1805

by Richard Woodman

  ‘God’s bones,’ he muttered to himself, aware that this was a day the like of which he hoped he would never see again. The shattered hulls of ships lay all around, British, French and Spanish. Some still bore their own colours; none that he would see bore the British colours underneath the Spanish or French, although he could distinguish several British prizes. Masts and yards, sails and great heaps of rigging lay over their sides and trailed in the oily water while the whole mass rolled and ground together on the swell that rolled impassively from the west.

  ‘Wind,’ he muttered, ‘there will be a wind soon,’ and the thought sent him below, in search of his few belongings among the shambles.

  He found he could retrieve only his journal, coat, hat and glass. He and one of Atcherley’s marines brought up the body of Gillespy. Drinkwater wrapped the body in his own cloak and found a couple of shot left in the upper deck garlands. They bound the boy about with loose line and lifted the sad little bundle onto the rail. Had Drinkwater not agreed to Gillespy accompanying him on the Bucentaure he would be alive now, listening in Cadiz to the distant thunder of the guns in company with Frey and Quilhampton. The marine took off his shako and Drinkwater recited the familiar words of the Anglican prayer of committal. Then they rolled Gillespy into the water.

  ‘He is in good company,’ he murmured to himself, but his voice was drowned in a vast explosion. To the north the ship that had taken fire, the French Achille, blew apart as the fire reached her magazine. The blast rolled over the sea and hammered their already wounded ear-drums, bringing with it the first hint of a freshening breeze.

  Captain Atcherley’s prize crew consisted of less than half a dozen men, besides himself. They had locked the private cabins of Villeneuve and his senior officers, asked for and obtained the parole of those remaining officers capable of posing a threat, and locked the magazines and spirit rooms. Following Drinkwater’s advice, some food was found and served out to all, irrespective of nationality. As the battle began to die out around them, Masson came on deck. His clothes were completely soaked in blood, his pale face smudged with gore and drawn with exhaustion.

  ‘Did you notice,’ he said to Drinkwater, ‘how the raking fire mostly took off men’s heads? It is curious, is it not, Captain?’

  Drinkwater looked at him, seeing the results of terrible strain. Masson sniffed and said, ‘Thank you for your assistance.’

  ‘It was nothing. I could not stand idle.’ Drinkwater paused, not wishing to seem to patronise defeated men. ‘They were brave men,’ he said simply.

  Masson nodded. ‘That is their only epitaph.’ The surgeon slumped down between two guns and within a minute had fallen fast asleep.

  Atcherley joined Drinkwater on the poop, watching the last of the fighting.

  ‘My God, they have made a mess of us, by heaven!’ exclaimed Atcherley when he saw the damage to the masts of the British ships. ‘If the wind gets up we’ll be caught on a dead lee shore.’

  ‘I believe it will get up, Captain Atcherley, and we would do well to take some precautions.’ Drinkwater was staring through his glass.

  ‘Is that Victory? She is a wreck, look . . .’ He handed the glass to Atcherley.

  ‘Yes . . . and Collingwood’s flag is down from the Royal Sovereign’s masthead . . .’

  The two men looked at one another. There was little left of Royal Sovereign’s masts, but they had seen Collingwood’s flag there ten minutes ago, atop the stump of the foremast with a British ensign hoisted to the broken stump of the main. Had Collingwood been killed? And then they saw the blue square go up to the masthead of the Euryalus.

  ‘He has shifted his flag to the frigate,’ said Atcherley betraying a sense of relief.

  ‘But why?’ asked Drinkwater. ‘Surely Nelson would not permit that?’

  But further conjecture was distracted by a movement to the south-east. They could see ships making sail, running clear of the pall of smoke. Drinkwater trained his glass. He knew the leading vessel; it was Gravina’s flagship.

  ‘God’s bones!’ Drinkwater watched as the Principe de Asturias led some ten or eleven ships out of the Allied line, making all possible sail in the direction of Cadiz. The Spanish grandee had finally deserted his chief, Drinkwater thought, not knowing that Gravina lay below with a shattered arm, nor that his second, Rear-Admiral Magon, galled by a dozen musket balls, had finally been cut in two by a round shot. At the time it seemed like the final betrayal of Villeneuve.

  Under their stern passed a British launch, commanded by a master’s mate and engaged in carrying prize crews about the shattered remnants of the Combined Fleet. Atcherley stared at her as she made her way amongst the floating wreckage of the great ships of three nations that lay wallowing upon the heaving sea.

  ‘Good God, sir, I believe those fellows to be crying!’

  Drinkwater levelled his glass on the straining oarsmen. There could be no mistake. He could see awful grimaces upon the faces of several men, and streaked patches where tears had washed the powder soot from their cheeks. ‘Good God!’

  ‘Boat ’hoy!’ Atcherley hailed.

  The elderly master’s mate called his men to stop pulling and looked up at the two officers standing under the British ensign hoisted over the French.

  ‘What ship’s that?’

  ‘The French admiral, Bucentaure,’ called Atcherley, proudly adding, ‘prize to the Conqueror. What is the matter with your men?’

  ‘Matter? Have ye not heard the news?’

  ‘News? What news beyond that of victory?’

  ‘Victory? Ha!’ The mate spat over the side. ‘Why, Nelson’s dead . . . d’you hear? Nelson’s dead . . .’

  The wind began to rise at sunset when Conqueror beat up to reclaim her prize, ranging to weather of her. Pellew sent a boat with a lieutenant and more men to augment Atcherley’s pathetic prize crew. Drinkwater scrambled up onto Bucentaure’s rail and hailed Pellew.

  ‘Have the kindness, sir, to report Captain Drinkwater as having rejoined the fleet. I was taken off Tarifa and held a prisoner aboard this ship!’

  ‘Ah!’ cried Pellew waving his hat in acknowledgement. ‘We wondered where you had got to, Drinkwater. Stockham won’t be complaining! He drove The Prince of the Asturias off the Revenge! We’ve seventeen prizes but lost Lord Nelson!’

  ‘I heard. A bad day for England!’

  ‘Indeed. Will you look after Bucentaure then? ’tis coming on to blow!’

  ‘She is much damaged but we shall do our best!’

  ‘Splendid. I shall take you in tow!’ Pellew waved his hat and jumped down onto his own deck. His lieutenant, Richard Spear, touched his hat to Drinkwater.

  ‘I have orders to receive a line, sir.’

  ‘Carry on, sir, and be quick about it . . . Who the devil is Stockham, d’you know Mr Atcherley?’

  ‘John Stockham, sir? Yes, he’s first luff of the Thunderer. He’ll get his step in rank for this day’s work.’

  ‘I expect so,’ said Drinkwater flatly, moving towards the compass in order to determine their position. In the last light of day Cape Trafalgar was a dark smudge on the eastward horizon to leeward.

  Astern of the Conqueror the Bucentaure dragged and snubbed at the hemp cable. The wind backed round to south-south-west and increased to gale force by midnight. British and French alike laboured for two hours to haul an undamaged cable out of the hold and forward, onto an anchor. In the blackness of the howling night they were briefly aware of other ships; of the soaring arcs of rockets signalling distress; of the proximity of wounded leviathans in a similar plight to themselves. But many of these wallowed helplessly untowed, their mastless hulks rolling in the troughs of the seas which quickly built up to roll the broken ships closer to the shallows off the cape. From Euryalus Collingwood had thrown out the night signal to wear. Those ships which were able complied, but most simply lay a-hull, broached to and waiting for the dawn.

  Short of sleep and starved of adequate food, Drinkwater nevertheless spent the n
ight on deck, directing the labours of his strange crew in their efforts to save the Bucentaure from the violence of the gale. Atcherley and Spear deferred to him naturally; the French were familiar with him and he had earned their respect, if not their trust, from his exertions at the side of Masson during the battle. While Conqueror inched them to windward, away from the shoals off Cape Trafalgar, they cut away the rigging and wreckage of Bucentaure’s masts. But her battered hull continued to ship water which drained to her bilges, sinking her deeper and deeper into the water. Of her huge crew and the many soldiers on board – something not far short of eight hundred men – scarcely ten score were on their feet at the end of the action. Many of these fell exhausted at the pumps.

  Daylight revealed a fearful sight. Ahead of them, her reefed topsails straining under the continued violence of the gale that had now become a storm, Pellew’s ship tugged and strained at the tow-rope, jerking it tight until the water was squeezed out of the lay of the rope. Bucentaure would move forward and the rope would dip into a wave, then come tight again as she dragged back, jerking the stern of Conqueror and making her difficult to handle. But by comparison they were fortunate. There were other ships in tow, British and Allied, all struggling to survive the smashing grey seas as they rolled eastwards, streaked white with spume and driving them inexorably to leeward. Already the unfortunate were amongst the shoals and shallows of the coast.

  All day they were witness to this tragedy as men who had escaped the fire of British cannon were dashed to their deaths on the rocks and beaches of the Spanish coast. As darkness came on again the wind began to veer, allowing Pellew to make a more southerly course. But Bucentaure’s people were becoming increasingly feeble and their efforts to keep the water from pouring into her largely failed. Spirits rose, however, on the morning of the 23rd, for the wind dropped and the sky cleared a little as it veered into the north-west. Drinkwater was below eating a mess of what passed for porridge when Spear burst in.

  ‘Sir! There are enemy ships under way. They seem to be making some sort of an effort to retake prizes!’

  Drinkwater followed the worried officer on deck and trained his glass to the north-east. He could see the blue-green line of the coast and the pale smudge that was Cadiz.

  ‘There, sir!’

  ‘I have them.’ He counted the topsails: ‘Four line-of-battle ships, five frigates and two brigs!’

  Had Gravina remembered his obligation to Villeneuve, Drinkwater wondered? But there were more pressing considerations.

  ‘Get forrard, Mr Spear, and signal Conqueror that the enemy is in sight!’

  Drinkwater spent the next two hours in considerable anxiety. The strange ships were coming up fast, all apparently undamaged in the battle. He recognised the French Neptune and the Spanish Rayo.

  Spear came scrambling aft with the news that Pellew had seen the approaching enemy and intended casting loose the tow. There was nothing Drinkwater could do except watch Conqueror make sail and stand to windward, to join the nine other British warships able to manoeuvre and work themselves between the enemy and the majority of the prizes.

  Bucentaure began to roll and wallow to leeward, continuing to ship water. On deck Drinkwater watched the approach of the enemy, the leading ship with a commodore’s broad pendant at her masthead. It was not Gravina but one of the more enterprising of the escaped French captains who was leading this bold sortie. The leading ship was a French eighty, and she bore down on Bucentaure as the stricken vessel drifted away from the protection of the ten British line-of-battle ships. As she luffed to windward of them they read her name: Indomptable.

  The appearance of the Franco–Spanish squadron revived the crew of the Bucentaure. One of her lieutenants requested that Drinkwater released them from their parole and he had little alternative but to agree. A few moments later, boats from Indomptable were alongside and the Bucentaure’s lieutenant were representing the impossibility of saving the former French flagship. ‘Elle est finie,’ Drinkwater heard him say, and they began to take out of the Bucentaure all her crew, including the wounded. For an hour and a half the boats of the Indomptable ferried men from the Bucentaure with great difficulty. The sea was still running high and damage was done to the boats and to their human cargo. Drinkwater summoned Atcherley and Spear.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said, ‘I believe the French to be abandoning the ship. If we remain we have still an anchor and cable. We might yet keep her a prize. It is only a slender chance, but I do not wish to be retaken prisoner just yet.’

  The two officers nodded agreement. ‘volunteers only, then,’ added Drinkwater as the French lieutenant approached.

  ‘It is now you come to boats, Capitaine.’

  ‘Non, mon ami. We stay, perhaps we save the ship.’

  The lieutenant appeared to consider this for some moments and then shrugged.

  ‘Ver’ well. I too will stay.’

  So a handful of men remained aboard the Bucentaure as the Allied squadron made sail, refusing battle with the ten British ships. Drinkwater watched them hauling off their retaken ships, the Spanish Neptuno and the great black bulk of the Santa Ana, the latter towed by a brig, scraps of sails and the Spanish ensign re-hoisted on what remained of her masts. Hardly had Indomptable taken in her boats than the wind backed suddenly and increased with tremendous strength from the west-south-west. Immediately Bucentaure’s leeway increased and as the afternoon wore on the pale smudge of Cadiz grew swiftly larger and more distinct. They could see details: the towers of the partly rebuilt cathedral, the belfry of the Carmelite convent, the lighthouse at San Sebastian and, along the great bight of Cadiz Bay from beyond Rota in the north to the Castle of St Peter to the southward, the wrecked hulks of the Combined Fleet being pounded to matchwood in the breakers.

  As they drove inshore, Drinkwater had soundings taken, and at about three in the afternoon he had the anchor let go in a last attempt to save the ship. The fluke bit and Bucentaure snubbed round at the extremity of the cable to pitch head to sea as the wind blew again with storm force. They could see the British ships in the offing and around them some of the vessels that had sallied from Cadiz that morning. They had run for the shelter of the harbour as the wind began to blow, but several had not made it and had been forced to anchor like themselves.

  Bucentaure’s anchor held for an hour before the cable parted. Drinkwater called all her people on deck and they stood helpessly in the waist as the great ship drove again to leeward, beam on to the sea, rolling heavily as ton after ton of water poured on board. The rocks of Cape San Sebastian loomed towards them.

  ‘Call all your men together, Mr Spear,’ Drinkwater said quietly as the Bucentaure rose on the back of a huge wave. The heavy swell, enlarged by the violence of the storm, increased its height as its forward momentum was sapped by the rising sea-bed. Its lower layers were slowed and its upper surface tore onwards, rolling and toppling with its own instability, bearing the huge bulk of the Bucentaure upon its collapsing back.

  In a roar of white water, as the spray whipped across her canting deck, the ship struck, her whole hull juddering with the impact. Water foamed all about her, thundering and tearing over the reef beyond the Bucentaure. Then it was receding, pouring off the exposed rocks as the trough sucked out and the stricken battleship lolled over. Suddenly she began to lift again as the next breaker took her, a white-flecked avalanche of water that rose above her splintered rail.

  ‘Hold on!’ shouted Drinkwater, and the urgency of the cry communicated itself to British and French alike. Then it broke over them, intensely cold, driving the breath from their bodies and tearing them from their handholds. Drinkwater felt the pain in his shoulder muscles as the cold and the strain attacked them. He clung to an eyebolt, holding his breath as the red lights danced before his eyes and his lungs forced him to inhale. He gasped, swallowing water, and then he was in air again and, unbelievably, Bucentaure was moving beneath them. He struggled upright and stared about him. Not fifty yards away the littl
e bluff of Cape San Sebastian rushed past. Beneath its lighthouse crowds of people watched the death throes of the ship. Bucentaure had torn free, carried over the reef at a tangent to the little peninsula of the cape. He looked about the deck. There were less men than there had been. God alone knew how many had been swept into the sea by that monstrous wave.

  For twenty minutes the ship drifted to leeward, into slightly calmer water. But every moment she sank lower and, half an hour later, had stuck fast upon the Puercas Reef. Drinkwater looked around him, knowing the long travail was over at last. In the dusk, boats were approaching from a French frigate anchored in the Grande Rade with the remnants of Gravina’s escaped detachment. He turned to Spear and Atcherley. They were both shivering from cold and wet.

  ‘Well, gentlemen, it seems we are not to perish, although we have lost your prize.’

  Atcherley nodded. ‘In the circumstances, sir, it is enough.’ The marine officer looked at the closing boats with resignation.

  ‘I suppose we must be made prisoners now,’ said Spear dejectedly.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so,’ replied Drinkwater shortly, aware of the dreadful ache in his right shoulder and that beneath his feet Bucentaure was going to pieces.

  Chapter 23

  November–December 1805

  Gibraltar

  ‘Were you received by the Governor-General at Cadiz, Captain?’ asked Vice-Admiral Collingwood, leaning from his chair to pat the head of a small terrier by his side.

  ‘The Marquis of Solana granted me several interviews, sir, and treated all the British prize crews with the utmost consideration.’

  Collingwood nodded. ‘I am very pleased to hear it.’ Collingwood’s broad Northumbrian accent struck a homely note to Drinkwater’s ears after his captivity.