Battle Fleet (2007) (24 page)

But when we entered from the stern quarters, we were greeted with courtesy. Men shook my hand and, I understood from their tone of voice and manner, congratulated me on our victory.

I realised then, with shame, how often I had thought so badly of the French, feared them as monsters and expected them to be brutal bullies or craven cowards. All of our enemies had fought well today – with just as much bravery as the British tars who had beaten them.

We went at once to the fo’c’sle to help extinguish the fire there, and our men from the
Victory
helped throw buckets of water over the flames. Picking my way along
the length of the ship was an ordeal. There was so much blood on the decks it painted bizarre patterns as it washed to and fro in the swell. There must have been three hundred corpses on that ship. It was a hideous sight, and made me glad for once that we threw our dead over the side as soon as they were slain. To fight among all this carnage would have killed the fighting spirit in anyone. On the
Redoutable
it appeared that only those stationed below the waterline had survived.

Below deck on the
Redoutable
, as we waded through the gore and bodies trying to sort the wounded from the dead, we felt the ship lurch in the water. Caught as we were, in the middle of four ships jammed together, that could only be the
Victory
, disentangling herself.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, while carrying one man up to the weather deck, I saw the
Victory
sailing away from us. We would have to rejoin her later. Pushing away from the
Redoutable
, she had left her to the British warship that had come to our rescue earlier at
such a crucial moment. I could now see this was the
Temeraire
. Hailing across to her I also discovered the name of the fourth ship in this lethal tangle. There on
Temeraire
’s starboard side was another French 74,
Fougueux
. She too had surrendered.

I looked around for the French and Spanish squadron I had seen heading towards us. They were nowhere to be seen. Had they given up the fight and scattered?

When there was nothing more we could do aboard the
Redoutable
, we left her for the
Temeraire
. I approached a lieutenant, seeking passage back to the
Victory
.

‘We don’t have a boat available,’ he told us, ‘but you can join a prize crew for the
Fougueux
or make yourself useful over there.’ He waved towards another French ship drifting close by on the starboard side.

She was a 74 by the look of her.
Ariane
was the name on her stern. She had struck and was on fire at the fo’c’sle and in obvious need of assistance. The
Temeraire
was sending a small number of her crew over to help, in a jollyboat.

This was the moment I first began to think we were winning this battle. Three French ships in our immediate vicinity had struck. Perhaps we were having similar successes up and down the line?

‘Let’s join the
Ariane
rather than the
Fougueux
,’ said Robert discreetly. ‘I want to get back to the
Victory
by
the end of the day, rather than get stuck with another crew on a captured ship.’

I agreed. I would feel more confident on my own ship, rather than with strangers. The sooner we were back the better.

As we approached, I could see that the
Ariane
had suffered terribly in the battle. All her masts had been shot away, the stern was so badly raked that little remained of her cabin windows, and her larboard side had also taken a severe pummelling. Again we were welcomed with dignity by the French crew and its most senior officer, a Lieutenant Laruelle. The Captain had been killed early in the action, he told me in halting English. She was taking in water fast and half her pumps were broken. The smoke we could see billowing from the fo’c’sle was from a fire on her upper gun deck, close to the forward magazine. There were also two hundred wounded men among the crew. With so many dead strewn around the decks it was difficult to see who was wounded and who had perished.

Side by side with our French foes we fought the fires and pumped water from the flooding hold through the rest of that terrible afternoon. Several times we thought we had beaten the fire in the fo’c’sle, but it always burst into life again. The thick black smoke that rolled over the deck made us cough and gasp for air.

The
Ariane
continued to sink slowly in the water. As the light faded, her battered stern lay perilously close to the rising swell.

Dusk was falling when Robert came to me and said, ‘Do you want to drown or be blown to pieces?’

We consulted the French Lieutenant. ‘There’s no hope of saving the ship now. We have to take as many men off as we can,’ said Robert. He nodded solemnly.

‘I shall stay here, with the wounded.’

We didn’t waste time trying to dissuade him, but I thought him a very gallant man.

The stern was now so close to the water that the sea would flood in through the broken windows with every wave. The cries of the wounded on the lower gun deck became more urgent and troubled me terribly. As the water flooded in and the long open deck began to tilt more steeply, injured men would roll down the planks and into the icy water.

We had drifted a distance from the
Temeraire
, but HMS
Pegasus
, one of the 74s towards the end of our column, was within hailing distance. By the look of her she had suffered little in the action. Robert called for them to send their boats to assist us. Three arrived within minutes and we began to fill them with the French wounded we were still able to move. Those who screamed and wriggled in agony when we tried to pick them up would have to be left to their fate.

I was touched by how tenderly the British tars cared for their foes. We were all sailors after all. The
Pegasus
’s boats made three trips before the
Ariane
gave another fearful lurch and her stern slipped further under. Robert called from one of the boats. ‘Hurry, Sam, her bow is almost out of the water.’

This was my final chance to escape. The
Pegasus
had already moved away, certain that the
Ariane
would soon blow up.

As I turned to go, I saw another poor fellow on the deck stir among the corpses. I had taken him for dead. Perhaps he had been unconscious. Now, seeing us leaving, he gathered his remaining strength and called for my assistance. He was an ordinary sailor and close to me in age. Both his legs were covered in bloody bandages.

‘Come on, Sam,’ shouted Robert again as the last boat bobbed close to the rail. ‘Hurry or you shall surely be lost.’

It was not me lying there on the deck, wounded and left to die, as I had been in my dreams. It was one of my French adversaries. I could not leave him. In my sleep I had lived through the terror he was feeling.

I turned to the boat and shouted, ‘Come and help me with this one!’

‘There’s no room,’ shouted Robert above the din of the wounded and the roar of the fire. ‘Hurry, Sam.’

I went over to the man, picked him up by the arms and hauled him over my shoulder. He screamed terribly, but he did not struggle. I staggered across the sloping deck to the waterline and bundled him aboard the boat like a sack of coal.

As we rowed away, the timbers of the
Ariane
gave a great sickening groan as she upended herself in the water, blazing bow now towering above our tiny boat. Debris fell on the flames and fed them. ‘Pull hard, men,’ shouted Robert, seeing the fire burn higher.

An explosion roared across the water, and fierce flames belched from the
Ariane
’s gun ports still above the surface. We felt the heat on our faces. I hunched down in the boat, shielding my wounded enemy. Not Robert though. He was standing proud at the stern of the boat. His pride and his training forbade him to flinch or take cover. ‘Get down, you bloody idiot,’ I shouted at him, instinctively grabbing his arm and pulling him forward. A moment later, the
Ariane
vanished in a great flash of light and splinters. As shards of wood and metal scythed through the air, one caught Robert at the top of his head.

Blood splattered over my face. Something fell on me – I felt the weight of it in my lap just as the heat of the explosion singed my hair. The bile rose in my throat. ‘It’s Robert’s head,’ I thought. A splinter has taken it clean off his shoulders.

I could barely bring myself to look. It was just his hat. An instant later he slumped forward, collapsing on me and the wounded Frenchman, who screamed again. I wondered again if Robert had been killed. There was a nasty gash on the back of his head, oozing out blood. His heart was still beating. ‘Sit him up,’ I said to one of the sailors beside me. I took off my jacket and ripped the sleeve from my shirt. ‘Tie this around the wound.’

We rowed for HMS
Pegasus
and the prisoners were swiftly pulled on deck. Robert was unconscious but his eyes would occasionally flicker open. ‘Take good care of this one,’ I shouted as he was hauled aboard.

The mood aboard the
Pegasus
was jubilant. ‘Fourteen or fifteen of the Combined Fleet have struck,’ one of their midshipmen told me. ‘The rest of them have fled! And not a single one of ours surrendered.’ I had had an inkling the battle was going our way when we left for the
Redoutable.
It was marvellous to hear we had won such an extraordinary victory, but I felt relief rather than triumph. There would be no more killing and we could consider ourselves to have survived!

Robert came to later that evening but could remember nothing of the day, beyond the moment we left the
Victory
and entered the
Redoutable
. The Frenchman I had rescued offered me his hand when I went to visit him in the hold. ‘
Ami
,’ he said, with some effort. The
incident moved me greatly. The French and Spanish had fought so gallantly I would be proud to count them as my friends.

Robert had a brutal headache and I needed to support him when he walked, but by mid-evening he felt steady enough to risk a return to the
Victory
. Although there was little wind, the swell had picked up and we could all sense a storm was coming. We were ferried in the
Pegasus
’s smallest boat. As I boarded the boat, it lurched under me and I fell hard, banging the side of my face. By the time we reached the
Victory
I had a livid bruise from temple to jaw. I felt quite proud of this injury. I had managed to go through the entire day without a scratch. Now no one would
think I had had an easy battle.

Robert was sent at once to Mr Beatty and word quickly reached me that he would remain in the sick bay for the next few days. I was glad to be back on board my own ship, but the midshipmen’s mess was a melancholy place that night. We should have been euphoric, but we had lost too many men this day and seen too many hideous things. I was cheered to hear Pasco had survived his wounds, and Mr Beatty expected him to make a good recovery. Poor James Patrick had lost an arm and all that remained was a stump, though he too was expected to live. ‘The poor lad,’ I thought. Injuries like this on young sailors not fully grown were especially painful and slow to heal. What was left of his arm would continue to grow along with the rest of him and the stump would cause him agony for years to come.

‘Where’s Duffy?’ I said to Stephen Rider. William Duffy’s sneering presence was noticeably absent. ‘Do you know where he was stationed during the battle?’

‘He was down on the lower gun deck with me,’ said Rider. ‘He was caught by grapeshot coming in through one of the ports. Splashed his guts all over the larboard strakes. It raised quite a cheer among the gun crews.’

The mess would be a much pleasanter place without him. It was cruel to think it; all of us want to leave something worthwhile in the world, even if it’s just a fond memory. Duffy died horribly, with only the cheers of
men who loathed him to see his spirit away from his mangled body.