CHAPTER XVI.

BOMBARDMENT OF KIEL.

On being joined by a regiment of Dutch, under Colonel Dübbelstiern, brother of the burgomaster of Glückstadt, the expedition resolved upon by the council of war was against Kiel, where Count Kœningheim, lately Tilly's aide-de-camp, commanded. Knowing well the reputed bravery of the count, and, moreover, that, notwithstanding his Germanised name, he was our own countryman, we expected to encounter unusual difficulties and dangers in the performance of our duty.

Spring had passed and summer come again; the snows had melted; the woods were putting forth their bright green leaves, and the migratory storks had returned, from the unknown regions of the south, to their former nests under the cottage eaves, or on the steep old burgh gables and the older village spires.

At daybreak on the morning of the first of May, the whole of the king's small force embarked on board his vessels; the colonels of regiments, with their staffs and colours, were all on board the _Anna Catharina_; with my company, I accompanied Ian Dhu. Though we were at sea, and ploughing the waves of the Baltic, as we ran round Danische-walde our men did not forget to welcome the rising sun on that auspicious morning, by baking their Beltane bannocks in the old Highland fashion, and breaking them crosswise, with as much ceremony as if they were at home in the land of hills and valleys.

The sorrow and alarm of Ernestine were increased by the greater distance which was now to be placed between her and her sister, whom, from various reports that reached us, she firmly believed to be, as Bandolo had said, in the power of Merodé at Fredricksort. The good King Christian, to whom Ernestine was presented by Ian, did all in his power to console her.

"Madame," said he, among many other remarks, "it is useless now to regret that you so unwisely permitted your sister and yourself to be wiled away from the castle of the queen, my mother, at Nyekiöbing, by the cunning tale of a rascal. It is enough that you were so--that much evil has come of it--evil that we must undo. Necessity has seldom pity for women's tears--and war, never! Yet, though my necessities are sore, and that, with scarcely three thousand men, I am wandering like a pirate among my own Danish isles, while Wallenstein and Tilly, with one hundred and thirty thousand men, have marched along the Elbe, and through all Juteland, even to the Skagen Cape, I will endeavour to free your sister from Fredricksort, though I may lose all in the attempt. Rest assured of that, lady. A week will not pass until I have done something in the matter. By force of arms perhaps I cannot reach her; but in my desperate fortune, though valour may fail, craft and guile may ultimately succeed."

"Within a week!" thought Ernestine, who could only weep and murmur her thanks; for in a week rescue might come too late, and under such terrible circumstances it seemed an age.

Considering the nature of the expedition we were bent on--the bombardment of a town--I was somewhat inclined to have left Ernestine behind us; but where could she have been left with safety to herself? Besides, as the honest and soldier-like king (who enjoyed as a capital joke the story of her throwing Bandolo's portmanteau into the duck-pond) said, this aggrieved personage was slippery and subtle as the great serpent, ferocious as a tiger, and now, being deprived of his gold, would place no bounds to his revenge; "consequently," said he, "the safest place for our pretty Imperialist is under the pennon of Sir Nickelas Valdemar, and the hatches of the _Anna Catharina_." The consciousness that Christian judged correctly, alarmed me so much that I could scarcely trust her out of my sight; but he gallantly relinquished to her use the great cabin, and dined among us in the gun-room, on cold salted beef and Dantzig beer: for this brave monarch loved better the jovial commeradrie of military society, than the hollow pomp that surrounded him as a king. As we rounded the point of the Danische-walde, and the yards were braced up, to run us into the Kielerfiörd, the magazines were opened, the guns cast loose, and the signal to stand to arms and to quarters was given from the king's ship.

Ernestine was conveyed to a place of safety in the deep dark hold of the _Anna Catharina_, where a little berth had been hastily fitted up for her accommodation, and where she was attended by the wife of one of our musketeers, a red-cheeked Holsteiner. There the din of the approaching cannonade would be less heard, and there could be little danger of shot striking the hull so far beneath the water-line.

As the wind blew hard, and veered almost a-head, we carried Austrian colours to deceive the garrison while tacking frequently across that narrow fiörd; but the breeze changed twice, and, about sunset, we found ourselves abreast of the capital of Holstein, above the close steep roofs of which rose the square brick tower of its church, and the ramparts of that grim castle where the dukes of old resided, and on which, as well as on the university, we saw the white flag with the Imperial eagle unfurled; for, though our colours had misled Kœningheim, our manœuvres (after we came abreast of the town, and began to lie around it in the form of a half circle, as it occupies a peninsula) no longer deceived him as to our intentions.

The old town of Kiel, which covers what had anciently been an island, is yet completely separated from the land by the wet ditch of the castle, the base of which is in some places washed by the sea. A large suburb, called the New Town, interspersed by pleasant rows of trees, was then rising on the mainland, and was connected with the old by an ancient bridge, at the end of which was a drawbridge and gate, constantly guarded by a company of soldiers.

The walls of the strong and spacious castle became rapidly manned by musketeers in white buff-coats, and cannoniers in scarlet. Its eastern ramparts rose sheer from the salt water, along the margin of which, on the other side, lay the ducal garden, two hundred paces broad, and consisting of terraced walks rising above each other, beautifully arranged in the form of a labyrinth, and having in the centre a stone Triton, whose brass conch shot up a silver current of water high above the green shrubbery; but now, among those fair parterres and terraced walks, the cannon baskets were placed at intervals, and between the deep fascines the grim culverins peered forth to sweep the harbour mouth.

The bells of the great church, of the university, and of the castle, were tolling an alarm as we approached, for each of these edifices was occupied by Austrian troops; and the seven ships of the king (we had three large and four small frigates) had now taken up their positions crescent-wise on three sides of the insulated city, hauled down their false colours, and run up the Royal standard of Denmark to the masthead. Then a simultaneous cannonade was opened upon us from the castle and its terraced gardens.

Being strong and active, our Highlanders were of great service in working the ship-artillery, by running back and urging forward the carriages; while the more skilful Danes pointed the cannon with great success, and thus the fascine batteries in the garden were soon ruined, the guns dismounted, and their men driven for shelter into the castle.

Sparing the tower of the church and the university, the three great ships maintained an unsparing and indiscriminate cannonade on the town; for though the capital of the duchy, the seat of its trade and government, and containing the hotels of its principal nobles, Christian IV. was resolved at all hazards to dislodge the enemy, and more than once sent a redhot thirty-two pound ball at the Count of Rantzau's mansion, which had a number of wooden galleries around it, hoping by these to set the whole place on fire--but without effect.

The whole fleet and town were soon enveloped in smoke, and we could only direct our fire by seeing the vane of the church and the towers of the castle shining in the last flush of the sunset above this murky cloud. A hundred pieces of cannon, ranging from carthouns (48-pounders) to demi-culverins (9-pounders), were discharged by the fleet upon the town, from whence the garrison, the strength of which was very great, maintained a desperate cannonade, pouring in reply a shower of balls and missiles of every sort and size, shot from bombards and carthouns, fieldpieces, and iron slings. Their mortars and bombards (100 lb pieces) were loaded with stones, tiles, old jars, junks of iron and lead, nails and chains, which swept over our decks, and tore through the sails and rigging like a volley from a volcano. The whole conflict was maintained by great guns; hence the din was terrible. I believe there were not less than two hundred and forty pieces engaged on both sides. Strewed with killed and wounded men, some of whom were minus legs, arms, or heads, others cut in two, with their entrails shot away and twisted round the ragged and torn rigging, or wallowing in blood among the ruin of booms and boats, or splintered planks and shattered bulwarks, the main decks of the fleet presented the most frightful scene of carnage, smoke, and fire, united with the most infernal medley of appalling sounds--stern orders, bellowed in hoarse Danish through tin speaking-trumpets, shrieks, cries, and groans--the grating of the gun-carriages, the trampling of many feet, the crash of falling spars, the rattle of striking shot, and the hiss of those that swept over us into the water.

An immense number of our Highlanders were killed and wounded; of the foreigners I make no account. Torquil Gorm, our piper-major, who sat upon the capstan blowing _Brattaich bhan clan Aoidh_, was knocked off his perch by a twelve-pound shot, and only escaped death by a miracle. Lieutenants Stuart and Lumsden (Invergellie) were severely wounded, and Kildon and Culcraigie had each a brother--who was sergeant of their pikes--killed beside them.

Finding that nothing was to be made of Kiel--that his ships were becoming mere slaughter-houses and wrecks, which bled at every port and pore--the king, as it was too dark to see flags, hoisted a lantern at his foremast-head as a sign to cease firing. and drop down the fiörd before the wind. I cannot say that the order was obeyed with reluctance; and, favoured by a strong western breeze, the fleet rapidly bore away beyond reach of cannon shot, and lay to waiting for fresh orders.

Far out on the open fiörd, with the stillness of the midnight ocean round us, and no sound to break it but the cries that came from the wounded and the dying, there seemed something dull, monotonous, and deathlike in our vessels now; they were but floating charnel-houses. Some of the smaller were under masts, and the sides of all were perforated by round shot-holes, like the top of a pepper-caster. In others, the torn sails were flapping against the splintered masts, and the rigging hung in disorder. It was a sad scene of desolation, agony, and death, which in twenty minutes had succeeded the fury of the bombardment. I hastened to Ernestine, whom I found in a little nook of the hold, in a stupor of astonishment and terror, and unable to weep. I had only time to assure her of my perfect safety, when I heard a drum beating on the main deck, and Phadrig Mhor shouted down the hatchway, that the king required the presence of all the officers in the great cabin.

There I hastened, and found him with the Count de Montgomery, the colonels of the Scots, Danes, and Dutch, Ian, the Baron Karl, and other officers, many of whom had their heads and arms bandaged. The cabin bore sufficient token of the number of heavy shot that had passed through it; the ports were yet open, and the dead bodies of several seamen were still lying by the larboard guns, just where they had fallen.

"Cavaliers and comrades," said the king; "I wish to burn Kiel, that no shelter may remain there for the Austrians. One among you must undertake to do this for me, as I am less active than I was wont to be; but, as the duty is desperate, I will not select any of my allies. Let the Scots, French, Dutch, and Danish colonels cast lots for who shall have the honour of performing this arduous service, after which we shall all sail merrily, and land at Gottenburg."

It was at once assented to; we crowded round the table; lots were cast in Karl's helmet, and the duty fell to the Dutch, as the prize was drawn by old Dübbelstiern, whom the king desired to select a party for the service, and accordingly he chose his entire battalion. This was considered absurd; but whether it was that Herr Dübbelstiern was of opinion that he had seen quite enough of fighting for one night, or that it was the constitutional phlegm and slowness of the Dutch character which operated, I know not; but the impetuous king became enraged at their delay, and ordered lots to be cast again.

"Nay," said Ian nobly; "may it please your majesty to excuse me from drawing lots again, for I cannot condescend to do so twice. Give me but a hundred musketeers of my own regiment, and I will burn Kiel to your majesty's entire satisfaction."

"My company and I are at your service, Ian," said I, acting on the first impulse of the moment.

"It is gallantly offered," said the king; "a thousand thanks, my valiant Scots. Away then to your boats, for before the Dutch are under arms day will have broken."

In ten minutes my company were all in three large boats, sitting closely packed with their muskets between their knees; and with muffled oars we pulled softly towards the town. Our Highlanders roughly jeered the Dutch, desiring them to beat the _Scots March_, and keep up their courage thereby, as they were often glad to do in Flanders, when they wished to deceive and scare the enemy.*

* Here Munro corroborates our cavalier. "We that were officers met together in the Admirall Shipe, and agreed to command out the partie, and having cast lots it fell on the Dutch. They, suspecting the _danger_, delayed." Sergeant M'Leod of Captain Mackenzie's company "was killed," continues the colonel, "and twenty-two souldiers out of our regiment, that I commanded."--_Expedition with the worthy Scots Regiment_. Fol. 1637.