'Might be best, before the evening's done, Lewrie,' Nelson said as he awkwardly cradled his mug of tea with his one remaining hand, 'to be rowed over to Amazon and speak with Captain Riou. He, Rear-Admiral Graves, and I formulated the general plan for taking on the Danes, so Riou will be able to explain the salient points. All that's wanting is word from Captain Hardy's reconnoiter into the King's Deep.'
'We've had to survey and re-buoy the Holland Deep,' Capt. Foley explained, 'so that's sure, now. As for the King's Deep-'
'Splendid fellow, Hardy,' Lord Nelson interrupted. 'Demanded him as captain of the Saint Joseph, then the Saint George, when the first one wouldn't do. He, and several others, are out even now, in all this cold, charting and marking the deep-water passage into the King's Deep, and Copenhagen Roads. What charts we have are next to useless, and the civilian masters and pilots we brought along are… asses! They tell us that the deep channel is along the Middle Ground, yet we have noted large Danish warships anchored in deep water close to the city, on the land side.' The nearest one, the Provensteenen, we know is a cut-down three-decker, not two miles off from us.'
'Well, she might be sittin' in the mud, my lord,' Lewrie said as the promised mug of tea at last arrived. 'Even so, that'd mean at least four fathom and a bit, perhaps five fathoms close by in which the Danes moved her into position.'
He took a sip, and it was nowhere near the 'nigh-boilin' hot' that the steward, Thomas Allen, had promised; there was no sugar and no milk, either. Allen all but smirked at him with an affronted 'so there' expression, and a 'go away, instanter,' to boot.
'Passed Kronborg Castle, did ye say, Captain Foley?' Lewrie said.
'The Danes didn't score a single hit, sir,' Foley told him with a chuckle, 'and the Swedish batteries cross the Sound did not join in either.' His bright blue eyes were agleam with amusement. 'It was but a short, noisy passage. 'Sound and fury, signifying nothing.' '
'We exchanged salutes when I sailed down,' Lewrie told him with a matching grin. He had to look up slightly, for Capt. Thomas Foley was six feet tall; perhaps the only human-sized man in the cabins, besides Lewrie; an impressive-looking fellow with curly dark-brown hair.
'First thing, Lewrie,' Lord Nelson piped up from his blankets and cot, 'be sure to pass a cable out from a stern port and be ready to come to anchor by your stern, opposite the foe I choose for you. I intend, should the winds come Sutherly, to sail in in line-ahead, and match broadsides 'til the Danes have had enough.'
'I shall, my lord,' Lewrie answered, and took another big gulp of his tea; it was now tepid, so he drained it off completely. 'Well, I'll be on my way, sir.' Lewrie began re-fastening his furs.
'By the by, Lewrie,' Nelson enquired. 'Your legal troubles… they are quite behind you?'
'Completely exonerated, my lord,' Lewrie replied, though taking note of the Vice-Admiral's dubious expression, and the top-lofty tone to his voice, as though he thought very little of naval officers stealing slaves, even to man their ships for England's vital service.
'Such passionate beliefs as Abolition, Captain Lewrie,' Nelson sternly intoned, 'are best left to civilians who argue the matters in Parliament, our sovereign's Privy Council, or the parlours of the 'do-gooders.' Sea Officers holding active commission may espouse opinions on such matters, but not act upon them.'
Nelson relented, and Lewrie could breathe again, for the Vice-Admiral would not tear a strip of hide from his arse; Nelson's mouth cocked up in a wry little grin. 'You were lucky. Very lucky.'
'I was, indeed, my lord,' Lewrie agreed, grinning himself. 'As are you, the nation believes. My Irish tars even think you are possessed of a beannacht, a good cess.'
'Superstitious tripe!' Nelson snapped, turning stern once more. 'We make our own good fortune, through boldness and courage. Perhaps by dawn, tomorrow, we will prove fortunate 'gainst the Danes, without blindly depending on… 'mumbo-jumbo,' amulets and charms, or slivers of the True Cross like… Spaniards and Irishmen. Courage, boldness, and audacity will win the day. That, and the steadiness of our tars!'
Lewrie's little stab at toadying, of 'pissing down his back,' which Nelson found tedious, shut him up; he answered with a firm and determined nod.
'Spend your passion, and your… cess on the Danes, Lewrie,' Nelson said with a piercing look.
'I shall, sir,' Lewrie promised, bowing his way out of the after part of the cabins. In the forward part, Midshipmen were gathered round several lanthorns or candlesticks, painfully scribbling away at sheafs of paper, copying out Nelson's dictates as they came, page by halting page, from Nelson's mind, and lips.
'… Edgar will anchor abreast of Number Five,' a Lieutenant was slowly reading off the latest page to them, 'a Sixty-Four gun ship or hulk. The Ardent… got that, all of you? Good. Ah… Ardent to pass Edgar and anchor abreast of Numbers Six and Seven…' Lewrie heard as he stepped out into the icy cold of a clear, moonless night.
Britainmight love him, but Lord, he can be a Tartar! Lewrie thought as he stuffed his muffler higher round his throat. He'd been on the receiving end of Nelson's temper in the Mediterranean when in command of HMS Jester, and though Nelson might look like the most inoffensive minnikin ever born, a natural 'Merry Andrew,' when rowed beyond all temperance, mad enough to kick furniture, his tongue could peel paint and varnish, melt tar and ignite oakum! S'pose I got off easy, Lewrie imagined; though, a man as much in love with glory and praise as he should be easier to 'kiss up.'
'Wind's coming about,' he heard one of HMS Elephant's officers comment to his fellows, who were gathered by the larboard bulwarks in a small, shivering knot. 'It's come more Westerly, perhaps with just a touch of Southing?'
'Stand in on a beam-reach, then,' another muttered back.
'My pardons, sirs,' Lewrie said, going to join them. 'Might I enquire where Captain Riou's Amazon is anchored?'
'Uhm… yonder, sir.' One of them pointed over to starboard, closer to the southwest tip of the Middle Ground. 'Just past Bellona, sir… and a hand's breadth astern of her, from where we stand.'
'Ah, yes,' Lewrie said with a nod as he followed the officer's outstretched arm. 'Thankee kindly. I'll have to row over to her, and speak with Riou before Midnight.'
He turned back to grin his thanks to them, and noted the lights cross the way, off the larboard bows, that sparkled like faint amber glims against the darkness of Amager Island, and ran Northerly up the coast of Sjжlland, the much larger island on which Copenhagen stood. Up to the city, then far beyond it, the line of sparkles ran.
'Mine arse,' Lewrie said, realising that he was looking at the Danish fleet, anchored in a long, protective line. 'They aren't all of 'em ships of the line, are they?'
'A great many floating rafts, sir,' one officer replied with a chuckle. 'Razeed and dis-masted old hulks, or just big rafts, turned into gun batteries.'
'Aboukir Bay,' snickered another, 'just like the French at the Battle of the Nile… anchored close ashore.'
'No more than a cable off the land, some of them,' another of them opined. 'So we mayn't sail round their off sides, as the Admiral did at the Nile, yet…'
'Yet not close enough together in line-ahead to be able to support each other, as were the French,' a third chuckled. 'Foolish.'
'They aim and shoot as poorly as did the gunners at Kronborg, on our way here, well! Two hour's pounding should finish 'em,' the first imagined.
Hellish lot of 'em, though, Lewrie thought, frowning; This'un could be a real bugger. Twenty or more? And it struck him just how odd it was for two navies to lie anchored just out of maximum range of each other-from the West edge of the Middle Ground shoal, where the British fleet sat, it wasn't over two miles to the closest of the Danish hulks. With the loan of one of the officers' telescopes, he could clearly see the scurry on the old cut-down three-decker as Danish sailors prepared their defences for the morning, should the wind come fair.
'Like ancient armies,' he muttered, returning the glass. 'Night before Julius Caesar took on the Gauls, or somebody. Two camps, fires lit t'keep warm, and eat… and the battlefield between.'
'Very like, sir, indeed,' one of Elephant's Lieutenants agreed. 'Seems rather eerie, don't it? It don't seem… naval, at all, sir.'
Lewrie stamped his cold feet and shrugged deeper into his furs.
'Luck t'ye all, sirs,' he said in parting, touching the brim of his cocked hat in casual salute before heading for the entry-port, and his shivering, waiting boat crew. 'I'm off.'
