During the night Tyger stood out to sea, lying with the transports to avoid giving the alarm.
Their task now was to rendezvous off the crossing at dawn. Kydd had been careful to reach an understanding for, while the military regarded it light enough for operations at anything up to half an hour before the sun rose, the navy’s definition was the point at which the horizon itself could be distinguished.
Thus when the stars paled and visibility began to extend over a colourless sea, course was shaped inshore.
Even as the grey low-lying land firmed ahead, the masthead lookouts, then the quarterdeck, saw that the encounter had begun. The livid flash of guns and musketry had already started about the crossing and nothing would be gained by a stealthy approach.
With Tyger in the lead, the armada made directly for the firing. There was every hope that the French would see the approaching transports and assume that they were landing an overwhelming force and fall back, but as they sailed closer in the growing light there was no sign that this was the case.
Rounding to, with two leadsmen in the chains chanting soundings, the frigate steadied and ran down on her target.
It was easy to see the line of division between the opposing sides by the furious musket fire and the dead ground in between, and Kydd sent a message to the gun-captains that this would be their mark.
Coming up slowly on the French lines he waited for the right moment.
“Open fire, if you please.”
With a bellowing crash the double-shotted eighteen-pounders spoke as one, powder-smoke driven away downwind in time for the gunners to see the result. Hidden by the trees a storm of fragments and darker objects was flung into the air as the shot tore into the French positions in a rage of pitiless death.
Nothing could stand against it, and as it subsided, Kydd could see the fire had slackened significantly.
Tyger put about for her other broadside but from the absence of firing it was clear their quarry had taken heed of what was coming and fled their ground.
Shivering sail he slowed his approach in time for messengers to warn off the gun-captains to shift their aim to allow the Prussians to move forward. Then he moved in and Tyger’s guns blasted out in another smashing rampage of destruction.
There were no individual targets, for the enemy was concealed in the woods-but if they thought that would protect them they were sadly mistaken. The spit was only a few hundred yards across, perfectly flat, and at a low trajectory the heavy-calibre battering would be causing untold carnage.
Even as the sun began tentatively peeping above the flat land it appeared that the French had been beaten back.
But little could really be seen of what was going on-gun-smoke wreathing up through the evenly spaced tree-tops, occasional flashes and a faint but continuous din of battle, leaving the imagination to picture the hand-to-hand savagery that was taking place within the woodlands.
The first transport nosed in, kedges streamed, inclined ramps already lowering down its side. Men and horses began moving out to it in an orderly procession while the second transport prepared to go in.
It was all going to plan! This was what it was to have domination of the sea, to know its freedoms and power. In fact-
“Deck hooo! Sail to suth’ard, standing toward!”
It was not yet in sight from the deck but almost certainly it was his relief from the North Sea squadron attracted by the firing, and now there was really nothing for it to do.
Kydd turned back to see if there was need for a follow-up cannonade. The firing had died a little, which made it difficult to-
“Another sail astern of ’un!”
“What d’ye see?” Kydd hailed back.
“Both are ships!” Nothing below a frigate.
“An’ one more!” The lookout’s voice cracked with urgency.
“Take us out, Mr Joyce,” Kydd ordered. “Quick as you like-I need to speak with those ships.”
They were coming on from the southwest with the wind that was paralleling the coast and were soon in sight from the deck.
Certainly frigates, but end-on it was difficult to make out who they were. Two respectably sized ones and a lighter vessel.
“Don’t say as I knows ’em a-tall,” Joyce said, peering through the officer-of-the-watch’s telescope. “Smaller t’gallants, as is usual, less goring in the topsails, like.”
Uneasiness pricked at Kydd. There were no French frigates in the Baltic, or Dutch for that matter. He’d been assured that the only countries with ships of size in these waters were Russia and Sweden. After his time with the Russian Navy he knew what to look for but these were not at all similar: besides, the master had been struck by the marked rectangular shape of their sail, blocky and quite at variance with their own.
Swedes, come to look after their own transports? He doubted it. The Swedes had the gifted Fredrik af Chapman as naval architect in Karlskrona and his designs were sleek and smooth, unlike these more stern and frowning forequarters.
Tyger was close-hauled and necessarily crossing their bows, if at a distance, but something made him rap, “Private signals!”
The confidential fleet challenge soared up, snapping in the increasingly boisterous winds.
There was no response. Neither were any colours aloft that could be seen.
Yet this was not necessarily an enemy-unless they were North Sea squadron, they wouldn’t have access to the signal of the day and colours were not usually flown at sea out of sight of others to save wear and tear on expensive bunting.
Still, they were taking their time replying and getting closer all the time. If in the next few minutes-
“Sir? I’ve a man wishes to speak to you, urgently.” Brice stepped aside to let a seaman come forward.
“Able Seaman Haffner, sir.” He was one of the German seamen fleeing before Bonaparte’s advance, taken on as a volunteer in Konigsberg.
“What is it, Haffner? Smartly now.”
In broken English the story was quickly told. These frigates were Prussian. They had been taken with the rest of the small navy when the French had overrun the main naval ports of Wismar and Rostock. It was likely that they were manned by sending seamen overland from the idle blockaded fleets in French ports-which implied they had picked crews and men to spare.
The smaller one was Albatros, a light frigate similar to L’Aurore; the one with the dark patched foresail was Odin and the other Preussen. The lighter had twenty-eight twelve-pounders but the larger two had thirty-eight guns of eighteen-pounder equivalent each.
They had clearly been dispatched as a squadron to fall on and destroy the transports, evidence that the thwarting of the relief of von Hohenlau’s army was a major concern: a force had been sent that could be relied upon to sweep aside the single frigate standing in their way.
Tyger was hopelessly out-classed: over a hundred guns to his twenty-six eighteen-pounders and six nines. It would be no dishonour to stand aside before this foe and simply harry where he could as they got on with their butchery.
There was nothing in his orders or implied by his agreement that he should sacrifice his ship in the face of such odds and, indeed, if he did and survived, he would then have to explain why he had robbed the Royal Navy of one of their most valuable assets in a hopeless confrontation.
On the other hand if he withdrew he would be condemning thousands to certain death or capture.
Yet if he stood fast, every soul in Tyger would be pitched into a mortal fight with no certain outcome.
Where did his duty lie? To the Prussians or his own men?