The Baltic War(275)

Still, Monitor was a worthwhile prize. True, he hadn't managed to sink her, which would have been worth the entire cost of his galley squadron twice over, but he'd certainly demonstrated that not even the ironclads were truly invincible.



"I wish I could have welcomed you aboard under better circumstances, Your Highness," Simpson continued. "Unfortunately, just as you, I have orders to carry out. Would you come this way please?"



"Of course," Ulrik replied, and followed the American up the ladder on Constitution's steep-sided casement to the open bridge wing. As he climbed, he was conscious of how much he missed Norddahl's solid, reassuring bulk at his back, but the Norwegian was still back on the Monitor.



They reached the bridge, and Simpson introduced Ulrik to Constitution's captain and executive officer. It was the first time Ulrik had actually been aboard one of the USE's American-designed ships, and he was deeply impressed by the interior of the conning tower with its up-timer lighting and carefully thought-out and arranged control stations.



"Very well, Captain," the admiral said to Captain Halberstat. "Let's get the squadron back underway."



"Aye, aye, sir."



Halberstat passed a quick sequence of orders, and the squadron resumed the steady advance Ulrik's attack had managed to at least delay.



The prince stood silently on the bridge, watching alertly. Everything he saw only impressed him more, and felt a deep temptation to chatter away to his captors about their marvelous equipment, but he suppressed it sternly. No doubt a lot of it was shock, and the result of sheer jubilation at finding himself still alive.



That wasn't the reason he made himself keep his mouth shut, however. He and Baldur had planned their defense of Copenhagen carefully, and they still had one last string to their bow, so to speak. So, Ulrik forced his expression to remain only interested and fascinated by his surroundings as the gunboats forged ahead once more.



* * *



Ajax led the reduced squadron toward Admiral Simpson's chosen firing point some hundred yards off Amager Island's defensive batteries. Captain Mülbers was back on his bridge wing, watching the white water foaming back from either side of Ajax's blunt bow. He didn't like to admit just how frightening he'd found the Danish galleys' attack. Not so much for his own personal safety, as for the safety of his vessel and the men serving in her. What that single spar torpedo had managed to do to Monitor was grim evidence of what could have happened if they'd been even a little less lucky in that smoke-strangled melee.



He grimaced at the memory, then worked his shoulders from side to side, trying to flex the tension out of them. It helped, and he reached for his binoculars again. He'd just started to lift them toward his eyes when the corner of his attention noticed something floating in the water directly ahead of Ajax.



It wasn't very big. Obviously, it was a piece of wreckage from one of the smashed galleys, or something of the sort. It couldn't be anything else, given the fact that they were heading back through the very area where the brief, madly confused engagement had taken place. Of course, it was remotely possible there were still survivors in the water, using some of that same wreckage for flotation, so—



Wolfgang Mülbers never completed the thought. The "wreckage" ahead of his ship was in fact one of the floating mines that had been towed along behind a dozen of Prince Ulrik's galleys. They'd been cut loose only after the smokescreen had hidden them from any observation, been left behind . . . which had put them squarely in the path of Admiral John Simpson's gunboats. Not only put them there, but left them in water that was obviously clear of mines because the galleys themselves had just passed through it.



Each mine was actually part of a cluster of three mines, roped together. The dot Mülbers had observed was part of one such cluster, but the dot that he didn't see was part of another cluster. One which SSIM Ajax had just run directly across.



The improvised detonators were less than reliable, just as Simpson had suggested might be the case in his earlier conversation with Captain Halberstat. Five of them completely failed to function. The sixth detonator, however, did exactly what it was supposed to. The mine to which it was attached exploded, and both of its companions went up in sympathetic detonation.



It was a thunderous burst of sound, but before it even truly registered, it was drowned by another, far more powerful blast as Ajax's magazine exploded.





John Simpson stared at the expanding ball of fire and smoke that had once been one of his timberclads. Bits and pieces of wreckage lofted outward from the heart of the blast, trailing thin ribbons of smoke across the blue northern sky. He saw one of the ship's carronades sail at least sixty or seventy feet straight up, and his jaw clenched so tightly he was astonished his teeth didn't shatter.