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Updated: May 24, 2025
In the midst of the din and smoke Tordenskjold used his musket with cool skill; his servants loaded while he fired. At every shot a man fell on the frigate. Word was brought that there was no more round 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.
We are told that an officer sent out from the castle to parley, issuing forth from a generous dinner, beheld the besieging army drawn up in street after street, always two hundred men around every corner, as he made his way through the town, piloted by Tordenskjold himself, who was careful to take him the longest way, while the men took the short cut to the next block.
Now that there was no longer reason for caution, they raised a racket that woke the sleeping town up in a fright. The commander of the other fort sent out a boat to ascertain the cause. It met the Admiral's and challenged it, "Who goes there?" "Tordenskjold," was the reply, "come to teach you to keep awake." It proved impossible to warp the ships out.
And this was due almost wholly to one extraordinary figure, the like of which is scarce to be found in the annals of warfare, Peder Tordenskjold.
By it, in desperate straits demanding stout hearts, one may know the Dane after his own heart, the real Dane, the world over. Among his own Tordenskjold is still and always will be "the Admiral of Norway's fleet."
"Let me see," said the commandant, half to himself, "a hundred guns two hundred men; you may bring fish for a hundred men." Tordenskjold then left the fort, having obtained all the information he required, and returned to his boat.
Tordenskjold was roused from sleep at five, and, after saying his prayers, a duty he never on any account omitted, he started for the place appointed. His old body-servant vainly pleaded with his master to take his stout blade instead of the flimsy parade sword the Admiral carried. Münnichhausen advised against it; it would be too heavy, he said.
The fight was won. But the heaviest part was left the towing out of the captured ships. All the afternoon Tordenskjold led the work in person, pulling on ropes, cheering on his men. The Swedes, returning gamely to the fight, showered them with bullets from shore. One of the abandoned vessels caught fire.
In Hamburg the young man fell in with a gambler, a Swedish colonel by name of Stahl, who fleeced him of all he had and much more besides. When Tordenskjold heard of it and met the Colonel in another man's house, he caned him soundly and threw him out in the street. For this he was challenged, but refused to fight a gambler.
He whispered anxiously, "What news?" but Tordenskjold only shrugged his shoulders with unmoved face. It is not likely that either the old Admiral or the congregation heard much of that sermon, if indeed they heard any of it. But when it was over, they saw from the walls of the town the Danish ships at anchor and heard the story of the last of Tordenskjold's exploits.
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