Battle Fleet (2007) (22 page)

Nelson told us to train our telescopes on the enemy fleet and find their flagship. This was the ship the
Victory
would engage. I strained to my full height to peer through my telescope towards these warships, whose cannons were now pouring out a constant barrage of flame and smoke. It was an unreal affair and I felt terribly exposed.

Shot continued to fall around us. Our good fortune
could not last. Five hunded yards from the enemy we heard a whistle then a rip above our heads, and I looked up to see a hole in the main topgallant sail. The enemy’s first hit. Other sails were hit, and our stately pace, barely more than walking speed, slowed further. This was the time we were most vulnerable to enemy attack and could not fight back. Our guns, I had heard the shouted order, had been double shotted – loaded with two cannon balls. This was intended to make our first broadside more lethal, but it meant we would not open fire until we were right on top of our enemy.

With those first enemy hits, the order was given for the gun crews to lie flat on the deck. This would reduce the casualties that might be caused by raking fire. Unless that is, a cannon ball came in at exactly deck height. Then, scores of men would be mangled where they lay. ‘Stand tall on the poop deck, Witchall,’ said Pasco, hauling me to my feet before anyone else noticed my actions. I stammered my apologies and felt foolish. Officers, from midshipmen to admirals, were not allowed to lie on the deck.

We inched towards the enemy line. These final minutes before we were among them seemed like an eternity. We could even see the enemy fire coming towards us, especially the tumbling chain shot or bar shot. The air seemed so full of it I wondered why more was not hitting our ship.

It was that moment Captain Hardy raised his concerns to Lord Nelson about the medals on his coat. Nelson shrugged off his suggestion, as everyone knew he would. ‘It’s too late now to be shifting a coat,’ I heard him say.

A ghastly splintering sound rent the air above our heads. Slivers of wood rained down from the mizzen topmast. Then came an awful creak and the topmast tumbled down, held precariously above our heads by the ropes that supported it.

I felt some outrage at this hit. How dare they damage our lovely ship and the rigging we had so carefully maintained. For all their brooding menace, warships were delicate, fragile things, which needed constant attention and care to keep them at their best. But they weren’t as delicate as human flesh and bone. The next shot to hit our ship whistled over the fo’c’sle, through the shrouds and ratlines and hammock nets, and destroyed our wheel and the two quartermasters steering the ship. The men were both terribly maimed and their bodies were flung over the rail. All that remained was a pile of splinters and two glistening pools of blood. Even before the steersmen had gone overboard, Hardy called for forty men to be sent to the stern to operate the ropes of the tiller by hand.

I saw Hardy and Mr Scott walking on the quarterdeck, talking as if they were out on a Sunday stroll. A few seconds later a horrible tearing of the air made me
look again. Scott had been sliced in two by shot, his severed trunk pumping gore all over the deck. Hardy and Nelson had been close enough to have their breeches and stockings splashed with blood. Scott, too, went over the side.

Horror piled upon horror. A squad of eight marines close to us on the poop deck were killed by a single round of double-headed shot, which swept through them. Nothing in the world could stop me being the next gory casualty. Nelson saw this ghastly spectacle and swiftly ordered the other marines on the poop to take cover. But he and the rest of us stayed in full view of the enemy.

At each atrocity I felt the bile rise in my throat and I had trouble swallowing. I struggled to keep my upright bearing. I kept telling myself I had been in action before and should be used to such sights. Pasco sensed my fear, but did not chide me. ‘Hold fast, Witchall, hold fast,’ was all he said.

A cannon ball ripped through the hammock netting, throwing four or five hammocks into the air before destroying one of our boats and sending showers of splinters in all directions. Hardy and Nelson were close to that one, and I noticed Hardy look down at his shoe. I wondered if he had been wounded, but Nelson said something quietly to him and the two strolled on, seemingly without a care in the world.

This was the moment Pasco produced a small paper bag. ‘Care for a grape, Witchall,’ he said. ‘Supply ship brought them fresh from Gibraltar. They need eating before they start to go mouldy.’

The whole situation was so absurd I had to laugh. ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t make my own contribution to this picnic. Still, at least it hasn’t started to rain on us.’

‘Only splinters and shot,’ said Pasco. ‘Nothing too drastic.’

I never understood this upper-class habit of behaving in combat as if one were standing in a Mayfair drawing room making polite conversation. I had seen the Spanish officers on
La Flora
do it, shortly before their ship had been blown to fragments. Perhaps Pasco was trying to calm his young charge, perhaps he wanted me to report that he had died as gallantly as he had lived.

We were close enough to see the men on the decks of the enemy ships. How awfully slowly we advanced towards them, with our sails full of holes. The enemy habit of aiming most of their shot at our sails and rigging rather than our hull had not changed.

Although we could hardly hear it above the thunder of the enemy guns, the screaming of the wounded was the only noise aboard the
Victory
. The men waited in silence, still as statues, coiled and ready, for their order to fire.

Pasco’s little game with the grapes had cheered me, and I was able to watch Nelson at his most resourceful. As we closed in, one of the midshipmen spotted the
Bucentaure
– which we knew was the flagship of Admiral Villeneuve, the commander of the Combined Fleet. Rather than head straight for it, Nelson ordered the
Victory
to steer forward to the front of the enemy line. Now we were broadside to broadside, passing by the
Santisima Trinidad
and presenting the whole length of our larboard side as a target for the enemy gunners. And still we did not fire. We were deluged with shot – the dull crack of muskets now adding to the cannon balls that crashed around us.

All at once, Nelson commanded us to turn sharp to larboard and the order was shouted down to the men on the tiller. We cut through the enemy line so close to the
Bucentaure
that a sailor might have climbed on to our bowsprit and dropped down on her stern. Immediately to our starboard side was another 74, which Pasco informed me was called the
Redoutable
. They were both French.

As we wedged our mighty ship between these two men-o’-war, the order to fire was finally given. It was shamefully exciting to be sailing across the stern of a great warship, and seeing the destruction of her two tiers of beautifully carved cabin windows. It was an act of vandalism which filled me with unholy glee. As we
slowly passed, our three gun decks began to discharge their cannons. As the crews in the very bow of the
Victory
fired, they were joined by our fo’c’sle carronade. This stubby cannon had a maw wide enough to disgorge a 68lb ball and a keg of five hundred musket balls into the
Bucentaure
with terrifying violence. From this shot alone arose a vast cloud of dust and debris which started us coughing and settled a grey dust on the shoulders of all on the
Victory
’s weather deck.

After the first destructive blow, our ship continued to shake from topmast to keel as the gun crews fired through the dust and smoke that billowed from the
Bucentaure
’s broken stern. The poor devils inside must have been enduring the torments of hell. Perhaps it took two minutes to sail by, and in that time we destroyed Admiral Villeneuve’s flagship.

I saw cannon fire flash to the starboard side of our bow and
Victory
began to shake and splinters fly. Our foremast and bowsprit withered under the fire, and yards crashed to the deck. Judging by the way the ship trembled and quivered under my feet, I guessed that most of this shot was hitting the bow. I feared for Robert down below decks.

This barrage was the worst we had sustained yet and as the
Victory
sailed on I could see the mangled remains of men thrown overboard, so many that the sea turned red as we passed.

At that moment Hardy ordered the
Victory
hard to starboard, and as we turned we fired another broadside towards the bow of the
Redoutable
. But rather than returning fire I was surprised to see the French ship closing most of its gun ports.

Hardy ordered the
Victory
turn again, ready to deliver another broadside. As we did so, we passed so close to the
Redoutable
that our studding sails fouled her topsails. All at once we were caught in a hideous embrace.

We had taken on two men-o’-war with the rest of our squadron still behind us. Now we were entangled, rigging to rigging, yard to yard, with one. And I was afraid that the ships at the front of the enemy line would turn around to attack us. We might be a huge, powerful warship, but if we were attacked by several ships at once, we would soon be reduced to wooden splinters and fragments of flesh and bone.

But most of the ships that had been ahead of the
Bucentaure
and
Redoutable
sailed on, with no intention
of turning around to aid their fellows. Pasco noticed too. ‘Carry on, carry on, fellows,’ he said, waving them away.

I heard the sound of grappling hooks being thrown up from the
Redoutable
, which, being a smaller vessel, was lower than us in the water.

‘What audacity these Frogs have! Taking on the
Victory
!’ Pasco was shocked at their gall. Our marines gathered on the starboard rail to fire down on the deck of the
Redoutable
. Any of their men who had had the raw courage to begin climbing the boarding ropes must have been cut down. Their assault was quickly thwarted.

A hail of fire thudded down on our deck. The attack from the
Redoutable
was coming in two directions. On her fighting tops – the platforms set halfway up the masts – were squads of marksmen hidden among the canvas and obscured by swirling smoke.

We stood at our station, Pasco and I, awaiting any signal order from Nelson or Hardy. With so little to do, other than munch grapes, there was nothing to take my mind off the hideous circumstances we were in. I had no appetite for Pasco’s grapes. I was so frightened I could barely swallow. But he chided me when I refused. ‘Keep your strength up, Witchall. We shan’t have time for dinner today.’

‘When I’ve been in action before,’ I said to Pasco, ‘I’ve always been very busy. Do you find it difficult, sir, just
standing here as an observer?’ I thought perhaps he would barely be able to hear me over the noise of the guns, but he nodded. Then, as we stood surveying the terrifying scenes before us, he shouted, ‘Observe the Captain and the Admiral. Look how bravely they stand, right there in the middle of the quarterdeck, in plain sight of the enemy. They are showing magnificent courage.’

Seeing the two of them together – one tall and broad, the other short and slight – I thought what an odd couple they made. I also noted, by the still glistening blood that stained the deck, that this was the exact spot where Mr Scott had been torn in two by a cannon ball. That is fate, to be in battle and in one spot at exactly the wrong time.

If I moved twelve inches to my right in the next second, might I miss a musket ball or might I walk right into its path? If I stood still, might a cannon ball come and take the head from my shoulders? Was this the last thing I would ever think …?

Terror bloomed inside me, like a fire catching in a pile of papers. I dragged my thoughts away and looked down at the Admiral and the Captain. At that very moment I saw Lord Nelson fall to his knees in a single violent motion. Hardy turned to see what had happened, just as Nelson placed a hand on the deck to support himself. The strength left his arm at once and he
fell awkwardly, soiling his jacket in the gore on the deck.

Hardy lifted him tenderly by the shoulder. Pasco shouted, ‘Go at once to the Admiral, and make yourself useful.’

I was at his side in an instant, and heard the Admiral say, ‘They have done for me at last.’ His face had drained of colour, and I could see by his twisted posture that he was in great pain.

‘I hope not,’ said Hardy uncertainly.

‘Yes, my backbone is shot through.’ I knew then that the Admiral was a dead man. I felt a great stab of pity as I thought of the suffering he would go through before his spirit finally left him.

Hardy turned to a marine sergeant and two other seamen and said, ‘Take his Lordship below, we must see if Mr Beatty can save him.’

Nelson shook his head. I marvelled at the courage he was showing, and the composure with which he faced his end. ‘The feeling is leaving my legs, Hardy. And I feel a gush of blood in my chest.’