The Bomb Vessel

by Richard Woodman

  The bomb vessel increased her speed, leaning to leeward with the water foaming along her side.

  ‘Up helm and ease her a point.’ Drinkwater had not taken his eyes off Cruizer’s stern. Suddenly the men looked up from coiling the ropes to see the brig’s stern very close as they sped past, with a row of faces watching the old bomb vessel going into action.

  Brisbane raised his hat, ‘Tally ho, Drinkwater, by God! Tally ho and mind the mud!’

  Drinkwater felt the thrill of exhilaration turn to that of fear as the deck heaved beneath his feet.

  ‘God damn and blast it!’ screamed Rogers, beside himself with angry frustration, but suddenly they were free and a ragged cheer broke from those who realised that for an instant their keel had struck the Middle Ground.

  In a moment they could bear up for the battle . . .

  ‘Larboard bow, sir!’ Drinkwater looked up. Coming round Cruizer’s bow was Explosion, just swinging before the wind to make her own approach to her station. Drinkwater could not luff without colliding or losing control of Virago, neither dare he bear away for a little longer since Russell was indicating the bank dangerously close to his starboard side. He resolved to stand on, aware that Martin was screeching something at him through a trumpet.

  ‘Damn Captain Martin,’ he muttered to himself, but a chorus of ‘Hear, hear!’ from Rogers and Easton indicated the extent of his concentration. Martin was compelled to let fly his sheets to check Explosion’s headway.

  ‘Up helm, Tregembo . . . reduce sail again!’

  Astern Martin was still shouting as Explosion, closely followed by Volcano, Terror and Discovery weathered the Cruizer and the Middle Ground.

  ‘For what we are about to receive, may we be truly . . . Jesus!’ A storm of shot swept Virago’s deck. They had left astern Désirée, anchored athwart the Danish line with a spring straining on her cable, and Polyphemus was drawing onto the larboard quarter. She too was anchored, though by the stern. As Virago crossed the gap between Polyphemus and the next anchored ship, the Isis, a broadside from Provesteenen hit her, cutting up the rigging and sails and wounding the foremast. On their own starboard side they had already passed Russell, flying the signal for distress and with flat-boats heaving out cables from her bow and stern while cannon shot dropped all round them. As they passed Bellona a terrific bang occurred and screams rent the air.

  Beside Drinkwater Lieutenant Tumilty wore a seraphic smile. ‘Gun exploded,’ he explained for the benefit of anyone interested. Bellona’s guns were returning the Danish fire and Drinkwater looked ahead. From this close range the enemy defences took on a different aspect. From a distance the exiguous collection of prames, radeaus, cut down battleships, floating batteries, transports and frigates had had a cheap, thread-bare look about them, compared with the formal naval might of Great Britain with its canvas, bunting and wooden walls. But from the southern end of the King’s Deep it looked altogether different. Already Bellona and Russell were of little use, although both returned fire and strove throughout the day to get afloat again. Against the remaining ships the massed cannon of the Danish defences looked formidable. Spitting fire and smoke, the blazing tiers of guns were the most awesome sight Drinkwater had ever seen.

  The gaps between the British ships were greater now, occasioned by the loss of Bellona and Russell from the line. Shot whined over the decks, ripping holes in the sails and occasionally striking splinters from Virago’s timber.

  There was a scream as the bomb vessel received her first casualty, an over-curious artilleryman who spun round and fell across the ten-inch mortar hatch while his shattered head flew overboard.

  The Danes were defending their very hearths, and kept up the gun-fire by continually sending reinforcements from the shore to relieve their tired men, and sustain the hail of shot against the British.

  Virago’s fore topgallant was shot away as she passed Edgar, engaged against the Jutland, an old, cut down two-decker. Rogers leapt forward, tempermentally unable to remain inactive for long in such circumstances. He began to clear the mess while Drinkwater concentrated upon the calls of the leadsman in the starboard chains. Beyond Jutland the odd square shapes of two floating batteries and a frigate were firing at both Edgar and the next ship ahead, Bligh’s Glatton. The former East Indiaman which had once compelled a whole squadron to surrender to her deadly, short range batteries of carronades was keeping up a terrific fire. Most of her effort was concentrated on her immediate opponent, another cut-down battleship, the Dannebrog, flagship of the Danish commander, Commodore Olfert Fischer. But Virago did not pass unmolested, three more men were wounded and another killed as the storm of shot swept them.

  ‘Bring her to starboard a little, Mr Easton, and pass word to Mr Matchett, Mr Q, to watch for my signal to anchor; we are almost on our station abeam the admiral.’

  The two officers acknowledged their orders.

  Drinkwater studied Elephant for a moment. He could see the knot of glittering officers on her quarterdeck in the sunshine. Beyond the flagship lay the Ganges and then a gap, filled with boats pulling up and down the line. Just visible in the smoke were Monarch and Graves’s flagship Defiance, and somewhere ahead of them, in the full fire of the heavy batteries of the Trekroner Forts were Riou and his frigates.

  ‘Bring the ship to the wind, Mr Easton.’ Virago began to turn. ‘You may begin your preparations, Mr Tumilty.’ As they had closed Elephant the Irishman had been observing his targets and taking obscure measurements with what looked like a pelorus.

  To his astonishment Tumilty winked. ‘And now, my dear Nat’aniel you’ll see why we’ve brought all this here.’ Leprechaun-like he hopped onto the foredeck and began to bawl instructions at his artillerymen.

  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 cannon 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 Hecla, 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 lashings 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 . . .’

  Men turned to look at the purser as he reached the after mortar and was again engulfed in the smoke of discharge. He emerged to the astonished onlookers like a theatrical wraith, his face flaccid, his cheeks wet with tears. Drinkwater was aware of a sniggering from the men at the shell-hatch.

  ‘Bastards, you’re all bastards . . .’ Jex flung his arms wide in a gesture that embraced them all.

  ‘Mr Jex . . .!’ Drinkwater began, his jaw dropping as Jex’s right arm flew off, spun round and slapped a topman across the face. The astonished man put up his hands and caught the severed limb.

  ‘Cor! Pusser’s give me back me bleeding eighth . . .’

  The grotesque joke ended the brief hiatus on Virago’s deck. Jex looked stupidly at his distant arm then down at the gouts of his blood as it poured from the socket. He began to scream and run about the deck.

  Rogers felled him with one end of a burning royal yard he was heaving overboard. Jex fell to the deck, his legs kicking and his back arching, the red stain growing on the planking.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ muttered Easton watching, fascinated.

  At last Jex grew still. Jumping down from the rail having tossed overboard all the burning spars Rogers pointed to the body and addressed two seamen standing stock still beside a starboard carronade.

  ‘Throw that damned thing overboard.’

  Then Tumilty’s after mortar roared again.

  ‘Mr Drinkwater, sir! The Commander-in-Chief is signalling, sir!’

  ‘Well Mr Q, what is it?’

  ‘Number 39, sir: “Discontinue the action,” sir.’

  ‘ “Discontinue the action”? Are you certain?’ Drinkwater raised his Dollond glass and levelled it to the north. Ramilles, Veteran and Defence were still clawing to windward and he could see London still at anchor, with her blue admiral’s flag at the main. And there too were the blue and white horizontal stripes of Number 3 flag over the horizontal red, white and blue of Number 9.

  ‘Mr Easton, what o’clock d’you have?’

  ‘Twenty minutes after one, sir.’

  ‘You must log receipt of that signal, Mr Easton . . . Mr Matchett . . . where the devil’s the bosun?’

  ‘Here sir.’

  ‘Prepare to weigh.’

  ‘Aye, aye, sir.’ Drinkwater looked again at the London. There was no mistaking that signal. It was definitely Number 39.

  ‘Cease fire, Mr Tumilty . . . Mr Rogers, disperse the hands to their stations for getting under way . . .’ Drinkwater looked anxiously about him. Disengagement was going to be difficult. The battleships had only to cut their cables, they were already headed north and would soon be carried out of the action but the bombs had to weigh and turn. Virago could not turn to larboard, away from the Danish guns, because of the Middle Ground upon whose edge she had been anchored. To turn to starboard woul
d put the ship under a devastating raking fire. Drinkwater swallowed. If he weighed immediately he might obtain a little shelter behind the battleships but he ran two risks in doing so. The first was that with the prevailing current he might run foul of one of the bigger ships; the second was that too precipitate a departure from the line of battle could be construed as cowardice.

  ‘What the devil d’you want me to cease fire for?’ Tumilty’s purple face peered belligerently through the smoke.

  ‘The Commander-in-Chief instructs us to abandon the action, damn it!’

  ‘What the bloody hell for?’

  ‘Do as you’re told, Tumilty!’ snapped Drinkwater.

  ‘Beg pardon, sir, Flag’s only acknowledged the signal . . .’

  ‘Eh?’ Drinkwater looked where Quilhampton pointed. Elephant had not repeated Parker’s order. He looked astern and saw Explosion had repeated Number 39.

  ‘What the bloody hell . . .?’

  ‘Can you see Defiance, Mr Q?’ Quilhampton stared over the starboard quarter and levelled the big watch-glass.

  ‘I can’t be sure, sir, but I think Admiral Graves has a signal hoisted but if he has it ain’t from a very conspicuous place . . .’

  ‘Not very conspicuous . . .?’ Drinkwater frowned again and returned his attention to the Elephant. Nelson had signalled only an acknowledgement of sighting Number 39 to Parker but not repeated it to his ships, and Number 16, the signal for Close Action, hoisted at the beginning of the battle, still flew.

  Drinkwater tried to clear his head while the concussion of the guns went on. Nelson was clearly not eager to obey. From Parker’s distant observation post it must be obvious that Nelson was in trouble. Bellona and Russell were aground, both flying conspicuous signals of distress; there was a congestion of ships at the southern end of the line which, combined with the presence of some bombs and the gun brigs still in the southern anchorage, suggested that something had gone dreadfully wrong with Nelson’s division. Agamemnon, after repeated efforts to kedge round Cruizer, had given up and sent her boats to the assistance of the fleet while Cruizer, the mark vessel, had abandoned her station to support Riou.