Breaking the Line (32 page)

Nelson waited, but no one spoke for a whole half minute. Then they started, voices full of excitement and approbation, men who were sure that they were at a point in history that had never before been seen; that the whole nature of naval warfare had just been turned on its head.

‘Once the frigates have told us the enemy is out we will close with them. They will assume they have time to clear but our immediate approach will deny them the luxury. In line ahead we will break theirs. They have to be sailing on a wind, so their lead ships will struggle to come round and effectively be out of the battle. Thus the odds are redressed. The rear division will have to come up under the threat of our attacking ships dropping back from the point we breach the line to engage them.’

His one good eye ranged around the table, to be greeted with open enthusiasm and not a hint of dissent. No one wanted to say to him that he was taking a terrible risk because they wanted to take it with him. Not one captain or junior admiral wanted to point out that this was his first fleet action at sea: the Nile and Copenhagen had been static.

‘Gentlemen, this is war, and no battle will follow some paper plan. If I am gifted the right, I will aim
Victory
ahead of Villeneuve’s flag, to come down his windward side. What ship takes him on the other quarter is for its captain to decide, for nothing is certain in a sea fight. Shot will carry away masts and spars of friends as well as foes. I place my trust in my God, the arms of my country, and you.’

It was all anxiety from then on, waiting for action, seeing to his fleet, the need, since they were short of wood and water, to send six-of-the-line away under Admiral Louis, a less than happy old Crocodile who was sure he was going to miss the battle. Nelson moved his ships away from Cadiz, his heavier three deckers and the slower ships fifty miles off shore, behind a screen of fast sailing 74s, which were kept
out of sight from the land, while inshore Captain Blackwood kept watch with his squadron of frigates, often right inshore.

Nelson was anxious, as always, for more frigates: they were the eyes of the fleet, the one thing that would ensure that Villeneuve could not slip out in a mist or foul weather and get away unobserved. If the combined fleet got into the Mediterranean, then the mischief they could make, with the addition of more ships from Cartagena, would be incalculable, while Viscount Nelson, forced to chase, would be made to look a fool.

Nelson received intelligence that the allies had got their soldiers on board, then that the combined fleet had been warped out of the inner harbour and were now bending on their topgallant yards. He could not know that in sending Louis away to revictual he had left Villeneuve thinking that his strength was diminished, that the opportunity had presented itself to bring overwhelming strength to bear on the British fleet.

On deck, during the day, he was pleased to see many of the ships being painted, trying to copy the buff and black chequer effect that had been achieved on the
Victory
, which would make them recognisable in a close-quarter fight. The day that rain came was one of deep frustration for them because the paint ran, and for Nelson, who feared that the closed-in weather would give his enemies a chance to do the same.

‘Sail bearing nor, nor west, sir.’

It did not take much to get an anxious admiral on deck and he was up before the vessel, now actually two since she had a frigate in company, was identified as HMS
Agamemnon.

‘Berry by God,’ he cried. ‘There’s always a fight where he is. Now we will have our battle.’

Five ships-of-the-line had joined, making up for Louis’s absence. He was not equal to his foe, but Nelson reckoned the odds enough. More days went by, and he dealt as he had to with the problems attendant on being a commander-in-chief. And then it came, the signal he had been waiting for, that the enemy was at sea. Immediately he wrote to Emma and Horatia.

Nelson covered the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar, that being Villeneuve’s likely route, to break though there and make for Toulon, sailing to the north-west. Being a Sunday he agreed to divine service, but not in a way that interfered with preparations for battle.

With no sight of the enemy they ploughed on, eyes peeled. Blackwood had a line of four frigates repeating signals, through
Defence,
Colossus
and on to
Victory,
thirty-three enemy capital
ships under constant observation. The temptation to close with them was strong, but he wanted them well away from a safe harbour so forced himself to be patient. During the night, thinking he had drawn them far enough from Cadiz, Nelson altered course, preparatory to attack.

The state of the sea was worsening, with a heavy swell setting in from the west, but there was no excess of wind. As dawn broke they saw the enemy, a forest of masts ten miles to leeward. The signal was made to form two columns, with the Admiral cock a hoop. As soon as he sighted Nelson, Villeneuve bore away, turning back for Cadiz. Superior in ships, and even more in cannon, the Frenchman was running away.

‘You are too late on this wind, my friend,’ Nelson cried. ‘I think I have you.’

His frigate captains came aboard, led by Captain Henry
Blackwood,
who Nelson recalled as a midshipman so timid on his first voyage that he had had to lead him to the masthead. He was not that now; he was a clear-sighted and fearless warrior. While they were aboard Nelson wrote a final letter, his last testament, just as he had done before every action. Everyone in the fleet who could write would do the same, while the illiterate would make other
arrangements
. Nelson’s was to the point, naming Sir William and Lady Hamilton and the poor recompense they had had from their country for outstanding services. He had it witnessed by Hardy as the last of his goods were being struck below.

In full dress uniform, garlanded with his orders of chivalry, he went round the ship congratulating, encouraging, arguing about the number of prizes to be taken that day, making jokes, giving advice, wondering secretly how many of these men would be still there to laugh that night. Before departing, Blackwood suggested Nelson come aboard his ship
Euryalus,
but that invitation was declined for the poor example it would set.

‘Farewell Blackwood, I will not speak with you again except by flags.’

Back on deck it was clear the wind was falling, which did not bode well. Both his divisions would be sailing bowsprit-on to a waiting enemy, which would leave them exposed to a withering fire before they could engage, so Nelson ordered Hardy to get up more sail.

Back in his cabin he had to kneel on the floor to write a personal letter to Emma, lifting his head as his lover’s portrait was removed from the wall, telling his men to take care of his ‘Guardian Angel’. Then he took up his pocketbook, left it on his writing desk, the only
piece of furniture remaining, in which he would pen whatever took his fancy from now on. That, at this moment, was a prayer.

‘Signal Admiral Collingwood that I intend to pass through the enemy van to prevent him getting into Cadiz.’

Slowly but surely the clouds were lifting and soon the first shafts of sunlight turned the gently heaving Atlantic waters blue. On various decks bands began to play and the sailors, with nothing to do but wait until action was joined, began to dance hornpipes below decks.

‘Lieutenant Pasco,’ he said.

‘Sir,’ replied the signal lieutenant, who was no less than that same pale-faced midshipman who had been a favourite of Emma.

‘I think it time to amuse the fleet. I wish you to signal to all ships a message, that England confides that every man will do his duty, and be quick, because we must get up the signal for close action before we engage.’

‘With respect, sir, might I suggest substituting “expects” for “confides”. That word is in the signal book and will save seven hoists.’

‘Make it so, Mr Pasco.’

It went up, and, once read out, the sound of cheers floated across the water. The ship astern, the
Téméraire
,
was coming alongside, already her bowsprit was level with the front rail of the poop. Unbeknown to Nelson, his captains had decided that he was putting himself unnecessarily in danger by leading the division and they had evolved a plan to confound him. Seeing this Nelson picked up a speaking trumpet and called, ‘Captain Harvey, you will oblige me by keeping your proper station, which is astern of the flag.’

He had looked over the side then, at the increase in the swell and how it might affect his ships. ‘Another signal, Mr Pasco, to prepare to anchor after the action. I believe we have some foul weather on the way. And then Mr Pasco, number sixteen if, you please. Close action.’

‘Aye aye, sir.’

‘Captain Hardy, see how Admiral Collingwood carries his ship into action.’ With a newly coppered bottom free of weed,
Royal
Sovereign
was racing clear of her consorts, and Nelson, looking at Hardy, saw he had taken that as an admonition, and was gazing aloft to see if he could carry more sail.

‘Poor Hardy,’ Nelson said to himself. ‘Ever the one to worry,’

‘Sir,’ Hardy said, ‘your coat.’

‘What of it, man?’

‘It is too conspicuous, the stars and the like.’

‘I have no time to change it.’

Hardy turned to a midshipman and ordered him below to fetch a plain coat for the Admiral. Suspecting they had all been struck below by Chevalier, Nelson belayed that order. ‘Let the men see me, Hardy,’ he cried.

Hardy came closer, so that he could speak in a lower voice. ‘Sir, they will have men in the tops.’

‘Then I hope they set their damn ships afire.’

Nelson disliked marines on the fighting caps, simply because as the attacking fleet he would always carry a greater press of sail than his foes. And to his mind they were in just the right place to set fire to the canvas with their flaming wads. One sail alight was all it took, if a man was not careful, to have the whole ship ablaze and going up like
L’Orient.

It was silent below decks now; the bands and hornpipes had ceased. The cutlass blades and pikes were sharpened, the guns had all the powder and shot they could safely employ. Men stood poised on the sanded deck, occasionally dipping heads to look at the approaching enemy. Every twelve feet on the main deck had a cannon, and there was nothing else but those and what they needed to fight.

The smell was an odd one: human sweat, smouldering slowmatch, bilge, the tang of the sea coming through the ports. On the deck Nelson sensed this, the odour of anticipation which had no other expression but at times like these. He looked aloft and was surprised to see that the yards were clear of birds, another indication that a storm was approaching and that the sea birds had headed inland to avoid it.

His heart was near breaking with pride, for he knew that this day he had the enemy where he wanted them. He would have his battle and if it were successful he would have an indelible place in his country’s pantheon. All his cares would end when the combined fleets of France and Spain were beaten. Everyone would have to accept his beloved Emma for what she was and his daughter would be a lady, the love-child of Britain’s most famous peer.

Nelson was so happy he could have cried. He wanted at least
twenty prizes; he wanted to smash the power of Bonaparte’s France. He recalled his mother then, and her words, ‘For God must surely hate a Frenchman.’

Horatio Nelson did not hate them: he was too much of a Christian for that and no French survivor would want for anything in the way of charity from the British Royal Navy. But his nation had been at war with France for too many years out of the last five hundred. The ghosts of Edward of Crecy, the Black Prince, King Harry and a dozen admirals like Blake were with him now. He felt immortal.

The first cannons spoke, two ships opening up on the speedy Collingwood. He heard the Ghost say, ‘Note the time.’

26

Within minutes Collingwood was under fire from half a dozen ships, and still
Victory
was untouched. He broke the line astern of the Spanish three-decker. Only then did the admirals’ flags, hitherto hidden, break out on the enemy mastheads and Nelson saw that his intention of taking Villeneuve’s ship,
Bucentaure,
was in a fair way to being fulfilled. He had said in his written orders that every attempt must be made to capture the enemy commander on the well tried principle that if the head was cut off, the body would die.

The ships ahead began firing broadsides, some high seeking to damage his rigging and slow him down, or carry away something so vital that
Victory
would become unmanageable. Those aimed at the hull were short but holes began to appear in the upper sails. Nelson heard them counted out, but stopped listening when the enumerator passed thirty.

The next broadsides were more deadly, sweeping across the upper deck, killing many including Nelson’s secretary. A file of eight marines went down to another, like skittles at a fair, and Nelson heard Hardy curse as a splinter hit his foot.

‘This is too warm work, Hardy, to last too long.’

Neither wound nor comment did anything to distract Hardy from the task at hand. He was steering to pass between the bowsprit of
Bucentaure
and the stern of the giant
Santissima
Trinidad,
the 136-gun ship that Nelson well remembered from St Vincent.

‘I long to have her, Hardy,’ Nelson called, pointing at the towering Spaniard, ‘for she is a beauty and would look very well with my flag at the masthead.’

Another shot hit the wheel, smashing both it and the men conning the ship and Hardy called for the party on the lower deck manning
the relieving tackles to take over the steering. Another salvo more saw to the mizzen topmast which was blown out of its chains to come crashing down at the front of the quarterdeck.
Bucentaure
had hoisted more sail and achieved a bit more speed. This forced Hardy to put his helm down and steer astern of her, a slow business as the orders had to be relayed through the decks before the men hauling on the ropes that now controlled the rudder could oblige. That gap narrowed to as ship astern,
Redoutable,
sought to shut it off.

Nelson watched, not sure if his stratagem was about to succeed. It was very possible that all
Victory
would do was collide with one of the French ships. Hardy was looking at him, requesting instructions, which caused him to shake his head. ‘I can do nothing about this, Hardy. Go on board where you please.’

Knowing it would take time to change course Hardy, given permission by Nelson to risk a collision, held his line. The Ghost only just made it, scraping
Redoutable
’s
side on the way through the enemy line, before Hardy called for the helm to be put down and allow him to come up on the other side of Villeneuve’s flagship. On the way through the gap the men in charge of the quarterdeck
carronades
, sixty-pound smashers deadly at close range, responding to no more than a series of nods, opened up on
Bucentaure
’s stern, paying her back wholesale for the damage she had inflicted on
Victory
during the approach. The stern lights went to matchwood as the great balls demolished them, before they carried on down the French maindeck, wreaking havoc in a space where the main obstacle to their deadly passage was human flesh.

HMS
Neptune
went after the
Santissima
Trinidad,
while
Témér
aire
and
Leviathan
followed Nelson through, the latter scraping past the stern of
Redoutable.
Hardy was ranging alongside
Bucentaure
now and the maindeck cannon fired their first devastating salvo, some demolishing the French bulwarks while others, aimed high, ripped through the topsails and the yards that held them. Now rate of fire would tell, as the well-trained British gunners overwhelmed their opposition by sheer weight of metal. Guns were dismounted, masts sundered into deadly splinters that shot in all directions, the fighting caps and the men who occupied them blown to perdition while the area around the wheel was an abattoir.
Bucentaure
’s
rigging hung in shreds and she could neither steer nor sail.

Victory
was not the only ship pounding Villeneuve. Truly the Nelson touch was apparent as his ships doubled up on the enemy to render their vessels useless. The return fire slackened as battery after battery on the gun decks was blown apart, trapping men under
turned over cannon in a confined space that had become a charnel house.

Through smoke and sound Nelson could see that Admiral
Dumanoir
, in command of the van, had allowed clear water to open between himself and his commanding admiral, and from what he could observe, was making no attempt to come round and rejoin the battle. This changed the odds decisively in Nelson’ favour: he had begun with twenty line-of-battle ships to face Villeneuve’s twenty-three – now more than a half dozen were sailing away from danger.

A sudden burst of shot swept across
Victory
’s
deck as she closed with her next opponent,
Redout
able.
Nelson could just make out a side lined with muskets and from the way gouges were being sliced out of the deck he knew there were men in the French tops as well. What was more telling was that the enemy, with whom Hardy had locked yardarms, had closed his ports and was refusing to take part in a gunnery duel – new tactics to Nelson.

The amount of shot sweeping the deck was lethal and forced Hardy to send the upper deck gunners below. With the sides of the two ships no more than yards apart, every time
Victory
fired she started a blaze that had to be doused by the men who had just discharged the cannon.

Hardy had got close to Nelson, and begged him to go below – even in the smoke he stood out like a lamp in the night, with his stars and decoration glittering. Nelson shook his head and walked a step away, staring straight ahead. Hardy prepared to follow, turning briefly to give more orders that would get his officers to safety as well.

On a heaving fighting cap, with a ship rocking on an increasing swell while firing at another moving deck, marksmanship was not of the highest. That was multiplied by the nature of the weapon, of a shorter barrel length than a standard infantry musket. That had a damaging effect on a gun whose accuracy at full length over a distance of a hundred yards was poor. So the ball that took Nelson was not aimed; it was fired by a fellow reloading and letting fly as quickly as he could in the general direction of
Victory
’s
quarterdeck. But accidental musket balls do just as much damage as those that are aimed.

Nelson felt it enter the front of his shoulder, a searing red hot pain, and he could follow that pain as the ball lanced through muscle and sinew heading downwards and across. He felt it crash into his spine and imagined he heard the crack as it shattered. His legs gave way so suddenly that he was well aware of what had happened to him.

Hardy turned back to see him on his knees, his head forward, his
face contorted, his weight supported by three extended fingers. There was a split second when time stopped and he could not register that Nelson had been hit, because if ever a man deserved immortality it was the Ghost’s hero. Then he knelt over him

‘My backbone is shot through,’ groaned Nelson.

Hardy yelled for help, but nothing happened, because all those close to him were deafened by the blast of gunfire. He had to physically grab people before his wounded Admiral could be rolled into a sheet of canvas by a couple of marines, who ignored the agony they were inflicting as they carried Nelson below. Hardy had to put that out of his mind and concentrate on what to do next. For some reason his guns had stopped firing and he must rectify that, because it could not be that they were out of action; receiving no fire from the enemy and seeing his gunports staying closed they must suppose that he had struck his colours.

Nothing was further from the reality –
Victory
was in great danger. He felt certain that the captain of the French ship intended to board. If they could take the upper deck they could take the ship, so Hardy sent below for those marines manning cannon to come up and form a defence. The men who emerged, tumbling up the companionway as a trumpet sounded from
Redoutable,
looked nothing like marines: not a red jacket in sight, just check shirts and ears clothed in tight bandannas. But they carried muskets and soon began to employ them, firing at will.

With a crash a yard came down from the French tops, no doubt cut away to form a bridge between the ships and a stream of blue-coated soldiers emerged from below decks on the enemy ship. Their own discipline, the tight formation they adopted prior to an attack, counted against them as muskets from the
Victory
’s
decks began to decimate them. From the foredeck, word was passed to Hardy by a written note that some Frenchmen were trying to use the anchor, catted to the side of the ship by the bows, as a means of getting aboard. That was a threat that had to be met without weakening the defence of any other part of the ship.

All over the upper deck men were fighting now, muskets blasting into bodies that were pressed against the end of the barrel, sailors jabbing with pikes or swinging cutlasses and axes that cut through flesh. Each sound, a scream of agony, a yell of effort, a shout for mercy, with no roaring gunfire to mask it, reached Hardy’s ears, only muffled by the effect cannon fire had had on his own hearing.

And in a very short time he knew he was winning, with more and more men coming up from below who could not but outnumber the
attackers. It was a three-decker 110-gun ship against a two-decked 74. With a complement of over eight hundred men Hardy had a third more crew to deploy than his French opponent. The crash of cannon sounded again, not from below decks but from the leeward side of
Redoutable,
taking those crowding the French bulwarks in the back, blasting over the side those that it did not kill. Hardy thought he recognised the
Téméraire
but she was so shot about herself that he could not be sure. All he did know was that a friend was firing broadsides and doing great damage to the ship with which they were both engaged. Some of the British marines had got aloft in the
Victory
’s
tattered rigging and were trying to pick off targets on a deck no more than forty feet away, and
Redoutable
was stuck fast now between two British ships.

Through smashed bulwarks on both vessels Hardy could see the piles of dead on the French deck, could see that his fighting men had repelled the boarders and were now engaging the enemy on their own vessel. There were men too deaf to hear the mizzenmast begin to tear and tumble on the
Redoutable.
They had come up from below, where the great thirty-six-pounder guns blasting off in a confined space rendered hearing impossible for days after a battle.

Many of them were firing off or reloading muskets when they died under a ten-ton weight of falling French timber, or were swept
overboard
by rigging or a spar. Attached to that was the French ship’s ensign, and Hardy and his officers were not the only ones to see it. Those French still engaged did too and, assuming that their captain had struck his colours, they began to surrender.

It took a while for the wind to clear the smoke, but all around him Hardy could see British ensigns still proudly flying beside ships that had no flag aloft even where they still had a standing mast. Boats were in the water and prizes were being taken, vessels that were expending running blood from their deck, through their scuppers, into the ocean, while messages poured aboard from Nelson’s triumphant captains to tell their admiral the names of their captures. He wanted to go below but a warning cry alerted him to the fact that the leading ship in the French van was actually now tacking, coming round to rejoin the battle, and he must assume that the rest would follow. He must get
Victory
into shape for another fight. Only when he was sure his ship was once more ready to fight could he go below.

It was three decks down to the cockpit, a confined space lit by a single lantern. Nelson lay in the arms of two of the ship’s
supernumeraries,
one holding a pillow. He was ashen, even for a man whose face was reckoned pale, and his good eye told of great pain,
but he managed a smile for Hardy and a strong-voiced question as his flag captain knelt beside him. ‘Well Hardy, how do we fare?’

‘What did he say?’ the flag captain asked, because his hearing was still fuzzy from combat. One of Nelson’s supporters repeated it close to his ear.

‘Tolerable well, milord. Twelve or fourteen of the enemy ships are in our possession, but the five of the van have tacked and show every intention of bearing down on us. I have called for some of our fresher ships to come about and assist, so no doubt we will give them a drubbing.’

‘I pray none of our ships have been struck, Hardy?’