“What? We’re a navy the last time I looked, not an army.”
Hozier fiddled with his pen. “At least let’s hear the chap. I’ll send for him.”
The young man was arrayed in dark blue with silver facings and red trim, his plumed shako under his arm in deference to the low deckhead. “Lieutenant Gursten of the Prussian Army.”
His intense gaze passed from one man to the other as he pleaded in painfully slow English: “Honoured sirs. Ze tyrant Napoleon, he crush all of Europe! We cannot stand against him alone. If-”
“Avez-vous le francais, Lieutenant?” Kydd broke in.
Relieved, Gursten answered in a fluent stream that left Hozier, who had no French, blinking and Kydd frowning.
“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 Konigsberg 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 unequivocaclass="underline" 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 Gursten 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 Konigsberg lies within.”
Two things roused misgivings in Kydd. The first was the complete absence of any kind of water-craft. The second was that Konigsberg 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 Gursten 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 Konigsberg 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?
Gursten 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 Gursten 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.
“Konigsberg Castle,” Gursten 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 Konigsberg puzzle had ensured his immortality.