In Northern Seas

by Philip K Allan

  ‘The guns are ready for action, sir,’ he reported.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Russell,’ said the lieutenant. ‘Will you kindly give my compliments to the captain, and inform him of that.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir.’

  Russell strode to the ladder way and climbed up onto a quarterdeck that had suddenly filled with life. More gun crews here, clustered around the big carronades, with marines lining the gaps between them. He picked out the figure of his captain, obvious in his glittering uniform, where he stood by the rail with his telescope in his hand.

  ‘Mr Blake’s compliments, and the great guns are ready, sir,’ he reported.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Russell,’ said Clay. ‘Kindly report that we are cleared for action to the flag, Mr Todd.’

  As Russell departed he heard the little midshipman’s high falsetto behind him.

  ‘Flag acknowledges, sir!’ he cried. ‘Now the admiral is signalling to all ships. Form line of battle as previously ordered.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Todd,’ he heard Clay reply. ‘Raise the anchor, if you please Mr Taylor. Our place is in the rear, directly behind Polyphemus.’

  ******

  The battle line of two-decked British warships was gradually forming as they approached the southern end of the Middle Ground. Big seventy-fours, with masts that towered into the grey sky, were mixed with smaller sixty-fours and two little fifty-gun ships from an earlier age, valuable once again thanks to their shallow drafts. Ahead of the main fleet was a swarm of seven frigates and sloops, while bringing up the rear came the Griffin, swinging into position with the ornate stern of the Polyphemus filling the space beyond her long bowsprit.

  ‘A cable length, no more and no less, if you please, Mr Hutchinson!’ yelled Taylor towards the bow. ‘Set some of your men to spilling wind from the foretopsail!’ The grey-haired boatswain on the forecastle raised a hand in acknowledgment, and a group of crew ran to man the sheets.

  ‘Those tubs ahead are slower than a gaggle of Dutch herring busses, sir,’ supplemented the first lieutenant. ‘We shall need to look sharp not to run ourselves onboard them.’

  ‘Quite so, Mr Taylor,’ agreed his captain.

  ‘This is very engaging,’ enthused Vansittart. ‘The commencement of a genuine fleet action, all occurring before my eyes! Although I must confess to having little notion as to the significant parts. What, pray, are all these various groups of ships about?’

  Clay looked around him and assessed the situation. ‘As the ship is now prepared, and we have a little time before we shall be engaged, I daresay I can oblige you with an explanation, sir,’ he conceded. ‘But if Lord Nelson should signal, or action commence sooner...’

  ‘Then I shall meekly withdraw to my little box amongst the rodents.’

  ‘Very well, sir,’ said Clay. ‘Kindly take my glass, and I shall make haste to explain all. You shall need to close an eye. And for preference not the one engaged in looking through the apparatus. Just so. Let us start with the enemy, for his part is easily explained.’

  ‘Yes,’ said the diplomat, swinging the telescope towards the shore and causing Armstrong to step back out of its path. ‘The row of sundry vessels, betwixt us and the city, that all show Danish colours. Mr Preston was good enough to point them out earlier.’

  ‘Indeed, there are some twenty in all, with a very large gun battery on piles covering the far end of the line, together with sundry guns on shore that may serve to annoy us.’

  ‘I think I can see some now,’ said Vansittart, pointing the telescope towards the Danish coast. ‘Some cannons over there, behind earthworks.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Clay. ‘Then we have Lord Nelson’s force, which is this line of ships we are part of. Captain Rioux commands the smaller craft in the van, but they need not concern us. They will sail away presently to engage the large battery with feints and the like, while the twelve larger vessels, including us, set about the Danish fleet.’

  ‘Twelve against twenty,’ remarked the diplomat. ‘They don’t seem the best of odds. I thought Sir Hyde commanded a rather larger force?’

  ‘Indeed he does, and if you direct your gaze towards the north—no, sir, in that direction,’ said Clay. ‘Do you see the ships over yonder?’

  ‘I do,’ said the diplomat. ‘They seem very distant.’

  ‘That is the main fleet,’ explained Clay. ‘For the most part they are the vessels that are too large to come at the Danes in the narrow channel where they are moored,’ explained Clay.

  ‘How unfortunate,’ mused Vansittart. ‘And what pray are those small vessels anchored in a line, just over there. Oh, I see now, they are badly damaged. Why, every one of them has lost their front masts.’

  ‘Not quite, sir,’ said Clay. ‘For they never had any foremasts to lose. They are bomb ketches. They lob prodigiously large exploding shells from out of a big mortar set in their bow.’ The diplomat lowered the telescope and looked at Clay.

  ‘That sounds decidedly better,’ he said. ‘Will they not make short work of these Danish ships?’

  ‘Alas, no,’ said Clay. ‘For they are also prodigiously inaccurate, sir. But they may have a part to play in the battle, firing over our heads at the enemy. Once the Danish ships have been captured, they will be brought closer in to bombard the city, a target so large even bomb ketches cannot miss.’

  ‘Bombard the city!’ exclaimed Vansittart, before dropping his voice so only Clay could hear. ‘And you thought my actions in St Petersburg were barbarous.’

  ‘It is only the threat that will be required, sir,’ said Clay. ‘I am sure a talented diplomat, such as yourself, will be able to negotiate an end to this conflict with such powerful arguments to hand.’

  As the two men contemplated the line of bomb ketches moored on the far side of the Middle Ground, one of them spouted a column of flame from its bow. A thin arc of white smoke was drawn across the sky, heading for the Danish ships, while the ketch itself bucked and pulled against its anchor with the force of the recoil. Moments later the dull boom of the shot echoed across the water.

  ‘Now that firing has begun, sir, I must require you to go below,’ said Clay.

  ‘Very well, Captain,’ said Vansittart, returning the telescope to its owner. ‘I shall honour my undertaking and retreat into your hold to join Mr Corbett. My only regret is that I didn’t choose to wear my third best weskit this morning.’ He then leant forward and gripped Clay’s hand. ‘The very best of good fortune to you and your men, Captain. I shall see you presently, I don’t doubt, when this day is done.’

  ******

  All bar one of Nelson’s ships successfully rounded the southern end of the Middle Ground. The lone exception was the leading sixty-four, which had turned too early and now lay at a strange, lifeless angle where she had run herself up onto the slick, gripping mud. Across the water came the sound of shouted orders as she launched her boats in an attempt to pull herself off. Beside her a painted red keg bobbed in the water.

  ‘Shame not to have the Agamemnon with us,’ remarked Taylor. ‘Good fighting ship, that. I wonder why she missed her mark. The buoy placed to guide us seems plain to see.’

  ‘Because she has a fool for a navigator,’ snorted Armstrong. ‘Heaven help any ship with John Ducker for a sailing master. Why, only last spring he had the poor Agamemnon up on Penmark Rocks, waiting for the next tide to lift her off. No, that man’s failings are well understood in the service.’

  ‘They calls him John Ducker, the Witless Fucker,’ whispered Old Amos at the wheel, for the amusement of the teenage midshipmen stationed as runners beside him.

  ‘No tide to lift them here,’ continued Taylor. ‘She looks to be firmly planted on the bank.’

  ‘It’s Captain Hardy that I feel sorry for,’ added Armstrong. ‘Dragging a plum line around for much of the night to find the shoal’s end, and the lubbers still pass his mark on the wrong side.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Taylor, in a distracted way as he looked over his shoulder towards the
wheel. ‘Mr Todd, is that you I hear, gasping and snorting? Kindly display the decorum to be expected of a King’s officer. The eve of battle is no occasion for laughter.’

  Clay watched the barrel pass the Griffin’s starboard side as she followed the Polyphemus around, the last pearl on the string of Nelson’s ships. The pace of the line quickened as the wind settled behind them, and they headed northwards towards the first of their Danish opponents.

  ‘It cannot be helped now,’ said Clay. ‘But pray do not tell Mr Vansittart that the odds have lengthened. He was worried enough when we were twelve against twenty.’

  A series of explosions sounded from the line of bomb ketches, and the sky overhead was streaked with more trails of smoke. Tall columns of water rose up around the enemy’s ships.

  ‘Perhaps one hit, on that single-decker, near the end, sir?’ offered Armstrong.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Clay. ‘If so, it is the first.’

  ‘They are wasting powder, if you want my opinion, sir,’ commented Taylor.

  ‘You have the truth of it there, I fear,’ said his captain. ‘They will be turning their attention to the battery soon. We shall have to settle this in the traditional manner, great gun to great gun.’

  He returned his attention to the enemy. They were close now, a ragged looking line of disparate ships compared with Nelson’s. The mix of different sizes gave the effect of crenulations on the top of a castle wall. Some hulls were painted plain black, others had gun decks picked out in red, yellow or white. He focussed on the nearest, the enemy he would help fight. She was a big, two-decked warship, with heavy cannon run out and ready. Her masts were bare, save for a huge Danish ensign that flew from the top of each. Through his telescope he could see a faint haze of smoke rising into the air, and he imagined the smouldering linstocks, held poised above every touchhole. On her forecastle there was a cluster of officers; tiny in contrast to the ship’s carved lion figurehead crouched just beneath them. Sunlight glinted off gold braid and the brass of telescopes as they watched the approaching British fleet.

  ‘That is our enemy,’ he said to Taylor, pointing at the ship. ‘We shall let Polyphemus come up alongside her while we lay off her bow and rake her.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Taylor. ‘We had best reduce sail for the turn, and I shall check that the anchor is ready to be dropped.’

  ‘If you please, Mr Taylor,’ said his captain. ‘Mr Todd! Now you are yourself once more, give my compliments to Mr Blake, and ask him to run out the starboard guns.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ replied the youngster. He scampered away, and Clay returned his attention to the enemy he would fight. The front of the British fleet was almost next to her, and the Danish officers had vanished back to their posts, leaving the grave-faced lion to watch their approach. The Edgar had replaced the Agamemnon at the head of the British line. As she drew level, the Danish ship erupted in fire and smoke, heaving away from her enemy as her cannon all thundered back inboard. The roar of the broadside had just reached him when the Edgar fired back.

  ‘It has started at last,’ exclaimed Preston, who had taken Taylor’s place beside his captain.

  ‘Yes,’ said Clay, watching the unfolding battle. ‘Kindly have the time recorded in the log, Mr Preston.’ Now the Edgar was sailing on, receiving a fresh broadside from the next enemy in line, while the Bellona, following the Edgar, fired into the leading Dane. Ships followed one another into battle, each pouring broadsides into the Danish fleet, and receiving the same in return. As the volume of firing steadily rose, and the frigate grew closer, the din of battle became something Clay could feel vibrating through his hand where it rested on the rail, as well as ringing in his ears.

  ‘Mr Hutchinson has the anchor bent on its cable, and ready to drop when you give the word, sir,’ reported Taylor, ‘and we are sailing under foretopsail alone now.’

  ‘Edgar’s dropped anchor, sir,’ reported Preston, who was still watching the battle. ‘I can see her top men gathering in sail. She is opposite the fifth Dane, as ordered. Bellona is turning to pass outside of her. Now, that’s strange. What has happened?’ Clay had his telescope to his eye in a flash, trying to pierce the clouds of smoke. He saw the big seventy-four, stationary now, with her sails flapping in the wind as she let fly her sheets. There was something familiar in the angle of her hull. A series of flags shot up her mizzen halliards.

  ‘Distress signal from Bellona, sir!’ announced Preston. ‘Am aground!’

  ‘No!’ exclaimed Taylor. ‘Not another bloody one!’ Preston had continued to watch the unfolding drama.

  ‘Sorry to bring ill tidings, sir, but the Russell was following hard behind the Bellona,’ he said. ‘I believe she may be aground too.’

  ‘Curse these damnable Danes, pulling up all the marker buoys!’ exclaimed Armstrong, thumping the rail of the frigate.

  Clay stared at the two grounded British ships in horror. Over his shoulder the Agamemnon was still stuck fast. Twelve against twenty had seemed challenging odds at dawn. A few hours later, with the battle barely started, and they were down to nine ships. He felt despair grip his heart. Was he cursed, he wondered? Was the Griffin to be the second ship he would lose within twelve months? He felt the eyes of his officers on him, together with those of the sailors beyond them, standing at their posts. Sedgwick, his arms folded, patiently waiting to follow his captain into battle. Macpherson, immaculate in his scarlet tunic, with his grandfather’s claymore by his side. The wooden-faced Amos, his gnarled hands on the spokes of the wheel as he kept the frigate precisely behind the ship ahead.

  ‘The Elephant is passing inside of the Edgar, sir,’ said Preston. ‘She must have moored on the very edge of the deep water.’

  Clay returned his attention to the battle, forcing his trembling hand steady as he focussed his telescope on the flagship. The Elephant was leading the line now, sailing boldly into battle as he watched. Then she vanished in a cloud of smoke as she fired. Somewhere on board, the little figure of Nelson would be pacing her deck, his single hand behind his back, with Foley by his side. He found the image comforting, calming. He lowered his telescope and smiled at his officers.

  ‘At least we know where the deep water channel ends, gentlemen,’ he said, raising his voice a little, so that those beyond his officers could hear him. ‘What need have we of Danish navigational buoys, Mr Armstrong, when we have stranded ships of the line to mark our way? To your stations, for we need to make that turn. And let battle commence.’

  Chapter 15

  Battle

  After all the dash and bustle of preparing for action, there came a period of calm for the men stationed on the main deck. They knew that the frigate was under way, through the stirring of the hull beneath their feet and the idle flap of canvas overhead, but with the gun ports closed they were isolated in an oak cocoon. Lieutenant Blake stood at his place beside the mast, rocking occasionally on his heels to ease his legs. The other officers stood at their posts too, while the gun crews sat around the cannons, waiting.

  Evans traced his fingers over the flowing white letters painted on the eighteen-pounder’s barrel, wondering again about the mystery of writing. All the guns had been named by their crews. Some had chosen famous prize-fighters, like Dan Mendoza or Jack Broughton; others had selected more traditional names, like Spit Fire and Dread Nought. Evans knew that the first letter was an “S”, from its snake-like shape, which he recognised from his own name, but the rest was just loops and curves.

  ‘Is Shango truly set down here?’ he queried, not for the first time.

  ‘Aye, Sam lad,’ said Trevan, from the far side of the gun. ‘Leastways according to Able.’

  ‘Why do you call it that?’ queried one of the crew from the next cannon in line. ‘Right peculiar bleeding name, if you ask me. Proper foreign, an’ all.’

  ‘Will you hear your man?’ exclaimed O’Malley, the gun’s proud captain. ‘Is it sneering at the best handled piece on the fecking barky you’re after doing? And what p
ray is the name of your cannon?’

  ‘Brimstone Belcher,’ said the seaman.

  ‘Brimstone Belcher,’ he repeated, in mock admiration. ‘It must’ve taken you philosophers an age to come up with that. Why, there can’t be above fifty of them feckers in the fleet.’ He patted his own barrel with pride. ‘Only the one Shango, mind, him being the God of fecking Thunder, back amongst the savages where Sedgwick hales from.’

  A sound, not unlike the distant wrath of a West African thunder god, came from beyond the frigate’s hull. Evans looked up as a number of dark smudges flew across the sky, trailing lines of smoke.

  ‘You reckon them bomb ketches will be sorting the Danes out?’ he asked.

  ‘Don’t you go heeding them,’ warned O’Malley. ‘They couldn’t strike the side of McGinty's barn with a shovel.’

  ‘It’ll come down to us firing ball, fast and true, from a biscuit-toss away,’ added Trevan. ‘Be odd, mind, not fighting Dons or Frogs. Has he got much bottom, then, your Dane?’

  ‘Them as are shipmates are game enough,’ commented Evans, ‘like Pedersen over there. Now that’s bleeding odd! Where’s he gone to?’

  ‘Pipe ordered the Danes to go an’ help the sawbones, so they don’t have to fight their kin,’ explained O’Malley. ‘Mind, I ain’t sure as holding down folk being parted with their legs is how I would choose to spend a battle.’

  ‘Look lively, Sean,’ said Trevan, nodding towards the quarterdeck ladder way. ‘Here comes one of the Snotties.’

  Midshipman Todd’s progress along the middle of the gun deck was accompanied by a wave of movement, as sailors spotted the youngster and rose to their feet in anticipation of what his arrival might portend. When he stopped in front of Lieutenant Blake, he was at the centre of an oasis of silence.