The Baltic Prize

Chapter 23

‘They’re not going to take this for much longer,’ Bille said, watching the prizes warped alongside safely. ‘That’s a fair pile of gold we’ve taken from them. Their merchants will be howling in England, I’d wager.’

Krieger smiled wolfishly. They were standing on the dockside in Nyholm. Where before it had been a deserted wasteland, now it was alive with gunboat activity. ‘We’ve only just begun, Steen. Whatever they try, we’ll be ready for ’em.’ Even a great trading nation like England couldn’t take this punishment for ever.

Tonight there would be a famous party in Holmen – in these hard times successes of any kind were rare but this day his sea warriors had brought their people a victory.

‘So you’ll be happy to hear I’ve just had word that there’s another convoy on its way and even bigger this time. Are your men up to it?’

The next morning the gunboats assembled once more. Again, conditions were all that could be asked for – early-summer light breezes already beginning to drop, a sure sign of a calm to come.

‘I want this lot to be massacred,’ Krieger growled. ‘A full effort.’

At twelve the citadel signal tower threw out the flags that told of the enemy in sight.

They waited, oars across the boat, the gentle murmur of wavelets and the screech of seabirds on Saltholm the only sounds.

It was taking some time for the mass of sail to reach the Flintrannan, the narrowest part of the Sound, but when it did, Krieger gave the signal and the gunboats thrust forward into the open.

In an instant the whole picture changed.

It was indeed a juicy convoy but before it on the Danish side loomed the bulk and menace of a ship-of-the-line! Krieger recognised it – Africa, which he’d heard had been with Nelson at Trafalgar, a veteran of the war at sea.

The English had made their move. Now they were guarding their convoys with the unanswerable threat of a battleship.

‘The party’s over,’ Bruun said darkly, as the onrush of gunboats slowed at the sight. This ship carried guns just as powerful as theirs and could be counted upon to be a steadier platform. There would be no standing off and pounding with this monster.

But Krieger’s eyes gleamed. ‘Not so, Peder,’ he hissed, his eyes fixed on the big ship. ‘No, this changes things our way, by God!’

Astonished, Bruun tried to make out what he was saying.

‘All boats,’ Krieger roared, beckoning furiously. ‘Close with me!’ He stood erect, his gaze still on the barely moving sail-of-the-line, waiting until he had his captains all within hail. ‘Brodre til sos,’ he roared at last. ‘Today we go on to make history!’

‘How?’ whispered Bruun.

‘I change your orders as of this moment.’ He paused significantly. ‘They are now … to leave the convoy untouched! Do not go against it!’

He surveyed the gunboat’s crew. Weather-hardened men looked puzzled but trustfully up at him, in shapeless hats and with the good open faces of honest Danes. His heart swelled.

‘Instead I give you honour and glory enough to take to your grandchildren for years to come. This day our contemptible little gunboats will seize and take a battleship!’

Gasps of surprise changed to cheering as he went on, ‘We wait until we have a total calm – then we move in on the helpless beggar in a combined horde. Lojtnant Swenson, return to Nyholm with my orders – that every damned thing that floats is to be manned and join us out here.’

He filled his lungs and bellowed, ‘Gud og den retf?rdige sag!’ God and the righteous cause!

If they could prevail against a Royal Navy ship-of-the-line their fame would resound down the ages for ever. It would give untold heart to the nation, and the moral value was worth far more than the convoy, which, seeing the gunboat threat, was taking its chance to slip away from the ponderous sail-of-the-line.

At about two in the afternoon the fluky winds failed entirely and Africa became motionless in the water, every sail hanging limp, gun-ports open along her length in two lines but with the guns impotent, unable to train.

‘Advance!’ cried Krieger.

The gunboats got under way, each slipping into its pre-arranged position well out on the quarter and bow of the massive ship.

The first gun-fire was from Africa – a shocking salvo from the quarterdeck of at least nine-pounders, sending solid shot skittering and plunging among the crowded gunboats. Their positioning preserved them against a twenty-four-pounder broadside but not this – they could not close to point-blank range in the face of it and must lay off to inflict their punishment.

One by one the mass of gunboats opened up, their big guns thundering out in heavy slams of sound. The stretch of water and the ship became hidden by immense roiling clouds of gun-smoke. Only the upper sails and rigging of Africa showed above it – but this was all that was needed. Krieger had decided earlier that if he was going to take the battleship they would aim for the rigging to cripple the vessel, partly to prevent it turning on them if the wind got up, but more that in the end he didn’t want to make prize of a wreck. The smaller-bored kanonjolle could be relied on to batter at the hull.

Pulse racing, he goaded his men on, knowing that the breathy air could return as a breeze without warning.

The minutes turned into an hour – of deafening cannonade, the muscle-burn of serving hot guns, the crash and splinter of shot from Africa as she drifted round with the current, giving a chance for a gun or two to bear on a Danish foe.

Still the ship-of-the-line fought back. A lull in the gun-fire revealed her bowsprit trailing in the water, her sails torn and pierced, but her ensign still defiantly aloft. The mauling went on.

With a crash and screams one of the gunboats took a direct hit, the round shot smashing and splintering the fragile hull to lethal skewers, impaling and lacerating human flesh. In another direction floating oars, some splintered, were witness to a further savage counter-blow.

The pounding went on, a wounded beast surrounded by cruel tormentors who bayed for its blood. Another hour passed, the sun sinking to its lair. The shattered ruin must surely yield soon!

The powder smoke lifted a little and, with a clear target, the firing redoubled, but, heart sinking, Krieger sensed something. There was the barest stirring of the air. He felt its coolness and knew what he’d feared was coming to pass.

The evening land breeze was making itself felt. In a short while the stricken monster would be able to pick up steerage way, to react and turn its cruel broadsides on them with vindictive savagery. It was time to pull out.

Before the drooping sails could catch the wind Krieger signalled the withdrawal.

It had been a near thing: given only a little longer it might have ended differently, but he could go back with the glory that his gallant band of tiny boats had taken on the greatest antagonist the enemy could throw against them.