by Brian Cain
CHAPTER SIX
Time passed and indeed Fial began to become what legends are made of. He married his fairest in the land one year later and nine months after the wedding she bore him a son, William Ryan McGuire in April 1802. In 1804 he became captain of HMS Dryad, Captain Mansfield moving to Portsmouth for a desk commission with his family. Admiral Nelson had taken command of HMS Victory in May 1803; Napoleon was causing the British problems in Europe and the threat of defeat in the Napoleonic wars was ever present.
Fial was summoned to Portsmouth and asked to bring his family. The Dryad left Cork in July 1804 bound for Portsmouth. It was the last time Fial would sail in her. Upon settling his family in Portsmouth Fial received his orders direct from Admiral Nelson; he was to be commissioned to HMS Victory as first Lieutenant for Nelson. Nelson had studied the career of Fial and noted that his random tactics outside normal accepted practice had won many a conflict for the Dryad and he could navigate by the moon, stars and sun with uncanny accuracy, making the necessary calculations in his head. Nelson intended to initiate some unorthodox tactics himself, one being having a young man with uncanny seamanship and a flair for the use of unorthodox methods when under fire. He took his position on HMS Victory and became involved in the naval blockade of France. At the age of twenty Fial stood on the quarterdeck of the most powerful British warship afloat.
On the twenty-first of October 1805 Nelson’s fleet was off the coast of Cadiz in south western Spain. His fleet of 27 ships of the line had been specially painted in a chequered pattern round the gunports in black and yellow to make them easily distinguishable from the enemy in the mêlée.
Nelson instructed his captains, over two dinners aboard the Victory, on his plan for the approaching battle. The order of sailing, in which the fleet was arranged when the enemy was first sighted, was to be the order of ensuing battle, so that no time would be wasted in forming a precise line, the ship of the line was to be abandoned. The attack was to be made in two bodies. One led by his second in command, Collingwood, was to throw itself on the rear of the enemy, while the other, led by Nelson, was to take care of the centre and vanguard. In preparation for the battle, this tactic was well outside the normal, single line approach that made signaling via flags easy between ships.
The combined French and Spanish fleet had 33 ships and was under the command of Admiral Villeneuve who was under threat of losing his command due to political pressures. He sailed from Cadiz on the 21st October heading for the Mediterranean but turned north towards the British fleet starting the Battle of Trafalgar. At 11.45 am the two fleets were in view of each other and the famous flag signal was given by Nelson from the Victory: ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY.
The Franco-Spanish fleet had formed a long curve like a half moon and were in disarray due mainly to poor wind conditions. The British, attacking in two lines perpendicular to the foe, broke through the centre of the opposition's lines but with painstaking progress also due to bad wind conditions. Victory broke the line between the French Bucentaure and Redoutable delivering destructive broadsides and breaking the opposition fleet into several groups.
At 1.45 pm a musket bullet fired from the mizzen top of the Redoutable struck Nelson in the left shoulder, passed through his spine at the sixth and seventh thoracic vertebrae, and lodged two inches below his right scapula in the muscles of his back. Nelson exclaimed, "They finally succeeded – I am dead." He was carried below decks.
The battle was the most decisive British naval victory of the war. Twenty-seven British ships of the line led by Nelson aboard the Victory defeated thirty-three French and Spanish ships of the line under French Admiral Villeneuve off the south-west coast of Spain, just west of Cape Trafalgar. The Franco-Spanish fleet lost twenty-two ships, without a single British vessel being lost. Nelson’s unorthodox approach yielded decisive results.
Cannon fire had caused devastation on the quarterdeck of the Victory and made her susceptible to attack and the infantry corps of the French Redoutable attempted to board the Victory. Fial gallantly held them off until the 98 gun HMS Temeraire delivered a devastating broadside to Redoutable from which she never recovered. Fial had been involved in the battle that turned the table on the Napoleonic Wars and the French and Spanish navy never recovered. Fial returned to Portsmouth after a long absence at the blockade directly after the Battle of Trafalgar to devastating news; his wife Angelina had contracted tuberculosis and had passed away.