Inferno

Chapter 96

British Headquarters, Hellerup

‘It’s insufferable!’ spluttered Cathcart, holding the paper at arm’s length. ‘Worse than that – it’s rank madness! Peymann has an offer of terms such as no besieged ever had – yield up custody of his damned fleet and we go. Quit! Leave! What more can he ask of us? It bears heavily on me that we’re obliged to visit ruination on his capital but we’ve no other recourse, given his intransigence. This he sends as answer on the day following. Listen to it:

‘“My Lords

“Our fleet, our own indisputable property, we are convinced is as safe in his Danish Majesty’s hands as ever it can be in those of the King of England, as our master never intended hostilities against yours.

“If you are cruel enough to endeavour to destroy a city that has not given any the least cause to such a treatment at your hands, it must submit to its fate; but honour requires-”

‘He gives not an inch, damn it! We’re no further forward than the day we landed and time is sorely lacking. How can we proceed in the face of this? Hey? Hey?’

Ludlow, of the Guards, smiled sadly. ‘My cousin Joan is married to a Dane. Says they’re incurably stubborn and declares it’s of their Lutheran persuasion. We’ll never move them by ordinary means, I fear.’

Gambier shook his head gloomily. ‘Lord Nelson accounted them his fiercest foes at our first encounter in the year one. They do not lack the spirit and courage to defy us and for myself I have the gravest reservations of the outcome.’

The cool voice of Wellesley intervened: ‘There is little to discuss, I believe. We have embarked on a course of coercion, which we cannot retract or abandon, else we render the whole business a nullity.’

‘Your opinion is then-’

‘My opinion is neither here nor there. Logic requires us to go on – to resume the bombarding until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.’

‘This is bitter medicine, sir!’ Finch ground out. ‘Can you not conceive of the terror in the breasts of the inhabitants, the innocents caught in-’

‘In war there can be no allowance for feelings of a delicate nature, sir. The dictates of one’s strategics are the only consideration and here they are plain. Do you propose to deny them?’

Cathcart shifted irritably. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen. Sir Arthur has clarified the situation that faces us beyond disputing. We have no alternative – the bombardment will resume tonight with the utmost rigour, the quicker to bring an end to it all.’