Drinkwater clambered aft. No one stopped him. Men slumped wounded or exhausted around the guns, their faces drained of expression. Bucentaure's company had been shattered into its individual fragments of humanity. Pain and defeat had done their work: she was incapable of further resistance. He hesitated to climb to the poop. This was not his moment, and yet he wished to offer Villeneuve some comfort. On her after-deck officers were waving white handkerchiefs at the British battleship. He turned away below. It was not his business to accept Bucentaure's surrender. He reached the lower gun-deck. Running forward from aft came a party of British seamen led by two midshipmen.
'Come, Mr Hicks, we've a damned Frog here!'
Drinkwater turned at the familiar voice. The young officer was partially silhouetted against the light from the shattered stern, but his drawn sword gleamed and from the rapidity of his advance Drinkwater took alarm. His hand went to his own hanger, whipping out the blade.
'Stand still, God damn you!' he roared. 'I'm a British officer!'
'Good God!'
Recognition came to the two men at the same time.
'Captain Drinkwater, sir… I, er, I beg your pardon…'
'Mr Walmsley… you and your men can put up your weapons. Bucentaure is finished.'
'So I see…' Walmsley looked round him, his face draining of colour as his eyes fell on an entire gun crew who had lost their heads. Alongside them lay Lieutenant Guillet. He had been cut in half.
'Oh Christ!' Lord Walmsley put his hand to his mouth and the vomit spurted between his fingers.
'I was a prisoner of the French admiral, gentlemen. I am obliged to you for my liberty,' Drinkwater said, affecting not to notice Walmsley's confusion.
'Midshipman William Hicks, sir, of the Conqueror, Captain Israel Pellew.' The second midshipman introduced himself, then turned as more men came aboard led by a marine officer. 'This is Captain James Atcherley, sir, of the same ship.'
The ridiculous little ceremony was performed and the scarlet-coated Atcherley was acquainted with the fact that Captain Drinkwater, despite his coatless appearance and blood-stained shirt, was a British officer.
'Come, sir, I will take you to the admiral.' They clambered onto the upper deck and Drinkwater stood aside to allow Atcherley to precede him onto the poop.
'No, no, it is your task, Captain,' Drinkwater said as Atcherley demurred. 'He speaks good English.'
He followed the marine officer. Villeneuve lowered the glass through which he had been studying some distant event and turned towards the knot of British officers.
'To whom have I the honour of surrendering?' Villeneuve asked.
Atcherley stepped forward: 'To Captain Pellew of the Conqueror.'
'I am glad to have struck to the fortunate Sir Edward Pellew.'
'It is his brother, sir,' said Atcherley.
'His brother! What! Are there two of them? Hélas!'
Atcherley refused the proffered sword. Captain Magendie shrugged. 'Fortune de la guerre. I am now three times a prisoner of you British.'
'I shall secure the ship's magazines, sir,' Atcherley said. 'You shall retain your swords until able to surrender them to someone of sufficient rank—' he turned—'unless Captain Drinkwater would receive them?'
Drinkwater shook his head. 'No Captain Atcherley. I have in no way contributed to today's work and am bound by my word to Admiral Villeneuve. Do you do as you suggest.' He acknowledged the tiny bow made in his direction by Villeneuve.
'In that case, sir,' said Atcherley, addressing the French officers, 'I should be obliged if you would descend to the boat.' He looked round. The Conqueror had disappeared in the smoke, joining in the mêlée round the huge Santissima Trinidad that had not yet struck to her many enemies.
'I shall convey you to Mars, sir,' he nodded at the next British ship looming up on the quarter. Atcherley turned to Drinkwater. 'Will you come, sir?'
Drinkwater shook his head. 'Not yet, Captain Atcherley. I have some effects to gather up.' He had no desire to witness Villeneuve's final humiliation.
'Very well, sir… come, gentlemen…'
Villeneuve turned to Drinkwater. 'Captain, we fought well. I hope you will not forget that.'
'Never, sir.' Drinkwater was moved by the nobility of the defeated admiral.
Villeneuve stared at the north. 'Dumanoir wore but then turned away,' he said with quiet resignation. 'See, there, the van is deserting me.' Without another word Villeneuve followed Magendie from the deck.
Drinkwater found himself almost alone upon Bucentaure's poop. A few seamen and petty officers sat or squatted, resting their heads upon their crossed arms in attitudes of dejection.
Exhausted, concussed and hungry, they had given up. Drinkwater watched Villeneuve, Magendie and Prigny pulled away to the Mars in Conqueror's cutter. Lord Walmsley sat in the stern, his hand on the tiller. Drinkwater leaned on the rail. Despite Bucentaure's surrender the battle still raged about her. He watched Dumanoir's unscathed ships standing away to the north, feeling an immense and traitorous sympathy for the unfortunate Villeneuve. It occurred to him to seek the other part of Villeneuve's miscarried strategy and he looked southward to identify Gravina. But astern the battle continued, a vast milling mêlée of ships, their flanks belching fire and destruction, their masts and yards continuing to fall amid clouds of grey powder smoke. Ahead too, the hounds were closing round the Santissima Trinidad, and one of Dumanoir's squadron, the Spanish Neptuno, had been cut off and taken. Away to the north a dense column of black smoke billowed up from an unidentifiable ship on fire.
He looked for the British frigates. Astern he could see the schooner Pickle and the trim little cutter Entreprenante. Then he caught sight of Euryalus, obeying the conventions of formal war, her guns unemployed as she towed what Drinkwater thought at first was a prize but then realised was the Royal Sovereign, Collingwood's dismasted flagship.
'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 could 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 ship 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 night 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 cutaway 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 towrope, 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 the 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 northwest. 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 li
ne-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 was 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.
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