Inferno

Chapter 60

The next day the squadron readied for the passage. Mosquito led off in the light north-westerly with four boats in tow, heading for the first hazards with Tyger a safe mile astern of her.

It was a seascape Kydd had never before seen: the numerous islands were flat and monotonous, dark green and iron grey-brown, so flat they could be seen from the deck only when close. And so many lay sprawled across their path.

The first barrier was between two larger islands acting as gatekeeper to the Great Belt. Using the notes from Nelson’s fleet, Mosquito’s boats made straight for the easternmost and, some hundred yards from its gently sloping end, began casting their lead. In twenty minutes they had a bottom profile established and the first two buoys were slipped.

With sails backed, Tyger lay hove to, lookouts primed.

The boats were recovered, and Mosquito moved into the more open waters beyond. Well astern of them, the squadron got under weigh. They were committed. There was no going back now: the north-westerly was foul for a return in these restricted waters.

A long spit stretched out from the coast, which hid a change of direction from south-west to south-east. The sloop stood off and her boats got to work again.

Kydd knew what they were after: the notes told of a deep-water channel the Danes called the dybe rende, a hollow depression that gave sure depths for any ship. The trouble was that the other function of a lead-line – to give notice of the kind of seabed at that point, sea-shells or mud perhaps to indicate location – did not come into play, for the scouring current kept the bottom a hard clay that could give no clue.

They found it: again, less than a mile out, and it was buoyed accordingly. Things were going well and they shaped course south-eastward past the island of Fyn to starboard and the main one of Sj?lland to larboard. From Tyger, Kydd watched astern as the topsails of the first ship-of-the-line appeared over the spit. It was Vanguard cautiously rounding. It would be a much more difficult matter for a ship so large and slow to respond and Kydd felt a surge of sympathy for her master. She came into full view but then, to his utter astonishment, she altered course, heading direct for the shore.

It was madness and had no meaning. The massive ship continued on her suicidal direction until her anchors roared out and she slewed to a stop, her sail hastily doused. Like a ponderous top, she began to rotate on her anchor cables until she steadied, facing the way she’d come.

A sure sign of one thing – unlike Tyger, which had been experiencing a mild current heading her, Vanguard’s deep draught had encountered a counter-current at her keel in the opposite direction. This had embedded the battleship in a mass of water going the same way as she was, and her rudder had lost all effect. It was a chilling demonstration of what they were dealing with. It took an agonising three hours for boats to haul the great ship-of-the-line out to the point where careful sounding had shown the sub-sea current to have diminished and she could set sail for the south.

They passed another tongue of scrubby land but just beyond, as it deepened again, Kydd picked up on a flaw in the water. Years before in his first command he had been stationed in the Channel Islands, probably the most treacherous sea in the world, with its myriad reefs and islets, and he knew instantly what it was: an overfall. Somewhere in the depths not far below there was a jagged shelf of rock or reef edge over which the water was crowding, and it was directly in their path.

‘Bear up!’ Kydd roared at the helm. ‘Lay off two points to starb’d.’ That was another thing he’d learned in Guernsey: the fuss and bother in the water was not the real location of the rock’s teeth – it was upstream, in the deceptive smooth water before it.

It was not a place for strangers, still less great ships-of-the-line, but they sailed on.

The passage widened and they made good progress, the squadron in a loose line ahead as they approached the most important point in the entire Great Belt – the closest the coast of Sj?lland would come to the island of Fyn where the highway from the mainland to Copenhagen led across the water to Korsor on the Sj?lland side and, therefore, where any reinforcements could be expected to mass.

This was now the most crucial point and Kydd doubled lookouts watching over Mosquito as she patiently neared the six-mile constriction, a large island neatly at the halfway mark, with a low foreland extending from the left and hiding what lay beyond; their chart told them it was the small harbour of Korsor.

There was no sign of military transports or any kind of shipping. The formidable sight of the line of men-o’-war must have driven them off.

Vanguard turned ponderously and her anchor plunged down. She was going no further: her station was to lie at this crossing point, a floating fortress to challenge anything that moved. Their notes and chart were unanimous that this side of the channel was to be preferred and Mosquito disappeared behind the foreland with her boats.

Tyger hove to and waited, but when sails reappeared it was not what anyone was expecting: a sizeable packet boat burst into view under a press of sail with Mosquito in hot pursuit. Too late, it saw Tyger and slowly rounded to in defeat.

Kydd looked at Bray. ‘A guilty conscience. This rascal’s up to no good or I’m a Dutchman!’

He looked around for Bowden. ‘We’ve no time for a full rummaging. Board him. Any sign that makes you suspicious, throw out a signal. Clear?’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

Kydd waited impatiently, watching the young officer board and disappear below. It wasn’t long, however, before he took boat back to Tyger.

‘Anything?’

‘Naught as would interest you, sir. An ailing Swedish baron of sorts on his way to take the waters in Baden, a quantity of his household and all the comforts is all.’

There was no point in detaining the packet and Kydd let it go: the squadron could not be delayed in its vital task.

Eight miles further on, as monotonous flat islands began increasing to the left, they sighted the long, low tip of Langeland. From now on, the narrow length of the island would stay to their starboard for the thirty-odd miles to the end of the Belt and the open sea. It would act as a funnel through which all shipping must pass. Nassau 64 and the frigate Sibylle took position there.

It was the last part of the transit and it would be a relief to win through to the unbounded expanse of ocean, but before they were quit of this place of sea perils it had one more surprise.

Mosquito had found that the dybe rende had narrowed to little more than a cable wide – two hundred yards only – and through its undersea ramparts the water of the Great Belt whirled along at an astonishing speed. With the north-westerly veering to a brisk northerly the two remaining battleships, Orion and Ganges, found their eight knots by the wind increased to twelve and thirteen by the current – a speed over the ground of which a flying frigate would be well proud.

Their emergence from the Great Belt was something of an anti-climax. Without fuss, on both sides the low coast fell away until they were left in a calm grey sea with nothing to disturb the placid horizon.

The passage was complete. Ahead some thirty miles was Kiel but the squadron put over the helm and bore away eastward, to pass the three big islands marking the southern bounds of Denmark: Lolland, Falster and Mon.

At one point the low dark of land to starboard became visible. Kydd stared at it with his memories. This was Prussia where, only months ago, he’d been caught up in Bonaparte’s unstoppable rolling conquests that now included the entire south shore of the Baltic, save the territory of his new ally, Russia. Over there, just hours’ sail away, were the ancient Hansa cities of Rostock, Lubeck and Wismar, all in thrall to the conqueror.

Now, for Tyger, it was a broad reach to the north until the rumpled white cliffs of Mon were in sight.

Keats had carried out his orders to the letter. This would be their station while the drama of the landing and what followed took place, clamping an iron hold on Sj?lland while it played out. Kydd felt a wash of pride. This was the reality of command of the seas: ships at sea far out of sight of armies but directly affecting the strategics of their battle and its eventual outcome.