CHAPTER 6

The clouds at last fled Copenhagen, leaving a rinsed blue sky. A late summer sun glossed the copper roofs and shimmered the harbor where scores of merchant ships, fearing the British fleet that had anchored ten miles to the north, had taken refuge.

The Amalienborg Palace lay west of the harbor. It was really four small palaces grouped about a courtyard and was gracious rather than grand, intimate instead of intimidating, and it was there, on an upper floor overlooking the harbor, that the Crown Prince made his farewells to the city’s notables. His Majesty was returning to Holstein. He had been in that southern province all summer, but had returned to Copenhagen when he heard that the British fleet had sailed for the Baltic. He had come back to encourage the citizens. Denmark, he said, did not want to fight. It had not started the quarrel and bore no ill will toward Britain, but if the British persisted in their outrageous demand to take the Danish fleet then Denmark would resist. And that, the Crown Prince knew, meant that Copenhagen must suffer, for it was in the capital’s secure inner harbor that the fleet was sheltered.

Yet the British, the Crown Prince insisted, could not succeed. It was late in the year to begin a siege. It would take weeks to make a breach in the great walls and even then there could be no certainty that an assault would succeed. Besides, long before any breach was practicable, the Prince would bring the Danush army back from Holstein and trounce the beseiging forces. “So the British will not attack the city,” the Prince said forcefully, “but merely threaten it. It is a bluff, gentlemen, a bluff. There is no time for a siege.”

“Plenty of time for a bombardment,” General Peymann, who had been appointed the commander of Copenhagen’s garrison, noted gloomily.

“No!” The Prince turned on the General. “No, no, no!” The Prince knew well enough that the city feared a bombardment by mortars and howitzers that could loft their shells over the wall to leave the city a smoking ruin. “The British are not barbarians,” the Prince insisted, “and they will not risk an action that will earn the condemnation of all civilized people. There will be no bombing. The British will threaten it, just as they threaten a siege, but it is all bluff.” Instead, he forecast, the British would blockade the capital and hope that hunger would persuade the garrison to yield. “So we shall fill the city with food,” he told General Peymann, “and you must endure their blockade until the late autumn. Then I shall lead the army back from Holstein.” Holstein was where the bulk of Denmark’s army was guarding the southern frontier, which was threatened by a French army.

Peymann, an old man, straightened ponderously. He was white-haired, corpulent and had never led troops into battle, but he had a reassuring presence. There was something about the 72-year-old Ernst Peymann that suggested he could not be broken and the Prince was sure that Peymann, above all the other generals, could give the city confidence, though Peymann’s next words smacked of nervousness. “It would be better, Your Majesty, if you came sooner.”

“It can’t be done. Can’t be done.” The Prince went to a window that overlooked the harbor. Three small ships, all low in the water because of the weight of grain they were bringing to the city, were mooring among the swarm of Danish gunboats being readied for battle. The Prince looked down at a table on which a map had been spread to catch the window’s light. A valet followed him, holding the Prince’s hat, sword and sash, but the Prince ignored him. “The British navy,” he explained, “will surely blockade Zealand and we cannot ferry the army back if British ships are waiting.”

Peymann stared gloomily at the map as if seeking inspiration. He found it in the sheer size of Zealand, the island on which Copenhagen stood. “Three thousand square miles,” he said. “They cannot watch the whole coast!”

“They only need watch the harbors, sir,” Captain, now Major, Lavisser pointed out respectfully.

“And that they can do with ships to spare,” the Prince added, “but they’re not cats, Peymann, they’re not cats.”

“They are most assuredly not, sire,” Peymann said. The General was plainly confused by the Prince’s declaration, but did not like to admit his puzzlement.

“They cannot see in the dark,” the Prince explained anyway, “which means that when the long nights of winter come we can bring the army back to Zealand.” He lowered his head so the valet could drape the sash over his shoulder, then raised his arms for the sword belt to be buckled. “We must wait for the long nights,” he declared, “which means you must defend Copenhagen for two months, General, just two months.”

“We can hold two months,” Peymann said firmly, “unless they bombard.”

“They won’t,” the Prince said firmly. “The British will not want the deaths of innocent civilians on their conscience.”

“I do know that General Lord Cathcart is opposed to bombardment,” Major Lavisser said, “though doubtless some of his subordinates will urge it on him.”

“Lord Cathcart leads the army, does he not?” the Prince asked. “So let us hope he exercises his authority.”

“We could send the women and children away,” Peymann suggested, his face brightening at the thought. “There would be fewer mouths to feed.”

“Do that,” the Prince said, “and you invite the British to bombard the city. No, the women stay and the British, I assure you, will not commit a slaughter of the innocents. Two months, General! Hold the walls for two months and I shall bring the army back and we shall crush them like lice! Like lice!” The Prince pulled on white gloves. His optimism was genuine. Until the British fleet had sailed, the biggest threat facing Denmark had been the French army on the southern frontier, but the arrival of the British would almost certainly deter any French attack. Why should the French assault Denmark when the British were turning Denmark into France’s new ally? So there would be no fight in Holstein and when the longer nights blinded the enemy fleet the army could be brought back to Zealand where it would hugely outnumber the British forces. “We shall win,” the Prince told Peymann, “so long as you hold for two months. And you can hold, General. The walls are thick, the guns are plentiful!”

Peymann nodded agreement. Like all the others in the room he now wished that the government had spent more on Copenhagen’s defenses in the last few years, but even so the ramparts were adequate. The walls were massive and reinforced by bastions, batteries and forts. To the west the city looked over its own wealthy suburbs, but between those houses and the city there was an open space for the guns to kill attackers and a ring of canal-like lakes that served as a wide moat. The walls were not in the best of repair, but they mounted nearly two hundred guns, while out in the suburbs, wherever high ground might offer British batteries a vantage point, new strongholds were being constructed of earth, stone and timber. The city had a garrison of five and a half thousand troops, which was not enough to man all those new forts, but Peymann had four thousand well-trained seamen who had been the crews of the warships secured in Copenhagen’s harbor, and the militia was being overwhelmed by volunteers. “We can give a good account of ourselves for two months,” Peymann declared.

“So long as we are not betrayed,” the newly promoted Major Lavisser intervened. His words cut across the room’s mood of optimism. He shrugged, as if to suggest that he was reluctant to be the bearer of bad news. “There are British spies in the city, Your Majesty,” he explained, “and they should be dealt with.”

“Spies?” The Prince’s protuberant eyes exaggerated his look of alarm.

“I made inquiries before leaving London, sire,” Lavisser lied, “and ascertained one name. I wish I could have discovered more, should more exist, but I still urge that this one man is arrested, put in the Gammelholm cells and interrogated.”