Battle Stations! by Anthony Barton

Author:Anthony Barton [Barton, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bulmer Press
Published: 2019-03-07T05:00:00+00:00

HOW could my fellow captains be so stupid? Why do they think we were up half the night buoying the channel?

In a matter of minutes, Nelson’s twelve big ships had been reduced to nine, and now those nine were coming under fierce fire from the line of anchored Danish hulks.

Corrie stowed away her glass. She laced her fingers together.

My own frigate cannot take much more of this. If something is carried away, then we may never reach the Donnebrog.

She recalled Nelson saying at the dinner ‘I think I can annihilate them.’

Rear Admiral Graves had responded by expressing his fear that the British might end up firing at stone walls, while another senior officer had pointed out that the squadron from Sweden might arrive at any time, and the British might find themselves outnumbered and surrounded.

‘The more numerous the better,’ had been Nelson’s sharp retort. His fellow officers had stared transfixed at Nelson when he had said that, like so many sheep staring at a sheepdog.

Of all the senior captains in that company, only Nelson had inspected the enemy positions closely and been fired on while doing so. Only Nelson and she, Corrie Harriman, had been up half the night helping to replace navigational aids removed by the enemy. Nelson’s energy was legendary. Corrie was proud to have helped him.

His fellow captains admired Nelson for goading them into action. Strange indeed were the ways of men and women.

Just last night her fellow frigate captain, Henry Riou, had taken her into his particular confidence, and invited her to ally herself with him in the coming battle.

‘Together we can take the Trekroner,’ he had said. ‘We can take the fort from the rear.’ His plan had seemed to Corrie patently absurd. How could he hope to seize one of the best-defended forts in Europe by main force? Yet Corrie had warmed to the reckless Riou. She had discovered quickly enough that his lugubrious hangdog expression served to mask a quick intellect and a wicked sense of fun.

‘We shall have their fortress,’ Riou had said, gloomily, but with a twinkle in his hooded eyes.

‘We shall,’ Corrie had agreed, and they had drunk to that.

Now here they were the next morning, she in the Swift and Riou in the Amazon, already in the thick of the action, and proceeding down the narrow channel she had buoyed the night before, with Riou in the lead and Corrie following close behind him, and the Trekroner fort looming before them, half hidden by the rolling smoke.

Although three of Nelson’s most impressive ships, the Agamemnon, Bellona and Russell, were stuck fast in the mud, Corrie’s faith in the admiral’s judgment remained undimmed. If Nelson thought the Danes could be defeated, who was she to argue? Nelson had won battles before and might even win this one, providing the slow-thinking and ponderous Admiral Sir Hyde Parker remained offshore in his London flagship with his division of unhandy one-hundred-gun ships, and had the good sense not to try to interfere.

Crash!

An incoming chain shot tore a hole in the foretopsail, smashing the foretopsail yard.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.