Tyger (31 page)

“He’s saying that Boney is winning not only over the Austrians and themselves but now the Russians, who’ve suffered slaughter. They’ve all fallen back almost to the end of Prussia and their king and court are removed to Königsberg at the border.”

There was more impassioned French.

“A large part of their army has been outflanked and cut off from the main and he’s saying that if it’s forced to capitulate it’ll bring shame and dishonour to their flag, besides removing a substantial portion from the order of battle facing Bonaparte.”

“So what does he want us to do?”

“They’ll hold out if they can be supplied along the coast using boats and only desire that these come under our protection.”

“Sounds reasonable enough.”

“Except there’s no way we can help ’em,” Kydd said, with asperity. “We’ve got a return convoy in a few days and—”

“Yes, so we have. Hmm. It does cross my mind—”

“We can’t get involved, David!”

“—that it would go ill with one who, when begged for assistance by the king of one of our coalition partners, refused and thereby caused the surrender and humiliation of his army. The government would throw a fit! No, we have to do what we can, do you not feel?”

“Well, send one of the cutters?” Kydd said weakly.

“I was rather thinking of a pair … and a frigate to watch over ’em.”

Meaning
Tyger
. Kydd was no stranger to armies and their battlefields, but the last time he’d been swept up in one was in Buenos Aires, which had ended in misery and defeat, and he had no desire at all to be sucked into another. “No! You can’t—your escort for a damnably valuable convoy cut by half? This is too much!”

“It won’t be so arduous, I’d believe. Lie off and watch the boats bring relief, that sort of thing.”

“I—I’m not sure of the Tygers yet. They need more time to settle.”

“This isn’t as who’s to say a fleet engagement, old chap! As you said, it’s more armies smiting each other mightily while you look on. Oh, and try not to be too long.”

As
Tyger
got under weigh, Kydd gloomily stared at his orders, written out at his insistence. “To render such assistance to the military forces of the King of Prussia in furtherance of the relief of his army in Ermeland as shall be within your power, saving always that the interests of His Majesty shall not thereby be imperilled.”

Nothing about the extent of his aid, the hazarding of his command, the length of time he should spend in the defence. He’d heard of sieges going on for years but realised there must be a natural end to it, which would be when his own victuals ran out. And, of course, when Hozier reported to Admiral Russell what he’d done, there could very well be an abrupt reversal of orders or at the very least a relief sent.

He had to make the best of it, and he would insist that not a single one of
Tyger
’s company set foot on land. There would be no hauling guns, hopeless armed parties, heroic rearguards. The task was clear and unequivocal: to safeguard the supply boats and nothing else.

He’d been given
Dart
cutter and
Stoat
armed ketch, and they were dutifully following in his wake. They would form the inshore guard while he lay to seaward as a deterrent.

He let Dillon babble happily away with Gürsten in their gruff Germanic—he’d make sure his secretary was on hand when he made his number with the Prussian king.

The merchant brig led the way and the next day they raised the south Baltic coast. As his charts were rudimentary, Kydd was grateful for this guide ahead. Better ones would be the first thing he asked for, along with finding out just what resources were available.

The shoreline was uniformly flat and well wooded, with a fringing buff-coloured beach extending for miles. There were few settlements and nothing to indicate that in the interior vast armies were locked in a ferocious struggle, not even the usual nondescript far-off rising cloud of dust and dun haze that seemed always to hang over a battle.

At an opening in the line of coast, Dillon pointed. “Klaus says that’s Pillau, the entrance to the Pregel river, and Königsberg lies within.”

Two things roused misgivings in Kydd. The first was the complete absence of any kind of water-craft. The second was that Königsberg lay up the river. There was no way he was going to hazard his ship in a channel no more than a quarter-mile across—and, besides, a star-shaped fort, fat and menacing, dominated the entrance.

Yet he had to make contact and discover the situation. He should send a lieutenant on ahead but knew their second-hand report would not be enough. He’d go himself: it was not impossible that the whole thing was an elaborate French plot to set a trap for any British warship gulled into coming.

“Mr Bray, I’m heading ashore in the merchantman to see what I can. Your orders are to stand off and on until I return. Should you sight signals requiring you to enter harbour you are to ignore them. Failing my return in twenty-four hours you are to sail immediately to acquaint Admiral Russell of the circumstances. Clear?”

The deep-set eyes looked back at him, guarded, alert. “Aye aye, sir.” There was no attempt to wish him well but neither was there any hidden satisfaction that he could detect.

“Very well. Mr Dillon to accompany me. Carry on, please.”

It was a complete unknown he was going into, on the word of a foreigner with no credentials he was in a position to recognise. He allowed Tysoe to array him in full-dress uniform with star and ribbon. Then, with Gürsten and a quiet Dillon, he boarded the merchantman.

They passed the citadel. Kydd saw the line of shore to the right fall away into a broad stretch of water before it closed again, and after some hours they made out the city of Königsberg with its medieval spires and palaces, canals and opera houses, and a waterfront choked with idle shipping.

Kydd was keyed up for anything but this was not what he was expecting. Here was a great city with, no doubt, a great army—that needed rescuing. Vaguely he remembered figures of half a million or more under arms in the titanic striving taking place not so far distant. How could a single frigate make a difference in this convulsion?

Gürsten insisted on being first on shore, determined that Kydd should have the state carriage and escort of troopers suitable for the saviour of their army.

A crowd gathered while it was being prepared, marvelling at Kydd’s exotic uniform, and he grew increasingly uncomfortable, albeit relieved that this showed Gürsten was indeed what he seemed. He nodded gravely, doffing his gold-laced hat to this one or that, and they set off through the streets, the splendour and jingle of their escort attracting stares and comment on all sides.

They eventually arrived at a palace.

“Königsberg Castle,” Gürsten proudly announced. “Ze Order of Teutonic Knights an’ … an’ …”

Seeing that his English was not equal to his passion, Dillon intervened, then relayed to Kydd that the forbidding conical tower had been there since the 1200s and was now the seat of the Hohenzollern reigning monarch. He added that this was the home city of the recently deceased Immanuel Kant, he of
The Critique of Pure Reason
, and of the mathematician Leonhard Euler, whose solving of the Seven Bridges of Königsberg puzzle had ensured his immortality.

That only increased Kydd’s feeling of helplessness: this was no quaint medieval town or decayed magnificence, such as Naples, but the capital of a great power. The legend of the invincible Royal Navy had led this nation to seek him out for its deliverance.

He was ushered into the presence of King Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, Elector of Brandenburg, in the imperial reception chamber. A tall, reserved figure, the monarch was arrayed in military full dress, dark blue with a red blaze and massive silver epaulettes. His sword was an imposing cavalry sabre.

Gürsten introduced him—it sounded suspiciously like “Tamas von Kydd”—and he managed as elegant a leg as he could muster.

Once again Kydd was grateful to Renzi’s tutelage in French. He’d learned the language in the tedium of the blockade of Toulon those distant years ago and remembered Renzi saying that all the crowned heads of Europe spoke French to each other.

“I’m honoured indeed to be welcomed by Your Majesty into his palace,” he tried.

“The honour is all mine,” Friedrich replied easily, in the language, “as providing me with the opportunity of making the acquaintance of a very gallant officer …”

Kydd bowed wordlessly. What did “gallant” imply?

“… who comes to succour us in these harrowing times.”

“Your Majesty, I will endeavour to render such service as my ship can provide.”

“Ah. As it happens, there is a measure of assistance that we would be grateful should you perform for us, a mere trifle I’m sure to one of Nelson’s tribe.”

“Sir?”

“Time presses—it were better you hear it directly from our distinguished servant, Generalleutnant von Blücher.”

The stern and moustachioed figure in the background stamped forward and, with a click of his heels, bowed jerkily. “Just so, Kapitan,” he said, in heavily accented French.

He backed away from the presence, bowing, and led Kydd down a richly ornamented hallway until he came to a guarded door.

“The war room,” he snapped, as a young officer hastily flung wide the door.

Inside a vast table bore a single map, tended by staff officers who crashed to attention. At barked words in German they resumed their business.

Blücher went immediately to one side and peered down at the complexity of lines and pointers. An officer obligingly pulled down a lamp cluster cunningly suspended with counter-weights.

“There!” He gestured.

Kydd moved forward and studied it, his first sight of the real situation, aware of the steely eyes of the Prussian on him.

It was a military map, the hachures and topography unfamiliar and the names unpronounceable. It meant nothing to him.

He nodded, with what he hoped was a wise expression, and asked if a smaller-scale map was available to place it in context.

One was brought and Blücher stood back with folded arms as Gürsten nervously explained it.

Kydd began to take it in: this was central Europe and, with the Baltic to anchor his position, he looked on while Gürsten talked.

Prussia, it seemed, extended right from the borders of the Batavian Republic—Holland—beneath the peninsula of Denmark, on to two-thirds the extent of the Baltic to the border with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. To the south Gürsten pointed out countries whose names meant little to Kydd: Saxony, Bohemia, Bavaria, others, all of which were apparently important to know.

He snatched a glance at Blücher. The general was impassive but his thin lips were beginning to curl in disdain at the incredible ignorance of the English officer, and Kydd reddened.

“Thank you, Mr Gürsten. Now be so good as to show me how much of Prussia is at present occupied by the French.”

The young officer slowly drew a finger from the Batavian Republic in the west on and on, through proud and ancient provinces to the east, Hanover, Brandenburg and Pomerania. Over rivers: the Rhine, the Elbe and the Oder. And cities: Hamburg, Berlin and Warsaw.

It did not cease until there remained only a small margin far up against the border to the east. It was then that Kydd understood.

Unless a miracle occurred they were facing extinction as a nation at the hands of Bonaparte. And they had come to him for help—in this grand scheme it was little enough to ask, and in that moment he resolved to do what he could for them.

“Thank you,” he said briskly. “May we see the present situation again?”

They returned to the big map and Gürsten studied it for a moment. “All of Pomerania has fallen and here we have the Vistula, which was crossed by the French some weeks ago. Our lines at the moment are so.” With the sea barely visible along the north edge he traced a line from it across to the southeast. “In the centre is Feldmarschall Count von Bennigsen, our joint commander with the Russian forces, say ninety thousand only. He faces Ney, Victor, Grouchy and Lannes each with an entire corps, some hundred and fifty thousand. There is—”

“Where’s Bonaparte?” Kydd said, fascinated by the gigantic scale of this picture of armies locked together in mortal striving.

Gürsten looked up in surprise. “Sir, the imperial headquarters would be here, close to the rear where his lines of communication—”

“Yes, of course. Pray do continue.” Kydd’s eyes, however, lingered on the place indicated, his imagination gripped by a vision of the tyrant emperor who held all Europe in thrall now from that little village with tentacles of command connecting him with his marshals and armies, invincible and ruthless.

“Königsberg lies here on the Pregel.” Gürsten pointed to the eastern edge of the map, almost to the last extremity before the border and uncomfortably close—by eye no more than forty miles from the fighting.

“And your trapped army?”

“Here.” He tapped at a point well within the advancing French lines. But it was on the coast in the north—next to the sea.

“Hmm. I see. Unless you are supplied you must capitulate.” Kydd stroked his chin. The distance to cover was not great, even if boats gave a wide berth to French guns before they swung inshore, and providing the weather held, there should be no difficulty in maintaining a continuous flow. There could be contrary currents or shoals but with local charts there should be no difficulty.

Then he recalled the suspicious absence of shipping and asked, “When we arrived I saw all your vessels idle in port. What must this mean?”

“Oh. First, I could say that without our navy they’re worried about privateers but mainly, well, there’s no trade possible when every supply and market is in the hands of the enemy.”

It would be a rash privateer to try conclusions with
Tyger
, and a resupply would be a straightforward enough matter, with so many unused hulls to call upon.

Straightening with a smile, he said, with what he hoped was winning confidence, “Very well, gentlemen, I shall help you. Your army will be relieved by boat, safely guarded by the Royal Navy.”