They were taking hits. First one, then another fell away; one more lost its foremast. They came on, theirs the only defence in the corridor that led to the store-ships.
The pity of it was that it was all in vain. Off Svanemollen there was not depth of water for deep-keeled sailing ships and they were going to have to yield it to the Danes, who knew the waters intimately. While they hovered impotently offshore the kanonchalups could take their pick of the targets they made.
Their twenty-four slammed out again and the guns of the kanonbads joined in, heavy-calibre but inaccurate pieces that could be relied on to intimidate by the storm of shot they threw out.
As the water shoaled, the squadron eased sail, knowing their fate if they went aground, finally slewing about to open fire on their tormentors. Their six-pounders cracked out but with no hits that Krieger could see and the forest of splashes around them whipped up by the furious Danish cannonade only increased.
It could have but one result. The squadron turned and retreated to lick its wounds, unable to sustain the unequal encounter.
With leaping elation, Krieger whirled his hat in the air, acknowledging the bursts of cheering from his little fleet. Against all the odds, they were making a difference.
Deeper thuds sounded – the distant anchored British ships-of-the-line were firing at them in what must be despair and frustration, a measure of what they were achieving, but the much smaller gunboats were a near impossible target at range, Krieger knew.
‘Back to work!’ he snapped, and attention turned to the shore again.
The morterchalups had been hurling their shells for an hour and more, the arcing trails ending in sullen thumps and flying debris from within the British encampment, which must now be a scene of havoc and slaughter. There could be no easing of it out of humanity: the next stage would be even crueller when, with their great guns, the Danes went against helpless store-ships.
‘Look!’
Krieger turned quickly and saw not the inshore squadron but a dozen or more boats in a line emerging from the English fleet, stroking fast in their direction. Baffled, he watched them advance. Then he understood. These were the very ships’ boats of warships sent on the cutting-out expeditions and daring raids that had brought the Royal Navy fame and respect over their hard years of war. Now they were being sent into open battle because they had the same shallow draught as themselves and therefore could close with them and bring about a hand-to-hand fight. A courageous and intelligent move.
He couldn’t let it happen. His sailors were not in the same class and would quickly be bested by these seasoned veterans.
‘Reduced charges!’ he bellowed at the gunboats with long guns. Some grasped it immediately, others, puzzled, hung back.
When the first shots crashed out, it quickly became clear to them. Aimed directly in line with the oncoming boats the heavy shot hit the sea short but ricocheted on in a series of deadly skips until it reached the boats at their own level, smashing oars, taking lives, sinking them.
Krieger knew that those vessels mounted carronades, the short, stubby weapons ideal for boatwork but futile against Danish gunboats, with long guns, able to stand off and punish them at will. There could be only one outcome, however brave the attempt.
He felt a savage satisfaction in knowing the Danes had gone on the offensive at last – who knew, when they came back to deal with the store-ships sustaining the besieging army, might not the whole situation be turned around? The British trapped ashore for all their great fleet, starved of victuals and ammunition, themselves ending up as the besieged?
Their return in the setting sun was sweet indeed, the shoreline alive with wildly waving onlookers, who’d witnessed the whole spectacle. He’d left three of the mortar vessels to keep up an intermittent fire during the night to discourage any work of repair, and at daybreak, when they went after the store-ships, it should prove an open highway.
Chapter 70
It was a grey dawn when the flotilla put to sea in full strength, all twenty-six of their several kinds with pennons and Orlogsflag streaming out bravely – but Krieger could not join in the warrior talk around him. During the night he’d been seized with foreboding, a conviction that the invincible Royal Navy would not let rest the reversal they’d suffered. It would be a very different foe they faced this day.
‘Get back in line,’ he bawled at Zeuthen, in his kanonjolle stretching out well ahead of the others.
It was hard not to feel for the man, so determined to be first into the fight. He’d nailed an improvised flag at the fore, probably sewn by his wife during the night. On it was picked out in bold words Gud og den retf?rdige sag, ‘God and the just cause’. If there was going to be any kind of a stern encounter, Julius could be counted on to be at the front.
Krieger was today in the kanonchalup Roeskilde whose captain was the plain-speaking Swenson. Bruun’s Stubbekobing was over to the right, like them cannonading shorewards, while the other division took care of the inshore squadron.
The battle plan was brutally simple. Get into the soft store-ships and create carnage. Nothing else mattered.
Only an hour or so before dawn the Danish mortars had returned to replenish, reporting that all was quiet on shore. Out to sea the inshore squadron lay at a respectful distance – after the previous day’s rough handling there would be no trouble from them.
Ahead was Classen’s garden and beyond it the torn-up desolation of the English lines. Further on, less than three miles along the coastline, was their prey, ships at anchor close in, others with ramps on their sides, boats busy between them, crowded lines of men ashore taking casks and sacks. Bread and beef for twenty thousand men weighed in at tons every day, let alone the dead weight of shot and shell in the quantities that were needed.
Now they were passing the scenes of yesterday’s triumph and it wouldn’t be long until-
The morning stillness was shattered. From groves of maple and larch, gardens and roadways a furious chaos of firing began. Artillery, mortars, musketry – the whole shoreline seemed to rise up and blast out hate. It was a storm of shot and exploding mortar shells.
Numb, Krieger realised what had happened. Overnight, in anticipation of an attack on the victuallers, the rest of the British positions had been stripped of guns and dashed here to line the shore.
Shrieks and cries added to the din and, following an eruption of impact splashes, several boats veered off as they fought for control when oarsmen had been struck.
A terrible decision had to be made: to press on or turn back, away from the hell and fury?
On their own initiative several gunboats had turned to face the tempest and that decided him. There was no point in staying to duel with the shore guns. If sacrifice was demanded, it would take place as they threw themselves at their objective.
He stood tall and looked about. Thrusting his sword in the direction of the store-ships, he roared, ‘Go, ro v?k I elendige karle!’
As a concentrated host, they turned their bows north, towards their goal, bending heroically to their oars. As they clawed along the shoreline there was no let-up in the thunderous barrage. At one point Krieger glimpsed artillery, limber and gun bucketing along the coast road behind six furiously whipped horses. The line of guns was being sustained in relays and they would have to endure.
It was taking its toll. One, then another gunboat fell away.
‘Take us out,’ he ordered harshly. It would be mean heading into deeper water, losing their advantage, and into range of the British sloops. ‘Half the kanonchalups to keep the inshore squadron away.’