A thin rattle of drumming started up in the Danish camp. They were forming up by battalions in fighting order.
Orders came quickly: they were to do the same.
The 52nd, augmenting the ranks of the 43rd, found Maynard on the left of the line with the light infantry. In the centre the colonel took position on his horse, flanked by the colour party, with the elite grenadier company on the right. The morning sun touched the scarlet coats and brought a martial glitter to an unbroken line of bayonets.
The band broke into a lively fife-and-drum regimental air and they were ready.
From the right came a small group of officers on horseback. In full view of the enemy Wellesley was showing himself to the men who were going to fight for him. He made a striking figure, tall in the saddle with black-plumed hat, severe dark tunic and white breeches, progressing slowly and with grim disdain down the ranks, courteously doffing his hat to senior officers, with a gruff question here and there.
It was an impressive display, thought Maynard, the men straightening and stiffening as the general passed.
Then the Danes made their move. Three battalions of infantry in column marched to the front and extended into line, a ragged show, he thought nervously, as they spread out in numbers beyond their own.
So now was the time of decision: the King’s German Legion had failed to reach them in time. If Wellesley was going to do anything, it must be with the forces he had with him, and that meant giving up their position of advantage up-slope and meeting the enemy in the level ground between, a wheatfield whose grain stalks hung ready for harvest.
The two sides faced each other in a hostile silence a quarter-mile apart, the lowing of a far-off ox clear on the morning air. Then the quiet was banished in a series of harsh commands in the British centre, instantly followed by a massed drumming – prepare to advance! Wellesley was not going to wait and battle was to be joined.
A baying of horn-bugles, the bellowing of sergeants – then the final order. March!
Stepping off immaculately, dressing in faultless line on the colours, the redcoats marched towards the enemy, ready to take the first merciless volley.
Something was happening in the Danish ranks.
A ripple of movement, gaps – faint shouting, gesturing – and the left battalion tore apart, disintegrated. Men ran for their lives, desperate for the safety of the town, stumbling, fleeing in mindless panic. It spread to the next, and in minutes the whole Danish front had dissolved into hundreds of running figures.
The drums gave the staccato double-thump of a halt, and without cavalry to pursue, the British line waited for the situation to clear, a murmur of amazement at the spectacle going up from the ranks.
The Danish commander responded with fresh battalions, brought forward and placed with Koge at their backs, a pointed manoeuvre to his wavering troops.
Wellesley wasted no time. The British battalions were manoeuvred for a general advance – but in echelon, the fierce Highlanders of the 92nd leading. Before the enemy could consolidate, the entire line stepped off, a fearsome concentration of violence and grandeur closing in on the Danes.
As Scottish bayonets lowered for business it was too much for them. They broke and ran. Frantic to escape they threw down weapons, leaving guns, horses and equipment. Some brave souls stood their ground but were easily routed.
The battlefield was Wellesley’s.
Chapter 74
Light infantry companies were detached and moved forward quickly in extended order. The logic of war dictated that, as the prime objective of the engagement was the destruction of any threat that lay in the British rear, it was necessary to pursue and annihilate the broken horde.
They pushed forward to the road. It was chaos – corpses, abandoned guns, prisoners wandering dazed and helpless taken by the score.
Shocked, Maynard saw who he and his fellows had been fighting. Not soldiers, they were rustic country folk taken up by the militia, long-haired farmhands and pig-herders in odd pieces of uniform over fustian and woollen breeches. Others wore red-and-green-striped jackets with wide hats not seen in England since the last Charles.
This was no glorious victory. These citizens had been defending their homeland and were wildly ill-matched against the veteran redcoats, who were now mercilessly hunting them down.
Maynard kept his men pressing forward towards the town. On the road there were pitiful relics of the encounter discarded by the fleeing militia: improvised weapons, a scythe tied to a pole, broken muskets, a rusty lance. Knapsacks, bundles and, most poignant of all, many wooden clogs that had been cast off for the owners to run faster. Even their ‘cavalry’ had been riding plough-horses that now grazed contentedly in the fields.
They approached a hamlet, the warm yellow and red of Danish houses attractive in the sunshine. A severe church tower dominated a rise to the south behind some trees over a churchyard, and to the right was a small square.
The tap of a musket sounded ahead and a tell-tale puff of smoke rose over a ditch. Without waiting for orders Sergeant Heyer motioned for two to double away and take the sniper from the side but there were more shots. One of his men was dropped by a hit and in the general firing a bullet closely missed Maynard with a savage whaap. He gulped: as an officer he was a prime target.
They pushed forward to a low wall and looked over warily as a message came from Adams: he was advancing on the right and would be obliged if Maynard would move up on the left.
Before a safe passage had been identified there was the sound of distant horns blending into one – a harsher tone than that of their own. It was from the opposite end of the town and into view burst a squadron of the King’s German Legion cavalry.
Their appearance caused all firing to cease, and in the distance the fleeing militiamen stopped in their tracks, mesmerised by the thundering mass. It was fatal – the Hanoverians brutally sabred those they could reach and drove the rest screaming into side-streets and houses, where some tried to retrieve their honour by firing from an upper floor.
Wellesley’s main force arrived, and enraged Highlanders were sent to batter their way in to finish this nonsense. In a short time the streets were cleared.
They regrouped in the little square, and word was brought that the last resistance could prove harder to crush. The churchyard, whose perimeter walls were old and massively thick, held the last fighting remnants of the Danish force and, it was rumoured, their general.
It was a hopeless defiance. In rapid, decisive moves, the churchyard was isolated. The British troops did not press an attack: they kept under cover until a pair of six-pounder guns of the horse artillery arrived and efficiently set up opposite.
A demand of capitulation was sent in.
Before long a white flag was waved and Generalmajor Oxholm emerged at the head of his men. To all intents and purposes all resistance on the island of Sj?lland had ceased. Only the city of Copenhagen and its garrison were left and all hope of relief for it was now summarily extinguished.
Chapter 75
British headquarters, Hellerup, five miles north of Copenhagen
Commander-in-chief of British land forces Lieutenant General Cathcart opened the meeting without mincing his words. ‘I have to acquaint you, gentlemen, with the fact that General Peymann has seen fit to reject my repeated call for a cessation of arms and treat for a peace.’
‘Good God,’ muttered Major General Finch of the Guards. ‘He’s beaten and doesn’t know it. After Koge they’ve not a hope in Hell of-’