Investigators Prologue

The Investigators

Prologue:

Copenhagen

Thursday 2 April 1801

It was the silence, just before battle was joined, that the boy John Franklin always remembered first about Copenhagen.

Before then, all had been noise and bustle aboard as the ships of Lord Nelson’s division cleared for action. Now, as the leading British men-o-war passed John Franklin, standing near his captain on the quarterdeck of HMS Polyphemus, everything fell quiet. All except for the chants of the leadsman sounding the fathoms beneath them for’ard, which only heightened the hush. Everyone else stood watching the spectacle, scarcely daring to breathe. Every man crowded with company, but alone with his apprehensions of what was to come when the guns opened fire. The lad – not yet quite fifteen – wondering what his father would say, having unwillingly let him volunteer for sea like his cousin, Matthew Flinders, making a name for himself as an explorer on the other side of the world and with whom John hoped to sail. But here he was in the Baltic facing his first naval bombardment…

John felt the wind on his cheek and heard its thrum in the sails. So alive it seemed. He could sense the tow and rhythm of the ship beneath him, as she made her way through the green, quivering waters of the outer channel. Watching the leading vessels make the starboard turn into the narrow Kings Deep channel to engage the Danish ships and floating batteries anchored in front of their capital city.

Waiting, with every nerve in his body stretched with anticipation and uncertainty, the whispered makings of a prayer on the young fellow’s lips, when an officer’s cry to Captain Lawford broke through all their meditations.

‘Sir, look! Agamemnon! She’s grounded!’

Immediately, the eyes of everyone on deck turned outward from themselves, to see the black and yellow hull of the fifth ship ahead under double-reefed topsails slew with the current ... stagger ... and stick fast on the soft, grey mud of a large shoal, known as the Middle Ground, that protected the seaward approach to Copenhagen. And at once Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson’s strategy of attack from the south was at risk of disarray before the battle even began. Yet it was such an emergency that brought out his best fighting abilities. Within half a minute the signal midshipman on Polyphemus was reporting a message to Captain Lawford from the flagship.

‘Sir, we are to take Agamemnon’s place as number five in the line of battle.’

Captain Lawford was every bit as flexible in adjusting to the sudden change of tactics.

‘Acknowledge the signal,’ he calmly told the midshipman. To the sailing master and steersmen he ordered, ‘Set course to follow behind Isis. Now! And make more sail.’

For the sixth ship in line, the frigate Désirée, was already bearing up fast.

The boatswains’ whistles shrilled, the hands swarmed aloft to spread the mainsail, and Polyphemus moved further out into the channel to keep the line of battle intact. On the quarterdeck, Captain Lawford was giving more orders to a youthful midshipman, Jamie Bell, and the young gentleman volunteer John Franklin beside him.

‘Go at once to the gun decks below and tell the lieutenants there has been a change in our battle plan. We are to enter the line immediately instead of towards the end. Our opponent will be...’ as he consulted the card on which Nelson’s orders had been written and received only that morning ‘...the enemy’s first battle station, the blockship Provesteenen. The lieutenants will pass the word to the petty officers, then come up here for further orders. Oh...’ as the two youngsters began to scurry off, ‘and tell the armourers, carpenters and the surgeon in the cockpit. They will be needed sooner than expected.’

The boys disappeared down the companionway on their errands. And so, with minimum disruption to the rest of his battle plan, Nelson restored his line and prepared for what he later described as one of the hardest-fought engagements of his career.

Horatio Nelson himself had joined the navy at the age of twelve as an ordinary seaman; but his qualities of leadership and valour showed early and he rose fast, being made post-captain at only twenty towards the end of the American War of Independence. Yet it was during the naval wars with France after the Revolution of 1789 that Nelson’s genius for strategy and daring saw him really shine – as the star of a young corporal, Napoleon Bonaparte, had also risen over Europe – and in several brilliant battles including the Nile and Cape St Vincent, Nelson lost an eye and his right arm in the line of duty. Now, in the Baltic this April morning of 1801, he was leading a division to attack Copenhagen and stop Denmark and Sweden joining a League of Armed Neutrality to break the British prohibition on trade with France, where Napoleon was First Consul.

When they hurried down the companionway shortly before ten o’clock, John Franklin and Midshipman Bell found the gun deck already busy with controlled activity. The running feet and whistles above, the sudden shift in direction told the crews that something was up.

‘You tell the lieutenants here. I’ll go down to the lower gun deck, and meet you at the cockpit,’ Jamie quickly ordered.

As John made his way forward to find the officers, all thought of his Flinders cousins urgently put aside, the gun captains were testing the firing locks and checking that the flints gave a good spark. The powder monkeys – mostly boys much younger than himself – were handing the cloth cartridges of gunpowder to the loaders who rammed them home before placing the eighteen-pound iron balls in the cannons’ mouth (twenty-four pounders below), and the guns run out on their rope tackles, muzzles bristling through the open ports. Each six-man crew could load, prime, fire and reload their gun within a minute. Now, as John made his way through the half-light to the lieutenants, every ear was straining to hear his news.

The two lieutenants heard him out and then, in cocked hats and swords, hustled their way past him up to the captain for more details.

‘Pass that on to the midshipmen. Who’s our opposition?’

‘The enemy’s first station, sir. I think the Captain said Provesteenen,’ John added, leaving a buzz of chatter in his wake as he, too, made his way aft and down the companionways to the orlop deck at the waterline, to find Jamie Bell.

Together the two lads went to the cockpit – a cabin near the stern where the midshipmen and volunteers such as John usually berthed – but now, with the bulkheads removed for action, turned into the surgeon’s theatre. A solid operating table stood in the middle, lit by hanging lamps – another nearby on which were laid out the whole ghastly array of surgical instruments – while everywhere the young assistants, known as ‘loblolly boys’, were tearing strips of white linen into bandages.

The lads gave their news to the surgeon, who accepted it with grim acquiescence.

‘Back to my bloody business too soon,’ he remarked. ‘Eh, young gentlemen?’ with a laugh, trying to take the edge off it.

‘That’s what Captain Lawford said.’

The words had not left Jamie’s lips when they heard, through the wooden walls of the ship, dulled, far-off thuds of cannon firing.

‘So it starts,’ the surgeon said. ‘Now be off about your duties.’

They were just leaving when John stopped by the butcher’s suite of saws, scalpels and carving knives laid out in a row.

‘What are these for, doctor?’ As if he didn’t know.

‘Why, to cut off thy arms and legs.’

‘Then I hope you treat me very tenderly,’ Jamie Bell said, smiling to take his own edge off the thought, ‘should I be carried down to your workbench.’

‘Ha! I shouldn’t put a wager on that, young sir,’ the surgeon boomed behind the mask of jocularity. ‘I shall make you pay severely for every one of those nights you’ve kept me awake playing on your flute.’

‘Don’t my music soothe your savage breast, doctor?’

‘It’s aflame now with the drums of war. Get on with ye ...’

The lads scarcely needed the dismissal. They could hear another round of gunfire in the distance and, still grinning over their badinage with the doctor, ran up the steps to their station on the quarterdeck to see the opening salvoes.

Edgar was already making the turn into King’s Channel. As it did so, the guns roared from the shore battery and Provesteenen, an old, cut-down three-decker, her masts merely stumps, but still capable of delivering powerful blows. The leading ship didn’t return fire however, the captain waiting until he’d found his station opposite the sixth Danish position. The first calm, well-aimed broadside was always the most effective. The three following ships were not so restrained, however, and fired into Provesteenen and the blockship Wagrien next to it as they passed, the shot from the short-barrelled carronades on Captain Bligh’s Glatton especially causing great damage at such close range. But Polyphemus would hold her fire, for the hands were already at the yards and braces waiting their turn.

The orders rang out.

They were there! Passing to starboard the sloop Cruize, anchored at the southern end of the shoal to direct the ships more safely into mid-channel. Désirée, Bellona the war goddess, and the flags of Nelson’s Elephant were making the tack behind…

And then the thunder and hail from the battery was upon them – John shaking with the acrid smoke and noise, feeling the shock as the enemy’s fire hit home. The first cries of the Polyphemus’ wounded. The first flying splinters from her stout oak bulwarks, often far more deadly to men than cannonballs. Still the boy fought to keep his nerve waiting for his next orders. And still Captain Lawford held his own fire until he came to his station behind Isis, with Provesteenen and Wagrien beyond in his range.

‘Quick, lads, to the companionway ready to signal the lieutenants when I give the order.’

John was half-way there in the momentary lull before the next round came. He heard the calls for the anchor to be dropped. Felt the ship steady, her bows pointing northward with the current – for this was to be no battle of movement and tactical manoeuvre, but a slow slog for slog. John sensed his feet slip under the impact of the enemy’s next shots. And then came the order from his own captain, repeated along the gun deck:

‘Fire!’

The boy heaved and recoiled with his ship’s energy as her portside guns bellowed. It was the first time John had really heard them in anger. He was afraid. Who wasn’t? But by George he was also exhilarated! As he sped back to the quarterdeck through the clamour and flying debris of war, young Franklin remembered that cousin Matthew had fought in the Battle off Brest nine years before as an aide-de-camp to Admiral Pasley – and he had survived to make all sort of discoveries in New Holland. So, too, would John…

When he returned to his post on the quarterdeck, however, it was uncertain whether they’d last even another half -hour. There was a muted fear among the officers that Nelson’s plan might be at risk of foundering completely. Some of the pilots, unsure where the deep water lay, took their ships too far to leeward. Before they knew it, both the Bellona and the seventy-four-gun Russell had both run aground.

Three of Nelson’s dozen capital ships stuck in the soft mud! Fortunately, the latter two were able to bring their guns to bear on the enemy. Fortunate, too, that with the flagship Elephant close behind them, Nelson overruled his frightened pilot, decided that the deep water lay shoreward (where, after all, the enemy’s big ships were anchored), and showed the way for the vessels following him, shouting orders through his speaking trumpet as they passed for their new positions further up the line. Marking the way as well, from his centre, for the frigates and gun boats attacking Trekroner Fort at the north end of the channel, and the bomb ships hurling mortars behind him.

Thus by good fortune, brilliant seamanship and the ability to extemporise and bring the fight to the enemy, Horatio Nelson saved his strategy. By half-past eleven, the fighting had become general along the whole of the King’s Channel in front of Copenhagen.

(Continues in The Investigators – and see more in Audio/eBooks link on Homepage)