The first shells fell with a leaping flash and visceral crump among the streets and buildings below them, some in a flaring of unquenchable fire – carcasses, filled with a mixture that could not be extinguished. Here and there he could see the steady blaze of a house or shop afire – and sharp against the flames figures were in disciplined activity, firemen in heroic battle with the flames while all the time death came out of the sky.
But a new phenomenon thrust itself on his senses: a whining hiss that became rapidly louder – a missile with flame in its wake that streaked over and nosed down to vanish into a house. Seconds later from deep inside, the red glow of a fire grew while people spilled out of the door in panic, falling to the ground in their desperate flight from the nightmare.
From the bastions and ramparts Danish guns opened up, hitting back at the merciless barrage without the slightest chance of countering it, only adding to the insane sound and fury.
Nearby came a louder crash, followed by the smash of falling glass and screams. A mortar round had visited a house close by – and Renzi realised they themselves were exposed and vulnerable.
‘Down – get off the roof!’ he shouted, and pushed the dazed women to the stairway.
They hurried to the ground floor and huddled together in the drawing room. Renzi drew open the curtains a few inches. The darkness outside was shot through with flashes and the diabolical flickering red of fire.
Occasionally they felt the tremor of an explosion through the floor, and once there was the hideous flash and detonation of a shell outside a house opposite. Its entire front slowly collapsed in an appalling roar and up-welling of dust. Whitened victims emerged, staggering and falling.
A riderless horse raced by in stark panic, a child’s terror-stricken cries carrying clear above the madness. A dog barked witlessly, on and on.
The nightmare had only just begun.
Chapter 95
Danish Headquarters, the Citadel
Peymann was propped up in a Bath chair, the wound in his thigh bound tightly but clearly causing him pain. Several of his staff stood about him.
The bombardment was now only a faint background grumbling of guns but a dozen or more fires were still alight in the old city.
An aide arrived but did not meet Peymann’s eyes as he laid the paper in front of him. ‘Your report of damage, Generalmajor.’
‘Norregade, Gammeltorv – the Helligaands. This is a dreadful price, Knud,’ he whispered, more to himself than the others.
‘Sir, the people are frantic, knowing not where to go to escape the terror,’ Bielefeldt ventured. ‘How can I tell them-’
‘They must endure – as must we all,’ Peymann said, lifting his head and glaring at him with blood-shot eyes. ‘His Royal Highness has not seen fit to vary his instructions. I’m bound to obey him in this, to hold and protect Copenhagen with my honour and life.’
There could be no answer to that, but a major in crumpled and stained uniform said flatly, ‘The firemen have not rested. I cannot answer to their effectiveness should the bombardment continue. If it does, all Copenhagen will be left ablaze and-’
‘Sir! Your cares are noted. Allow that I have the higher concern. The decision is mine. And that is to fight on.’
‘But-’
‘Enough!’ Peymann blared. ‘How are we to know what the Crown Prince intends? At this moment an army of thousands may be on the march to relieve us. Should we cravenly surrender before it’s had chance to reach us, I shall answer for it with my head.’
‘Then-’
‘Then you shall do your duty, sir, as I will do mine.’
Chapter 96
British Headquarters, Hellerup
‘It’s insufferable!’ spluttered Cathcart, holding the paper at arm’s length. ‘Worse than that – it’s rank madness! Peymann has an offer of terms such as no besieged ever had – yield up custody of his damned fleet and we go. Quit! Leave! What more can he ask of us? It bears heavily on me that we’re obliged to visit ruination on his capital but we’ve no other recourse, given his intransigence. This he sends as answer on the day following. Listen to it:
‘“My Lords
“Our fleet, our own indisputable property, we are convinced is as safe in his Danish Majesty’s hands as ever it can be in those of the King of England, as our master never intended hostilities against yours.
“If you are cruel enough to endeavour to destroy a city that has not given any the least cause to such a treatment at your hands, it must submit to its fate; but honour requires-”
‘He gives not an inch, damn it! We’re no further forward than the day we landed and time is sorely lacking. How can we proceed in the face of this? Hey? Hey?’
Ludlow, of the Guards, smiled sadly. ‘My cousin Joan is married to a Dane. Says they’re incurably stubborn and declares it’s of their Lutheran persuasion. We’ll never move them by ordinary means, I fear.’
Gambier shook his head gloomily. ‘Lord Nelson accounted them his fiercest foes at our first encounter in the year one. They do not lack the spirit and courage to defy us and for myself I have the gravest reservations of the outcome.’
The cool voice of Wellesley intervened: ‘There is little to discuss, I believe. We have embarked on a course of coercion, which we cannot retract or abandon, else we render the whole business a nullity.’
‘Your opinion is then-’
‘My opinion is neither here nor there. Logic requires us to go on – to resume the bombarding until a satisfactory conclusion is reached.’
‘This is bitter medicine, sir!’ Finch ground out. ‘Can you not conceive of the terror in the breasts of the inhabitants, the innocents caught in-’
‘In war there can be no allowance for feelings of a delicate nature, sir. The dictates of one’s strategics are the only consideration and here they are plain. Do you propose to deny them?’
Cathcart shifted irritably. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen. Sir Arthur has clarified the situation that faces us beyond disputing. We have no alternative – the bombardment will resume tonight with the utmost rigour, the quicker to bring an end to it all.’
Chapter 97
Svane Reden
The terror returned. Once darkness had fallen the air became alive again with the evil whine and drone of high projectiles, the lethal swash and hiss of lower trajectory missiles and always the crump and tremble of explosions in a never-ending dread that the next would seek them out and end their lives in a blinding instant.
A street away, a market took fire, its towering flames impossible to control. And as medieval houses were hit with exploding shells they crumbled to gaunt ruin. There were so many now, stark and desolate. The rockets hissed unseen from the sky, their sharp iron points enabling them to pierce deep within a building where the flare of their patent composition would leap from the floors to the walls and bring inferno to yet another ancient habitation.
Through the drawing-room window they were confronted with a hellish picture. The fire and destruction were reaching into the sky, the clouds now tinged an ominous blood-red, flashes playing on their undersides in a devil’s tattoo.
They shrank from the scene and sat together by the dead fireplace but could not speak. What could be said in the circumstances?
As midnight passed, Frue Rosen collapsed, inconsolable and broken, weeping softly.
Hetty and Cecilia held her by turns, comforting and quieting her.
Renzi waited until Frue Rosen was settled, then took Cecilia aside and held both her hands. ‘My darling love.’ He struggled with the lump that was forming in his throat. ‘My very dearest. You cannot conceive how it beats on my spirit that I’ve brought you to this place of ruin and death. If it were only myself …’