The Flag of Freedom (42 page)

They had only run out the guns on the seaward side. The guns facing landward were obscured by piles of what looked like luggage. Boxes and bags – even furniture. What in God's name were they up to? The guns were there, but almost hidden by all this junk. Certainly they were not manned, or even unloosed, and the gunports were firmly closed. He looked at the next ship in line, and the next, and the next. They were all the same. They were so sure they could not be attacked from any direction but the sea, they had used the landward side to stack furniture.

He slid down the backstay so fast he near took the skin off his palms. But when he reported what he had discovered, he found they knew it already. Nelson had spotted it from well out to sea, even from the deck and with only one eye to see by.

‘They will live to regret it,' he said.

‘Is there anything I can do?' Nathan asked Berry, feeling like a junior midshipman, just come aboard, though even snotties usually had some duty or other to take their minds off the thought of imminent death or mutilation.

‘You have done enough with your chart,' Berry assured him. ‘I do not know how we could have proceeded without you.' Then, after a small pause … ‘But if you have nothing better to do, you can stand as close to the Admiral as he will permit, for he is only a little fellow, you know, and you are such a great lofty lout, you may be able to take some of the heat from him.'

He left Nathan to make of this what he would. In truth, it was not greatly to his satisfaction. Something of the sort had been said to him before – at the Battle of St Vincent,
when Nelson was only a Captain. This, it seemed, was to be his role in life for as long as he was without a ship – to stand next to Nelson whenever he was in action, to deflect or absorb whatever pieces of iron, timber or other deadly weaponry were flung at him.

After taking a few moments to reflect upon this imposition, he climbed a little way up the starboard mizzen shrouds to see what was happening at the head of the British line.
Goliath
had taken the lead and was almost through the gap. The lead French ship was firing at her with every gun she could bring to bear, but the guns on the island remained strangely silent. And now she was crossing the French line, raking the lead ship with her broadside. But something checked her. Was she aground? No. Her sheet anchor seemed to have come loose and it must be dragging along the bottom – Nathan could see men struggling to cast it loose from the cathead. But it slowed her down considerably, and Hood seized his chance and pushed
Zealous
ahead of her, bringing her up on the inner side of the French line and pouring his broadside into the lead ship at pointblank range.

Goliath
passed behind her – so close as to almost scrape her sides – and lay along the next French ship in line. And three others followed them round –
Orion, Theseus
and
Audacious
. The whole of the French van was now wreathed in smoke and flame.

And then
Vanguard
brought her starboard broadside to bear – and they were in the thick of it.

They moored beside the third ship in the French line – Nathan could not see her name but she was a two-decker, a 74, so they were equally matched. But the next ship was
still not engaged and she had come round slightly on her cable to bring the whole of her broadside to bear on the British flagship. A hail of shot swept the gundeck and for a while they were hard pressed. Then
Minotaur
raced past them on the seaward side to join the fight, and through the smoke Nathan saw another British 74, on the inshore side of the line, pounding the first of their opponents at very close range. There were eight British ships now engaged, attacking the first five French ships in the line from both sides. And on the landward side, so far as Nathan could see, the French did not have a single gun in action.

It was dark now. But Nelson was right – the French line seemed to be lit by a giant flickering bonfire, darting flashes of flame in every direction. You almost choked on the smoke, eyes streaming, ears deafened by the constant roar of the guns. Shouting, sweating faces loomed like apparitions, or figures from some ghastly carnival, some times pouring with blood, always shouting, unheard. Instructions were given by bawling directly in someone's ear or making frantic signs which were as often as not misunderstood. Nelson had his head bent over the chart from the
Meshuda
, studying it by the light of the binnacle. Nathan moved slightly towards him, remembering Berry's instruction, though he felt fairly confident that no sharp shooter would be able to pick out the Admiral through the smoke and the gloom. And in that moment Nelson was hit.

Nathan actually saw the shot strike him, high in the fore head. It was a piece of
langridge
– the scrap metal the French used to rip the British sails apart. Inexplicably, they were still using it, though it hardly mattered at this stage of the battle.

‘Oh Christ,' Nathan said as he bent over him. There was a great gash in his forehead – Nathan could see the white gleam of bone – both eyes were gone and his face was drenched in blood.

But his lips were moving and Nathan put his ear close to them so he could hear.

‘I am killed,' he whispered. ‘Remember me to my wife.'

T
hey appeared within seconds. Nelson's people, the men who followed him from ship to ship. Shocked, disbelieving, united in their grief. They raised him gently from the deck. His face and chest were drenched with blood and it was still pumping out through that ghastly wound. It looked as if he had been scalped. A great flap of skin hung over his eyes, and by the light of the guns Nathan thought he could see his brains through the blood.

‘Take him below,' said Berry. He gave Nathan a look of agonised reproach.

They both followed the cortège below, down into the orlop and through to the cockpit. It was crowded with wounded men, sitting or lying amidst a shambles of the dead and the dying, with a team of sawbones doing their best – or worst – by the light of the swaying lanterns.

‘Jefferson may be able to save him yet,' said Berry.

Jefferson, Nathan recalled, was the principal surgeon. A good surgeon, by all accounts, unlike most of them. But he could not perform miracles.

‘I'll not be served first,' croaked the corpse, and they almost dropped him.

Nathan stared at that impossible mask of blood and torn flesh, and the lips moved again.

‘I'll await my turn, along with the others.'

Happily no one took a blind bit of notice, and after poking around in the wound and lifting up the flap of skin, Dr Jefferson announced that the wound was superficial and there was ‘no immediate danger'.

There was wide rejoicing among his followers, but Nelson had difficulty in believing it, even when Jefferson stitched him up and wrapped a bandage around the wound. He asked if they would send for the chaplain, and also for his secretary, Mr Comyn, so that he might dictate a last message for his wife. He was clearly in a great deal of distress, possibly because the bandage covered his eyes and he was in total darkness, hearing only the screams of the wounded and the roar of the guns.

But now there was another sound. Very like cheering.

‘Go and ask Berry what is happening,' Nelson commanded one of his followers, for the Captain had returned to the quarterdeck.

Moments later, Berry himself came and knelt down by the Admiral's side.

He had ‘pleasing intelligence' to report, he said. The
Spartiate
had ceased firing. He had sent the first lieutenant with a party of Marines to take possession of her – ‘and he sent back this'.

He pressed the hilt of a sword into the Admiral's hand.

‘It is the French commander's,' he announced, as Nelson ran his fingers down the steel, ‘and I have received news that the
Aquilon
and the
Peuple Souverain
have also struck.'

He looked around at the throng of people gathered about the wounded Admiral and raised his voice: ‘It would appear that victory has already declared itself in our favour.'

The impact of this speech and the cheering that followed was somewhat spoiled by Dr Jefferson's brisk request that the Admiral being in no immediate danger, perhaps they would care to remove him, and themselves, from the cockpit so that he could get on with his work.

After some discussion among the Admiral's servants, it was decided to carry him to the breadroom, which was thought to be spacious enough for his needs and far removed from the din of battle so that he might dictate his letters in peace.

Nathan left them to it and followed Berry back on deck. It seemed to be a good deal brighter than when he had left it. Then he saw that the French flagship appeared to be on fire. By its ruddy light, and the continuous flash of the guns, he gazed upon a scene that he knew would stay in his mind for as long as he lived. Ship upon ship lay dead in the water, many dismasted, their hulls riddled with shot, the sea around them heaving with debris: spars, whole masts and sodden canvas, shattered launches, half-filled with water, bodies and blood.

The British line seemed as badly damaged as the French – and Nathan could see the
Bellerophon
– the old ‘Billy Ruffian' as she was known by the hands – drifting
helplessly away to the north with all of her masts gone. Nelson had ordered his Captains to fly the white ensign instead of the blue so it might be the better seen in the poor light, and it was still streaming from the flagpole at her stern. Then, from out of the darkness in her wake came two more ships, also flying the white ensign but quite undamaged: the
Swiftsure
and the
Alexander
, the two 74s Nelson had left behind. They headed straight for the centre of the French line and began to pour their broadsides into the burning three-decker.

‘By God, what is this?' demanded a familiar voice.

Nathan turned. Nelson had come on deck. His head was still wrapped in bandages and the whole of his upper body was soaked in blood. He looked like a walking corpse, but he had pulled up a corner of his bandage so he could see out of his good eye and he was looking towards the growing conflagration in the French centre.

‘It is the
Orient
, sir,' said Berry, ‘the French flagship.'

‘They said on the
Spartiate
that she was repainting,' said someone else. ‘Her poop was full of oil jars and buckets of paint.'

‘Send Galway with the ship's boats,' Nelson instructed the Flag Captain. ‘Tell him to lay off her and save all the men we can.'

‘There is only one boat left, sir,' Berry told him. ‘The rest are riddled with shot.'

‘Then send that. And let us hope others do the same.'

But it was too late. The flames grew ever more fierce, racing up her tarred rigging and along her newly painted sides. By the light of the fire, Nathan could see almost the whole of the French line stretching off to the far side of the
bay. Six ships had struck their colours. He could even see the names at the stern.
Conquérant
,
Guerrier
,
Spartiate
… warlike names, inspiring names. Then the
Orient
blew up.

The explosion was so massive, they heard later that the French troops heard it in Rosetta, ten miles away. Nearer to hand it was like a thunderclap from Hell. It seemed to stun both fleets into silence. The firing stopped completely. Total darkness reigned. And in the darkness, from the sky, the debris fell. Masts and yards, charred cables and timbers, fragments of metal, and the burned and shattered bodies …

The battle resumed within minutes and went on, spasmodic ally, through the night. Nathan joined Lieutenant Galway in the launch and spent the hours till dawn helping to pluck men out of the water. They picked up seventy who had jumped before the explosion and were clinging to the wreckage. The total crew, they said, had been over a thousand.

Nathan was still in the launch at first light, a little after four. By then most of those they pulled from the water were dead. And they were surrounded by dead and dying ships. No fewer than seven had struck their colours and two more had drifted into the shoals. Shattered and dismasted, they reminded Nathan of the prison hulks he had seen as a child among the shoals and marshes of the Medway.

But the Medway had never seen such a sun. It rose from the sea like the God of Judgement on the last day of the Apocalypse: blazing, angry, red as blood, hurling its fiery rays like spears through the lingering smoke. And as if in defiance, the firing resumed.

The French ships at the rear of the line had scarcely seen action, and now they poured their fire into the British ships nearest to them – the battered
Alexander
and
Majestic
. It would have gone very badly for them, but as Nathan watched helplessly from the launch, two ships emerged from the smoky morning haze like vengeful angels, belching flame, and to his astonishment Nathan recog nised them as
Theseus
and
Goliath
, two of the first ships to have entered the battle, still miraculously under sail.