'Ah!' exclaimed his messmates, 'your sweetheart and your country—no toast can be better than that! Hurrah for Rosine and old Denmark!' Anton Lundt dashed the cuff of his sleeve over his eyes, and turned aside with a glowing heart, and a prayer on his lips.
On the eventful morning of the 2d April—
—— To battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark's crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone.
By each gun a lighted brand,
In a bold determined hand,
And the prince of all the land
Led them on.
Nelson was the chief in command of the English ships engaged on this eventful day, for Sir Hyde Parker could not possibly come up with his portion of the fleet, as wind and tide were both dead against him. Of Nelson, then, and his ships, it is that Campbell sings:
It was ten of April morn by the chime;
As they drifted on their path,
There was silence deep as death,
And the boldest held his breath
For a time.
And well might the boldest hold his breath! It was no ordinary foe that British valour had to contend with, but one of the bravest and most skilful both by sea and land in the whole world. At length the dread signal flew 'along the lofty British line,' and each gun—
From its adamantine lips,
Spread a death-shade round the ships,
Like the hurricane eclipse
Of the sun.
The appalling roar of a thousand cannon answered on the part of the Danes, and soon the very wind of heaven was stilled by the thundering reverberations of the artillery. We leave the historian to describe minutely the progress of the fight, and turn to the ship of Anton Lundt.
We have already said that this ship was the outermost in the inner harbour, and as the combat deepened, she was exposed to the heavy broadsides of two English seventy-fours. She was moored stem and stern, but her stern moorings were shot away, and she consequently drifted in such a position, that both the English ships poured in an awful fire that raked her fore and aft. In a few minutes, her bowsprit was cut to shivers; her foremast was splintered and tottering; her main-yard broken up; her mizen-mast entirely carried away, and drifting under her counter; her bows riddled with shot; and her upper decks strewn with dead and dying. Only about half a dozen of her guns could be brought to bear, and although the crew made every possible attempt to manœuvre the ship, so as to recover her original position, they entirely failed in doing so; and it was obvious that the unfortunate vessel would soon be a mere floating shambles, if not altogether shattered to pieces, and sent to the bottom.
If a boat could have been sent ashore with a hawser, the ship would speedily have hauled, so as to avoid being raked, and also her own broadside would have been available; but it would have been hopeless to send off a boat, as every yard of intervening water was ploughed up with round and grape shot, and a boat would have been specially aimed at, and sunk before she had gone a couple of lengths. Moreover, every boat in the ship had been staved or knocked to atoms already.