Tyger (16 page)

All the while he himself would be taking his ease in a far country on the proceeds of his …

A surge of shame burned inside him.

He couldn’t do it. Not to Captain Kydd—and the true-hearted seamen who stood by their ship.

In a rush of determination he threw off the covers and found his watch-coat, drawing it on over his nightshirt. Inching open the door of his cabin he peeped out into the gun-room. It was steeped in the darkness of the silent hours and he tiptoed out.

He was ready with his excuse to the marine sentry at the gun-room door but the man was standing glassily upright and didn’t even blink as he passed.

It was only three steps to the aft companion up, carefully avoiding the rows of hammocks stretching away in the gloom, swaying gently together with the easy heave of the ship. As his head rose above the level of the hatchway he paused. This was now the gun-deck, open to the sky forward, and close by, under the quarterdeck above, the captain’s cabin spaces.

Nothing moved.

Reassured, he stepped out on to the deck and went quickly to the door of the cabin where a marine sentry stood.

“To see the captain,” he said in a low voice.

The sentinel hesitated, then stood aside.

Nowell made to open the door—it wouldn’t open. He tried again. It was locked!

“Why—”

He never finished the question. The smack of the musket across his skull, in a blinding flash, ended his purpose there and then.

“Look again. He must be somewhere, damn it!”

Even as he spoke Kydd was caught in the chill of a premonition. Nowell was cruelly dejected and it was not unknown for men to suicide by throwing themselves overside during the night watches—or might there be the more sinister explanation that he had had wind of a plot and been silenced?

Either way a ferocious tension now gripped
Tyger
. Hardly a word was spoken as men padded about with animal wariness, some deliberately keeping their gaze turned away forward, others stopping to stare back at the quarterdeck as if to be the one to witness a descending catastrophe.

Whatever cataclysm was threatening would not be long in breaking.

Turning out the marines was useless. They could not stand to indefinitely, and in their pitiful numbers were a pathetic deterrent even if they could be fully relied on.

There was only one way to deal with it: to stand fast and confront whatever evil finally burst out.

The shadowy organising genius must show himself, and then at least he’d know who his adversary was and what he was up against. An end to the ominous stormcloud of dread and foreboding. No more—

“
Deck hoooo!
Dead astern—a frigate!”

Nobody moved. It was already topsails up from the quarter-deck. For some reason the main-top lookout had not sighted it until almost too late. One thing was sure: it could not have come at a worse time.

Tyger
went to quarters in an agonisingly long time—but there were men at the guns, others at their station. Kydd vowed that if it was an enemy they’d make a fight of it.

The sailing master appeared beside him.

“Ah, Mr Le Breton,” he said, with as much spirit as he could muster. “There—a frigate. An enemy, do you think?”

Calmly the master shielded his eyes to look. “A Frenchman you may believe, sir.”

Its profile lengthened as it altered course to come up on them from seaward. It was now possible to make out the tricolour—it was the enemy right enough, a heavy frigate with many more men than
Tyger
if it came to boarding, which, of course, was the last thing he intended.

Kydd smiled grimly. If it was thinking to cut off their escape to seaward then it wasn’t the first to misread a British opening manoeuvre.

He considered his tactics. The Frenchman had the weather gage and was positioning to cut across any move by him to reach the open sea. The land was under his lee to starboard and the winds going large. Unless he wanted a prolonged chase, with his ship as the prey, there was only one alternative. “Helm up, hard a-larb’d!” he ordered crisply.

By hauling to the wind he was going to throw his ship across the bows of the other in a raking broadside, or if
Tyger
couldn’t reach there in time, at the very least he could bring about a close-range combat.

Obediently, as the yards were braced up their bowsprit swung across the horizon and they began closing fast.

“We’ll give ’em a what-for they’ll remember!” Kydd said to the master.

“Stand to your guns, lads!” he roared, as they came up on the enemy—who unaccountably shivered sail and slowed as if in welcome.

Kydd glanced across at the master, puzzled … Then the whole world went insane.

Le Breton darted to Paddon and snatching his speaking trumpet, bawled something in French to the deck in general.

A dozen or more men wheeled about, snatched pistols from the open arms chests, then returned to stand behind each gun, a pistol trained steadily on the gun-captain.

Another half-dozen took position along the centre of the deck, their pistols roving about, alert for the first to make a move among the crew.

“Any who moves—any at all—will be killed instantly,” bellowed Le Breton, his own pistol trained on Kydd’s belly. “Stand still by your guns and no one will be hurt. This vessel is now in possession of the French republic!”

Kydd let out his breath. It was Le Breton. The calm Guernseyman had master-minded the whole thing in as neat a coup as may be conceived. There could be no man who would sacrifice himself to certain death by being first to resist—and all the time they were racing on to come under the guns of the French frigate and ignominy.

“Douse that rag, Gaston!” the master snarled.

A man loped to the halyards and swiftly hauled down their colours.

An appalled paralysis gripped the ship. Pale-faced, Hollis stared at Kydd in supplication while Paddon stood motionless, his expression blank.

“She acknowledges, comrade,” came a voice to one side.

“Very good,” snapped Le Breton, and his eyes flicked to the frigate in triumph.

At this Kydd flung himself away sideways and down, rolling with it in a frantic dive. The pistol banged but it missed and he was up, in one fluid movement yanking his sword out and lunging for the master, the point just an inch from his throat, stopping him in his tracks.

Kydd’s blade held him while he circled for what he wanted—a pistol from the arms chest. He brought it up and held it under the man’s jaw, letting his sword slide to the deck.

“Move!” he hissed, jabbing, crowding, until his back was safely against the mainmast.

“I have your leader, you mutinous dogs!” he bellowed. “He dies if you move an inch!” His mind raced. It was unlikely they would throw down their weapons to save his life. He had a desperately short time to turn the tables.

“You! Haul up our colours,” he barked to a nearby sailor.

The man hesitated so he ground the barrel of the pistol into Le Breton, bringing a cry of pain.

Tyger
’s ensign rose again.

“Bear away,” he snapped at the stupefied helmsman. “Do it, damn your hide!”

Kydd’s eyes never left Le Breton’s.

Now there was a chance.

“Listen to me, all of you!” he roared. “Our colours are a-fly again and we’re running free, heading out. The Frenchy thinks he’s been tricked. He’ll never come for you now!”

In the tense stillness he shouted, “You’re outnumbered, damn it! How long can you stand there like that? For ever?”

He saw Le Breton’s arm stealthily creeping up and grinned mirthlessly as he viciously ground the pistol barrel into him again.

He might have the ringleader but he was faced with a standoff without resolution.

It could go either way and all it would take would be—

“I’ll give you a chance!” he bellowed “Stay where you are and take your chances at a court-martial—or go overside now and let your friends pick you up!”

His talk about the French seeing trickery might or might not be true but these men would see it as a done deed. The whole rising was designed only to hold
Tyger
in a state of suspension for the few minutes until the ship was safely under the guns of the other. Without the enemy guns, there was no threat.

First one, then another ran to the side and plunged into the sea. The rest broke and raced to follow.

It was too much for Le Breton. With a screech he threw himself at Kydd, the sudden movement catching him off-balance, his pistol discharging harmlessly into the air.

They fell to the deck, the Frenchman gouging, smashing, bludgeoning in a demented frenzy that Kydd couldn’t stand against until, quite suddenly, it was all over.

A giant of a man had snatched the crazed attacker bodily off him and held him aloft.

Dazed, Kydd could only watch as the Swede swivelled and threw the man down directly across the iron barrel of a gun. The sound of his maniac shrieking snapped off in the same moment that Kydd heard the sickening crack of a broken spine.

The last of the mutineers had flung themselves over the side and were now just a straggle of dark heads in the white of the ship’s wake. Kydd breathed deeply. With their guilty fleeing he had cleansed
Tyger
of the evil that had been infecting her.

“W
ELL
, ’
PON MY SOUL
!” Admiral Russell sat back in admiration. “And I honour you for it, m’ boy! It was the thing to do, to be sure. You’d never have irons enough to keep ’em all under eye, an’ without you knew who was a rogue, well, that was a rattling good catch to root ’em out, I’m bound to say.”

“Thank you, sir. I was concerned that without prisoners for the court-martial it would—”

“Never fret, sir. There’ll be no court-martial, conceivably perhaps a quiet court of inquiry. Admiralty don’t like it known there’s unrest, let alone Frenchy agents abroad.”

He reflected for a moment. “You’ll be grievous short-handed then, and lacking a third lieutenant.”

“And a sailing master, sir.”

“Quite. I see nothing for it but a quick return to Yarmouth with my note of encouragement to the Impress Service. You shouldn’t suffer botheration over a new third—there’s enough young sprigs around kicking their heels.”

“I’ll sail this hour, sir—and thank you for your understanding.”

When the anchor went down in Yarmouth Roads Kydd could not suppress a shuddering sigh. He knew so little about any of his company: both they and his ship were still largely an unknown quantity.

But now there were other things to see to.

The first was to send off his official report of events to the Admiralty, including a mention that his actions had had the complete approbation of the admiral commanding the North Sea squadron.

In a separate cover he took up their commitment to allow him to name his officers and asked for Bowden and Brice—he didn’t want to see Paddon again. And more in hope than expectation, while acknowledging that even as the rate of his ship did not warrant it, the appointment of one Clinton as acting captain, Royal Marines, to stand by his current raw lieutenant after his ordeal would be much appreciated.

There was one other he would give a great deal to secure: Dillon, his former confidential secretary. He hurriedly penned a note, regretting the lack of notice and urging him, if interested, to lose no time in joining.

There was no question of liberty ashore for the Tygers. “They have to earn it first, Mr Hollis!” he had said loudly, on deck, within the hearing of nearby hands. He wasn’t going to risk losing even more men in the nervous, febrile atmosphere that followed recent events and before he had had a chance to pull the ship together.

The first lieutenant was treating him with something like hero-worship—or was it that it was in Kydd’s power to have him replaced as well? He’d decided to keep Hollis because he knew the ship and seamen well and would probably be amenable to Kydd’s ways in the future.

Kydd stormed ashore to the impress office, leaving Tysoe to do what he could to ransack local shops and chandlers in an attempt to make his living spaces comfortable, and to lay in cabin stores as he saw fit.

“Not much of a catch locally,” he was told, on showing Russell’s letter of encouragement, “but with this authorisation, I can send to Sheerness for you. Can’t promise you’ll get your full entitling but …”

Back on board Kydd publicly railed at the purser for not moving faster in securing the sweets of the land for his ship’s company: “soft tommy”—baked bread in place of hard tack—beer, fresh beef, greens and all the little things that went far in making a sailor’s life a modicum more bearable.

When that had been put in train he called for the big Swede and put the question again.

“Aye, sir,” Halgren said slowly. “I’d like it right well, sir.”

He now had a captain’s coxswain.

On the third day the press tender arrived with barely satisfactory numbers, and later Bowden and Brice reported aboard, recounting how they had suddenly been plucked from the disconsolate crowd of petitioning lieutenants in the Admiralty and told to join HMS
Tyger
that very day.

Barely suppressing his delight as he welcomed them, Kydd told them briefly what had happened and they handed over orders they were carrying.

Kydd was a little taken aback as he was under the command of the North Sea squadron and therefore not normally at the disposal of the Admiralty.

In his cabin he opened the packet quickly: a single page only. It seemed it was convenient to their lordships that
Tyger
lay at Yarmouth at this time, for they were minded to detach her for a short but important service: he should hold himself at readiness. In the event a Mr Stuart of the Foreign Office would make contact with him in the near future for a mission of great discretion.

His eyes narrowed. Was this to be a malicious complication to crowd in on
Tyger
before he had worked the ship up to something like effectiveness?

But it was no use worrying about it: this Mr Stuart would reveal all when he came. Meanwhile he had other matters to attend to.