He put it out of his mind. There was quite sufficient to worry about for now.
Chapter 12
The two frigates made their move. First one, then the other vessel broke off, presumably to rejoin Allemand. Intelligently, they took contrasting courses: which was the feint away from the squadron?
But it didn’t matter. In the end both hapless captains had to head for their squadron and as long as Kydd stayed with one the result would be the same.
In the gathering gloom there were betraying flashes of white wake but they faded as night drew in and Kydd brought Tyger closer, letting the dark shape of the frigate loom unmistakably out on their bow. This was the hardest part. So close, any sudden move of the enemy could catch Tyger unaware and bring about an engagement he must avoid, and in the shadows they could be up to anything. He doubled the lookouts and had the watch-on-deck take position by the sheets and braces in readiness.
Night became absolute.
At a glass past nine, before the betraying moonrise, simultaneous shouts rang out along Tyger’s deck. The chase had suddenly altered course to take the wind more on her quarter and was heading away quickly.
Kydd’s orders came crisply and Tyger swung about to follow, well before the frigate was swallowed in the darkness. Almost certainly this was now the intersecting course for the squadron.
Crossing to the binnacle, he looked down at the dim compass card. Uneasy, he glanced up to meet the master’s steady gaze. ‘Makes not a lot of sense,’ Joyce said, in a low voice. ‘Sou’-sou’-west is fair for the trades, not much else. Where’s the villain off to?’
The north-easterly trade winds were what impelled ships past Iberia to Africa and beyond. This course would take them ridiculously far out to sea from Lisbon, if that was ever their goal.
‘We stay with him,’ Kydd ordered.
Hour by hour they stretched out into the Atlantic. The moon lifted above the horizon, gilding fretful clouds and spreading a hard glitter on the dark seas, throwing the frigate into sharp relief. They could not lose it now.
But it was unreadable: if this was a true course to meet up with the squadron it could be bound anywhere – across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, around Africa to the Indian Ocean, as the French Admiral Linois had done earlier, or even south to round the Horn …
The chase continued through the night and into the grey day following.
Then, with no warning, an hour or so after midday, the frigate threw her helm over and, directly before the wind, charged down on Tyger.
Kydd’s rapid orders had his ship conforming at once and sheering off out of its way – but the Frenchman didn’t vary his course, plunging on without deviation, past Tyger and away.
And suddenly Kydd understood. Quick work with a Gunter’s scale on the Iberian chart confirmed his reasoning. ‘Allemand’s made a dogleg to seaward to get around Cadiz without being seen by Collingwood’s scouts. If we extend the second leg back we get a point of intersection as near as damn it to thirty-six and twenty degrees to Gibraltar’s thirty-six and eight. The beggar’s headed into the Med!’
Kydd had relied on falling in with one of the many cruisers and sloops that were part of the Iberian blockade to tell the news of Allemand’s breakout. As he’d been unable to do so, the intelligence was still not known this far south. The prospect of a powerful force entering the vitally strategic waters of the Mediterranean had to be passed on.
But Allemand was no fool. He’d transit the Strait of Gibraltar under cover of darkness. If Kydd left the pursuit to go in to warn them, it was at the risk of being trapped in the notorious currents and failing in his primary task, which was never to let them out of his sight.
The frigate was joined by the other at six degrees west longitude, and later in the day the massed sails of Allemand’s squadron lifted above the horizon. Kydd had been right, but his hands were tied. Frigates on scouting duties were usually sent in pairs or with fast cutters in company for just this situation; by no fault of Strachan’s, he hadn’t been able to detach one to get the intelligence to where it was most needed.
And Kydd found he was correct on another matter: under easy sail the squadron idled the afternoon away, then headed out from the dying sun into the strait, just a dozen or so miles across.
He closed up gun crews. With Gibraltar’s lights twinkling faintly to larboard, the stealthy passage of the squadron in the night was rudely interrupted by the flash and blast of a full-blooded eighteen-pounder, then another, and another, like a minute gun in fog. Kydd was hoping to signal the presence of ships and that Gibraltar would send out a vessel to see what the fuss was about.
No doubt Allemand would be beside himself with rage at the impudence, but if he sent any of his force against Tyger, their guns would add to his and the whole world would be awakened to the deed. But no sail was sent out to investigate, and well before dawn the French squadron, with wind and current urging them on, had slipped through.
This was now a grave state of affairs. As far as Kydd was aware, he was the only one with the knowledge of what was happening and now they’d passed into an entirely hostile sea. The nearest British were the storm-tossed blockaders off Toulon, some thousand miles onwards, and a friendly port was even further – in Sicily, halfway through the Mediterranean.
As for Allemand’s final goal, this was exactly the same position Nelson had faced before the Nile when he’d had to criss-cross the great sea for months, looking for his quarry, before finally running it down. It couldn’t be allowed to happen again.
Grimly, Kydd set Tyger to her task.
The privateer lair and Spanish frigate refuge of Malaga was left well to larboard and they sailed deeper into the Mediterranean, the weather easing.
Off Cartagena, course was set up the coast, and when Ibiza was sighted, a low grey-blue against a morning mist – and to starboard – Kydd’s suspicions sharpened. Some two or three days’ sailing directly ahead was the biggest naval base in the Mediterranean: Toulon. If he was right, Allemand’s plan was to combine with Ganteaume’s fleet under blockade there. Together they would be unbeatable over anything the British had in the western Mediterranean.
He toyed with the idea of breaking off and flying back to Gibraltar to raise the alarm. Urgency hammered at him but he took the decision to stay with them as they made steady progress north-east, a Toulon destination very probable.
Yet there was one comfort. There, he would come up with friends, the blockading squadron beating offshore, and he could hand over his burden, then water and victual.
They sailed on until ahead lay the frowning mountains surrounding the port – and before it a frigate Kydd recognised as Phoenix, Captain Mudge, his senior. There was nothing that the two frigates could do to interfere with the squadron’s passage and they drew apart to see it proceed inside to its rest.
The two ships lay together in the slight swell as Kydd hailed to pass his news.
Mudge cut him short: ‘I’m on my own here. Active is down the coast. Admiral Collingwood at present lies in Syracuse, and we have other sail-o’-the-line in Palermo. You’ve done your duty, sir, now allow me to do mine, to let ’em know how it is. Do remain on station, if you please, until relieved.’
It was galling but Tyger was an outsider, Phoenix one of them. The frigate lost no time in spreading canvas and was soon out of sight, leaving Tyger to continue on watch.
Morning broke on a dreary sea. The few fishermen abroad witnessed Tyger make the usual foray inshore to take a peek down the length of the harbour. But what Kydd saw chilled him: the inner harbour was alive with shipping under way for the open sea.