Inferno

Chapter 70

It was a grey dawn when the flotilla put to sea in full strength, all twenty-six of their several kinds with pennons and Orlogsflag streaming out bravely – but Krieger could not join in the warrior talk around him. During the night he’d been seized with foreboding, a conviction that the invincible Royal Navy would not let rest the reversal they’d suffered. It would be a very different foe they faced this day.

‘Get back in line,’ he bawled at Zeuthen, in his kanonjolle stretching out well ahead of the others.

It was hard not to feel for the man, so determined to be first into the fight. He’d nailed an improvised flag at the fore, probably sewn by his wife during the night. On it was picked out in bold words Gud og den retf?rdige sag, ‘God and the just cause’. If there was going to be any kind of a stern encounter, Julius could be counted on to be at the front.

Krieger was today in the kanonchalup Roeskilde whose captain was the plain-speaking Swenson. Bruun’s Stubbekobing was over to the right, like them cannonading shorewards, while the other division took care of the inshore squadron.

The battle plan was brutally simple. Get into the soft store-ships and create carnage. Nothing else mattered.

Only an hour or so before dawn the Danish mortars had returned to replenish, reporting that all was quiet on shore. Out to sea the inshore squadron lay at a respectful distance – after the previous day’s rough handling there would be no trouble from them.

Ahead was Classen’s garden and beyond it the torn-up desolation of the English lines. Further on, less than three miles along the coastline, was their prey, ships at anchor close in, others with ramps on their sides, boats busy between them, crowded lines of men ashore taking casks and sacks. Bread and beef for twenty thousand men weighed in at tons every day, let alone the dead weight of shot and shell in the quantities that were needed.

Now they were passing the scenes of yesterday’s triumph and it wouldn’t be long until-

The morning stillness was shattered. From groves of maple and larch, gardens and roadways a furious chaos of firing began. Artillery, mortars, musketry – the whole shoreline seemed to rise up and blast out hate. It was a storm of shot and exploding mortar shells.

Numb, Krieger realised what had happened. Overnight, in anticipation of an attack on the victuallers, the rest of the British positions had been stripped of guns and dashed here to line the shore.

Shrieks and cries added to the din and, following an eruption of impact splashes, several boats veered off as they fought for control when oarsmen had been struck.

A terrible decision had to be made: to press on or turn back, away from the hell and fury?

On their own initiative several gunboats had turned to face the tempest and that decided him. There was no point in staying to duel with the shore guns. If sacrifice was demanded, it would take place as they threw themselves at their objective.

He stood tall and looked about. Thrusting his sword in the direction of the store-ships, he roared, ‘Go, ro v?k I elendige karle!’

As a concentrated host, they turned their bows north, towards their goal, bending heroically to their oars. As they clawed along the shoreline there was no let-up in the thunderous barrage. At one point Krieger glimpsed artillery, limber and gun bucketing along the coast road behind six furiously whipped horses. The line of guns was being sustained in relays and they would have to endure.

It was taking its toll. One, then another gunboat fell away.

‘Take us out,’ he ordered harshly. It would be mean heading into deeper water, losing their advantage, and into range of the British sloops. ‘Half the kanonchalups to keep the inshore squadron away.’

That left eight for the store-ships, and perhaps after the squadron had been beaten off at long range they could join in the slaughter.

‘They’re coming in,’ Swenson grunted.

It was happening again: emerging from between the ships of the squadron dozens of boats were heading directly towards them. It was madness – their fate would be the same but still they came on. Krieger shook his head in admiration, but brute courage would make no difference.

And then everything changed.

While still far out of accurate carronade range first one, then another of the squadron’s boats opened fire with the gun in their bows. The balls slammed towards them in a series of skips and ricochets – they were using the same technique with reduced charges that he had used previously, only possible with a long gun of size. Damn it, but the English had overnight improvised gunboats of their own, in some way mounting at least eighteen-pounders on them.

‘Long bowls, the bastards!’

This was a much more serious situation. No longer could they keep the offshore fleet at bay by standing it off with heavy long guns: the enemy had found a way of evening up the contest. They had changed it into a war of the bludgeoning of equals and in this the English had the eventual advantage.

He would not retreat! As far as he could tell in the thick of the melee, only five of them had the big guns and therefore he still had the numbers. For honour’s sake, he could not abandon their mission.

The kanonchalups would surely keep them at bay … But, as if sensing what they were after, more than a dozen boats detached and laid themselves in a loose line before the store-ships. They could not be armed with long guns, so what was their purpose?

In the heat of the action he couldn’t think, driven only by the desperate need to get up to them.

There were now only four kanonchalups available for the strike and the oarsmen were tiring. From somewhere the British Army had found heavy mortars to position on a slight foreland and were firing shells that burst in the air, blasting down a lethal hail of fragments.

Another fell behind, leaving only themselves, Nakskov and Stubbekobing to press home the attack.

They were in range! But they had to make sure – they had fought their way so far that to fail because they were not close enough to their target would be unbearable.

It seemed nothing could live in the vicious slam and whip of unseen shot, the waters lashed white with deadly fury.

Now! In a burst of nervous energy Krieger told Swenson to open up on the second nearest ship, a little further but appreciably bigger.

He took his time, getting way on the boat so the finer aiming of the rudder could be used. His whistle blasted out.

To Krieger’s ears the crash of the gun seemed louder, more decisive. The ball took the store-ship squarely amid-ships, directly into the hold. A burst of black fragments shot up and men could be seen running for the boats at the stern.

Stubbekobing was not far behind and her shot smashed in not far from their own. Incredibly a lick of flame showed briefly and without warning an explosion erupted that showered splinters all around the vessel, leaving a raging fire.

Strangely he felt only a numb sense of inevitability, detachment.

The line of boats positioned earlier now made sense. They were advancing together – armed with mortars, carronades, it made no difference. They would be forced to choose between defending themselves or firing into the store-ships. If they used their vital rounds in protecting themselves what was the use of fighting through this far? And if they ignored the boats and-

So close it was like a clap of thunder followed by a wave of heat. His head jerked around – to see Stubbekobing a shattered and sinking wreck, blackened and smoking timbers where her powder had been detonated.

‘Go to her,’ he barked hoarsely.

Swenson gave the order and they swiftly closed with the sad wreck. Blasted corpses lay in the water, some still staggered at the after end, others with flayed bodies lay shrieking.

‘Peder!’ Krieger croaked, seeing Bruun and holding out his hand to help him aboard.

‘Mortar,’ he said thickly, ‘Damned shell from the sky, set off our charges.’ He coughed harshly, hiding his pain.

Krieger saw that little could be done now with just two vessels. With a slow rate of fire they would be overcome before they could reach much further.

‘Sir.’ Swenson touched his arm, then pointed.

Way ahead, Julius Zeuthen in his kanonjolle was in a mad charge towards the foreland where the mortars blazed. He had one shot in his twenty-four-pounder and he was going to place it deep in the nearest enemy.

‘Den K?mpe idiot – but I honour him for it,’ Krieger breathed. It was too shoal for a kanonchalup to follow and all he could do was watch the scene play out.

He came to a decision. They’d done their best but had been overborne by the odds. It was time for an honourable withdrawal.

But disaster struck again. A kanonjolle had a fatal disadvantage. Like a wasp, its sting was in its tail – the great gun was mounted in the after end, and when it was called on to fire, the entire gunboat had to be rotated to face the stern towards the enemy. As this was being done it offered its broadside unavoidably to the enemy and they didn’t waste the opportunity. They broke cover and opened up with everything they had – horse artillery, musketry, howitzers. The figure of Zeuthen, which could be seen in a maniac urging, spun and crumpled. Another fell.

The midshipman aboard found the tiller and took the craft away from the hell of shot. It passed close, and Krieger hailed, ‘Lojtnant Zeuthen?’

‘Dead.’

Julius – gone from this world. His jolly wife a widow as of this hour. His heart wrung with pity.

They began turning to withdraw but Nakskov’s length was her undoing and it touched ground, slowing, then stopping entirely, in full view of the enemy. There was an immediate burst of firing, as the troops ashore saw their chance.

Oarsmen fought desperately at their twenty-five-foot oars but the gunboat didn’t move. Men took hits and the oars fell out of time into a fatal disorder.

Krieger felt a mounting desperation. Aboard Nakskov the impossibility of their situation became clear to them and they threw themselves into the water and stroked frantically for Roeskilde where they were hauled in.

The gunboat had been fully evacuated yet it was still there to be captured after they’d left, and would be the first of the Danish fleet the English had come here to take.

Something snapped. ‘Get the dinghy into the water,’ Krieger ordered. It was insane but he had to do something. ‘Throw in a line,’ he added, to the astonished Swenson.

It was only a tiny skiff tucked away under the transom but Krieger didn’t hesitate. He scrambled in and took the oars. ‘Secure your end,’ he demanded. Swenson understood and, with deft turns, had a bowline about two thwarts.

Krieger pulled savagely for the stranded gunboat, the line paying out behind him.

He reached Nakskov, made for the bow and hauled himself in, the rope around his waist. The dinghy drifted away but he didn’t care; the foremast partners made a fine samson post and he secured the line tightly to it.

He waved energetically and Roeskilde took up the strain. Affixing the line so far forward offered an enormous leverage, and with oarsmen giving it their utmost at a rightangle, it was enough. Nakskov’s bow came around and she was free.

Joyfully they pulled her out and Wulff’s crew tumbled back aboard.

Krieger’s attention was diverted to the English boats coming on – their bow carronades were opening up now and in their length the Danish gunboats were vulnerable. It would be madness to allow them to close for a hand-to-hand fight and he’d made his decision to withdraw.

The turn-back completed, tired crews pulled for their lives, running the gauntlet once more of the shore artillery pieces to face yet another blow.

The canny English had sent their boats out in two groups, one to protect the store-ships, and one curving around behind them while they were engaged. This now stood four-square across their path.

Trapped between the two there was nothing for it but to fight their way through – but, glory be, Mercurius and Sarpen, gun-brigs, and the kanonbads were coming up to join the fight from the other side: the shore artillery had ceased firing for fear they hit their own vessels.

A towering smoke plume arose over the confined area, stabbed by gun-flash. The sky was criss-crossed with crazy patterns of smoke trails as the fighting grew to a deadly climax.

In Roeskilde the big gun spoke once, then the twin four-pound howitzers fore and aft with a vicious crack, flinging case-shell generally about the British boats – crude, but it was all they had.

And then they were through!

In the open water past Swan Mill the kanonchalups regrouped and turned to face the English once more but under the menace of their long guns they thought better of it and broke off the fight to withdraw.

It was over.

Krieger fought to control his feelings. It had been a rough and bloody contest, but had he ever thought it would not be, up against the rulers of the sea?

The corridor they’d relied on to get at the store-ships was now firmly closed. The massed artillery on shore could only get thicker and the battery they had bombarded would be reinforced against challenge from the sea, in effect forcing them out to where the heavier units of the inshore squadron would be waiting.

And if the store-ships were denied him, what purpose had they left?

No matter. Tomorrow he’d be out again, and again, until the invaders had been thrown back into the sea or …