Tyger (20 page)

But Archangel was a run-down parody of its glory days. Timber and furs—and not so much of those. Located at the mouth of the Dvina river, it would be beset by ice in a few weeks and then there would be nothing happening for at least six months.

Despite this, Kydd felt a thrill. Few naval officers would ever see what he was about to: the very top of the world!

“Sir, eight have deserted,” Hollis reported, with an expression of rebuke at Kydd’s having granted liberty to men who hadn’t earned it.

Kydd looked away, frustrated. This was more than an offence, it was a violation of trust. Were the Tygers still in a defiant mood, disaffected and hostile? “Who?”

Hollis named them.

All good men, no dregs of the press. And gone off in a body—this was no idle straggling. There would be more soon, for Gothenburg was a lively international port and they would have no trouble finding a berth on an outgoing merchantman.

“Stop all liberty,” Kydd said heavily. This was punishing the innocent but he couldn’t risk losing more. He knew the reason: their destination had got out and they wanted no part of the hardships of an Arctic voyage.

Only one of her company was rejoicing—Dillon, whose desire to see something of the world was about to be fulfilled beyond expectations. On ship’s business ashore he’d picked up more worthy tomes, some in Russian, for despite having the tongue he’d never heard it spoken in its native land.

They sailed two days later, into the teeth of a northeaster straight from the Arctic, a bitter foretaste of worse to come.

Leaden skies and white-streaked grey seas added to a feeling of unease at leaving the world of men for the boreal realm where they did not belong. With winds dead foul, only a hard clawing far to seaward would clear the long and formidable Norwegian coast, to be followed later by a board inwards to high latitudes to clear North Cape and into the Barents Sea.

Tyger
heaved and laboured, the spray driven aft, spiteful and stinging. A bitter wind cut into the muffled figures about her deck and the watch hunkered down behind the weather bulwarks. With canvas taut and hard as wood, the straining rigging strummed fretfully, a mournful drone rising and falling, like a funeral dirge.

Kydd could feel the old canker. Them and us. The tyrants and the slaves. But in these conditions, at the very time it was needed, there was no possibility of bringing the officers and men together in traditional ways—at divisions, a church service, light-hearted competition mast against mast, an impromptu entertainment around the fore-bitts for seamen and officer guests.

Instead there would be weary and bone-chilled men going below to take out their frustrations in cursing the fate that had sent them to
Tyger
. There was little he could do about it and virtually no chance of the ship’s company coming together as one to face the enemy.
Tyger
was as divided as ever.

As the latitude grew higher, so did the ceaseless, long and immensely powerful seas charging out from their polar heart, a strength in them that made it a folly to confront. Taking them on the starboard bow one after another,
Tyger
reared and writhed to avoid their punishment, but in relentless, heedless succession they seethed past in a roar and clamour that had her twisting back as if in pain.

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?

They stepped off to the stares of labourers and nearby stallkeepers, heading for the long white building, Gostiny Dvor, or Merchants’ Court, that Dillon had been assured was every captain’s first port of call.

Kydd was thankful he’d thought to wear sea undress uniform without star and sash: with their naval accoutrements they stood out enough already. But then they quickly discovered to their dismay that everywhere was a sea of dark-brown mud.

There were no paved avenues—only roads laid with timbers along which carts with tinkling bells jolted and swayed. Peasants trudged by with impossible loads and a boy in bare feet driving geese stopped to stare at them.

It was a strange, forbidding place.

Their entry into the Merchants’ Court stopped the hum of activity and half a hundred eyes stared at them from behind tall, ancient writing desks.

“Tell ’em it’s Sir Thomas Kydd of the Royal Navy come to pay his respects to their mayor.”

The man Dillon addressed looked at him in consternation, then let it be known that Mayor Vasiliy Popov was not to be troubled on minor matters as he was a figure of some consequence in the town.

Kydd explained that he was in Archangel on matters touching on trade and would appreciate a little of his time.

Doubtfully, the man got up and went to an office at the back. There were angry words and suddenly at the door stood a giant of a man with a monstrous black beard.

“Come!” he roared, beckoning to Kydd. “You’re Ingliss?” he said, in a voice of thunder. “Vot you doing here?”

After an elaborate courtly bow, Kydd suggested they discuss matters further in a more private situation.

Popov hesitated, then pushed past and led them to a low room with dark, varnished panels and smoke-grimed portraits. It smelt of boiled cabbage and strong tobacco.

They sat at an old-fashioned meeting table and Popov boomed something unintelligible out of the door, then closed it and took his seat.

“Now. You come in man-o’-war? Why?”

Kydd explained their mission to uncover any French threat, careful to refer to him as our good Russian ally.

The door opened and two others entered, glaring suspiciously at Kydd as they sat opposite. Close behind, a servant came, bearing a coarsely made brown glass bottle and small glasses.

“No French here,” rumbled Popov, leaning back to let the servant pour out the colourless liquor before each man. “None since the peace finish. So?”

He glared about him, growling,
“Za zdorovje,”
and downed the contents of his glass in one savage gulp.

Kydd was not going to be caught out and took just a sip of the rough potato liquor.

“Drink!” Popov demanded, miming a full toss.

Kydd replied, “Sir, this is far too good a potion to down carelessly,” peering up at his glass as if it were a rare claret. Bowden and Dillon followed his lead.