Breaking the Line

by David Donachie

  As soon as the Sound began to narrow Murray and his bomb ketches pulled away to anchor. Nelson watched, and pointed out to Frears the way the 74-gun ship positioned herself. ‘See, he drops the stern anchor, and below decks his men have prepared a spring, a hawser that, fed out the front ports, will be attached to that anchor cable so that Edgar can be hauled round and have all her cannon facing the castle. The bomb ketches will use twin anchors and their capstan not only to position themselves but also to adjust their aim.’

  Nelson was talking, he knew, to allay his own late doubts. It was a common thing, this series of afterthoughts about what might go wrong, made worse by the length of time that the whole adventure would take. Behind him the fleet was strung out and he knew it would be near nightfall – a late darkening indeed in these northern climes – before the last ship cleared the danger.

  All eyes were on Helsingborg, telescopes adjusted constantly for a clearer picture of the battlements. There were men there for sure, and a sharp eye through a long glass could see a trace of the smoke from the tubs of slowmatch set behind the guns as an insurance in case the flintlocks didn’t fire. But there was no great activity, no sign that the cannon, so much closer to the fleet than those of Cronberg, were preparing to open fire.

  It was about an hour later that Monarch got abreast of both fortresses. Nelson pointed as Mosse raised his colours and the great battle flag streamed out from the masthead. It was as if Colonel Strickler, the officer in charge of the Cronberg gunners, had been waiting for that: the signal that battle was about to be joined. Before it was halfway up to the peak, a huge jet of smoke appeared from the walls. That beat the sound of the cannon, and the sound beat the black heavy ball that arced through the air towards HMS Monarch. Hitting the water it sent up a huge plume of white spray that shot forward and smashed into the side of the ship.

  ‘Make a note of the time,’ said Sir Hyde Parker, ‘and signal Captain Murray to open fire.’

  Aboard Edgar and the bomb ketches they had been waiting too, bent over their ordnance, every gun at maximum elevation to make the range. Hyde Parker’s signal was also half way up to the mast when those guns spoke, no single weapon now but everything they had aboard. Even in the rolling heavy smoke from Edgar’s broadside Nelson could see the way the bomb ketches dipped and reversed as their great mortars fired. Those balls, ten times the size of that from Cronberg, seemed to fly so slow it was a wonder they stayed in the air. But when they came down, they did so with awesome power, sending up great plumes of earth and stones, part of the escarpments in front of the fort.

  ‘Now our friend Colonel Strieker has a conundrum Mr Frears. Would you care to outline for me what that is?’

  Frears gulped, but even to a near child the answer was obvious. ‘Does he direct his fire on to the Edgar, sir and ignore the fleet? Or does he seek to damage us?’

  ‘Well said Mr Frears. And what would you do?’

  It was with no pleasure that Frears replied, ‘I would concentrate on us sir, since his object is to prevent us making Copenhagen Roads.’

  Nelson watched the water around Monarch start to boil, as Strickler opened up with his entire barrage. Some balls fell well short, the odd one made the range but did no damage, the majority landing between the stern of one ship and the bowsprit of the next in line. And Helsingborg, more than a mile distant, stayed silent. The following ships reached the point of maximum danger, but before that happened to HMS Elephant Nelson announced his intention of going below. While most on the quarterdeck were astonished, Captain Foley was not. He had known Nelson since they were boys together, warring with the senior midshipmen aboard their first posting. What he was doing was typical. The message was simple: we are in no danger.

  ‘I think Mr Strickler will need to be damned lucky,’ Nelson said, just before he disappeared down the companionway. ‘The Swedes, it seems, prefer caution to war, and unless he sinks one of our ships in the deep water channel, he is doing nothing but waste his powder and shot.’

  As the fleet sailed on Edgar kept up a steady barrage, doing little damage, but the shots obliging the Danish gunners to keep their heads below the parapet lest some ricocheted stone from the exploding ramparts inflict a serious wound. Nelson had left Frears on deck, his task to tell his admiral when the last ship had cleared the narrow part of the Sound. The sky was the azure blue of approaching night, the gun flashes, from both fort and ships orange tongues of flame that darted into the clear icy air, before the boy came down to find his admiral calmly writing letters.

  ‘The Cronberg shot is to the stern of Glatton, sir. Captain Bligh is through. The flag has sent a signal with HMS Edgar’s number to discontinue the action.’

  The first part – the easy part to Nelson’s way of thinking – was over. Now he had to turn his mind to the much more difficult task of subduing a whole nation.

  16

  HMS Amazon had enough gold braid on the quarterdeck to light up a ballroom, mixed with the red coats of artillery officers and Colonel Stewart, commander of the contingent of soldiers. Nelson imagined it was the kind of scene that a figurative painter might appreciate. The frigate was inching along the King’s Deep, through floating ice and the detritus of the rivers that fed the Baltic, sailing north to south, with the spires of Copenhagen and the grey, green and red tiled roofs of the buildings easily visible in the light of the piercing northern sun.

  The master was making observations and marking off distances, using his quadrant and the many spires of the city, hastily scribbling notes into a book held for him by one of his mates. Two leadsmen were fully active in the bows, calling out the depth of water under the keel to an anxious officer in the waist, one that Captain Riou, the commanding officer of Amazon could see from the quarterdeck. Men stood ready to back the sails at a moment’s notice and take the way off the ship. With no buoys to mark the safe channel, it was essential to be able to take the way off the ship quickly, though being stationary might expose them to some gunnery.

  Parker, Nelson, Rear Admiral Graves and Captain Dommet would not face capture, but Nelson suspected that being forced to take a boat back to his ship would do nothing for the fire in Parker’s belly, which showed every sign of dying out. Nelson tried to avoid embarrassing his superior, positing suggestions in such a way that any conclusion seemed as if it had come from him. They had sailed south from the fleet anchorage, passing the main Danish defence, the forts and warships at the head of the channel between Zeeland and Amager, using the frigate’s shallow draught to stay at the furthest possible range. Yet it was close enough for both sets of officers to examine each other.

  One of the lieutenants from HMS London read the enemy strength. Iris, frigate, 36 guns, believed to be 24 and 18-pounders. Trekroner 74 guns, 36-pounders on the lower deck, 24’s on the upper, with the Lynetten fort to the rear. Steen Bille’s flagship, Danmark 74, was next, set quite properly in the centre of the defence. In front of the Trekroner Fortress, built ten feet high on piles driven in a protruding sandbank, with earth packed redoubts, lay two brigs of 18 guns.

  According to Vansittart over five hundred men manned the fort behind these brigs. It mounted sixty-four heavy calibre cannon and one huge 94-pounder carronade designed to smash ships at close range. Then came Mars 60, and Elephanten 74, both two-deckers lacking masts, vessels once proud, now relegated for use as blockships.

  Sailing into King’s Deep what they saw was even easier to identify. They examined Olfert Fischer’s defence line along the northern shore of Amager. Though more numerous in terms of vessels and guns, it was weaker because of lack of depth and no fixed target, like the canal entrance to the main harbour, for an enemy to assault.

  Each observer carried in his mind a view of the whole layout of the city behind the defences and there were sharp eyes in the tops to remind them of what, from sea level, they could not observe. The round moated walls that encased the pocket capital, the numerous harbours that ran off the main channel, the wide canal that ran between the two
islands on which the city stood. At the end of that canal, less than a third of a mile from the royal palace of Amelienborg, sat the Castellet fortress, bristling with guns.

  Nelson was busy calculating ranges, noting that if he entered the King’s Deep at the southern end then he would be out of range of the fixed fortifications of both Trekroner fort and behind them, on the city walls, the Quintus and Sixtus batteries. There was a battery of guns behind a low, newly thrown up rampart near the northern tip of Amager, but he saw that as a readily acceptable risk since it mounted fewer cannon than any one of his line of battle ships.

  The lookouts calculated less than ten cannon, probably 36-pounders and a couple of mortars. The latter were deadly to a ship if accurate, but were notoriously difficult to aim, and the charge of powder firing the ball had to be measured correctly to a fraction of an ounce to hit a stationary target, never mind a moving one. That meant his intended entry in the King’s Deep from the south would start virtually unopposed.

  But even as he sniffed the freezing air, and watched the floating ice and bits of trees ease by the side of the ship, he could not help but be aware that his opinion about subduing these guns was not shared by his fellow admirals. By the look on Parker’s face he was seeing problems where Nelson was seeing solutions. Rear Admiral Graves was pointing out, with increasing despondency, the armed hulks, pontoons, gunboats and wood-stacked fire ships that lined the shore, observations that were having just as morbid an effect on Sir Hyde Parker.

  If Nelson had been in command of that defence, he would have opened fire, attempting to sink or send packing what was obviously a reconnaissance. Parker ascribed the lack of that reaction to a general regard for the better rules of polite warfare. Nelson, though he didn’t say so, made an entirely different deduction. To him it meant that powder and shot were not in generous supply and that the guns that Fischer had at his disposal were not of the best. He might look at this deck and wish to remove the odd braided head, but to try would waste ammunition and would tell the enemy the nature of both his cannon and the quality of the Danish gunnery.

  Did neither of them look, like he had, at that flotsam and ice floating by? That could only have come from further north, a clear indication that the ice and the muck of the great rivers was breaking up. The Russian Fleet could be free of frozen water now, and already sailing to the relief of their Danish allies. In his head he was repeating to himself, over and over again, ‘waste not a moment’.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said Hyde Parker, addressing the assembled artillery officers, and the lieutenants from the bomb ketches. ‘You have seen what lies beyond these defences. Our object is to bring the Danes to their senses by threatening the city. Can you bombard it effectively from this channel?’

  The group trained their telescopes back up the channel, dipping occasionally to the defence line, calculating where to anchor, trajectories and range, discussing targets – the Arsenal and the Navy Yard, as well as the royal palace, seat of the Danish government. With so many spires they had easily visible fixed points from which to deduce the fall of shot. There was a minimum of a huddle before the most senior gunner spoke.

  ‘Provided the guns before us are silenced or subdued, and we can anchor close to the Amager sandbanks then we can threaten most of the city. Nothing of importance would be left whole if we had a week of activity.’

  Parker nodded, then turned to the commander of the Amazon, ‘Captain Riou, you may go about as you feel convenient.’

  Nelson watched Riou with professional interest, noting that he handled his ship well and that his men obviously trusted his seamanship. It felt like a happy ship, and Nelson was sure the man who commanded it was a seaman to his fingertips. It was in the way Riou carried himself; assured, confident, happy to be on a deck. Very gently he let the way come off the frigate leaving just enough forward motion to turn the bow. The hands hauled hard to bring round the yards and with what seemed like a whisper the ship was facing north, with yards being braced to beat up the channel into the wind, no easy task since there was little room to tack and wear.

  Back aboard HMS London the senior officers gathered in Parker’s cabin; Nelson, Graves, Dommet, and Colonel Stewart. The latter had little to say, and nothing to impart, since he would only come into action when a great deal had been achieved by the Navy. But Nelson noticed that he took a keen interest in the naval deliberations, and he could see by the changes of expression that he inclined towards aggression rather than circumspection.

  ‘Captain Dommet,’ Parker asked, ‘your opinion?’

  ‘I feel we must attack, sir,’ Dommet insisted. ‘It is at the core of our instructions and nothing I have seen today makes me fear the outcome, as long as we do not attempt to take on the enemy where he is best placed to thwart us.’

  ‘You have seen the strength of the defence yet you still feel that is true?’

  ‘I do, sir.’

  ‘I trust you would be prepared to put your opinion in writing?’

  There was a moment when their eyes locked, the still smarting Captain of the Fleet, previously ignored, and the commander-in-chief who, by asking Dommet for a positive written submission, was looking to cover his back in case of failure.

  ‘Most certainly, sir,’ said Dommet, with a look that was close to a glare.

  It was a wasted stare, because Parker had already turned away to talk to the next up the ladder of seniority. ‘Admiral Graves?’

  ‘A most hazardous endeavour, sir.’ Graves had a long face, and a sad look to go with his grim forecast. ‘I cannot see how we can attack such a solid defence without major damage to our ships. We have no real knowledge of the depth of the channel, only that there is one somewhere deep enough to take line-of-battle ships. Please remember that what is being proposed will put us opposite the defence at pistol-shot range.’

  ‘I am aware of that Admiral Graves,’ said Parker, but it was not a rebuke for stating the obvious, more of a thank you for airing a thought he had hesitated to make himself.

  ‘We know that the water close to our enemies has the required depth,’ said Nelson. ‘If they are there, we can be there too.’

  ‘A point, sir,’ Graves acknowledged. ‘But we must first get to them, and I for one would be reluctant to sail close down their line when they are as well prepared as they are. The lead ships would suffer terribly. That means we must hog the middle of the channel until we are opposite our chosen targets before easing in to engage. What happens if a ship runs aground, with the Danes having oared gunboats that can manoeuvre where we can not?’

  There was more, much more, so detailed it seemed as if Graves had stared down every muzzle, and liked less and less what he saw. What use fire ships when the floating batteries had several inches of water over their planking as protection against ignition? The Amager defence ships were old hulks, which the Danes would happily trade for usable warships, weakening the British fleet at no real cost to themselves. Even sunk, sat on the mud, the top tier of guns on such hulks might still be able to fire, the conclusion an unnecessary reminder that Graves was against the enterprise.

  ‘That too, I would like in writing,’ said Parker.

  ‘And you shall most assuredly have it, sir.’

  ‘Has your opinion altered at all, Lord Nelson?’

  Nelson knew that his opinion would swing the meeting, whether it was positive or negative. Parker was not going to make the decision; this council of war would. Nor would he personally cast a vote. He would use the advice he was given to justify whatever action was taken.

  ‘I am more sanguine than ever, sir.’

  Even Parker, who was using all his guile to remain stony-faced, reacted to that with some asperity. ‘You do not see obstacles to your proposed plan?’

  ‘None! I repeat to you, give me my ten sail-of-the-line, as well as all the small vessels and let me deploy them as I see fit. I will hand you Copenhagen the day after the wind obliges us.’

  ‘Admiral Graves’s reservations notwithstanding
?’

  ‘A channel approaching a trading harbour must, for all love, oblige ships sailing both in and out, and I cannot see that such vessels would brush their yardarms in passing. The trench must be deep enough and wide enough for half a dozen keels. We are at risk, of course, and our ships will suffer some damage, but the Danes will suffer more, for we are better at gunnery than they are. I will also say that the way Captain Fischer has deployed his ships and floating batteries gives them an inherent weakness. The ships are in deeper water moored by twin anchors square on to the Amager sandbank, which means that they cannot provide mutual support but can only fire on ships that lay in the limited arc of their guns. And having deployed the floating batteries further inshore any attacker is masked from their fire by the ships further out. Therefore it will be a one against one contest. I am confident that in a close quarters duel, they will be beaten, especially if we come at them from the south.’

  Parker picked up a pair of dividers and twiddled with them, as though he was weighing matters in his mind. But because of his own insistence on written opinions the decision had been made. Dommet was looking quite belligerent, and there was no point in asking Nelson if he was prepared to put his view in writing as he already had done so.

  ‘Mister Osborn,’ Parker called, and his secretary entered. ‘Please be so good as to take down the following orders.’

  Nelson continued to pace about as this took place; he to have the ships, frigates, bomb vessels, fire ships named in the margin and guns therein under his command etc etc. Captain Freemantle, with a pair of lieutenants to have command of the flat boats, which would carry the soldiers to their assaults once the fortress guns had been neutralised. Gun brigs to this officer; signals and passwords as follows … Osborn scribbled while Parker dictated, with the commander-in-chief looking like a man who, trying to commit suicide, had jumped off a cliff and was wondering if, halfway down, he had made the right decision.