‘Make certain of your targets, gun captains,’ said Preston.
‘Red cutter off to larboard,’ said one. ‘Lugger at the front,’ replied the other.
Fifty yards, now. Clay watched as a sailor crouched in the bow of one boat started to whirl his grappling hook around his head, eyeing the frigate’s bowsprit.
‘Marines, present arms!’ ordered Macpherson. ‘Take aim, now.’ With a smooth, precise movement the soldiers all brought their muskets up to their shoulders and then angled them down towards the enemy.
‘Gentlemen, you may fire when you are ready,’ said Clay. The nine-pounders fired first, blasting a swarm of musket balls towards the approaching flotilla. This was not the devastation Clay had witnessed the big quarterdeck carronades inflict on the crew of the Provesteenen earlier. The canister round for a nine-pounder could fit in his hand. One blast missed its target completely, producing a cone of foaming sea between two boats, but the second was better aimed. Soldiers and oarsmen tumbled down in one of the cutters amidst a chorus of screams, and they dropped back from the others. But the remaining ten continued to press home the attack.
‘Marines will open fire!’ ordered Macpherson, and forty muskets crashed out as one. Clay saw a sailor slump across his oar, the blade dragging in the water. In another boat two soldiers tumbled over. The frigate’s crew spread along the sides of the forecastle were all firing as well, and more men fell in the boats, but still the Danes came on.
‘Rapid fire!’ ordered Macpherson. The marines were tearing off the tops of cartridges with their teeth and pulling out ramrods. On the sea, four of the attacking boats manoeuvred around until they were side on to the frigate, while the remaining six pressed on.
‘What do you suppose the enemy are about, sir?’ asked Preston.
‘A well executed plan, I don’t doubt,’ answered Clay. ‘There is no room for all of them around our bow at once. Some will stand off and pepper us with musketry, while the others press home the attack.’
The nine-pounders fired again, sending a fresh storm of canister towards the attackers. The flutter of a passing musket ball sounded close to Clay’s head, and a marine staggered back from the rail, clutching his arm. Then one of the crew manning the nine-pounder in front of Clay dropped like a felled tree, crashing to the deck. The marines were leaning right out over the side to fire downwards. A series of bumps sounded against the hull, and then with a roar of noise the enemy came, a wave of fury scrambling up the side of the frigate.
A Danish soldier thrust his bayonet-tipped musket through the open port of the bow chaser and slashed at the legs of the gunners. One stepped back with blood pouring from his calf. Another soldier clambered above his comrade and swung his musket towards Clay. Before he could fire, a jab from a rammer sent him tumbling backwards. All along the rail of the forecastle little battles were being fought. Several Danish sailors had climbed up onto the frigate’s bowsprit, where they sat astride the huge spar like riders on a horse. They battled with the nearest marines, their cutlass blades screeching and clashing on the bayonets thrust at them. Another party had climbed in amongst the frigate’s head rails and were taking a steady toll on the defenders. They fired muskets passed up to them from the boats below in a steady chain, returning the empty weapons to be reloaded. Clay stepped back from the furious battle so he could see the broader picture.
Along the rail to his left, the attackers looked as if they were being contained. The fighting was fierce, but the initial assault had been held off. Into the centre of the defenders waded the bearlike form of Josh Black, the Griffin’s Captain of the Foretop and a veteran of a dozen fights. He had laid aside his boarding axe and instead held one of the eighteen-pounder cannon balls high above his head. He reached a portion of rail vacated by the enemy, took aim, and hurled the heavy sphere. A splintering crash came from over the side, and he retreated to find a fresh missile.
Another marine fell down, shot from below, to join the half dozen or so already killed or wounded.
‘We need to clear away the enemy lodged on the frigate’s beak head, sir,’ said Macpherson. ‘They’re shooting my men like salmon in a tub.’ He pointed down with his sword at the deck beneath them. ‘I can take them with an assault through the door that lead to the heads.’
‘No, Tom, I need you here,’ said Clay. He turned to the midshipman who stood beside him, looking with wide-eyed horror at the carnage around him.
‘Mr Sweeney!’ he called. The boy turned slowly towards him, as if emerging from a trance.
‘Sir?’ he said.
‘Listen with care. You are to find Mr Blake, and tell him to send a party of twenty to clear the beak head of the enemy, and then send the rest of his men up here.’
‘Reserve men, follow me!’ ordered Preston, drawing his sword. ‘Clear those Danes from the deck.’ Clay ignored the overwhelming urge to look where Preston had directed, and instead concentrated on the frightened thirteen-year-old in front of him.
‘Repeat my order, Mr Sweeney,’ he said.
‘F... find Mr B... Blake, twenty men to clear the b... beak head and the rest to the f... forecastle, sir,’ said the youngster.
‘Good, now run, boy!’ said Clay, looking around to see where Preston and his men had gone.
A fresh pulse of attackers had managed to force their way onto the starboard side of the deck. A dozen Danish soldiers formed a solid wedge, driving forwards and widening the breach in the frigate’s defensive line. Exhausted sailors and marines were falling back, while more Danes clambered over the rail to join the attack. Others had climbed up onto the starboard cathead and were running along it to jump down into the melee. Preston was in the middle of the fray, his single-armed stance looking curiously unbalanced as he hammered at the guard of a Danish officer, while around him his little group of sailors desperately tried to contain the enemy. Out of the corner of his eye Clay could see the boats that had stood off getting underway to reinforce the attack. He wrapped his hand around the hilt of his glittering sword, the same that had been returned to him at the end of his court martial. Not again, he told himself, I’ll be damned before I lose another ship. He swept out the blue-steel blade. Beside him Sedgwick did the same with his cutlass. The crisis in the battle was at hand.
‘Come on, lads!’ roared Clay. ‘Drive them back!’ He dashed forward and threw himself into the fight. A soldier wrenched his musket towards him, but he deflected the blow, stepped close and drew his blade across the man’s arm. The edge was as sharp as a razor, and he felt it slice deep. The Dane recoiled backwards, blood pouring from him, and Clay followed him as he retreated. Now he was in the press of the melee. Another bayonet thrust towards him, but Sedgwick appeared beside and smashed the hilt of his cutlass into the soldier’s face before the blow could land. A space cleared before Clay and he stepped forward, leading with his sword. As he planted his front foot, he felt it slide from under him on planking that was slick with blood. An instant later he had crashed down on the hard oak deck, the wind driven from his lungs. Around him was a forest of legs, and for a moment he half expected to see the huddled figure of the murdered tsar, surrounded by conspirators. Then he glimpsed an onrushing boot, and knew no more.
*****
‘Captain’s down!’ roared Sedgwick. ‘Ahoy, Griffins! To me! The captain’s down!’ The coxswain slashed around him with his cutlass in a frenzy, trying to dive the enemy back. The blade caught against the musket barrel of a soldier who stood in his way. With his other hand he swept out his pistol, shoved it against the man’s stomach, and pulled the trigger. The gun crashed out, hot smoke singed his hand, and his opponent sank to his knees, but Sedgwick could still not advance. More and more Danish soldiers were pouring over the rail now. He used the empty pistol in one hand as a club while continuing to hack with the cutlass in the other, but the mass of men pressing him backwards was remorseless. Every enemy he cut down seemed to be replaced by a fresh assailant.
He had no recollection of having been w
ounded, but he could feel blood trickling from a cut on his left arm, and his shirt was torn and sodden from a painful slash across his ribcage. Sweat dripped into his eyes, and he gasped for breath. He could feel his limbs becoming stiff with exhaustion, and his cutlass felt as heavy as lead as he struggled to raise it for one more attempt to reach Clay. A surge in the crowd of fighting men brought him hard up against a young Danish soldier who had lost his hat. Unable to raise his arms, he ducked his head down and crashed it against the ash-blond hair in front of him. When he looked up the youngster had vanished, to be replaced by a cloud of tiny motes that sparkled in the air in front of his face. The battle around him became remote, and he felt his legs wobbling beneath him. A moment later, he too was slipping down between the struggling bodies. Waves of tiredness washed over him. If he could sleep for just a moment, he told himself, then he would be able to fight all the harder. His eyes closed and he slid further down, until the flat of one hand touched the wet planking.
‘Holy Mary!’ announced a familiar voice, from somewhere close. ‘There’s hundreds of the feckers!’ Sedgwick opened his eyes to find he was on his hands and knees, being jostled and kicked by the legs around him. He shook his head to clear it.
‘Drive them back, Griffins,’ ordered Blake, his voice loud.
‘Up and at them, afterguard!’ shouted Armstrong, from farther away.
‘Marines will advance!’ said Macpherson, calm as ever.
Sedgwick tried to heave himself back up, but found the legs around him pressed to close, so he sank his teeth into the nearest calf. There was a yelp, the limb was wrenched free and a little light appeared above him. He forced himself back to his feet, surfacing through the crowd of struggling bodies like a swimmer after a deep dive.
In front of him were at least fifty Danish boarders, standing amongst the dead and wounded heaped around the deck. Most were soldiers, dressed in deep red with white cross belts, the rest were sailors in clothes of a different cut to those worn by the Griffins. They were penned into perhaps a third of the forecastle. The flow of Danes from over the side had slowed, with those clinging to the outside of the rail unable to find any space, and those still in the boats blocked by the ones above them.
Facing the boarders was Preston, leading the remnant of the original defenders. Beside them Macpherson had drawn up his surviving marines in close order. They slowly advanced, their bayonets a hedge of steel towards the enemy, thrusting at any one who came within range. Over Sedgwick’s left shoulder Armstrong had arrived along the gangway with the grey-haired Taylor besides him. The American’s wig was askew, and the grip of his small, thin sword was lost in his large fist. At their backs came all those whose posts were on the quarterdeck. The afterguard, the carronade crews, even the quartermasters who should have been manning the wheel, all armed with whatever weapons had come to hand. Then he felt more than saw a wave of men sweeping up behind him, as Blake led his gun crews streaming up the ladder way from the deck below.
‘Come on, Able!’ urged Evans. ‘There ain’t time for admiring the view!’
‘You all right there, lad?’ asked Trevan from his other side. ‘You look proper beat, and that arm don’t look so good. Can you find your way to the sawbones?’
‘Captain’s down,’ gasped Sedgwick, waving vaguely with the hand that held the battered pistol. ‘I... I... ain’t sure where, exactly. It all happened that quick. I tried to reach him, but there were so many of them.’
‘You go over to the rail for a rest,’ urged Trevan. ‘Big Sam will go an’ haul him out.’
‘Right,’ said Evans, ripping out his cutlass and looking around him. ‘Hibbert, Perkins, to me! Pipe’s down, somewhere under these bastards. Follow astern. You too, Sean, and watch me bleeding back!’
Hibbert and Perkins were two of the frigate’s better fighters, but neither was a match for Evans. The largest of the three, his agility never failed to surprise a new opponent who expected such a huge man to be slow. Where others relied on brute strength, Evans was an artist. He faced up to his first opponent, who stabbed at him with his bayonet only to find that Evans had twisted aside from the blow. As the Dane stumbled forward, the Londoner wrapped his left fist around the barrel of the musket and used it to guide his hapless adversary onto the point of his cutlass. The man slumped to the ground, and Evans moved on to his next victim. Hibbert and Powell followed in his wake, pushing opponents back on both sides and widening the wedge driven by Evans into the wall of enemies.
The Danish attackers had flooded onto the frigate like a wave across a beach. While the momentum had been with them they had been irresistible, but now they were checked. There was still fierce resistance, blows traded, and everything hung in the balance for a moment. Then the first few attackers began to fall back. Like the turn of the tide, the movement became irresistible in the other direction, and confidence grew amongst the Griffins as swiftly as it drained away from their opponents.
Sedgwick saw the change as he stood back from the fray with Trevan by his side. One of the Danish soldiers, who had stood waiting on the rail to join his comrades, quietly slipped back down into the boat alongside. Then the one next to him did the same, and another. A soldier already on the deck became aware that no one was behind him, and tried to clamber back over the side. He was seized by a bawling lieutenant, who grabbed hold of one of his cross belts to restrain him; but while the officer was distracted, others took the opportunity to flee. Across the deck the enemy was in retreat. Some fought bravely, like the group who withdrew steadily, led by a big sergeant with a half pike in his hand. Others turned and fled, dropping their muskets and vaulting over the side in their haste. Still more placed their weapons on the deck and raised their hands in surrender.
Cheering Griffins reached the rail to see the boats below them leaving the side of the ship in a wide fan. Some were overloaded, others almost empty, but all were being rowed in haste. All around the bow of the frigate, broken wreckage and discarded oars bobbed amongst a shoal of red-coated bodies. British sailors rushed to get the bow chasers back in action while others began to reload their muskets, but before they could fire a whistle sounded. All turned around to see Lieutenant Taylor standing in the middle of the forecastle.
‘Cease fire!’ he ordered. In answer to the grumble from the men, he pointed towards the lines of warships. Sedgwick followed where he indicated. The Danish ships were in a sorry state. Most had struck their colours, while others had come adrift from their moorings and run aground. Two were on fire and a third was sinking. Through gaps in the line the Royal Navy ships could be seen. Many had spars and masts missing, and their pockmarked sides were stained black with powder smoke. Then the coxswain realised the most significant thing.
‘They ain’t firing no more,’ he said to Trevan.
‘Aye’, said Trevan. ‘An’ the old Elephant be flying some manner of signal.’
A Royal Navy launch with a large white flag held aloft appeared from between two of the Danish ships and headed for the shore. In the stern sheets, the watery light glittered from the uniforms of the officers seated there.
‘I reckon the battle must be done, Able,’ said Trevan.
‘Mr Macpherson, kindly see those prisoners are disarmed and made secure,’ ordered Taylor. ‘Mr Preston, your men can carry the wounded down to the surgeon, if you please. And has anyone seen the captain?’
Epilogue
His majesty’s frigate Griffin was afloat once more, her battered bow patched and the last of the blood holystoned from the planking of her forecastle. She swung at anchor in spring sunshine, amongst the other ships of the British fleet. Through the windows at the rear of the cabin another frigate and a ship of the line could be seen, rising from out of their broken reflections on the calm water. Behind them was the shoreline and spires of Copenhagen, now without any protective row of Danish ships moored between. Clay looked up from his desk as Harte came and stood before it.
‘Mr Vansittart has returned, sir, and is waiting
outside,’ he said. ‘An’ Mr Corbett was asking when it would be convenient to come and change them dressings.’
‘Do show him in, Harte, and bring us some of the sherry wine,’ said his captain. ‘The doctor will have to wait until I am at liberty to see him.’
Vansittart strode into the cabin, trailing a whiff cologne. He was dressed once more in the sky-blue coat and held the silver-topped cane that Clay remembered from his court martial. The captain began to pull himself up, wincing as he did so.
‘Oh, my dear sir, do not inconvenience yourself on my part!’ exclaimed the diplomat, fluttering his hands in agitation. ‘Remain seated, I pray!’ He quickly sat down in his chair, forcing Clay to do the same.
‘And how are the hero’s wounds this morning?’ he asked, accepting a glass from Harte.
‘There is very little heroic about falling on one’s backside and spending most of the battle insensible beneath a pile of Danish casualties, sir,’ said Clay. ‘Mr Corbett was positively vexed when he removed my blood-sodden garments to find that I had barely a scratch.’ He touched the fingers of one hand in turn to his black eye, cut scalp and the bandage beneath his shirt that kept his broken rib immobile. ‘In truth, I am more battered than wounded. The victor of a tavern brawl could boast superior injuries.’
‘No need for such modesty, my dear fellow,’ said Vansittart. ‘Lord Nelson speaks very highly of your intervention. Without you staunching the flow of reinforcements from the shore, the wretched battle might have gone on until all of Copenhagen had been ferried across, what?’ Vansittart pealed with laughter at the thought.
‘What word from the shore, sir?’ asked Clay, when his guest had finished. ‘Is it peace?’
‘Indeed it is,’ beamed the diplomat. ‘Lord Nelson and myself signed the accord this morning. All agreed that our peoples ought never to have quarrelled, and the current melancholy situation should be resolved. The Danes have rescinded their membership of this Armed Neutrality nonsense, and agree that our Baltic trade can resume without any threat from them. But allow me to acquaint you with the best part. Do you recall that impudent pro-French rogue Count Andreas Bernstorff?’
In Northern Seas Page 28