Inferno (36 page)

‘Look!'

Krieger turned quickly and saw not the inshore squadron but a dozen or more boats in a line emerging from the English fleet, stroking fast in their direction. Baffled, he watched them advance. Then he understood. These were the very ships' boats of warships sent on the cutting-out expeditions and daring raids that had brought the Royal Navy fame and respect over their hard years of war. Now they were being sent into open battle because they had the same
shallow draught as themselves and therefore could close with them and bring about a hand-to-hand fight. A courageous and intelligent move.

He couldn't let it happen. His sailors were not in the same class and would quickly be bested by these seasoned veterans.

‘Reduced charges!' he bellowed at the gunboats with long guns. Some grasped it immediately, others, puzzled, hung back.

When the first shots crashed out, it quickly became clear to them. Aimed directly in line with the oncoming boats the heavy shot hit the sea short but ricocheted on in a series of deadly skips until it reached the boats at their own level, smashing oars, taking lives, sinking them.

Krieger knew that those vessels mounted carronades, the short, stubby weapons ideal for boatwork but futile against Danish gunboats, with long guns, able to stand off and punish them at will. There could be only one outcome, however brave the attempt.

He felt a savage satisfaction in knowing the Danes had gone on the offensive at last – who knew, when they came back to deal with the store-ships sustaining the besieging army, might not the whole situation be turned around? The British trapped ashore for all their great fleet, starved of victuals and ammunition, themselves ending up as the besieged?

Their return in the setting sun was sweet indeed, the shoreline alive with wildly waving onlookers, who'd witnessed the whole spectacle. He'd left three of the mortar vessels to keep up an intermittent fire during the night to discourage any work of repair, and at daybreak, when they went after the store-ships, it should prove an open highway.

I
t 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 retfærdige 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
Stubbekøbing
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 væk 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
kanonchalup
s 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 mêlée, 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
kanonchalup
s 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
kanonchalup
s 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
Stubbekøbing
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.

Stubbekøbing
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
Stubbekøbing
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 Kæmpe 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, ‘Løjtnant 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.