under a crystal blue sky, the horizon softened and a long white layer extended across their entire vision-freezing fog.
The image of Walvis wavered and disappeared into it, her mastheads briefly visible before they, too, were swallowed.
“As far as we go, I think, Cap’n?”
“Where he can go, so can we,” Kydd said stubbornly.
“That there’s the ice edge-an’ worse. No place for-”
“We go in.”
As soon as they entered the fog-bank it was another world. The surprising warmth of the sun was cut off, as if a door had been closed, and the cold set in, fierce and piercing in the soft white anonymity.
The ship began taking on a fairy-tale appearance of a sparkling loveliness as the glistening fog particles froze to a rime that covered everything: deck, rigging, sails and every individual rope that ran aloft.
“You see why I said-”
“Thank you. Mr Hollis, relieve every man of the watch-on-deck one by one. They’re to go below and get on every bit of clothing against the cold as can be found. Sealskin, fearnought, leather-Mr Horner will go with ’em to advise.”
The ship stole on, the lookout at the fore-masthead relieved every fifteen minutes peering into the featureless white blanket.
An ominous thud and the frigate trembled. She had shouldered aside a wicked floe bigger than their launch.
“Sir, I really don’t think this is a good idea,” Hollis muttered uncomfortably.
Kydd said nothing and unaccountably the fog-bank thinned and they were through-and not a mile ahead was their quarry, nosing along the edge of the ice.
“Got him!”
“I don’t think so,” Horner said heavily. “See this?”
He waved at the scattered ice fragments. The sea they swam in had subtly changed. Between the larger floes there was a peculiar wide scattering of floating platelets in an almost oily carpet.
“Frazil ice. Temperature drops any more an’ we’ll have ice rind-and then you get out fast.”
Kydd said nothing, watching his prey so close. Both ships were barely making way in the near complete calm, sails hanging loosely and giving an aimless flap every now and then. If they could catch a random cats-paw of wind it would be sufficient to bring them up and, fantastic as it seemed in the surroundings, there could be gun-play and a boarding.
The small breeze was running parallel with the edge of the ice and Kydd could see now what Walvis was up to. She had been looking for a way into the pack and had found one. Angling behind a long floe, she eased in, the flash of wet bearing-off spars visible as her sailors poled their way past. Then they were inside some ice-lagoon and still under way deeper in.
“Don’t even think on it, Cap’n!” Horner grated. “If you does, I quit! Hear me?”
By now Tyger was close to the ice edge herself. In horrified fascination men watched the unending floes drifting and heard a ceaseless tiny creaking and muted cracking as they gently rose and fell on the slight swell. Delicate frost-smoke hung over the surface of the sea, playfully plucked and flurried to eddying wreaths by a polar zephyr.
Kydd’s thoughts raced. The rational course was to give best to one with superior knowledge of these regions and sail away before some hideous Arctic fate overtook them. But that would be at the cost of his only chance of coming out of his High North expedition with something to show for it.
So near!
Boats?
No, boats coming down a defined lead in the ice were a perfect oncoming target. A charge over the ice? How did he know if a floe would take their weight? If it didn’t, their end would be immediate and awful.
Here he was with a man-o’-war of unanswerable force and under her guns not a mile away was her prey-but he was completely helpless!
Horner was not going to let it go. “See all them ice-hillocks another mile in? That’s your ice fast to the shore. It comes out an’ meets the drift ice on its way in with terrible force. If the wind’s offshore, you has a chance. Wind turns onshore, why, you’ll be crushed between ’em like an egg-shell!”
Ominously, Kydd could see that, just as had been predicted, the frazil ice was coming together in a continuous greasy-looking thin sheet.
They had been lucky, he knew. On mess-decks and in wardrooms he’d heard tales of ferocious storms raging out of the Arctic wilderness and if one struck here …
“It’s freezin’ in, Cap’n,” warned Horner. “Time we was going.”
The weather was changing-Kydd felt it in his bones. How long could he afford to wait? The smaller Walvis could lie there indefinitely if it was equipped for long-distance voyaging in these parts but Tyger was ill-equipped and vulnerable. Was it right to risk her and her company for the sake of what was really personal advantage?
He shivered and pulled his coat tighter as a slightly stronger wind flaw cut into him … and something Horner had said returned. What was it?
The slight wind! His unconscious mind had registered that it had shifted a point or two and strengthened a little.
“Sir, we should leave while we can,” the muffled voice of his first lieutenant came, and in his anxiety he’d even gone so far as to touch Kydd’s arm.
But, with a fierce glee, Kydd had seen how he could win. “Mr Joyce, I desire Tyger to lie off at two cables distance. Mr Hollis, a file of marines and a boarding party to muster at the mainmast now.”
They looked at him as if he’d suddenly gone mad.
“Carry on, please!” he ordered crisply.
With a grudging smile Horner tipped his hat to Kydd and watched Walvis warp about and make for the open sea-and, reluctantly, into Tyger’s embrace.