Years of Victory 1802 - 1812 (35 page)

Later in the day, when the British Fleet had reached a point some twenty-five miles to the south-west of Cadiz, there was an improvement in the weather, and visibility
became clearer. At one moment,
owing to the continued confusion of the enemy's ships—it
was not till midday that they w
ere all clear of harbour—there was an alarm that they were trying to get to the westward. But Nelson, with his strong strategic grasp, refused to believe it, especially as the wind was steadily shifting into the west. Pie continued on his course, watching the enemy over the rim of the horizon through the eyes of his frigates. During the afternoon he spent some time on the poop talking to his midshipmen; "this day or to-morrow," he remarked, "will be a fortunate one for you, young gentlemen." Later he entertained some of them at dinner, promising that he would give them next day something to talk and think about for the rest of their lives.
¹

·
·
·
·
·
·
·
·

October 21st dawned calm and splendid. There was a faint wind out of the west-north-west and a heavy swell rolling in from the Atlantic towards Cape Trafalgar and the Gut of Gibraltar. The British Fleet, having wore to the northward a couple of hours earlier to reach a commanding position before Villeneuve's weather beam, was about twenty miles off the Spanish coast; the enemy nine miles away to the south-east still steering towards the Straits. The supreme moment of Nelson's life had come. The whole horizon, clear after the low clouds of yesterday, was filled with Villeneuve's ships.

Having summoned the frigate captains aboard, Nelson a little after six gave the signal to form order of sailing in two columns— his original idea of a third being abandoned owing to his reduced numbers—and to bear up and sail large on an east-north-easterly course, so taking the Fleet towards the enemy's line of retreat. Shortly afterwards the signal, "Prepare for Action" was made. An hour later the Admiral's prescience was justified, for Villeneuve, realising his adversary was more powerful than he had supposed and fearful of meeting Louis in the Straits, abandoned his course for the Gut and gave the order to wear together and form line of battle on the port tack in inverse order. But, though by doing so he brought Cadiz under his lee, he was too late to avoid an engagement. The Spanish captain, Churruca, watching the signal through his telescope, snapped his glass to with a curt, "Perdidos!"

Yet the enemy's movement added to Nelson's difficulties and the complexity of the attack. Not only was the Combined Fleet sailing in inverse order, but his own line of approach to it must now bring the shoals of Trafalgar and San Pedro under his lee. And the heavy ground swell and his seaman's instinct warned him that, though at

¹
Nicolas, VII,
135-6;
Corbett,
337;
Codrington,
59;
Mark Kerr,
251.

the moment the wind was dropping, a gale from the Atlantic was imminent. When Blackwood came aboard at eight o'clock to congratulate Nelson on his good fortune, he found him, for all his cheerful spirits and calm bearing, deeply intent on the enemy's direction and formation. The Admiral's thoughts were running, not on victory which he knew was by now inevitably, but on the possibilities of the foe's escaping. He told Blackwood to be ready to use his frigates in the latter stages of the fight to complete the work of destruction and not to think of saving ships or men. For his end, he kept stressing, was annihilation, not prizes.

By this time the British Fleet was approaching the enemy from windward, sailing to the eastward in two almost parallel lines at an oblique angle to his northerly course. Being in great confusion during and after its manoeuvre, the Combined Fleet was moving at a far slower pace, the van being forced to wait for the laggards, while the British leaders, with studding sails set on both sides, were forging ahead leaving their own stragglers to follow as best they could. For both Nelson and Collingwood were resolved not to waste a minute of the all-too-short day, but to bring their ships to the attacking point by the shortest possible course.

There was little need for signals, for almost everything had been determined in advance. Collingwood's Lee Division which, in accordance with the Admiral's Memorandum, was to attack the enemy rear, was on a port line of bearing steering to cut the line at a point from twelve to sixteen ships ahead of the last ship. Nelson with the Weather Division was steering a slightly more northerly course towards the centre and—since the enemy's line was moving as well as his own—aiming at a point some two miles ahead of his leading ship. It was a wonderful sight, and Codrington in the
Orion
called up his lieutenants to see it : the Combined Fleet straggling like a forest of canvas across five miles of sea, its bright, many-coloured hulls, and the scarlet and white
Santissima Trinidad
towering up in the midst. Many of the enemy ships were doubling each other in their confusion and, instead of forming a straight line of battle, were tending to move in a wide crescent with its arc to leeward. By comparison the two British divisions, though strung out a little in their haste, looked, with their black and yellow painted hulls, grim and forbidding.

About nine o'clock, with the fleets still several miles apart, Nelson made an inspection of the
Victory.
Dressed in his threadbare, storm-stained Admiral's frock-coat with the stars of his four Orders sewn on the left breast and accompanied by the frigate captains, he made the tour of the low, half-lit d
ecks and the long curving lines
of guns. The crews, stripped to the waists, waited with the alert silence of the Navy's age-long ritual, but here and there a whispered aside or a legend chalked on a gun revealed their mood. Walking swiftly, Nelson occasionally stopped to speak to the men at their quarters, repeating the old counsel that they were to hold their fire till they were sure of their object. Once he tapped a powder monkey on the shoulder and warned him to take off his shirt lest a spark should set it alight. Only when he reached the quarter-deck ladder to the poop did the pent-up emotion of the ship's company break in a great cheer. He stood there for a moment, with his emaciated figure and lined face, looking down on his men.

The wind was gradually failing and shifting into the west, and the pace of the British Fleet slackened from three to two knots. But it was still gaining on the French and Spaniards who, from their thickening line and resolute bearing as they forged, close-hauled, slowly to the north-north-west, clearly meant to make a fight of it. Nelson from the poop watched them grimly, then observed, "I'll give them such a dressing as they've never had before!" Blackwood, seeing that the flagship from her leading position would be unduly singled out for attack, suggested the propriety of letting one or two ships go ahead as was usual in line, of battle. With a rather grim smile Nelson assented and ordered the
Temeraire
and
Leviathan
to pass the
Victory.
But, as the
Victory
continued to carry every stitch of sail she possessed and as neither Captain Hardy nor Nelson would consent to shorten it, her consorts made little headwav. Finally, as the
Temeraire
vainly struggled to pass, Nelson called out to her through his speaking-trumpet, "I'll thank you, Captain Harvey, to keep in your proper station!" Thereafter the
Victory,
like the
Royal Sovereign
in the lee line, continued in indisputed possession of the lead. The order of sailing remained the order of battle.

About an hour before the time when the opposed lines seemed likely to converge, Nelson left the poop and retired to his dismantled cabin. Here Pasco, the flag-lieutenant, coming in with a message, found him on his knees composing the prayer which was part of his legacy to England:

" May the Great God whom I worship grant to my Country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious Victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish
it;
and may humanity after Victory be the predominant feature in the British Fleet. For myself, individually, I commit my life to Him who made me, an
d
may His blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my Country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the j
ust cause which is entrusted to
me to defend."

Afterwards he made a codicil to his will, committing his child and Lady Hamilton to his country's keeping, and got Blackwood to witness it. Elsewhere, while the crew of the French flagship was taking a solemn oath to die with Villeneuve to the last man, other Britons were indulging in home thoughts; Captain Duff of the
Mars
scribbled a line to tell his wife that he was praying that he would behave as became him and still have the happiness of taking her and his children in his arms. Meanwhile, with the rich diversity of England, Codrington of the
Orion
was sitting down to a leg of turkey, and Cumby, the First Lieutenant of the
Bellerophon,
was piping the ship's company to dinner, "thinking that Englishmen would fight all the better for a comfortable meal."

Shortly after Nelson reappeared on the poop, land was sighted. At first, since the Fleet had been sailing for several days on a dead reckoning, it was thought to be Cadiz, and the Admiral, fearful lest the enemy should escape, signalled that he would go through the end of the line to cut off their retreat. A few minutes later it was identified as Cape Trafalgar, and he reverted to his original plan. The
Victory
was now closing towards the centre of the enenry's van where the
Santissima Trinidad
and the French flagship,
Bucentaure,
towered up among their fellows. There was no desultory firing at long range, and it became plain that the enemy was holding himself in for a grim fight.

After signalling to make "all possible sail," Nelson remarked to Pasco that he would amuse the Fleet with a signal. "I wish to say Nelson confides that every man will do his duty." After a brief consultation about the capacity of Popham's code, this was altered to "England expects." Soon after it had been hoisted, and just as the first ranging shot from the
Fougueux
ploughed up the water in front of the
Royal Sovereign,
No. 16—"Engage the Enemy more closely"—was seen flying at the
Victory's
masthead where it remained till it was shot away.
¹

The advance was over: the battle about to begin. The British Fleet had been brought in accordance with the terms of Nelson's

¹
The account of Trafalgar is based on Rear-Admiral A. H. Taylor's brilliant paper on the battle in Vol. LXXXII, No.
528
(Nov.,
1937)
of the
Journal
of
the Royal United Service Institution;
the Admiralty Committee's Report on the Evidence relating to the Tactics employed by Nelson at the Battle of Trafalgar
(1913);
Thursfield's
Nelson and Other Studies;
Mahan's
Nelson;
Clarke and M'Arthur'siVc/ron; Nicolas, Vol. VII.; Corbett's
Campaign
of
Trafalgar;
Newbolt's
The Tear
of
Trafalgar;
Conrad's
Mirror of the Sea;
Codrington's
Memoir;
Collingwood's
Life;
Mark Kerr's
The Sailor's Nelson;
James's
Naval History.

Memorandum "nearly within gunshot of the enemy's centre." The time had now come for the Lee Division to fall on his rear while Nelson prevented the van from coming to its aid. Judging that the disproportion of force and the enemy's in versed sailing order justified a modification of his original instructions, Collingwood decided to cut the line at the sixteenth instead of the twelfth ship from the rear, He thus set his fifteen battleships to engage not an inferior but a superior force. But he relied on British gunnery and discipline to give him the necessary ascendancy. Nelson approved, for as the
Royal Sovereign
bore down under a hail of fire on the great black hull of the
Santa Ana,
he cried out, "See how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action!" His Second-in-Command, who, a few minutes before had been muttering," I wish Nelson would stop signalling: we know well enough what we have to do," was now feeling the exaltation which alwa)'s came to him in the hour of danger. Mu
nching an apple like the country
man he was and pacing the quarterdeck as the shot splashed the water all round him, he remarked, " Now gentlemen, let us do something to-day which the world may talk of hereafter." What seemed to give him most delight was the resolute bearing of the French. "No dodging and manoeuvring," he wrote afterwards in ecstatic recollection. "They formed their line with nicety and waited our attack with great composure. Our ships were fought with a degree of gallantry that would have warmed your heart. Everybody exerted themselves and a glorious day they made it."