The British fleet was on the move. Sails were being loosed and sheeted home all along the broad front of the armada. They were headed directly towards the harbour entrance.
‘Be damned to it!’ Krieger burst out. ‘They’ve got our refusal and are giving answer to it!’
They were coming on in numbers. Very shortly there would be a climactic battle for possession or destruction of the Danish fleet.
‘We throw in everything we’ve got,’ Krieger said hotly.
‘I think not, Johannes.’
‘What?’
Bille smiled thinly. ‘We’re being paid a handsome compliment, can’t you see? Their main fleet is closing to stopper up our own, thinking it in shape to hazard theirs.’ Seeing disbelief, he added, ‘You’ll see I’m right – they’ll moor in the last of the four-fathom water.’
As though in obedience to his words the ships rounded to at just that point, only a few miles north of the harbour.
A detached group continued as if in insolent challenge, spreading out as they came. ‘And those?’ Krieger said drily.
‘If I was the English admiral I’d have some sort of shallow-draught inshore squadron to protect their transports, wouldn’t you?’
‘As we’ll have to fight through to get at them.’ His face tightened in determination.
Bille called for a telescope, and as the ships took their positions he counted them off. ‘Gun-brigs, a small frigate or is that a ship-sloop? There’s a quantity of bomb-ketches and what looks like a cloud of their light morterchalups, a bit of a mixed bag, I’d think.’
Krieger lifted an eyebrow. ‘So, most with deeper draught – they won’t be able to get close in to stop us. And their mortars will never stand against our long twenty-fours. If we move fast we’ll have a chance.’
‘It’s my bet that …’
‘The redcoats will have artillery on their flank as they’ll turn on us,’ Krieger finished. ‘I’ve thought of that. To clear the way to the transports I’m going to entertain ’em with some fireworks. They’ll be behind earthworks so I’ll have the morterchalups throw a storm of hundred-pound shells over the top, the kanonchalups slamming in some round shot to keep their heads down.’
‘And you’ll-’
‘And there’ll be kanonbads lying to seaward taking on that inshore squadron, helped by other kanonchalups as will keep ’em at a respectful distance.’
‘There’s something else we can do, Johannes.’
‘Oh?’
‘I’m going to get our stout General Bielefeldt to make a sally of sorts first, let us get into position. Who knows? They might drive in their lines handsomely,’ he finished doubtfully.
Chapter 69
There was little ceremony: it wasn’t his way. Krieger stood aft in the kanonchalup Stubbekobing, keeping out of the way of Peder Bruun, her captain, as the gunboats up and down the trots were manned.
It wasn’t much of a battle plan because things could change so quickly. If the British found shallow-draught reinforcements, if they themselves came under fire from long range – but all the gunboat chiefs were professionals and would read the situation as it unfolded.
There was nothing to do now but wait for the signal.
The faint sound of musketry and small field pieces came across the mile or so of water. A cloud of powder-smoke rose around Swan Mill – the attack had begun.
‘Go!’ Krieger bellowed, through cupped hands.
A cheer arose, rolling over the water, echoing back from the old stones of Lynetten. Half a thousand backs bent to the oars and the flotilla put out on the grey-green waters to go to war.
The British had nothing to prepare them for the onslaught, no experience of the deadly effectiveness of a gunboat swarm. He wasn’t going to forewarn them: his divisions were deliberately cloaked as part of a mass of boats, all apparently sent to the aid of their army comrades.
It was an exhilarating charge stretching out powerfully for the fighting. With pride Krieger saw the Orlogsflag in each boat, the swallow-tailed war ensign of the navy, its brilliant red with a pure white cross streaming out defiantly as it had done for centuries of sea warfare.
There was Nakskov with Wulff standing nobly, like a Nordic warrior, his gaze fixed sternly on the enemy. And over there was Julius Zeuthen in his kanonjolle urging on his men like a maniac, determined to reach the battlefield first. Every man of one heart, doing what they could against near hopeless odds. It brought a catch to his throat that it had taken English perfidy to bring out the finest in his men.
Their objective was clear, marked out for them by the smoke and dust of battle in the low shore. It wasn’t hard to reason that the English artillery would be removed back from the infantry clashes and there it was – the raw earth of their defensive works. It was time to go to work.
The Orlogsflag dipped and rose once.
One by one the divisions separated. The kanonchalups swung their bows shoreward, the mortar craft in line abreast of them, the kanonbad wheeling to face out.
Captain Bruun looked at Krieger, who nodded curtly.
A touch on one side of oars, and then his whistle pierced the air. Instantly all oars lifted clear of the water and the rowers tensed. In the next split second the twenty-four-pounder in the bows crashed out, the livid flash in a billow of gunsmoke, a heavy round shot sent into the English lines. Almost immediately it was followed by the others in an avalanche of noise and destruction.
Krieger saw the morterchalups get under way, with a flurry of white as the oars bit deep, disappearing into the powder-smoke slowly drifting away in the light breeze. There was now a tapping of musketry from the shoreline and the thin crack of a field piece here and there – the English had woken up to what was happening but there was nothing they could do to fend away the approaching catastrophe.
Off the beach they came to a stop and with the same nudging at the oars the first morterchalup aimed the boat carefully. A blinding flash, a deep report, and a hundred-pound shell arced through the sky, leaving a thin trail of smoke. It disappeared behind the earthworks, followed by a muffled crump. First blood!
The gunboat captains knew their business. Firing consecutively gave time to select a fresh target and allowed each to track the fall of shot and make corrections.
The British fought bravely. They brought horse artillery to the water’s edge but this meant they were within range of the gunboat howitzers, which threw case shot in their shells. Bodies of men and horses were strewn along the shoreline.
Krieger’s blood was up – it seemed an age before their long gun was reloaded but the space for the ten-man gun-crew to wield rammer and stave on the cramped fore-deck was very small. At last the whistle blew, the oars went up and the big gun smashed out its fury, the entire boat recoiling eight feet backwards.
Firing was now general and the smaller mortar vessels were continuously wreathed in smoke as they hurled their bombs in a carpet of destruction into the English camp. Nothing could live in that. For the next phase, against the transports, they would be able to sail by, unmauled.
‘Sir.’ Bruun pointed seaward. The British inshore squadron was in full sail towards them, colours flying.
‘Yes. Time to greet ’em, I believe.’
Krieger was in no mood to have his operation interrupted. ‘You know what to do.’
Crisp orders had the rowers give way larboard and backwater starboard, bringing the big gunboat around until it faced the oncoming squadron. Their gun smashed out and a massive plume arose close to the leading sloop. Other gouts shot up among them as all twelve kanonchalups opened up.
Krieger felt a stab of sympathy – theirs were forward-firing guns able to range in any direction; the squadron heading towards them had broadsides only and could not reply, helplessly suffering the onslaught of the heavy guns until they were close enough to wheel about and bring their guns to bear. And with relative pop-guns this would never be a decider.