Battle Fleet (2007) (20 page)

But when Nelson returned to the
Victory
in September, he had made Pasco his flag officer and promoted another Lieutenant, John Quilliam, as his First Lieutenant. Pasco was upset about this, not least because
a first lieutenant could expect to be promoted to a Captain following a successful action but a flag officer would not.

His mood was not brightened by the rheumatism he suffered. I also heard he had married during a brief shore leave the previous month, when
Victory
anchored at Spithead. He must have been disappointed to have been immediately recalled to sea.

He was often haughty and distant, but this made me more determined to make him think I was worthy of my rank. Every night, before I went to sleep, I would pore over Sir Home Riggs Popham’s book
Telegraphic Signals, or Marine Vocabulary
, to assist him the best I could.

It was a taxing read, although the idea behind it was brilliant. Signalling with flags from ship to ship had changed since I first went to sea. Then, a few flags had served as basic signals, such as ‘Enemy in Sight’ or ‘Engage the Enemy’. There was no provision for anything other than the bluntest message. But with Popham’s new system, a ship’s captain could speak to another ship, or an admiral to his entire fleet, with whatever words he chose. The Signals Officer used ten flags, arranged in particular formation, to either make one of five hundred commonly used words, or to spell out words letter by letter if they fell outside the five hundred.

I thought it an ingenious thing, that captain could
speak clearly to captain, beyond the hailing distance of a human voice – even over several miles if telescopes were used.

Most nights, I would get Robert to test me. Popham’s system was second nature to him now, and he would instantly know which combination of three flags would make, for example, the word ‘Captain’ or ‘Advance’. Learning the vocabulary kept my mind off other worries – not least the battle that awaited us.

Given Robert’s skill in signalling, I was surprised when the two of us were summoned to Captain Hardy’s cabin. ‘You’ll stay on the poop for now, Neville,’ said Hardy, ‘but battle is imminent and, when called to quarters, you are to be stationed on the lower gun deck companionway to the orlop deck, where you will be required to shoot dead any seaman deserting his post. You, Witchall, will remain on the poop deck, where you will continue to act as Lieutenant Pasco’s messenger and assistant.’

Robert cautiously suggested he would be far better employed on the poop with me on the companionway, but Hardy cut him off instantly, and threatened to have him whipped for insolence. ‘It makes no sense,’ Robert told me as we walked back to our berth. ‘You’re learning fast, but I know my signals like the back of my hand.’

I shook my head in agreement but said nothing. I
wondered if Hardy had sent him below decks as a favour to Robert’s father. Was Hardy trying to ensure he had a better chance of surviving the battle? I was more expendable.

With a fresh wind behind us, the journey down to the southern tip of Spain took only two weeks. By the end of September, we anchored off the port of Cadiz, where the French and Spanish fleets were stationed. The weather continued to be kind to us, despite the lateness of the season, and our ships were well supplied with fresh food from our base in nearby Gibraltar. Lord Nelson took extraordinary care of his sailors, ensuring they had an onion with every meal, and plenty of lemon juice in their grog. These provisions, he knew, would keep a man vigorous and ward off the scurvy. As we bobbed up and down in the Atlantic swell, we could see the coast off Cape Trafalgar through the haze. Training my telescope on the distant shore, I thought often of how much I would like to walk that hinterland and be free of the burden of the coming battle. At night my dreams grew more vivid and terrifying, and what could happen in the days to come preyed on my mind hourly.

After three weeks in this constant state of anxiety I started to feel a new sensation – a sort of restless boredom, as we waited for something to happen. I was settling into my role, and seemed to have been accepted by the men I had to command. Rarely now did I have to admonish a man or send a fellow to be clapped in irons. Only Duffy remained a fly in my ointment, someone whose pranks and sneers made me perpetually wary.

When I came down to the midshipmen’s berth one evening to find the lock levered away on my sea chest, I immediately suspected it was him. Nothing had been stolen save the pears in calvados that we had bought in Fortnum and Mason’s. I was saving those for a special occasion – to celebrate our victory or survival, or a safe homecoming at least. The ship’s blacksmith repaired the damage soon enough, fashioning a much stronger clasp and lock in the process, but I was still livid about it.

I didn’t want to have to fight Duffy. I knew we’d both end up covered in bruises and might be disciplined. When you have to command men, it doesn’t do to have to undergo the humiliation of punishment. Midshipmen were rarely flogged. Instead, they would be sent up the mast in disgrace, for hours on end. At worst, they could be denied their rank and forced to serve as an ordinary seaman. I was determined that was not going to happen to me.

Instead, I bided my time. I found Duffy squiffily drowsy at the dining table one afternoon, and was sure I could smell the aroma of calvados brandy hanging in the air. My moment had come. He was leaning back on his chair and as his head nodded down on his chest I gave that chair a nudge with my foot and he crashed down to the deck. We were even.

* * *

‘I’m beginning to think the French and Spanish will stay in Cadiz for ever,’ said Robert one morning. He was edgy too.

The very next day a frigate off to our east hoisted a signal on its main mast. It was soon after first light so I had to peer through my telescope awhile before I recognised it. When the wind blew hard, making the flags flutter straight enough to read them, a shiver ran through me. It was number 370: ‘ENEMY COMING OUT OF PORT’.

I knew that from leafing through the Popham signal book in my hammock a few nights earlier. I had thought then that to see it would mean action was imminent. Now it was actually happening and our fleet was to face death or glory. My heart began to beat faster and I ran over to Pasco at once to report my observation. ‘Well done, Witchall. Go and inform the Captain.’

The honour of setting the ball rolling aboard our ship fell to me. With mounting trepidation I knocked on the oak door and was ushered into the plush interior. Hardy nodded and dismissed me. Within minutes Lieutenant Pasco was handed two signals from Lord Nelson to be run up the mast. The Admiral had intended to entertain several of his captains for dinner that night. One set of signals cancelled this engagement. Alongside it we ran up flags that read, ‘GENERAL CHASE. SOUTH EAST.’

Pasco had shown me a glimmer of warmth earlier, so I dared to offer him an opinion. ‘I think we may find it difficult to catch the enemy fleet, sir, given the scarcity of wind to fill our sails.’

Pasco smiled. ‘Do you know of Captain Troubridge, Witchall? Fine man. Lord Nelson holds him in great regard. Troubridge likes to say ‘Whenever I see a man look as if he’s
thinking
, I say that’s mutiny.’

This confused me. ‘I’m sorry, sir, if you feel I spoke out of turn.’ I cursed my lack of understanding of these people. I found it difficult to fathom their prickly etiquette, and what was and wasn’t permitted. I wondered if Pasco did not like me because I was, in his parlance, from the lower deck.

But Pasco smiled again. ‘It was just a jest, Witchall. You and I have an interesting day ahead of us, and neither of us may live to see the end of it. So I have resolved to treat you kindly. Don’t let me down, and believe me, you will need every ounce of courage in the hours ahead.’

I smiled back. ‘I have been in action several times before, sir. And I stood beside Lord Nelson on the quarterdeck of the
Elephant
at the Battle of Copenhagen.’

Pasco looked astounded. ‘Did you indeed?’ We had talked so little Pasco knew almost nothing about me.

We had our first real conversation as the ship sped
southward. I told him of my adventures in the Baltic, omitting to mention the court martial and the transportation. He was delighted to hear again the story about Nelson putting the telescope to his blind eye so he could not see Admiral Hyde Parker’s signal to retreat. ‘I never believed it to be true, but if you heard it with your own ears then it must be.’

I was glad he did not ask me what happened after the battle. My sentencing for cowardice would cast doubt on my integrity, despite the fact that I had been pardoned and the charges dismissed. Robert had warned me never to mention this incident, or the transportation to New South Wales, unless it was unavoidable.

That day Pasco was charming. I supposed he wanted to take his mind off the coming action. ‘The French and Spanish don’t use flags for signals, y’know,’ he told me. ‘Just shout at each other with speaking trumpets.’

As my period on duty came to an end, he said, ‘We will catch the Combined Fleet soon enough. There is very little wind, but there is a strong swell coming in from the west, and that will carry us into the jaws of battle tomorrow. Instinct tells me this will be a fiercer fight than Copenhagen. I would imagine the Admiral intends to put himself right in the thick of it.’

With those cheery words I was dismissed. As I walked back to my quarters, there was pandemonium on every gun deck. Men were tending their cannons and
sharpening their cutlasses as if preparing for the inspection of their lives. Many of the cannons now had ‘Victory or Death’ chalked on their carriages or barrels. The men seemed in a febrile state – greatly excited at the prospect of battle.

Robert spoke his mind. I had expected to find him bullish and chipper but he seemed quite subdued.‘It’s got to be done, Sam. Let’s hope it’s for the best.’

I had been in action with Lord Nelson, and understood he was a great leader with a genius for winning battles. To be aboard his ship during the battle would be an honour. If I survived, I would bask in the glory of it for the rest of my life.

If I survived … I knew in my heart this would be a battle like no other. Single-ship combat was terrifying enough. Sailing along the fixed line of Danish ships at Copenhagen and slogging it out was murderous. But here, we would be out at sea. There would be space to manoeuvre anywhere. There might be enemy ships on both sides of us, ganging up on Admiral Nelson’s flagship. It would be the greatest prize of the battle. We would engage, yardarm to yardarm, and try to pulverise the living daylights out of each other.

It was said the Spanish and French sailors were not as well trained as us. My experience had shown this to be true. But no one dismissed either nation as cowards. Their sailors would be fighting as bravely as we would.
And they were in reach of a friendly shore.

What concerned me in particular was being out in the open in uniform. There on the poop deck, the highest part of the ship, I would be a target for every marksman in the fighting tops of the enemy ships. As an officer, I would be expected to stand stiffly upright, not flinching or showing any fear. Would I be able to do it? I had never been in command of men during combat. I had been expected to obey orders not give them. That night I was more frightened of appearing to be frightened than I was of the battle itself.

Now I was one of the ship’s officers I was privy to things I would never have been told as an ordinary sailor. The signals revealed we were outnumbered. Two of our men-o’-war were in Gibraltar, resupplying, and four more had recently sailed there. At the moment we were six down from our full strength of twenty-seven ships of the line. The Combined Fleet – what we called the French and Spanish ships together – had thirty-three ships of the line. Thirty-three against twenty-one. They were daunting odds and no one could say whether our missing
ships would return in time for battle.

I told myself we had the best trained crews in the world. We knew that a British gun crew could fire two or three times faster than the best of the French or Spanish. And our guns had been fitted with a new flintlock mechanism. When I first went to sea, gun crews had used slow-burning matches and a trail of powder through a vent in the breech of the cannon to ignite the powder cartridge in the chamber. It was a difficult business, for it needed skill to set the cannon off at exactly the right moment as the ship rolled with the waves. There was always a few seconds’ delay between applying the match to the powder in the vent and the gun discharging. It was especially hard to lay the gun well in a heavy sea.