Halberstat passed a quick sequence of orders, and the squadron resumed the steady advance Ulrik's attack had managed to at least delay.
The prince stood silently on the bridge, watching alertly. Everything he saw only impressed him more, and felt a deep temptation to chatter away to his captors about their marvelous equipment, but he suppressed it sternly. No doubt a lot of it was shock, and the result of sheer jubilation at finding himself still alive.
That wasn't the reason he made himself keep his mouth shut, however. He and Baldur had planned their defense of Copenhagen carefully, and they still had one last string to their bow, so to speak. So, Ulrik forced his expression to remain only interested and fascinated by his surroundings as the gunboats forged ahead once more.
Ajax led the reduced squadron toward Admiral Simpson's chosen firing point some hundred yards off Amager Island's defensive batteries. Captain Mulbers was back on his bridge wing, watching the white water foaming back from either side of Ajax's blunt bow. He didn't like to admit just how frightening he'd found the Danish galleys' attack. Not so much for his own personal safety, as for the safety of his vessel and the men serving in it. What that single spar torpedo had managed to do to Monitor was grim evidence of what could have happened if they'd been even a little less lucky in that smoke-strangled melee.
He grimaced at the memory, then worked his shoulders from side to side, trying to flex the tension out of them. It helped, and he reached for his binoculars again. He'd just started to lift them toward his eyes when the corner of his attention noticed something floating in the water directly ahead of Ajax.
It wasn't very big. Obviously, it was a piece of wreckage from one of the smashed galleys, or something of sort. It couldn't be anything else, given the fact that they were heading back through the very area where the brief, madly confused engagement had taken place. Of course, it was remotely possible there were still survivors in the water, using some of that same wreckage for flotation, so-
Wolfgang Mulbers never completed the thought. The "wreckage" ahead of his ship was in fact one of the floating mines that had been towed along behind a dozen of Prince Ulrik's galleys. They'd been cut loose only after the smokescreen had hidden them from any observation, been left behind… which had put them squarely in the path of Admiral John Simpson's gunboats. Not only put them there, but left them in water that was obviously clear of mines because the galleys themselves had just passed through it.
Each mine was actually part of a cluster of three mines, roped together. The dot Mulbers had observed was part of one such cluster, but the dot that he didn't see was part of another cluster. One which SSIM Ajax had just run directly across.
The improvised detonators were less than reliable, just as Simpson had suggested might be the case in his earlier conversation with Captain Halberstat. Five of them completely failed to function. The sixth detonator, however, did exactly what it was supposed to. The mine to which it was attached exploded, and both of its companions went up in sympathetic detonation.
It was a thunderous burst of sound, but before it even truly registered, it was drowned by another, far more powerful blast as Ajax's magazine exploded.
John Simpson stared at the expanding ball of fire and smoke that had once been one of his timberclads. Bits and pieces of wreckage lofted outward from the heart of the blast, trailing thin ribbons of smoke across the blue northern sky. He saw one of the ship's carronades sail at least sixty or seventy feet straight up, and his jaw clenched so tightly he was astonished his teeth didn't shatter.
I put the magazines as low as possible to protect them… which put them exactly where a bottom-contact explosion could get to them, didn't it?
He wrenched his attention away from the explosion, looking over his shoulder. The expression on young Prince Ulrik's face was all the confirmation he needed. He realized exactly what Ulrik must have done-and how the Danish prince had succeeded in drawing Simpson into exactly the mistake he'd wanted.
For an instant, white-hot rage blasted up inside John Simpson. He'd known all of the officers and men aboard that ship. None of them could have survived that cataclysmic blast, and the man responsible for arranging it stood less than five feet away from him, within easy reach.
But as quickly as it had come, his fury shrank back to merely mortal proportions.
He was only doing his duty, the admiral told himself, the thought harsh in his own mind. Only doing his duty. And let's face it, he may have arranged it, but you're the one who walked straight into it. Which is exactly why you're so goddamned mad at him.
He inhaled deeply, then made his white-knuckled grip on his binoculars relax and turned to Captain Halberstat.
"I think we'll have a use for the bass boat after all, Franz," he said. "Please single Ensign Halvorsen that we need him to take point. And pass the same word by radio to the other gunboats. Bring the squadron forty-five degrees to starboard until we're well clear of the engagement area."
"Aye, aye, sir," Halberstat acknowledged. He nodded to one of the signalmen, and Simpson looked at Prince Ulrik as the signal lamp mounted on the front of the bridge began to flicker at Halvorsen's powerboat.
"I see your father was telling the truth when he said Copenhagen wasn't defenseless, Your Highness," he said. The column of gunboats altered course while simultaneously slowing sharply to let Halvorsen take up his new station. "I wish I could congratulate you on your accomplishment. I trust you'll understand why I find that rather too difficult to do at this particular moment."
Ulrik nodded, just a bit gingerly. His own emotions were mixed. Although the mines had been his idea, and even though he and Norddahl were the ones who had worked out the plan to bring them into action, he'd never really expected one of these ships to simply blow up like that. Never imagined he would kill everyone aboard one of them. The sudden flush of triumph he'd felt was tempered by the knowledge that there could have been no survivors, and he was guiltily delighted when he realized the Americans' change of course would take them safely clear of any of his remaining mines.
Well, of course you're delighted, Ulrik! he told himself. After all, if they hadn't changed course, there's no reason this ship couldn't have been sunk, as well, and you've already been swimming once today.
The gunboats steadied on a heading that would bring them to his chosen firing position in about twenty more minutes. "I think, however," Simpson continued, as the shore batteries began to thump smokily, "that Copenhagen's defenses-effective defenses, that is-are just about expended now. Under the circumstances, I'd like to invite you to take another message from me to your father."
"Thank God you're alive, Ulrik!" King Christian blurted, crushing his son in a rib-popping, eye-bulging embrace. If Ulrik had ever doubted that his father loved him, that doubt would have been vanquished forever, and he felt his own eyes burn as he hugged Christian back.
"I'm alive, Father," he said, "but most of my men aren't. We did our best, but we didn't stop them. That's why Admiral Simpson sent me ashore to tell you that his original terms still stand."
"No!"
Christian jerked back, his huge smile banished by an expression of ferocious determination.
"Father, they're ready to open fire. Trust me, the shore batteries aren't going to stop them, and my galleys are gone now."
"Maybe so," his father said half-sullenly. "But we've still got more of your floating mines, and wind and tide will carry them straight into those gunboats if we release them in the right spot."
"Father, there's no way to control the direction they'll drift if we turn them loose. They may get to the Americans, but they probably won't. And if they don't, then they'll be a menace to any other vessel that approaches Copenhagen. And even if we manage to sink another one of their ships, it's not going to change the fact that they're anchored right off the waterfront, ready to turn the shipyard-and the entire city, for that matter-into rubble."