The Baltic Prize

Chapter 27

There was news from the north. A lone frigate was heading south towards them, making good speed in the steady northerly. It didn’t affect them for they had no business confronting such a predator – it was probably a probing patrol into the Baltic and would pass by quickly. They were safe where they were.

‘What’s to do at the Trekroner?’ wondered Krieger, as signal flags were emphasised with a gun sounding from the island fortress.

‘Enemy in sight, sir,’ the signal boatswain said importantly.

‘The frigate? How in Hades can he see it?’ The Swedish shore and usual channel were a good ten miles or more distant.

It wasn’t long before the matter was resolved. The frigate was indeed alone, but in an act that was the product either of an ignorant fool or an exceptional seaman it was shaping course for the Danish coast instead, plainly planning to take the inner channel within a mile of the harbour fortifications of Provestenen.

Her captain was apparently brazenly seizing the opportunity of looking into Copenhagen harbour on his way past, and out of range, there was nothing anybody could do about it.

The hard part was ahead, however. The treacherous Middle Ground sandbanks off the harbour entrance had to be passed with every buoy and sea-mark removed, and then the half-mile passage inside Saltholm island and the Danish shoreline, the Drogden, had to be found and followed exactly – a frigate aground in these waters would have only a very short time to live.

By now there was no question: her captain was a masterly seaman. Holding course and ignoring the random shots thrown at him, he carried on and, at the stump of the Nordre Rose light, put over the helm the point or two to starboard, which had the handsome vessel on a direct course for the open sea.

Krieger acknowledged the feat with a twisted smile. A pity the winds were with him: if they turned foul or dropped it would be another story.

He turned back to his work.

Within hours a breathless rider brought his horse to a crashing halt – and in minutes his message was in Krieger’s hands.

‘Be damned! And I won’t pass this up for any man.’

Bille put down his pen and regarded him with amused resignation. ‘And what shall you be adventuring this time, Johannes?’

Krieger was already on his feet. ‘From the watch at Dragor – that saucy frigate’s now in Koge bay and becalmed, by God!’ His expression tightened. ‘Steen, I’m going to finish what we started with Africa – a fine frigate is like to be taken this day if I’m to be judge of it.’

He leaned out of the door and hailed the sentry. ‘Pass the word – alarm, all boats! And I mean all, damn it!’