Breaking the Line

by David Donachie

  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 Agamemnon 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 befor
e 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.

  ‘Our man has bitten off more than he can chew, here, Dommet,’ he said. ‘We are in a fair way to risking being beat.’

  ‘I grant you it is warm work, sir,’ Dommet replied, his telescope fixed to his eye, ‘but the battle has, in my estimation yet to reach a crisis.’

  ‘I would like an explanation of what you call a crisis. Nelson is outnumbered and I perceive his notion that the mere crash of British cannon would bring the Danes to negotiate has not proved correct. It is four hours since the first shot was heard and if anything the enemy fire has increased rather than diminished.’

  Parker failed to add
that his own reluctance to shift his anchorage closer to the enemy had contributed to the problem. At a progress of no more than one mile each hour his part of the fleet could not hope to affect the outcome of the battle. The crisis, as Dommet called it, would have come and gone well before then. All the old fears resurfaced in Parker’s mind, and now it was not a case of Nelson’s success raising him, it was the possibility of a Nelson defeat taking him down and several ships with it. He tried to imagine what it would be like to bring a severely damaged vessel out through the northern neck of the King’s Deep. The mere thought made him shudder.

  No charts, no buoys, perhaps the best sailing minds on the ships killed or wounded; masts shot away, sails full of holes and a vessel taking in water enough to lower her keel several feet. There was a strong possibility that more than one of the retreating ships would ground on a shoal. Close to the Danes, victorious or at least unbowed enough to continue the fight, those ships would be taken, perhaps refloated, remanned and stuck as hulks in the defences. He might find himself facing his own ships in any renewed attempt to subdue Copenhagen.

  And that was before he considered the difficulties of facing the Russians and the Swedes, with perhaps these very Danes sailing to join them for a grand battle in open water. To fail to take the Danish capital was one thing, but the prospect of a defeat in a sea battle suddenly loomed to terrify him.

  Parker had a vision that Nelson would escape censure, not just because he was a junior but because the nation loved him too much to blame him. They would call him brave and enterprising for his attempt to overcome the Danish defence line, and laud his zeal for the manner in which he humbugged them. But if it all came to naught, Parker, as commanding admiral, would have to account for the losses in men and ships, for every action that HIS fleet had taken, and he suspected, indeed knew, that the British public would not love him for it.