Nelson told us to train our telescopes on the enemy fleet and find their flagship. This was the ship the Victory would engage. I strained to my full height to peer through my telescope towards these warships, whose cannons were now pouring out a constant barrage of flame and smoke. It was an unreal affair and I felt terribly exposed.
Shot continued to fall around us. Our good fortune could not last. Five hunded yards from the enemy we heard a whistle then a rip above our heads, and I looked up to see a hole in the main topgallant sail. The enemy’s first hit. Other sails were hit, and our stately pace, barely more than walking speed, slowed further. This was the time we were most vulnerable to enemy attack and could not fight back. Our guns, I had heard the shouted order, had been double shotted – loaded with two cannon balls. This was intended to make our first broadside more lethal, but it meant we would not open fire until we were right on top of our enemy.
With those first enemy hits, the order was given for the gun crews to lie flat on the deck. This would reduce the casualties that might be caused by raking fire. Unless that is, a cannon ball came in at exactly deck height. Then, scores of men would be mangled where they lay. ‘Stand tall on the poop deck, Witchall,’ said Pasco, hauling me to my feet before anyone else noticed my actions. I stammered my apologies and felt foolish. Officers, from midshipmen to admirals, were not allowed to lie on the deck.
We inched towards the enemy line. These final minutes before we were among them seemed like an eternity. We could even see the enemy fire coming towards us, especially the tumbling chain shot or bar shot. The air seemed so full of it I wondered why more was not hitting our ship.
It was that moment Captain Hardy raised his concerns to Lord Nelson about the medals on his coat. Nelson shrugged off his suggestion, as everyone knew he would. ‘It’s too late now to be shifting a coat,’ I heard him say.
A ghastly splintering sound rent the air above our heads. Slivers of wood rained down from the mizzen topmast. Then came an awful creak and the topmast tumbled down, held precariously above our heads by the ropes that supported it.
I felt some outrage at this hit. How dare they damage our lovely ship and the rigging we had so carefully maintained. For all their brooding menace, warships were delicate, fragile things, which needed constant attention and care to keep them at their best. But they weren’t as delicate as human flesh and bone. The next shot to hit our ship whistled over the fo’c’sle, through the shrouds and ratlines and hammock nets, and destroyed our wheel and the two quartermasters steering the ship. The men were both terribly maimed and their bodies were flung over the rail. All that remained was a pile of splinters and two glistening pools of blood. Even before the steersmen had gone overboard, Hardy called for forty men to be sent to the stern to operate the ropes of the tiller by hand.
I saw Hardy and Mr Scott walking on the quarterdeck, talking as if they were out on a Sunday stroll. A few seconds later a horrible tearing of the air made me look again. Scott had been sliced in two by shot, his severed trunk pumping gore all over the deck. Hardy and Nelson had been close enough to have their breeches and stockings splashed with blood. Scott, too, went over the side.
Horror piled upon horror. A squad of eight marines close to us on the poop deck were killed by a single round of double-headed shot, which swept through them. Nothing in the world could stop me being the next gory casualty. Nelson saw this ghastly spectacle and swiftly ordered the other marines on the poop to take cover. But he and the rest of us stayed in full view of the enemy.
At each atrocity I felt the bile rise in my throat and I had trouble swallowing. I struggled to keep my upright bearing. I kept telling myself I had been in action before and should be used to such sights. Pasco sensed my fear, but did not chide me. ‘Hold fast, Witchall, hold fast,’ was all he said.
A cannon ball ripped through the hammock netting, throwing four or five hammocks into the air before destroying one of our boats and sending showers of splinters in all directions. Hardy and Nelson were close to that one, and I noticed Hardy look down at his shoe. I wondered if he had been wounded, but Nelson said something quietly to him and the two strolled on, seemingly without a care in the world.
This was the moment Pasco produced a small paper bag. ‘Care for a grape, Witchall,’ he said. ‘Supply ship brought them fresh from Gibraltar. They need eating before they start to go mouldy.’
The whole situation was so absurd I had to laugh. ‘Thank you, sir,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I can’t make my own contribution to this picnic. Still, at least it hasn’t started to rain on us.’
‘Only splinters and shot,’ said Pasco. ‘Nothing too drastic.’
I never understood this upper-class habit of behaving in combat as if one were standing in a Mayfair drawing room making polite conversation. I had seen the Spanish officers on La Flora do it, shortly before their ship had been blown to fragments. Perhaps Pasco was trying to calm his young charge, perhaps he wanted me to report that he had died as gallantly as he had lived.
We were close enough to see the men on the decks of the enemy ships. How awfully slowly we advanced towards them, with our sails full of holes. The enemy habit of aiming most of their shot at our sails and rigging rather than our hull had not changed.
Although we could hardly hear it above the thunder of the enemy guns, the screaming of the wounded was the only noise aboard the Victory. The men waited in silence, still as statues, coiled and ready, for their order to fire.
Pasco’s little game with the grapes had cheered me, and I was able to watch Nelson at his most resourceful. As we closed in, one of the midshipmen spotted the Bucentaure – which we knew was the flagship of Admiral Villeneuve, the commander of the Combined Fleet. Rather than head straight for it, Nelson ordered the Victory to steer forward to the front of the enemy line. Now we were broadside to broadside, passing by the Santisima Trinidad and presenting the whole length of our larboard side as a target for the enemy gunners. And still we did not fire. We were deluged with shot – the dull crack of muskets now adding to the cannon balls that crashed around us.
All at once, Nelson commanded us to turn sharp to larboard and the order was shouted down to the men on the tiller. We cut through the enemy line so close to the Bucentaure that a sailor might have climbed on to our bowsprit and dropped down on her stern. Immediately to our starboard side was another 74, which Pasco informed me was called the Redoutable. They were both French.
As we wedged our mighty ship between these two men-o’-war, the order to fire was finally given. It was shamefully exciting to be sailing across the stern of a great warship, and seeing the destruction of her two tiers of beautifully carved cabin windows. It was an act of vandalism which filled me with unholy glee. As we slowly passed, our three gun decks began to discharge their cannons. As the crews in the very bow of the Victory fired, they were joined by our fo’c’sle carronade. This stubby cannon had a maw wide enough to disgorge a 68lb ball and a keg of five hundred musket balls into the Bucentaure with terrifying violence. From this shot alone arose a vast cloud of dust and debris which started us coughing and settled a grey dust on the shoulders of all on the Victory’s weather deck.
After the first destructive blow, our ship continued to shake from topmast to keel as the gun crews fired through the dust and smoke that billowed from the Bucentaure’s broken stern. The poor devils inside must have been enduring the torments of hell. Perhaps it took two minutes to sail by, and in that time we destroyed Admiral Villeneuve’s flagship.
I saw cannon fire flash to the starboard side of our bow and Victory began to shake and splinters fly. Our foremast and bowsprit withered under the fire, and yards crashed to the deck. Judging by the way the ship trembled and quivered under my feet, I guessed that most of this shot was hitting the bow. I feared for Robert down below decks.
This barrage was the worst we had sustained yet and as the Victory sailed on I could see the mangled remains of men thrown overboard, so many that the sea turned red as we pa
ssed.
At that moment Hardy ordered the Victory hard to starboard, and as we turned we fired another broadside towards the bow of the Redoutable. But rather than returning fire I was surprised to see the French ship closing most of its gun ports.
Hardy ordered the Victory turn again, ready to deliver another broadside. As we did so, we passed so close to the Redoutable that our studding sails fouled her topsails. All at once we were caught in a hideous embrace.
CHAPTER 22
Shot Through
We had taken on two men-o’-war with the rest of our squadron still behind us. Now we were entangled, rigging to rigging, yard to yard, with one. And I was afraid that the ships at the front of the enemy line would turn around to attack us. We might be a huge, powerful warship, but if we were attacked by several ships at once, we would soon be reduced to wooden splinters and fragments of flesh and bone.
But most of the ships that had been ahead of the Bucentaure and Redoutable sailed on, with no intention of turning around to aid their fellows. Pasco noticed too. ‘Carry on, carry on, fellows,’ he said, waving them away.
I heard the sound of grappling hooks being thrown up from the Redoutable, which, being a smaller vessel, was lower than us in the water.
‘What audacity these Frogs have! Taking on the Victory!’ Pasco was shocked at their gall. Our marines gathered on the starboard rail to fire down on the deck of the Redoutable. Any of their men who had had the raw courage to begin climbing the boarding ropes must have been cut down. Their assault was quickly thwarted.
A hail of fire thudded down on our deck. The attack from the Redoutable was coming in two directions. On her fighting tops – the platforms set halfway up the masts – were squads of marksmen hidden among the canvas and obscured by swirling smoke.
We stood at our station, Pasco and I, awaiting any signal order from Nelson or Hardy. With so little to do, other than munch grapes, there was nothing to take my mind off the hideous circumstances we were in. I had no appetite for Pasco’s grapes. I was so frightened I could barely swallow. But he chided me when I refused. ‘Keep your strength up, Witchall. We shan’t have time for dinner today.’
‘When I’ve been in action before,’ I said to Pasco, ‘I’ve always been very busy. Do you find it difficult, sir, just standing here as an observer?’ I thought perhaps he would barely be able to hear me over the noise of the guns, but he nodded. Then, as we stood surveying the terrifying scenes before us, he shouted, ‘Observe the Captain and the Admiral. Look how bravely they stand, right there in the middle of the quarterdeck, in plain sight of the enemy. They are showing magnificent courage.’
Seeing the two of them together – one tall and broad, the other short and slight – I thought what an odd couple they made. I also noted, by the still glistening blood that stained the deck, that this was the exact spot where Mr Scott had been torn in two by a cannon ball. That is fate, to be in battle and in one spot at exactly the wrong time.
If I moved twelve inches to my right in the next second, might I miss a musket ball or might I walk right into its path? If I stood still, might a cannon ball come and take the head from my shoulders? Was this the last thing I would ever think …?
Terror bloomed inside me, like a fire catching in a pile of papers. I dragged my thoughts away and looked down at the Admiral and the Captain. At that very moment I saw Lord Nelson fall to his knees in a single violent motion. Hardy turned to see what had happened, just as Nelson placed a hand on the deck to support himself. The strength left his arm at once and he fell awkwardly, soiling his jacket in the gore on the deck.
Hardy lifted him tenderly by the shoulder. Pasco shouted, ‘Go at once to the Admiral, and make yourself useful.’
I was at his side in an instant, and heard the Admiral say, ‘They have done for me at last.’ His face had drained of colour, and I could see by his twisted posture that he was in great pain.
‘I hope not,’ said Hardy uncertainly.
‘Yes, my backbone is shot through.’ I knew then that the Admiral was a dead man. I felt a great stab of pity as I thought of the suffering he would go through before his spirit finally left him.
Hardy turned to a marine sergeant and two other seamen and said, ‘Take his Lordship below, we must see if Mr Beatty can save him.’
Nelson shook his head. I marvelled at the courage he was showing, and the composure with which he faced his end. ‘The feeling is leaving my legs, Hardy. And I feel a gush of blood in my chest.’
I looked at all his medals still glittering there, but could see no wound. But there was a small hole in the top of his shoulder. The shot must have come from one of the Redoutable’s fighting tops, and sliced through his body.
‘Hurry,’ said Hardy, and they picked him up. ‘Witchall, go with them. Render any necessary assistance.’ Nelson grimaced with pain as they lifted him, but he still had the presence of mind to tell us, ‘Cover my face and jacket with a handkerchief. I have one in my pocket. I do not want the people to see me. It may distract them from their duty.’
So we did. Hardy produced a large cloth from Nelson’s pocket and I did my best to hold it in place as we clumsily manoeuvred him down the companionways into the bowels of the Victory. Even at this early stage of the battle they were slippery with blood, as many a wounded man had made this journey before us. Below the weather deck I noticed how hot the gun decks were, and began to cough in the acrid smoke. Nelson’s fear of being noticed by his men was unfounded. No one took so much as a second glance at us.
The cockpit of the orlop deck, where the surgeon William Beatty was performing his agonising duty, was like a scene from some lower circle of hell. One man, who was having his leg removed on the table, thrashed about like a newly caught fish. Three of Beatty’s assistants struggled to hold him down. Even with the wooden bit between his clenched teeth he still made the most distressing noise. Other men, awaiting attention and laid along the strakes, were screaming or cursing horribly. One sailor, his arm already gone and dressed with tar to stop it bleeding, was singing ‘Heart of Oak’ at the top of his voice, to drive the pain from his mind.
Beatty was crouched close by, examining a marine whom he quickly decided was dead. Before we could call him, wounded men recognised the Admiral, and started to shout out, ‘Mr Beatty. Lord Nelson is here. Mr Beatty. The Admiral is wounded.’
Beatty came at once, and had us carry Nelson away from the cockpit to a quieter, less crowded area close to our midshipmen’s berth. It was so dark here, we almost dropped him, as we stumbled on debris underfoot. We laid him down against the strakes, and Beatty set about his work. Nelson was already becoming confused, and asked who he was. ‘Ah, Beatty,’ he said. ‘You can do nothing for me. I have but a short time to live; my back is shot through.’
My task over, I left the safety of the orlop deck to return to the carnage of the poop deck. I looked over to the Admiral and knew I would not see him alive again.
Climbing the companionways up to the weather deck my legs felt like lead, as they had on that dreadful spring morning outside Copenhagen four years ago when I was brought from the belly of HMS Elephant to be hanged.
On the gun decks I could see we were jammed up against the hull of the Redoutable, and in many places the crews had not room to run out their guns. On the lower deck they fired up, through the hull, and on the upper deck, they fired down. Whatever ghastly slaughter was taking place inside the Victory, it would be nothing compared to the bloodshed on the Redoutable. Being so close to the enemy carried its own special risks. I saw men on our gun decks throwing water through the gun ports, attempting to put out fires they had started inside the hull of the enemy ship. If the Redoutable was set ablaze, we could catch fire too.
On all the gun decks there were cannons overturned and destroyed on their carriages. These guns were the victims of what the men called ‘a slaughtering one’ – an enemy shot that had come in straight through a port and wiped out an entire gun crew.
I picked my way th
rough the bodies and over to the companionway up to the upper gun deck. Here I stood aside for another wounded man being carried down. It was Pasco. He was bleeding badly along his right side and the sleeve of his right arm was soaked in blood. ‘Grapeshot,’ he said. ‘Peppered with the stuff.’
‘Can I help?’ I asked weakly. I did not want to leave him.
‘Back to the poop deck, Witchall,’ he said, tugging on to my sleeve. ‘Hold fast. Do your duty. Good thing you weren’t there. We would both have caught it.’
It was almost a relief to emerge from the companionway into the open air, for the noise was so great by the guns that men could only communicate by making signs to each other. I could see that the poop deck and quarterdeck were almost deserted. They had become the most dangerous place on the ship.
As if to confirm my fears, there on the quarterdeck I saw the most hideous sight. One of our gunners was going about his duty when a shot caught his hand and ripped it from his wrist. Horror-struck, he held the bleeding stump up to look at it and a second later a cannon ball caught him in the chest and took his head clean from his shoulders. Two marines ran from cover, gathered what was left of him and cast him overboard.
To our larboard I could see another vessel, where blood was running from the scuppers and down the top-sides. The sight of it nearly made me vomit, and I had to steady myself on the ship’s rail.
By now, the things I was seeing no longer seemed real. The battle was turning into a strange nightmare. On I went, sleepwalking to my fate, whatever that would be.
CHAPTER 23
Waiting for Death
Shot thudded down from above, close to my feet. I danced clumsily out of the way, then Captain Hardy emerged from the cover by the shattered ship’s wheel and pulled me beneath. ‘Stay here for now, Witchall. There’s no point making signals in this fug.’
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