Drinkwater felt the wind on his face and dropped his arm as the main topsail flogged back against the mast. 'Bunt lines and clew lines there! Ease the halliards! Up aloft and stow!' Rogers paused, looking along the deck to see his orders obeyed. 'You there, up aloft… Bosun's mate, start that man aloft, God damn it, and take his name!'
Virago's anchor dropped just as the leadsman called 'By the mark five!'
'Perfect, by God,' Drinkwater muttered to himself, pleased with his positioning, and suddenly thinking of Elizabeth in his moment of self-conceit.
'How much scope, sir?' Matchett was crying at him from forward.
'Half a cable, Mr Matchett,' he called through the speaking trumpet. He felt Virago tug round as her anchor bit and she brought up. She lay quietly sheering a few degrees in the current.
'Brought up, sir,' reported Easton, straightening up from taking a bearing.
'Very well, Mr Easton.' Drinkwater looked round. Astern of them Terror was turning into the wind to anchor while Explosion and Discovery continued past Virago. Of Volcano there was no sign, though Drinkwater afterwards learned she had been ordered to anchor and throw shells against the howitzer battery on Amager at the southern end of the line.
He raised his hat to Martin as the commander went past, partly out of bravado, partly to mollify the touchy man. To the south the confusion caused by the groundings had resulted in Isis anchoring prematurely to cover Bellona and Russell. The consequence of this was a dangerous extension of the line of battleships north of the Elephant with the lighter frigates absorbing enormous punishment from the Trekroner Forts, the Lynetten, Quintus and other batteries, plus the guns of the inner line commanded by Steen Bille. The whole area was a mass of smoke and fire while Parker's three relieving battleships, Ramilles, Defence and Veteran were making no apparent headway to come to Riou's assistance.
'Mr Drinkwater! I'm ready to open fire if you can steady the ship a little.'
Drinkwater turned his attention inboard. Rogers had a gang of men aft, their arms extended above their heads where they prepared to whip up the shells; groups of artillerymen, stripped to their braces in the biting wind, clustered round the mortars which, looking like huge, elongated cauldrons pointed their blunt, ineffective looking muzzles out to starboard, at the sky over Copenhagen.
'Mr Easton, let fall the mizzen topsail and keep it backed against the mast. Fire as you will, Mr Tumilty.'
'Thank 'ee, sir, and will you be kind enough to observe the fall o' shot?'
Drinkwater nodded. Tumilty hopped back to the fo'c's'le where he bent behind the leather dodger then walked aft beside the sergeant to the thirteen-inch mortar. Tapping the prepared fuse into the first shell Tumilty saw the monstrous ball, more than a foot in diameter and which contained ten pounds of white gun powder, safely into the chamber of the mortar. He had already loaded the powder he judged would throw the carcase over the opposing lines of ships into the heart of the Danish capital.
Handing the linstock to his sergeant he leaped up onto the poop and pulled his telescope from his pocket. 'Festina lente, eh Nat'aniel… Fire!'
The roar was immense, drowning the sound of the guns of the fleets, and white smoke rolled reeking over them.
'Mark it! Mark it!' yelled Tumilty, his glass travelling up and then down as a faint white line arced against the blue sky to fall with increasing speed onto the roofs of the city.
At the mortar bed the artillerymen crowded round, swabbing out the chamber of the gun. The elevation remained unchanged, being set at forty-five degrees.
Drinkwater stared at the arsenal of Copenhagen trying to see where the shell burst. He saw nothing.
'Over, by Jesus,' said Tumilty happily, 'and at least the fuse was not premature.' Drinkwater watched him fuss round the mortar again as the whipping up gang began to work. The ten inch had been readied but Tumilty held its fire until he was satisfied with the performance of the after mortar.
Although he felt the deck shudder under the concussion and gasped as the smoke and blast passed over him, Drinkwater was ready for the next shot. The carcase descended on the arsenal and Drinkwater saw it burst as it hit the ground.
'A little short Mr Tumilty, I believe.' The landing of the third shot was also short but at his next Tumilty justified his claim to be the finest pyroballogist in the Royal Artillery. The explosion was masked by the walls of the arsenal but Tumilty was delighted with the result and left the poop to supervise both mortars from the waist.
Dutifully Easton and Drinkwater reported the fall of the shells as well as they could. From time to time Tumilty would pause to traverse his mortar-beds but he maintained a steady fire. Beneath his feet Drinkwater was aware that Virago had suddenly become a hive of activity. All the oddities of her construction had been built for this moment: the curious hatches, the fire-screens, the glazed lantern niches; the huge futtocks and heavy scantlings; the octagonal hatches. Mr Trussel and Bombardier Hite received instructions from Tumilty and made up the flannel cartridges in the filling room. The artillery sergeant cut fuses on the now deserted fo'c's'le. In the waist seamen and soldiers scurried about as they carried shells, fuses, cartridges and buckets of water with which to douse the hot mortars. Orchestrating the whole was Lieutenant Tumilty, his face purple with exertion, his active figure justifying his regiment's motto as he seemed everywhere at once like some hellish fiend.
As they fired over the main action Drinkwater was able to see something of the progress of the battle. Already damage to the British ships was obvious. Several had lost masts and others flew signals of distress. Amongst the splashes of wide cannot shot the flat-boats and boats of the fleet pulled about, coolly carrying out anchors. Through this hail of shot Brisbane sailed the Cruizer from her now redundant duty of marking the south end of the Middle Ground, the length of the line to Riou's support. Of the Danish line Drinkwater could see little beyond those hulks and prames on his beam. One appeared to have got out of the line and several seemed to strike their flags, but as they had reappeared the next time he looked he could not be sure what was happening. Terror, Explosion and Discovery were throwing shells into Copenhagen. Neither Heda, Zebra nor Sulphur appeared to have weathered the Middle Ground and got into the action.
'Fire! Fire!' Drinkwater swung round. A flicker of flames raced along the larboard rail but Rogers was equal to it. 'Fire party, hoses to the larboard waist!'
Drinkwater looked in vain for Jex, but his men were there, dragging an already pulsing hose towards the burning spars lying on the rail.
'Part-burnt wads, Nat'aniel,' shouted Tumilty unconcerned, identifying the cause of the fire.
'Where the devil's Mr Jex?' Drinkwater called out, frowning.
'Don't know, sir,' replied Rogers, as he had men cutting the lashing round the spars and levering them overboard. A shot whined over his head and he ducked.
'Mr Easton!'
'Sir!'
'Find Jex!'
'Aye, aye, sir.'
But Easton had not left the poop when Jex appeared through the smoke that billowed back from the ten-inch mortar forward. He was drunk and in his shirt-sleeves. 'I hear the cry of fire!' he shouted, holding up his hands above his head and staggering over a ring-bolt. 'Here I am you bastards, at my fucking action station, God rot you all…'