Breaking the Line (18 page)

‘Your suggestions would be most welcome, gentlemen,’ said Parker, who felt he could play politics as well as the next man, ‘and I would appreciate that you give them to me in writing.’

15

Nelson, pacing the windward side of the deck, was relating to an enthralled Midshipman Frears the tale of the ancient battle of Actium when the first of the two signal guns banged out from HMS
London,
sending a puff of white smoke racing away on the breeze. The wind was stiff and invigorating, and the
St
George
was pitching and rolling on a choppy sea typical of the narrow channel between the North Sea and the Baltic.

‘You must always stand to the fore, Mr Frears, and accept the prospect of death or a crippling wound if you wish to lead men into battle, and it is best to stand out to sea, for sailors only become good hands in open water. Keep them idle in port and they go to seed.’

‘Mark Antony did not do that, sir?’ asked Frears, as more guns boomed.

‘He did not, Mr Frears. He kept his ships idle at their anchorage.’ Nelson stopped then, conscious of the second gun, not wishing to mention that the great Roman general was more interested in dallying with his mistress, Cleopatra, than going out to meet Agrippa, the commander of the rival fleet. ‘Marcus Antonius had heavier vessels, more numerous than those of his enemies, reports say twice the number, but Agrippa, just like the fleet of your own country, had the better men. So when Antony emerged, he was outmanoeuvred by swift sailing ships and forced to flee the battle. He was, of course, like that devil Bonaparte, a soldier not a sailor.’

‘You would never flee a battle sir?’

Nelson smiled as the first lieutenant approached, throwing a frown at Frears who, like all the mids aboard, was far too familiar with the admiral.

‘I hope not, Mr Frears.’

‘Sir,’ said the first lieutenant. ‘A signal from the flag to wear round on a course north-north east.’ Nelson turned to look at the flag streaming from Parker’s masthead, as he continued, ‘and HMS
London
has put off a boat, which is heading for us. We think it is Captain Otway.’

Nelson dropped his gaze to the grey, uninviting water, crisscrossed with white wave tops. ‘Poor Otway boating in this sea. May I borrow Mr Frears?’

‘Sir,’ said the First Lieutenant, nodding, still surprised, even after weeks of sailing with Nelson, that he should he asked.

‘Please go to my cabin and ask Tom Allen to prepare a hot punch for Captain Otway.’

‘It may not be him, sir,’ the first lieutenant insisted. ‘We only had a fleeting glimpse.’

‘Whoever it is will be wet and cold, I daresay,’ Nelson replied, as Frears ran off. ‘Even a midshipman needs a warm drink in these waters.’

Otway was both cold and wet. Even in a dreadnought oilskin boat cloak the choppy freezing sea had penetrated to his uniform. By the time he made Nelson’s cabin the fleet was on its new course, which Nelson was informed was to take them to a new anchorage off the Sound.

‘Sir Hyde has been mulling on your suggestions, Lord Nelson, and feels, like you, that to waste time only aids the enemy.’ Otway had an open, honest looking face, but perhaps because he was shivering his words lacked verisimilitude. ‘Captain Dommet and I, when finally asked our opinion, could only concur with the sentiments you expressed in your letter.’

‘Admiral Parker showed you my letter?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Otway replied. He said this as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It was not so to Nelson. That letter had been intended as private advice. ‘Sir Hyde wishes me to tell you that he will abide by any suggestions you make regarding the dispositions of the fleet. He also asks if you are prepared to agree that Copenhagen should be the primary target.’

‘Not the Russians?’

‘No, sir.’

There was something not quite right about all this. Nelson was prepared to accept that a man like Parker might both dislike and distrust him: he came from a school of old-fashioned thinking with which Nelson had no truck but old ideas were hard for those raised in
their shadow to throw away. That letter had been designed not to dent Parker’s
amour
propre.
But even a dolt could see, reading between the lines, that it could only have been composed in the face of Parker’s total lack of authority. To show it to others, to risk opening it up to public scrutiny, struck Nelson as odd.

He knew enough about flagships to be aware that they could be many things, depending on the admiral in charge: happy ships, setting an example to the fleet, which he hoped was the case on his own vessel, or a floating hell when an admiral wanted to show how much command he had over his captains. Or they might be gossip parlours, which was the impression he had gained on going aboard
London,
leaderless three-decked hotbeds of rumour and chatter, with plenty of slander and calumny stemming from the lack of positive leadership.

Now, all of a sudden, there was a definite air of that most necessary commodity. Who had engineered it? He was not vain enough to believe that his letter had been sufficient, nor did he truly suppose a sudden conversion in Parker from timidity to bellicosity. If Dommet and Otway had been the force of persuasion, what words had they used that he had not? Why did he feel, for no apparent reason, that what had happened might threaten him? Nelson forced himself to bury these speculations. It mattered not a jot why the change had occurred, it was enough to rejoice in the fact that it had.

‘Sir Hyde,’ Otway added, with just a touch of nervousness, ‘particularly wished to ask if you still inclined towards the Belt.’

‘I say to you what I said to him, Otway, the Belt or the Sound, it makes no odds.’

‘But the Sound for preference?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then Sir Hyde requests that you proceed on that assumption.’

Otway did not know Nelson except by reputation, but as he warmed his hams against the stove he was treated to a view of the man in action. And seeing the orders that flowed from him he could not help but contrast it with what he had observed of Sir Hyde Parker. With no reference to a single sheet of paper Nelson reeled off to his secretary the order of sailing for the entire fleet. At the same time, almost, he planned boat exercises that had a succession of midshipmen scurrying from the great cabin on to the deck, where a harassed signal lieutenant sought to keep pace with the raft of instructions.

He and Otway returned to HMS
London
where, with Parker present, the difference was even more marked: an excited Nelson
made absolute sense while the occasional words of caution Parker interjected sounded a false note. In a
tour
de
force
of explanation, Nelson outlined how he would get the fleet to Copenhagen and, since that was the nub of Parker’s orders from the government, how he would go about subduing the defences, provided no other threat appeared to prevent it.

Nelson was in seventh heaven. He had what he wanted, a fleet to organise and a target to attack. As he paced up and down, he felt sorry for Parker, which tempered his ebullience. The man had not been born to this situation: that he was here was the fault of the system and of a government too weak at the time of his appointment to risk alienating any of their political allies. No good would come of humiliating him, so what would have taken time anyway took much longer as he nudged Parker into pronouncing obvious conclusions.

‘I do feel it necessary, sir,’ Nelson concluded, ‘that you personally explain our plans to all captains.’

Parker put his hands under his double chin as if in prayer. He was thinking this was Nelson’s plan and not his. His mind was in the same turmoil he had gnawed on for weeks – victory with laurels or defeat and disgrace – but his junior was so anxious to lead that he could operate at one remove. This might gift him the victory without effort or temper any odium.

‘Lord Nelson, since you are appointed to lead the fleet through the Sound and the attack on Copenhagen, I think that is a duty better left to you.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Meanwhile,’ Parker added, spoiling the air of martial endeavour, ‘I shall send a message to Colonel Strickler, the commandant of Cronberg fort, asking him what his intentions will be if we attempt to make the passage through.’

None of the others looked at him then, but they were all wondering why he wanted to alert the Danes to his intentions.

Prior to the captains’ meeting Nelson watched the result of an order he had issued when Otway was warming himself by the stove. Every flat-bottomed boat in the fleet, each with an officer or midshipman in charge, and half a dozen marines and a cannon in the bows, was required to wheel and manoeuvre round
St
George.
Even young Frears had a command, though several experienced hands were in his launch to ensure he made no cardinal errors. Formed into squadrons, the boats mounted mock attacks on the side of the ship only sheering off once contact had been made.

‘There, Hardy,’ Nelson cried, pointing as another section of a dozen boats surged in. ‘Let any one of those fortress gunners fire on us and I will send our brave lads ashore in their boats to singe their tails.’

Hardy responded to this in his usual manner, which left Nelson wondering if he was happy at the idea or thought it madness. Not for the first time he realised that this man would never do in high command: he would get there, of course, if he stayed alive and enough admirals before him died. Competence had little to do with the system of promotion: once on the captain’s list you rose inexorably to become a flag officer. God forbid the Ghost should ever have to fight a fleet action!

‘Make an order, Captain Hardy,’ Nelson said, with just a trace of a sigh. ‘Boats to break off and return to their ships.’

The conference of captains was not as Nelson expected. Instead of the enthusiasm to be at the enemy that he had anticipated, he heard many objections to his plans. These men had not sailed with him before, although he had met many of them in his years in the service, some a long time ago, like Thomas Bertie who, as a brand new midshipman, had journeyed with him and Troubridge in HMS
Seahorse
on the voyage to Calcutta in ’76. Now he commanded HMS
Ardent,
which had fought and suffered against the Dutch at Camperdown.

Those who had previously been under his command, like Freemantle and Foley, posed pertinent questions and accepted his answers, showing trust in his judgement. But most did not, and Nelson was forced to admit that not only had he been lucky in the quality of his Nile captains, but that he had had the time to introduce them to his mode of thinking. Here in the Cattegat, he was trying to do in one day what had taken three months in the Mediterranean, and to a far more numerous body of men, over thirty officers of post rank.

Why did he have to explain to professional naval officers, not once but several times, that in a four-mile wide channel the largest Danish cannon, now known to be thirty-six pounders, with an effective range of less than two miles, could not even command the middle of the Sound? Why did they doubt his assertion that the Swedes manning Helsingborg would do nothing, and that if they dared he would not only bombard them into submission, but send in his flat bottomed boats to assault what was an under-manned fortress.

‘Gentlemen, we face two nations who have no recent experience of
war. Even should our ships be forced by wind and current into the extreme arc of their fire, where are the gunners who can hit moving targets.’

Regardless of the truth of that remark – that for a shore-based gunner to employ deflection gunnery required a high degree of skill – it was met with demands to know what would happen if they were becalmed or the wind backed so that the fleet would have to come about in narrow shoal water. He answered that the former, in these seas, was a near impossibility while the latter would see them anchor rather than run. He wanted to say that this was war and not for the cautious or cowardly, but he must carry the doubters with him – no good would come of ruffling their pride.

‘Captain Mosse, you will lead the fleet through the Sound in HMS
Monarch.’
Mosse nodded, but in a way that told Nelson nothing about his opinion of the honour. ‘Captain Murray, you will take under your charge the bomb ketches. You are to take
Edgar
into the Sound and anchor, here, to the north-west within range of the fortress of Cronberg, your task to play on Colonel Strickler’s gunners and unsettle them should they open fire on us.’

George Murray had lost HMS
Colossus
off the Scilly Isles, the ship that had taken down with it most of Sir William Hamilton’s fortune. Despite that, he was not one to demur, nor had he objected to Nelson’s plan. A sailor of great experience, he had fought in the Far East against the great French admiral Suffren. He had also been with Nelson at St Vincent, so was no stranger to fleet actions. He was the only officer in the entire group who had made the passage of the Sound, albeit in peacetime, so could claim to know the waters.

‘You will not be a target to them while the fleet is in view, but you must be prepared to win your anchors quickly as soon as we are through, or risk facing the whole barrage once they have levered round their guns.’