Then one morning the last whaling ship slipped by for the open sea.
It was on.
Their navigational objective was plain. Like a rough inverted triangle, Spitzbergen was of considerable size, some two hundred miles from its southern tip to the north, which was marked as indistinguishable from the great polar ice pack. The east coast was even at this time still encased in ice so the whaling station had to be in the west.
The unsuspecting whaler would be sailing direct to the west coast therefore, so for Tyger it would be a diverging course to arrive on the east. What they did after that was not altogether clear as Kydd didn’t want to let it be generally known what they were going for until after they’d made landfall, and he could see with his own eyes what conditions would allow.
He was outwardly confident but inside he was uneasy. They were headed for breathtakingly high latitudes—eighty degrees north, where ninety was the North Pole itself. The very limit of human existing—the very top of the world!
Tyger put to sea a day later and immediately met a chill north-easterly.
It eased but the biting wind brought shudders and tested their gear—oilskins with plenty of wool under them.
Horner showed them a whaler’s trick: before going aloft, have a shipmate tie off the sleeves and ankles with spun yarn, together with a stout line around the waist, which was connected to another going fore and aft under the crotch. This enabled them to mount the rigging without their gear ballooning up in the fierce winds.
All hands, including Kydd, now wore Monmouth caps—warm, knitted coverings lined with felt and a tie-loop to save it if blown off.
Day by day they penetrated further into the north, the cold steadily more insidious. The first ice was seen, insignificant fragments that were beneath Horner’s notice but they held the Tygers spellbound—the first tokens of the reality that lay in wait for them out there in the frozen north. Close to, most of the floes were grubby and discoloured, some with seabirds perched cheekily on them as they watched the ship pass by. Horner grimly assured them that they would see far grander ice than this before they made England again.
Sometimes the broad grey seas were transformed to a vivid blue under a vast sky, always accompanied by piercing cold of a keen purity, the white of breaking wave-crests a sparkling brilliance, and as the latitude steadily mounted, an unearthly quality took hold. It was of a harsh light almost unbearable in its intensity; the bowl of the sky now seeming more immense, exalted; their ship, lifting over the ceaseless vast swells, now so humble and insignificant.
One morning there was a strange and preternatural luminosity growing out of the sea far ahead. It intensified, a low white glow spreading to each side and even catching the underneath of the thin grey cloud, but there was nothing on the clear horizon that gave away its meaning to the wondering seamen.
“That’s the ice-blink we get off of Spitzbergen,” Horner told Kydd. “And it’ll be Sørkapp Land—further on it has a dirty yellow in it where there’s bare land under.”
Within hours they raised a needle-sharp peak that stood above others like it, and then the lower levels came into view, ice-streaked and increasingly formidable as they sailed through scattered floes and fragments, these now a pure white and often tinted in soft blue and green.
Further in among the waves a pair of black forms rhythmically broke surface and fell as they progressed, their glistening backs and tall fins humping in unison.
“Where’s your harpoon, Mr Horner?” Kydd teased.
The old whaleman looked at him blankly. “As they’re killer whales only, not worth the stalking.”
Nearer still, the mountains took on massive form and colour—dark rust, for there was not a scrap of green to soften the appalling desolation that was spreading before them. Nothing but a cruel majesty of iron ramparts and sweeping valleys, sheer mountains and gleaming ice.
“Well, Cap’n, an’ we’re here?”
Kydd pulled himself together. In the midst of this grandeur, to be contemplating an act of war. And without charts or sailing directions he was completely dependent on just one man. There was no other option than to lay the whole thing before him.
“Mr Horner. We’ll go below and discuss our position.”
“Ha! Had a notion there’d be more to it than you said.”
“Then, sir, where’s the whaling station?”
Joyce’s atlas was produced.
“We’s here,” Horner said, tapping the apex of the inverted triangle, the extreme southern tip of Spitzbergen. “And all up the coast on the west you has mighty fjords—and some tiddlers. The Dutchy whalers are at Barentsburg, named after their hero, an’ that’s halfway up, a dozen miles into the biggest, Isfjorden.”
Even at the small scale of the atlas it was easy to see the repeated pattern of deeply incised fjords and it gave Kydd an idea.
“I can’t take him on this territory. Now, he’ll be sailing out of Isfjorden and will want to shape course south. If I lie out of sight in the next fjord below, he’ll be passing right by and I’ll know.”
“I’d say it’s as good a plan as any. An’ I can help you with that. Next ’un south is Bellsund an’ tucked inside is a quiet little bay where we rides out a westerly.”
There were still many questions to answer. Was the fur transport real or imaginary? And if it was, could it indeed be at Barentsburg awaiting this last shipment before sailing?
There was only one way to find out: to sail in and see for himself—but that was impossible. The sight of an English frigate would ensure that it stayed put, snug and wary, until they left.
The boats? A man-o’-war’s craft were distinctive and under sail a dead giveaway. And a quick glance at the dire landscape put paid to the idea of landing a party on the other side to climb up and observe from the heights.
Frustration built. To be thwarted at the final hurdle!
“We’ll get to Bellsund, the least we can do.”
“Might think o’ something, Mr Kydd,” Horner said sympathetically.
It was all of a day’s sail, yet further north, past frigid bastions, blotched and veined with white, and hummocked drift ice that reached out to them, occasionally bringing a thump at the bows and a bumping passage down the side.
Their pilot stood a-brace on the quarterdeck the whole time, sharp-eyed over to starboard where the mountains met the sea. “Squalls come whistlin’ down from your ice-rivers and no warning save you catch the sea’s darkling under ’em,” he muttered.
The weather was holding but that was no guarantee that it would last. The cold was mercilessly penetrating, especially for the group around the helm, who could do nothing to avoid the bitter down-draught from the mainsail and not even the sight of a long-toothed walrus staring up at them from atop an ice floe made up for it.
Rounding the headland into Bellsund itself, so close to the iron rocks and soaring crags, the sheer bleakness and hostility of the land beat out at them: this was a place of trolls and winter ogres where man had no right to trespass.
It was as Horner had said, a secluded little bay out of sight of the open sea. Kydd was taken aback at the visual impact of its colossal majesty—not one but two glaciers feeding into the milewide bay from between massive snow-capped mountain ranges that swept down to a desolate rock-strewn fringing shoreline, the bay filled from one side to the other with a dense scatter of small floating ice fragments.
“You’ll want to drop hook here, Cap’n.”
They were only just within the near-circular bay but Kydd took his advice. In the lee of the mountains the wind had dropped to a whisper and the sea was glassy smooth, the stillness breathtaking. Atop slimed crags countless rock ptarmigans, malamuck, kirmew and others kept up a ceaseless din while at the water’s edge seals stared at them.
The ship stood down but most men stayed on deck to gaze and wonder. Kydd felt a tug of sadness that his old sea companion and deepest friend, Renzi, was not there to witness this, Nature at her grandest and most t
errifying.
“Sir?” It was Hollis, almost comical in his cold-weather gear. Kydd knew what was on his mind. Was the frigate going back to sea or would they remain here for an indefinite time?
He didn’t have an answer. “Ah, I’ll let you—”
A cry from the fo’c’sle made Kydd wheel about.
Appearing from around the headland was a small lugger with a trysail beetling seaward past them, their first sign of humanity for so long.
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 parti
cles 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.
Tyger: A Kydd Sea Adventure (Kydd Sea Adventures) Page 18
