Breaking the Line (22 page)

‘No sandbanks?’

‘Bound to be, milord, and they would try a Dane as well as they would us. Sand is given to shifting and there’s nowt to do about that outside constant use of the channel.’ Nelson’s eye was on Briarly, and still full of the pride of recognition, he plunged yet deeper into the pit of certainty. ‘That fact notwithstanding, if your honour will agree it, I will undertake to get the fleet to where you require it to be.’

‘So be it,’ Nelson agreed, giving Briarly no chance to temper his offer. But he came close to take the man’s hand, his smile the one that made the person receiving it feel immortal. ‘My orders are that you repair aboard HMS
Edgar.
To you, Alexander Briarly, falls the honour of leading our fleet into action.’

Briarly gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down, as he realised the enormity of what he was taking on. But having spoken he could not withdraw, and it was with a croak that he said, ‘Aye aye, sir.’

Nelson was back on deck to see the vital signal raised, now in full dress uniform, like every other officer in the fleet, the stars of the Bath and the Crescent, as well as his epaulettes, flashing in the sun. Despite Nelson having only one arm, Giddings had been told to stand by with a cutlass and a pistol, for if the chance arose, Nelson was determined to board an enemy ship, even if some of his sailors, including his coxswain, had to carry him.

‘How will we do, milord?’ Giddings asked.

‘We will do very well, Giddings. They say the Danes are good brewers. I hazard you will be at their beer in a day or two.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ replied Giddings, who was thinking more about the women than the beer. ‘I’ll pass that on.’

‘Do, Giddings.’

Merry Ed Parker was suddenly by his side. ‘Signal lieutenant has sent to say that all is ready, sir.’

‘Then let us proceed.’

It was precisely eight a.m. when the knotted signal flags shot up the halyards, to burst at the top and alert the fleet to prepare for battle, a mere acknowledgement of a truth that had been known for hours. Each captain knew where he had to anchor, knew he should have ready a spring on his cable to haul him round broadside on to his chosen enemy. Below decks the fighting men were already sealed in, with a marine sentry at each companionway to ensure that no one other than an officer, midshipman or one of the powder monkeys employed to serve the guns could pass.

But Horatio Nelson rated them unnecessary. He might not know the men on Tom Foley’s ship as well as he had known some, but he knew his British tar. The men on the two decks below him would ply their guns with gusto, just as they were trained to do. They would be looking at each other now, exchanging jokes, having already settled who would look after whose possessions, and who would take the news of death to a wife, child or sweetheart. Nelson’s last will, really only an addition to what he had left with Alexander Davidson, lay on his desk now, alongside the letter to Emma telling her once more that she was, to him, in all respects, his true and only wife.

‘
Edgar
getting under way, milord,’ said Tom Foley.

Nelson knew the tensions that filled the breast of every man, especially young Frears standing beside him, trying hard not to tremble. A look around with the small pocket telescope, which he could jab open one-handed, showed him a faint outline of Parker’s topsails on the other side of the water-covered Middle Ground Shoal. To the west of that, on the eastern side of the Holland Deep, lay the
Swedish island of Saltholm, with the mainland a hazy shoreline further on.

‘Have you ever heard tell of Charles the Tenth of Sweden, Mr Frears?’

‘Was he not a great general, sir?’ croaked Frears.

‘One of those so accomplished Mr Frears, that he was said to rank with Alexander the Great. Born some hundred years ago, I seem to recall. He fought so well and successfully that he raised Sweden over yonder to the heights of a European power, and won many a battle against the barbarous Russians, though the Great Peter of that nation did defeat him at Poltava.’

Frears would have preferred not to continue the conversation but, with Admiral Lord Nelson looking straight at him, that was not an option. He felt the warmth of his blood rushing to the tips of his prominent ears. ‘I recall him now from my schooldays, sir.’

‘They say he won his fights by always being to the fore of his men. The chroniclers say that he inspired by personal example, and killed more of his enemies than any soldier in his army, that he seemed to be without fear and was so skilled in arms that he cleared a path before him wherever he fought.’

‘Indeed, sir,’ said Frears, who had no idea how to respond.

‘An example, would you not say, to any young fellow like you contemplating a martial career?’ Frears just nodded, hoping that Nelson could not see the shudder those words produced. ‘Yet in his first battle, young Charles the Tenth, no more than a prince then, of course, and no more than the age you have now, ran away.’

Frears looked astonished as Nelson lifted his little pocket spyglass to look once more at the Swedish mainland. ‘Which only proves, does it not Mr Frears, that even the greatest of heroes are prey to the fear of death or disfigurement?’

‘Sir.’ Frears gulped.

‘So do not rate yourself alone if you tremble,’ Nelson added, smiling at Frears. ‘There’s many a man aboard this fleet doing that same thing now. And I reckon it a good thing, for a man who trembles before a fight, in my experience fights very well.’

‘Did you tremble, sir?’

Nelson laughed, which raised the head of every man who could hear it, causing them to smile and their spirits to lift. ‘I did, Mr Frears – and was I not wearing such a heavy coat you would spy me doing it now.’

Hardy was right about Nelson: he did want to be everywhere, to send
out every broadside and reply to every shot. Right now he was mentally with Murray aboard HMS
Edgar
as Alexander Briarly, under topsails only, eased the 74-gun ship past the marking frigate, HMS
Blanche,
the towed flat boats strung out behind her, full of Colonel Stewart’s soldiers. To the rear of
Edgar
the rest of the squadron was backing and filling their sails to get on station prior to entering the King’s Deep in her wake.

There were worries about the sailing qualities of the next three vessels,
Ardent,
Glatton
and
Isis,
but the first real problem occurred with the ship Nelson loved best, his first line-of-battle command, HMS
Agamemnon.
Under double-reefed topsails, Fancourt, her captain, was struggling to weather the end of the Middle Ground Shoal. The leeway of the tide that would carry the fleet up the King’s Deep, added to that blessed east wind, was driving her into shallow water, and sure enough she lost way as her keel ground into the sand.

Nelson had to suppress certain feelings, the first that Captain Fancourt was a doubter, one of those men who had failed to meet his eye when he had been planning the passage of the Sound and the prospects for this battle. The other was that the dolt was about to ground a ship he knew well, in a situation that he would never have got himself into. Yet he had to temper that with the knowledge that if he had been less busy he would have observed that her anchorage point put
Agamemnon
in that very danger from the moment she dropped her best bower anchor two days before.

And Fancourt was doing what he could, bringing up his boats from the stern and loading anchors and cables into them through the stern ports. These were rowed to the east and dropped so that the men on the capstan, by warping her up the cable, could haul her off. She moved and Nelson felt his heart lift. Then she stopped again and he turned to Frears.

‘Please request the signal lieutenant to make the number for
Polyphemus
.’

Designated the last ship in the line, Nelson ordered her to take
Agamemnon
’s
place, just as the first Danish guns spoke. For an admiral who had started out knowing the numbers favoured his enemy, the loss of a major part of his strength, and an integral part of his plan, seemed to affect him not at all.
Agamemnon
had been designated to engage the last ship in the line, with the previous four of Nelson’s line-of-battle ships having already sailed by, giving her a drubbing. Now she was too far from the action to bring a single gun to bear.

At that very moment
Edgar
was drawing ahead of her slow sailing consorts, and if she kept going would be the sole target of the Danish cannon: Nelson had to order her to shorten sail. But even so the Amager battery opened fire and so did the first Danish ship as soon as
Edgar
came in range, a great cloud of smoke billowing from the side to be blown back over the decks and through the gun ports.

Typical of Murray, there was no reply from him. Had he calculated that at his rate of sailing he would only receive one broadside per enemy vessel? Was he going to wait until he came abreast of his own target ship and open up with a devastating rolling broadside, one that would be delivered as if it were a demonstration for some visiting dignitary?

Nelson reckoned, if that were true, he had to admire it. He knew from his own experience that the first broadside, delivered accurately, counted for more than anything that followed in battle. Never again in an action would aim be so careful, the measure of powder so perfect, or the ball better chipped to fit the barrel. Not even the best-trained gunners could reload within the same exact time. A run-up gun would be roughly aimed because, close too, rate of fire counted for everything, so the order would be passed down to let fly when ready, using the superior rate to that of the enemy to overwhelm their gunners and slow them down. He also knew that it took a cool head to withstand fire and not respond.

On went
Edgar
past three more ships, receiving broadsides and sustaining damage, to take up her station opposite the fifth ship in Olfert Fischer’s defence line. The smoke from the previous gunnery duels had blown away on the wind and
Glatton,
which had just exchanged a broadside with the first Danish ship, was too far back for her carronade fire to obscure
Edgar.
Nelson thought that good tactics as well. Bligh had smashers that, trading with long guns at short range, could inflict much more damage.

All around him and beneath his feet there was movement as the ships of his squadron formed themselves to enter the channel, but Nelson had only scant attention for them now. His head, heart and emotions were with Murray, who had to drop his anchor with exact timing so that once the veered cable bit, it would haul him up right abreast of his opponent. Too soon, and he would expose himself to a full broadside while able only to mount a partial reply, too late and he would have to warp back on that cable to get abreast, suffering great damage as he did so.

Nelson was trying to make the calculation that would depend on
so many factors: wind speed, the rate of the current, the depth under his keel, the nature of the ground that his anchor would have to hold. This would be relayed to him by the leadsman, who would have waxed the end of the lead line so that what was on the bottom would stick to it and tell his captain if it were rock or sand.

HMS
Ardent,
with Thomas Bertie in command, was not going to be as patient as his predecessor Murray – Nelson knew it was not in his nature. The Danish ship had reloaded by the time he came alongside and the exchange of broadsides was awesome, even at a distance, for the noise, the huge clouds of smoke, the orange flashes of the spitting guns and the clear sight of damage inflicted.

All the while Nelson kept up a running commentary for Frears, who was now so enthralled by what was going on before his eyes that he had forgotten to be frightened. He watched as every bit of debris flew from that first Danish ship as
Glatton
pounded her, was confused by the flags that flew as the man next to him trimmed his orders. The boy saw that Nelson was pleased by the way the captain of
Polyphemus
responded to the sudden change caused by
Aga
memnon
going aground. She had crowded on sail to get into position, a dangerous thing to do in such waters but one which would help win the day. And Frears tried to make sense of a battle not yet truly joined, which would get harder to understand as the day wore on.

Elephant
was on station now, behind HMS
Bellona,
edging along at four to five knots with anxious eyes in the bows watching to ensure that she stayed in the wake of the ship that had preceded her.
Edgar
had just hauled up with perfection opposite her target ship and let fly with a broadside that seemed to remove half her opponent’s upper works, when the
Bellona,
right ahead, stooped as if some great celestial hand had grabbed her.

The masts leaned forward alarmingly and looked set to roll out and crash down along the decks, but they righted as the stern, thrown clear of the water, settled down with a great splash. Nelson spun his spyglass, his lips moving as he took his bearings and calculated the range, ignoring Foley who was porting his helm to pass
Bellona
on her larboard side. From one side of the channel, even stuck on the Middle Ground Shoal,
Bellona
could fire on the closest enemy ships, albeit at long range. Once
Ardent
and
Glatton
had worn them down they could sail in his wake to attack the defences further up the King’s Deep. That would restore some of Nelson’s strength.

‘For you see, Mr Frears, it is at the head of the line we must
triumph. Succeed there, where our bomb vessels can pound Copenhagen, and these ships at the southern end of the channel count for nothing.’

18

Though it might have helped the ships in his wake, Murray, in the
Edgar,
ignored the Danish vessels between him and his designated target, number five in Nelson’s order of attack. He withstood several enemy broadsides before finally letting fly, and from then on it was a steady three broadsides a minute, with only a short break when Bertie took HMS
Ardent
between him and his opponent, his task to take on a clutch of floating batteries.

The
Glatton
favoured every ship she passed with a broadside. The guns the ex-merchantman carried not only fired a heavy ball over a short distance, they were quick to reload. So every one of William ‘Breadfruit’ Bligh’s opponents knew he had visited them by the number of dead and wounded, as well as the wreckage of what had been their side timbers strewn over the decks. He went on to take station opposite the Danish flagship, number nine, with Captain Olfert Fischer’s pennant flying from the masthead.

Nelson watched and approved, not only of the obedience to his orders, but the initiative shown by several of his captains. Riou had timed his entry into the King’s Deep to perfection so that he acted as escort and protector to the fireships and bomb vessels, while ensuring that he would be on his station precisely as required. Walker, captain of the
Isis,
seeing that
Agamemnon,
was aground, had shown good sense in tackling two ships, his own target and that of the grounded 64, until
Polyphemus
came up to support.

There was a worry about the
Bellona.
To ships that had not actually seen her ground it would look at though she was anchored: this because Thompson, her captain, had opened up with his lower-deck cannon as soon as he realised his predicament. Whatever they had struck on was an unknown obstacle, very likely a sandbar protruding
from the main shoal ground. Foley’s task was to get past Thompson and up the channel, which he achieved to cheers from the grounded ship. Nelson ordered the signal ‘engage the enemy more closely’ hoisted, then concentrated on getting the rest of his fleet to where he wanted them. As
Bellona
acknowledged that signal, Thompson, stood on a gun for a better view of the Danes, had his leg shot off by a ball from the Amager battery. He collapsed in a heap on his own deck.

To compound the sin of
Bellona
grounding, HMS
Russell,
mistaking the meaning of Nelson’s aggressive signal, had crowded on sail, eager to get into the fight. As a result, she ran aground astern of the
Bellona
with her bowsprit nearly over the lead ship’s taffrail. Nelson knew everyone was covertly watching him, waiting for the order to break off the action and withdraw. Nothing in his face let them know that he was considering that very possibility. He hated the idea of just carrying on, putting his reputation before that of the men who would suffer and die if he was wrong.

He had lost a third of his strength and the little he had seen of Danish gunnery showed him a tenacity he had not truly anticipated. The enemy would not buckle just because they were being pounded. From what he saw he reasoned that the Danes would take a great deal of beating. Could he do it with what he had left? The enemy would see his problems and be encouraged. But if he pressed on that might turn to despair, in which case he would win.

There was no rational explanation for the decision to press on with the attack, but he knew it to be the right one. Nelson had a clarity of vision denied to lesser men, an ability to take a hundred unrelated facts and distil them into a course of action in which he had confidence. This time his conviction stemmed partly from his feeling that the rigidity of the Danish defence allowed for no alteration.

The bomb vessels, squat, ungainly tubs with their twin mortars amidships, could not have been mistaken for anything other than what they were: the means to lob shells in behind the defences. A child could have seen that they could not protect themselves. So, clearly, his main object, the point from which he could bombard Copenhagen, lay beyond the first clutch of moored ships but no attempt had been made to block it. A pair of those hulks anchored across the channel, hampering his room for manoeuvre, obliging him to destroy them while under fire from the shortened line, would have constricted his options.

But no movement had occurred, even after he had come south through the Holland Deep. Every component of the defence had stayed fixed. The Crown Prince, lacking experience, had made a plan
and would adhere to it, while Nelson, was an exponent of flexibility. He had the best men, imaginative captains and a positive offensive goal. Nelson felt instinctively that he had the upper hand, that in this case the power of attack was greater than that of defence.

‘Make sure that that signal is kept flying,’ he shouted, ‘and if the mast is shot away get it aloft on anything that is standing.’

Some smiled at that, others adopted a look of grim determination. But not a head shook in doubt, and that lifted Nelson no end.

Sir Hyde Parker had the best eyes, with the finest telescopes, high in his rigging so, with the wind tending to blow the gun smoke across the defenders and the order of attack on a table before him, he was well aware of the way Nelson’s plans were progressing. His line-of-battle ships were tacking and wearing into the wind, still miles from the lead vessels in the enemy line, in a vain attempt to pose a threat that would preclude any of those men o’ war cutting their cables to engage Nelson in the open water of the King’s Deep channel.

The last communication he had had from his junior had not filled him with confidence, a request that the flat boats and soldiers he was supposed to provide for an assault on the Danish forts be held back. Nelson doubted that they could arrive in time to affect the outcome. Parker’s interpretation was that the course of the engagement was in doubt. He had put this to Captain Dommet, to be greeted with stony silence.

Nicholas Vansittart sat opposite the seventy-year-old John Jervis, Earl St Vincent, First Lord of the Admiralty, wondering why he felt like a recalcitrant child hauled before a flogging headmaster. He had dealt with kings and princes in his time, as well as chancellors and prime ministers, and never suffered anything like nerves. He did not know that St Vincent had that effect on practically everyone.

St Vincent was rereading Parker’s despatch from the Cattegat, his face creased with fury. Addington, the Prime Minister who had replaced Pitt, had read the very same despatch and pronounced himself satisfied. What could this ancient mariner see in the words that had escaped the most senior politician in the government.

The First Lord was not about to tell him. St Vincent merely raised his eyes, glared at his visitor, and thanked him in a way that left the diplomat no choice but to take his leave. Behind him St Vincent was writing furiously, calling for a clerk and barking for Evan Nepean to get him, damn quick, a list of ships available in the eastern ports. Within the hour the return despatch was being taken by horse
messenger to Harwich, as well as orders for a young lieutenant in a fast-sailing cutter to get to the Danish shore with all speed.

The message to Sir Hyde Parker was, ‘You have your orders, obey them.’

‘
Defiance
has passed
Russell
and
Bellona,
sir, and the frigate
Desireé
has taken station athwart number one.’

‘Thank you,’ said Nelson.
Elephant
was passing to larboard of Bligh in
Glatton,
who was giving Fischer’s flagship a proper drubbing, much assisted by the ship to the rear of him, HMS
Ardent,
Bertie having split his targets. His mind was racing over a dozen imponderables. The ships to his rear still working their way into the channel. On two of the seven bomb vessels: would they take station as ordered and begin to work their anchors to get into position to lob shells into the Trekroner fortress and the brigs ranged before it? The others were to take station to the east of his own ship and concentrate on the arsenal that lay behind the city walls, as well as the Quintus and Sixtus batteries.

The
Elephant
was progressing to her station when Nelson, whose target ship was another 74, realised that the absence of the
Bellona
would leave a gap in which lay three floating batteries and a pair of gunboats. With the amount of smoke billowing about he feared that any signal might not be seen so, while ordering Foley to con the ship and anchor in
Bellona
’s
place, he made his way to the side, requesting a speaking trumpet. The next ship in line was captained by Freemantle, a man he trusted.

‘Ahoy,’ he shouted, his ship slowing as the anchor bit,
‘Ganges,
take station opposite number thirteen in the order of attack in place of
Elephant.’

‘Aye aye, sir,’ floated back across the water from the wheel.

There were only two ships yet to come fresh to battle,
Monarch
and
Defiance,
both with good officers aboard: Mosse, who had led the way through the Sound, and Admiral Graves who had handsomely volunteered for a duty about which he had had serious reservations. He must hail them, too, as they passed and give them new orders.

‘How much a man’s fate rests in the hands of others,’ he said to the red-coated Colonel Stewart standing beside him. So great was the din that Stewart asked him to repeat it. Below decks the guns, which had expected to engage one target a ship, and were now obliged to split their fire, were hastily being re-aimed.

‘We are too far off, Captain Foley,’ Nelson called, as the first broadside rolled under his feet, rocking the ship back until the wind
on the topsails stopped it, ‘a full two cables. I would wish to be closer in.’

The reply from the Danes flew through
Elephant
’s
rigging, heavy balls that ripped the top foremast to shreds.

‘The pilots fear another shoal, sir.’

‘Damn the pilots,’ he said, but so low that only Stewart and young Frears heard him. Just ahead was his original target, now being engaged by
Ganges.
‘It does not seem to occur to them that if a Danish 74 can occupy this water so can we.’

Stewart, who knew how to work artillery by land, thought two hundred yards perilously close to the enemy, but he did not know Nelson, who always wanted to lay his ship so close that his shot could pierce the planking. The second salvo rolled out, less disciplined than the first, but good enough to cause damage.

‘Mr Frears, take station on the starboard side and let me know when any of our ships come up.’

‘Sir,’ the boy replied, happy to be as far away as possible from what was coming.

All around Nelson was sound and fury and billowing acrid smoke, as Foley trained his forward guns on number thirteen to help Freemantle, and his after cannon on number nine to assist Bligh, while the central sections pounded the floating batteries. It was in looking at the effect of the second target that Nelson saw
Glatton’s
foremast go by the board. Only later would he discover that seven of Bligh’s upper-deck carronades were put out of action and men squashed like insects or thrown overboard into the freezing water.

It was bloody work, but all Nelson’s battles came down to that. Not for him the stately standing off preferred by elderly admirals, line of ships versus line of ships sailing along, trading regulated fire. At Frears’s bidding he called to
Monarch
and
Defiance,
altering their respective stations. He knew that Foley was coping with his targets, suspected that Bligh had begun to use carcasses, combustible shells full of saltpetre, tallow, resin, turpentine, sulphur and antimony, because of the speed with which fire began to consume his opponent. He reasoned that matters must be progressing well when Thomas Bertie sent a midshipman in a boat from HMS
Ardent,
with the information that he had engaged five separate targets and reckoned they were all now useless.

That was the first of a flow of good news that began to arrive, telling him that all his ships were at their stations, that Riou’s squadron of frigates and brigs was hotly engaged with the Trekroner fort, that his concerns about the bomb vessels were unfounded. They
were in place and hard at their task. Aloft, a lookout could see Sir Hyde Parker and his fleet beating up, and the reckoning was that there was no hope of their arrival for hours.

What Sir Hyde Parker could see, from a distance of four miles, was that matters were at a stand. All of Nelson’s ships were now engaged and still those at the head of the line beyond the Trekroner fort were without an opponent to fight, which seemed to him to underline the superiority of the Danes. In near freedom they were playing on the line of anchored British frigates under Riou’s command, a squadron fully occupied in firing on the Trekroner forts and the ships in the shallows in front. There was no sign of slackening from the Danish defences, while a third of Nelson’s strength, never enough in Sir Hyde’s estimation, was either useless or could not properly engage.