CHAPTER VII.

FACE TO FACE WITH THE DANISH SHIPS.

"Your glorious standard launch again To match another foe, And sweep through the deep, While the stormy winds do blow, While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy winds do blow."

The British nation that possibly--very probably indeed--would have shot our hero, Nelson, had he lost the Battle of the Nile, now presented him with the title of Baron.

He was once more the people's darling.

Could the British nation have done less?

"It was this battle," says Graviére, "which for two years delivered up the Mediterranean to the power of Britain; summoned thither the Russian squadrons, left the French army isolated amidst a hostile population; decided Turkey in declaring against it; saved India from French enterprise; and brought France within a hair's-breadth of her ruin, by reviving the smouldering flames of war with Austria, and bringing Suwarrow and the Austro-Russians to the French frontiers.

* * * * *

Honours from all directions fell thick and fast upon our naval hero; yet amid all this glory, what Nelson longed for more than anything else perhaps was rest.

He was now on his way back to Naples, but his long exertions began to tell upon his never very strong system. He was, while yet at sea, seized with a fever, and for eighteen hours his noble life was despaired of. Even after he got over the crisis, he writes thus despondingly to St. Vincent:

"I never expect, my dear lord, to see your face again. It may please God that this will be the finish to that fever of anxiety which I have endured from the middle of June. But be that as it pleases His goodness."

However, Nelson was destined to live to accomplish still further triumphs, as we soon shall see.

As to his doings in the Mediterranean after the Battle of the Nile; of his return to Naples; of the rejoicing, pomp, and panoply with which he was received there; of his private opinion of this corruptest of Courts; of all his sieges and all his successes until his return to England, history must inform you, reader; but the whole story reads like one long delightful romance, all the more delightful of course in that it is true.

* * * * *

The curtain falls for a time on this life-drama, and our heroes leave the stage for refreshment. As far as fêtes and feasts were concerned, Nelson was very much refreshed indeed; and so in those times was every officer, ay, and every tar, who had been at the Battle of the Nile.

But soon the curtain rises again, and we behold a great fleet departing from Yarmouth Roads, under the command of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker in the _London_, 98 guns, with Nelson as his second in command in the _St. George_, also of 98 guns.

They are bound for the North this time, our gallant ships; but whither and why? A question that a sentence can answer. In fact, it can be answered in the refrain of the good old song:

"Britons never shall be slaves."

Three Northern nations had formed a league to make us slaves, at least to wrench from the grasp of Britannia the sceptre of her rule over the waves.

Just think for a moment, reader, of the terrible combination that was now formed against us. Russia, with 82 ships of the line and 40 frigates; Denmark, French at heart, with 23 ships and 31 frigates; and Sweden, with 18 ships and 14 frigates.

Our Government had boldly determined to resist this combination, and crush it. A braver man than Hyde Parker they could not have had, but Nelson ought to have been chief, for he was a born commander.

And so on the 12th of March, 1801, the fleet sailed away.

Their country had forgotten neither Tom Bure nor Raventree. They were both now commanders, although Tom was only in his twenty-first year.

They had spent some time at home, however, and a right happy time it had been.

There was no change in Dan, but poor old Meg, the faithful collie, would never meet Tom again. She was buried with all honours in a grave dug for her on the green grassy lawn where she used to lie in the summer days near her dear old master, Uncle Bob.

All was the same at the Hall, as well as at the cottage, except that Bertha seemed to have grown quite up, and was a child no more.

Not only she, but her mother and Dan drove to Yarmouth to see the great fleet sail away towards the cold, inhospitable North, and there were tears in Bertha's beautiful eyes as she bade her old friend Tom farewell. Merryweather--the same old Merryweather--was there also, and no less a personage than Captain Hughes, of the _Yarmouth Belle_, who made the departure of our hero Tom a "most auspicious occasion" for splicing the main-brace, not once, but three separate times.

Sir Hyde Parker was just a little nervous at starting; he was candid enough to tell Nelson so. Only he added: "It is no time for nervous systems, and icebergs or no icebergs, we shall, I trust, give our Northern enemies that hailstorm of bullets which gives our dear country the dominion of the sea. We have it, and all the devils in the North cannot take it from us if our ships have but fair play."

You have heard, reader, of the "gallant good Riou." He was captain of the _Amazon_, and when some Danes who were aboard went to him, saying that they had no desire to quit the British service, but were unwilling to fight against their country, Riou, instead of snubbing them as some captains would have done, acceded to their request, and transferred them. Indeed, so affected was he by their speech that the tears stood in his eyes. For the brave are ever generous and kind.

* * * * *

It seemed indeed as if Heaven fought on our side in this great expedition, for the weather was milder than had been remembered for many a year, so that fields of ice and bergs floated only in the dreams of Sir Hyde Parker.

The reader, however, must not jump to the conclusion that it was all plain sailing with Sir Hyde and Nelson. Very far from it indeed. Nor was it wind and weather only, but the dangers of straits, and banks, and shoals that they had to contend against. Yet Nelson would have made light of all these, and of the enemy's ships as well, had it not been for the attempts at negotiation that had to go on with the Danes the while precious time was being lost, and the armaments of the foe were getting stronger and stronger every day.

The first thing to annoy and fret poor brave Nelson was the circumstance that the fleet was to anchor out of sight of the Danes, till the negotiations were at an end. Red tape again!

"I hate your pen-and-ink men," he cried impatiently. "A fleet of British ships makes the best negotiators in the world. They always speak to be understood, and their arguments carry conviction to the very hearts of our foes."

When our fleet was off Elsinore--Nelson had by this time changed his flag to a handier and better ship, the _Elephant_--the admiral forced the passage of the Sound. The forts fired on them, it is true, but it is said that never a shot touched a ship.

The fleet then anchored near Huën, an island about fifteen miles from Copenhagen; and Nelson, with Colonel Stewart, Admiral Graves, and others, went in a lugger called the _Lark_ to reconnoitre.

They found that the defences were of all sorts, and fearful to behold. To begin with, there was the exceeding difficulty of approach, for the buoys on all the shoals had been taken up or shifted by the Danes. Then there was the great Danish fleet to encounter, drawn up in a line that extended for a mile and a half in front of the entrance to the harbour. The ships were flanked by strong batteries, while batteries bristled all along the shore.

The Danish forces then consisted of the fleet, which was moored close to the city, six line-of-battle ships, eleven strong floating batteries, gun brigs, a bomb vessel, supported by batteries on the Crown Islands, and four sail of the line drawn up across the harbour mouth, which was also protected by a great chain. The whole of the Danish protective armament, including hulks, batteries, and ships, from end to end, was about four miles in length.

But in order to get near this terrible array of defences, the attacking force would have to be navigated through a most intricate passage among the shoals.

Nelson's greatest trouble was to get safely through this natural deep-water canal.

On the 31st a great council of war was held, to take into consideration the best mode of attacking the place, as the negotiations had fallen through.

Nervous active men, in contradistinction to the slower and plethoric class, have been termed the "salt of the earth." Nelson then might well have been called the "salt of the sea." At this council, which was not "fast" enough for him by a deal, he kept pacing up and down the cabin deck, shaking his "flipper," as the sailors called it, meaning the stump of his arm. It must have been a grand sight to behold, and to note his glances of withering scorn at anyone who for a moment doubted the success of his plans.

And the refrain of Nelson's song at this council was, "Let me have but ten line of battle ships, and the smaller craft, and the battle is ours."

Sir Hyde Parker took him at his word.

Twelve ships he gave him, instead of ten, and also gave him _carte blanche_ to carry out this detached service as he thought best.

Nelson was as happy now as a nervous man can ever be.

Denmark's fleet he looked upon as already in his power. The Russians and Swedes would be smashed next. He hadn't forgotten them.

But there was much to be done before this battle even began. Misplaced buoys must be re-adjusted along the channel, and during all that night of the 31st--and a bitterly cold one it was--he rowed about with Captain Brisbane, of the _Cruiser_, in his open boat surveying the channel.

Personal experience of this work in sunny seas has proved to me how tedious and wearisome it is; but how much more so must it have been to our hero by night, in that almost Arctic climate.

Despite this, however, the work was satisfactorily accomplished.

Next day the whole fleet moved close up to the great shoal, with its middle channel, to which the Danes trusted as really their first line of defence.

Narrow though the channel was, and light though the breeze, the division under Nelson, headed by brave Riou, in the _Amazon_, went safely in, and at dusk anchored near Point Draco.

"Here," says Clark Russell, "the narrowness of the waters as an anchoring ground brought the ships into a huddle, and infinite mischief might have been done to the British had the Danes taken advantage of the crowded state of the fleet, by sending shells amongst the ships, from mortar boats and the batteries of Amak Island."

Captain Hardy, we are told, who was amongst those who up to a late hour that night were taking soundings, rowed under the very shadow of the Danes' leading ship, and felt the bottom of the water with a pole.

To Nelson's great joy, Hardy and the rest returned with the tidings that there was depth enough of water for our ships to range themselves in battle array, between the great shoal they had passed through and the defences of the enemy.

* * * *

As usual, Nelson's chief officers, including Hardy, Foley, Graves, Fremantle, Riou, &c., dined with him on the eve of the battle, and the hero was in the highest of spirits.

Riou and Foley remained with Nelson to plan details after the others had gone, and the great fight was commenced next morning, the ships filing into line, and taking up their positions with steadiness and precision, despite the extreme difficulty of navigating great vessels in a place like this.

Both the _Bellona_ and the _Russell_ went aground.

"Yet never," says Clark Russell, "had British seamanship found finer illustrations of its capacity of daring and skill than in the manner in which the vessels of the division calculated their stations, in a channel bewildering with its complicated and perilous navigation."

Face to face with the foe at last.

Beam to beam with the Danish ships, and the battle at once began.