Hero Tales of the Far North | Page 7

shot. He bade them
twist up his pewter dinner service and fire that, which they did. The
Swede tried vainly to board. Tordenskjold manoeuvred his smack with
such skill that they could not hook on. Seeing this, Captain Lind,
commander of the frigate, called to him to desist from the useless
struggle; he would be honored to carry such a prisoner into Göteborg.
Back came the taunt:
"Neither you nor any other Swede shall ever carry me there!" And with
that he shot the captain down.[1]
[Footnote 1: He was not mortally wounded, and Tordenskjold took him
prisoner later at the capture of Marstrand.]
When his men saw him fall, they were seized with panic and made off
as quickly as they could, while Tordenskjold's crew, of whom only
fourteen were left, beat their drums and blew trumpets in frantic
defiance. Their captain was for following the Swede and boarding her,
but he couldn't. Sails, rigging, and masts were shot to pieces. Perhaps
the terror of the Swedes was increased by the sight of Tordenskjold's
tame bear making faces at them behind his master. It went with him
everywhere till that day, and came out of the fight unscathed. But
during the night the crew ran the vessel on the Swedish shore, whence
Tordenskjold himself reached Denmark in an open boat which he had
to keep bailing all night, for the boat was shot full of holes, and though
he and his companions stuffed their spare clothing into them it leaked
badly. The enemy got the smack, after all, and the bear, which, being a
Norwegian, proved so untractable on Swedish soil that, sad to relate, in
the end they cut him up and ate him.
King Charles, himself a knightly soul and an admirer of a gallant
enemy, gave orders to have all Tordenskjold's belongings sent back to
him, but he did not live to see the order carried out. He was found dead
in the rifle-pits before Frederiksteen on December 11, 1718, shot
through the head. It was Tordenskjold himself who brought the

all-important news to King Frederik in the night of December 28,--they
were not the days of telegraphs and fast steamers,--and when the King,
who had been roused out of bed to receive him, could not trust his ears,
he said with characteristic audacity, "I wish it were as true that your
Majesty had made me a schoutbynacht,"--the rank next below admiral.
And so he took the step next to the last on the ladder of his ambition.
Within seven months he took Marstrand. It is part of the record of that
astonishing performance that when the unhappy Commandant hesitated
as the hour of evacuation came, not sure that he had done right in
capitulating, Tordenskjold walked up to the fort with a hundred men,
half his force, banged on the gate, went in alone and up to the
Commandant's window, thundering out:
"What are you waiting for? Don't you know time is up?"
In terror and haste, Colonel Dankwardt moved his Hessians out, and
Tordenskjold marched his handful of men in. When he brought the
King the keys of Marstrand, Frederik made him an admiral.
It was while blockading the port of Göteborg in the last year of the war
that he met and made a friend of Lord Carteret, the English
Ambassador to Denmark, and fell in love with the picture of a young
Englishwoman, Miss Norris, a lady of great beauty and wealth, who,
Lord Carteret told him, was an ardent admirer of his. It was this love
which indirectly sent him to his death. Lord Carteret had given him a
picture of her, and as soon as peace was made he started for England;
but he never reached that country. The remnant of the Swedish fleet lay
in the roadstead at Göteborg, under the guns of the two forts, New and
Old Elfsborg. While Tordenskjold was away at Marstrand, the enemy
sallied forth and snapped up seven of the smaller vessels of his
blockading fleet. The news made him furious. He sent in, demanding
them back at once, "or I will come after them." He had already made
one ineffectual attempt to take New Elfsborg that cost him dear. In
Göteborg they knew the strength of his fleet and laughed at his threat.
But it was never safe to laugh at Tordenskjold. The first dark night he
stole in with ten armed boats, seized the shore batteries of the old fort,
and spiked their guns before a shot was fired. The rising moon saw his

men in possession of the ships lying at anchor. With their blue-lined
coats turned inside out so that they might pass for Swedish uniforms,
they surprised the watch in the guard-house and made them all
prisoners. Now that there