Major General Finch rubbed his chin. ‘My lord, for myself I have the gravest reservations concerning the legality of such an act. To fire upon the common people not in arms against us is surely in breach of the laws of war.’
Cathcart glanced to Murray for an answer.
‘My lord, the Danish commander had the opportunity to evacuate the city before we invested it and chose not to do so. That the citizens are thereby caught up in a military action is unfortunate but by no means without precedent.’
‘Sir! This has been a neutral country and should-’
‘The Crown Prince of Denmark has since seen fit to declare war on us and has thereby relinquished any rights of neutrality.’
‘Sir, we’ve seen how they’re possessed of the merest peasant army, who cannot possibly stand against our potency. Has every avenue of diplomacy and persuasion been exhausted? Can the Danish not see that …’ Finch tailed off at Cathcart’s stony expression.
‘General, this Peymann is obdurate and inflexible to a degree that astonishes,’ Cathcart responded. ‘I conceive that only the strongest measures will oblige him to see reason as will save his people much distress. The plan before me is such a one.’
‘Sir, I must nevertheless protest at this abominable act, so unbecoming a civilised power.’
Cathcart held up his hands for silence. ‘Gentlemen, I’ve heard your several objections and do openly confess that I’m deeply troubled in myself. While the decision is mine alone, I do wish for your views before I determine on a course.’
Some of his officers looked away. Others sat rigid with set faces.
‘Therefore I will ask you now a simple question. I only ask that you deliberate in your mind long and hard before answering. It is that at this very hour the fate of England herself no less rests in our hands. If we cannot contrive a proceeding whereby the Danish fleet is withdrawn from the equations of war we are lost. Should we abandon the attempt, Bonaparte will be enabled to seize the fleet to add to his own. With the Dutch and his new friend Russia, it forms an invasion force that can overcome anything we can bring against it. At the very least we must sue for peace, and at ruinous terms. At worst is the spectacle of Emperor Napoleon in triumphal procession down Whitehall. We are quite alone, gentlemen. All our allies are kneeling before the tyrant. If we do not act to save ourselves, there are no others to do it for us.
‘My question is this: do we place the niceties of conduct, the unfortunate fate of Denmark caught between two unstoppable forces, before our very survival? Our fear of what the world will think of us before resolute action? I do not think we can.’
After a long and uncomfortable silence, Wellesley spoke: ‘If we accept our hand is forced, do we have the guns to effect a bombardment of significance? A weak or paltry showing will produce the opposite effect – General Bloomfield?’
‘Ah. I have twenty, no, thirty twenty-four-pounder pieces, but these are of no account in your customary bombardment, being reckoned levellers of the ramparts only. More to be valued are the forty mortars and ten heavy howitzers that, brought forward, may bear directly on the city centre. Besides these we can land a quantity of Congreve war rockets – and, indeed, Colonel Congreve himself who ardently desires to see his weapons in use. I’m sanguine such will be adequate to produce a satisfactory degree of ruination.’
‘Good God! We’re talking about the destruction of the ordinary folk, an ancient city of charm and-’
‘Do control yourself, General Finch. We abhor this as much as you do but are nevertheless seized by its necessity. I must further tell you that I’ve arrived at my decision. It grieves me beyond the telling but it is that we make preparation for a bombardment of Copenhagen. When all is complete, General Peymann will be offered terms of a generous nature, providing only that the fleet is delivered up. He will be led to understand that, failing an agreement in this wise, a bombardment will take place within twenty-four hours.’
Chapter 79
An entire city under their guns in cold blood? It was inconceivable – but Maynard couldn’t deny the reasoning. Even the stubborn Danes must see that they’d done enough to secure their honour, and this new compelling reality made nonsense of any attempt to hold out until winter drove the British away. They would finally have reason to yield.
It was essential to make all warlike preparation in earnest so there would be no mistaking their intentions, for if it were once suspected that there was no determination to go through with it, all bargaining power would vanish.
Ensign Maynard and Lieutenant Adams of the 52nd Regiment of Foot soon found their professional education extended – in the military preparations for a formal bombardment.
First, gun emplacements. Ringing the city, batteries were thrown up at speed. Horse and field artillery were expected to move about a battlefield but siege guns were dug in for protection against the defender’s return fire and needed a hard base to allow continual firing from the same spot. Their placing was a science: engineers had three or four proven designs to match terrain but all had in common sturdy wooden platforms for the guns, inclined in reverse to damp the recoil, embrasures and flanking parapets with concealed magazines.
Then, guns. The massive twenty-four-pounders were retired to their park, howitzers put in their place. These were stubby guns, not designed to fire iron round shot into the massed ranks of an enemy. Instead, out of sight and angled up, they could hurl an explosive shell over a ridge or the walls of a fortification to reach deep within. Mounted on a broad, massive-wheeled carriage with a bore near double that of the standard six-pounder, their ugliness added to their menace.
More dreaded even than those were the mortars. Not the light, rapidly deployed battlefield pieces but tons of bronze ordnance, only a few feet long with gaping maws eight or ten inches across. They were not mounted on a carriage but on a low, flat cast-iron bed that could take the colossal recoil to the ground. There was no pretence at any kind of aiming, for their purpose was simple: the descent of every kind of destruction into the midst of the enemy.
With horrified fascination, Maynard and Adams watched the bombardiers make ready.
It was skilled work, traversing lugs and capsquares, barrel gyns and limbers, linstocks and portfires in a bewildering manipulation to turn the inert bronze and iron into deadly weapons of war. Before long there were dozens, then scores of the gleaming beasts turned hungrily towards the city.
In the rear a supply train was set up. Not bread and beer but munitions – stocks to feed each battery with its fill of flame and death.
An obliging artilleryman showed them the common round shot for plunging fire. Then a shelclass="underline" black and spherical, packed with explosive and with a fuse hole, the whole protected by a wooden sabot. He passed across the fuse: a tapered piece of beechwood with a thin hole drilled lengthways through it and filled with strands of quickmatch soaked in a composition. The side was marked with half-second lines, and the art of the bombardier was to cut its length to ensure it detonated at the precise point of the trajectory desired. It was hammered into the iron shell with a mallet and the act of firing would be sufficient to start it on its destiny.
And the carcass. Resembling the shell, it had quite another purpose. Packed within was not gunpowder but a complex compound of resin and saltpetre. Fired into a general area, the interior ignited and fierce jets of flame were ejected from several vents, which would set alight everything combustible nearby. Impossible to extinguish, they would flare away for up to twelve minutes.
Finally – the war rockets. Colonel Congreve was in great good humour, unmistakable in white coat and hat, conspicuous and everywhere at once, his animation and vitality infectious. ‘So you wish to know of my splendid invention? Do step up, gentlemen!’ Like a showman at the fair he presented his wares. ‘Here we see an eight-pounder of the breed,’ he said proudly, standing over a long wooden chest. In it were six blunt-headed projectiles, dull black and lethal. ‘For the delivering of explosive force where its medicine will do the most good.’