Deeds that Won the Empire Part 16

"They have done for me at last, Hardy," said Nelson; "my backbone is shot through." A musket bullet from the _Redoutable's_ mizzen-top--only fifteen yards distant--had pa.s.sed through the forepart of the epaulette, smashed a path through the left shoulder, and lodged in the spine. The evidence seems to make it clear that it was a chance shot that wrought the fatal mischief. Hardy had twice the bulk of Nelson's insignificant figure, and wore a more striking uniform, and would certainly have attracted the aim of a marksman in preference to Nelson.

Few stories are more pathetic or more familiar than that of Nelson's last moments. As they carried the dying hero across the blood-splashed decks, and down the ladders into the c.o.c.k-pit, he drew a handkerchief over his own face and over the stars on his breast, lest the knowledge that he was struck down should discourage his crew. He was stripped, his wound probed, and it was at once known to be mortal. Nelson suffered greatly; he was consumed with thirst, had to be fanned with sheets of paper; and he kept constantly pushing away the sheet, the sole covering over him, saying, "Fan, fan," or "Drink, drink," and one attendant was constantly employed in drawing the sheet over his thin limbs and emaciated body. Presently Hardy, s.n.a.t.c.hing a moment from the fight raging on the deck, came to his side, and the two comrades clasped hands. "Well, Hardy, how goes the battle?" Nelson asked. He was told that twelve or fourteen of the enemy's ships had struck.

"That is well," said Nelson, "but I had bargained for twenty." Then his seaman's brain forecasting the change of weather, and picturing the battered ships with their prizes on a lee sh.o.r.e, he exclaimed emphatically, "Anchor! Hardy, anchor!" Hardy hinted that Collingwood would take charge of affairs. "Not while I live, I hope, Hardy," said the dying chief, trying to raise himself on his bed. "No! do you anchor, Hardy."

Many of Nelson's expressions, recorded by his doctor, Beatty, are strangely touching. "I am a dead man, Hardy," he said, "I am going fast. It will all be over with me soon." "O _Victory_, _Victory_," he said, as the great ship shook to the roar of her own guns, "how you distract my poor brain!" "How dear is life to all men!" he said, after a pause. He begged that "his carca.s.s might be sent to England, and not thrown overboard." So in the dim c.o.c.k-pit, with the roar of the great battle--bellow of gun, and shout of cheering crews--filling all the s.p.a.ce about him, and his last thoughts yet busy for his country, the soul of the greatest British seaman pa.s.sed away. "Kiss me, Hardy," was one of his last sentences. His last intelligible sentence was, "I have done my duty; I praise G.o.d for it."

It may interest many to read the prayer which Nelson wrote--the last record, but one, he made in his diary--and written as the final act of preparation for Trafalgar: "May the great G.o.d, whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it; and may humanity after victory be the predominant feature in the British fleet.

For myself individually, I commit my life to Him that made me, and may His blessing alight on my endeavours for serving my country faithfully.

To Him I resign myself, and the just cause which is entrusted to me to defend. Amen, Amen, Amen."

Nelson's plan allowed his captains a large discretion in the choice of their antagonists. Each British ship had to follow the wake of her leader till she reached the enemy's line, then her captain was free to choose his own foe--which, naturally, was the biggest Frenchman or Spaniard in sight. And the huge _Santissima Trinidad_, of course, attracted the eager attention of the ships that immediately followed the _Victory_. The Spaniard carried 140 guns, and in that swaying continent of fighting ships, towered like a giant amongst dwarfs. The _Neptune_, the _Leviathan_, and the _Conqueror_, in turn, hung on the quarter or broadside of the gigantic Spaniard, scourged it with fire, and then drifted off to engage in a fiery wrestle with some other antagonist. By half-past two the Spanish four-decker was a mastless wreck. The _Neptune_ at that moment was hanging on her bow, the _Conqueror_ on her quarter. "This tremendous fabric," says an account written by an officer on board the Conqueror, "gave a deep roll, with a swell to leeward, then back to windward, and on her return every mast went by the board, leaving her an unmanageable hulk on the water. Her immense topsails had every reef out, her royals were sheeted home but lowered, and the falling of this majestic ma.s.s of spars, sails, and rigging plunging into the water at the muzzles of our guns, was one of the most magnificent sights I ever beheld." Directly after this a Spaniard waved an English union over the lee gangway of the _Santissima Trinidad_ in token of surrender; whereupon the _Conqueror_, scorning to waste time in taking possession of even a four-decker that had no longer any fight in it, pushed off in search of a new foe; while the _Neptune's_ crew proceeded to shift the tattered topsails of their ship for new ones, with as much coolness as though in a friendly port.

The _Africa_, sixty-four, less than half the size of the Spaniard, presently came slowly up through the smoke, and fired into the Spanish ship; then seeing no flag flying, sent a lieutenant on board the mastless hulk to take possession. The Englishman climbed to the quarterdeck, all black with smoke and b.l.o.o.d.y with slaughter, and asked the solitary officer he found there whether or not the _Santissima Trinidad_ had surrendered. The ship, as a matter of fact, was drifting into the centre of a cl.u.s.ter of French and Spanish ships; so the Spaniard replied, "Non, non," at the same time pointing to the friendly ships upon which they were drifting. The Englishman had only half-a-dozen men with him, so he coolly returned to his boat, and the _Santissima Trinidad_ drifted like a log upon the water till half-past five P.M., when the _Prince_ put a prize crew on board.

Perez Galdos has given a realistic picture--quoted in the _Cornhill Magazine_--of the scenes within the gloomy recesses of the great Spanish four-decker as the British ships hung on her flanks and wasted her with their fire: "The English shot had torn our sails to tatters.

It was as if huge invisible talons had been dragging at them.

Fragments of spars, splinters of wood, thick hempen cables cut up as corn is cut by the sickle, fallen blocks, shreds of canvas, bits of iron, and hundreds of other things that had been wrenched away by the enemy's fire, were piled along the deck, where it was scarcely possible to move about. From moment to moment men fell--some into the sea; and the curses of the combatants mingled with groans of the wounded, so that it was often difficult to decide whether the dying were blaspheming G.o.d or the fighters were calling upon Him for aid. I helped in the very dismal task of carrying the wounded into the hold, where the surgeons worked. Some died ere we could convey them thither; others had to undergo frightful operations ere their worn-out bodies could get an instant's rest. It was much more satisfactory to be able to a.s.sist the carpenter's crew in temporarily stopping some of the holes torn by shot in the ship's hull. . . . Blood ran in streams about the deck; and, in spite of the sand, the rolling of the ship carried it hither and thither until it made strange patterns on the planks. The enemy's shot, fired, as they were, from very short range, caused horrible mutilations. . . . The ship creaked and groaned as she rolled, and through a thousand holes and crevices in her strained hull the sea spurted in and began to flood the hold. The _Trinidad's_ people saw the commander-in-chief haul down his flag; heard the _Achille_ blow up and hurl her six hundred men into eternity; learnt that their own hold was so crowded with wounded that no more could be received there. Then, when all three masts had in succession been brought crashing down, the defence collapsed, and the _Santissima Trinidad_ struck her flag."

The dreadful scenes on the decks of the _Santissima Trinidad_ might almost have been paralleled on some of the British ships. Thus the _Belleisle_, Collingwood's immediate supporter, sustained the fire of two French and one Spanish line-of-battle ships until she was dismasted. The wreck of her mizzen-mast covered her larboard guns, her mainmast fell upon the break of the p.o.o.p; her larboard broadside was thus rendered useless; and just then another French line-of-battle ship, the _Achille_, took her position on the _Belleisle's_ larboard quarter, and opened on her a deadly fire, to which the British ship could not return a shot. This scene lasted for nearly an hour and a half, but at half-past three the _Swiftsure_ came majestically up, pa.s.sed under the _Belleisle's_ stern--the two crews cheering each other, the _Belleisle's_ men waving a Union Jack at the end of a pike to show they were still fighting, while an ensign still flew from the stump of the mainmast--and the fury with which the _Swiftsure_ fell upon the _Achille_ may be imagined. The _Defiance_ about the same time took off the _Aigle_, and the _Polyphemus_ the _Neptune_, and the much-battered _Belleisle_ floated free. Masts, bowsprit, boats, figure-head--all were shot away; her hull was pierced in every direction; she was a mere splintered wreck.

The _Temeraire_ fought a battle almost as dreadful. The _Africa_, a light ship carrying only sixty-four guns, chose as her antagonist the _Intrepide_, a French seventy-four, in weight of broadside and number of crew almost double her force. How dreadful were the damages sustained by the British ship in a fight so unequal and so stubborn may be imagined; but she clung to her big antagonist until, the _Orion_ coming up, the _Intrepide_ struck.

At three P.M. the firing had begun to slacken, and ship after ship of the enemy was striking. At a quarter past two the _Algeziras_ struck to the _Tonnant_, and fifteen minutes afterwards the _San Juan_--the _Tonnant_ was fighting both ships--also hailed that she surrendered.

Lieutenant Clement was sent in the jolly-boat, with two hands, to take possession of the Spanish seventy-four, and the boat carrying the gallant three was struck by a shot and swamped. The sailors could swim, but not the lieutenant; the pair of tars succeeded in struggling back with their officer to the _Tonnant_; and as that ship had not another boat that would float, she had to see her prize drift off. The _Colossus_, in like manner, fought with the French _Swiftsure_ and the _Bahama_--each her own size--and captured them both! The _Redoutable_ had surrendered by this time, and a couple of midshipmen, with a dozen hands, had climbed from the _Victory's_ one remaining boat through the stern ports of the French ship. The _Bucentaure_, Villeneuve's flagship, had her fate practically sealed by the first tremendous broadside poured into her by the _Victory_. With fine courage, however, the French ship maintained a straggling fire until both the _Leviathan_ and the _Conqueror_, at a distance of less than thirty yards, were pouring a tempest of shot into her. The French flagship then struck, and was taken possession of by a tiny boat's crew from the _Conqueror_ consisting of three marines and two sailors. The marine officer coolly locked the powder magazine of the Frenchman, put the key in his pocket, left two of his men in charge of the surrendered _Bucentaure_, put Villeneuve and his two captains in his boat with his two marines and himself, and went off in search of the _Conqueror_. In the smoke and confusion, however, he could not find that ship, and so carried the captured French admiral to the _Mars_. Hercules Robinson has drawn a pen picture of the unfortunate French admiral as he came on board the British ship: "Villeneuve was a tallish, thin man, a very tranquil, placid, English-looking Frenchman; he wore a long-tailed uniform coat, high and flat collar, corduroy pantaloons of a greenish colour with stripes two inches wide, half-boots with sharp toes, and a watch-chain with long gold links. Majendie was a short, fat, jocund sailor, who found a cure for all ills in the Frenchman's philosophy, "Fortune de la guerre" (though this was the third time the G.o.ddess had brought him to England as a prisoner); and he used to tell our officers very tough stories of the 'Mysteries of Paris.'"

By five o'clock the roar of guns had died almost into silence. Of thirty-three stately battle-ships that formed the Franco-Spanish fleet four hours earlier, one had vanished in flames, seventeen were captured as mere blood-stained hulks, and fifteen were in flight; while Villeneuve himself was a prisoner. But Nelson was dead. Night was falling. A fierce south-east gale was blowing. A sea--such a sea as only arises in shallow waters--ugly, broken, hollow, was rising fast.

In all directions ships dismantled, with scuppers crimson with blood, and sides jagged with shot-holes, were rolling their tall, huge hulks in the heavy sea; and the shoals of Trafalgar were only thirteen miles to leeward! The fight with tempest and sea during that terrific night was almost more dreadful than the battle with human foes during the day. Codrington says, the gale was so furious that "it blew away the top main-topsail, though it was close-reefed, and the fore-topsail after it was clewed up ready for furling." They dare not set a storm staysail, although now within six miles of the reef. The _Redoutable_ sank at the stern of the ship towing it; the _Bucentaure_ had to be cut adrift, and went to pieces on the shoals. The wind shifted in the night and enabled the shot-wrecked and storm-battered ships to claw off the sh.o.r.e; but the fierce weather still raged, and on the 24th the huge _Santissima Trinidad_ had to be cut adrift. It was night; wind and sea were furious; but the boats of the _Ajax_ and the _Neptune_ succeeded in rescuing every wounded man on board the huge Spaniard. The boats, indeed, had all put off when a cat ran out on the muzzle of one of the lower-deck guns and mewed plaintively, and one of the boats pulled back, in the teeth of wind and sea, and rescued poor puss!

Of the eighteen British prizes, fourteen sank, were wrecked, burnt by the captors, or recaptured; only four reached Portsmouth. Yet never was the destruction of a fleet more absolutely complete. Of the fifteen ships that escaped Trafalgar, four were met in the open sea on November 4 by an equal number of British ships, under Sir Richard Strahan, and were captured. The other eleven lay disabled hulks in Cadiz till--when France and Spain broke into war with each other--they were all destroyed. Villeneuve's great fleet, in brief, simply vanished from existence! But Napoleon, with that courageous economy of truth characteristic of him, summed up Trafalgar in the sentence: "The storms occasioned to us the loss of a few ships after a battle imprudently fought"! Trafalgar, as a matter of fact, was the most amazing victory won by land or sea through the whole Revolutionary war.

It permanently changed the course of history; and it goes far to justify Nelson's magnificently audacious boast, "The fleets of England are equal to meet the world in arms!"

THE END