Embedded@Trafalgar with Nelson's Navy

Embedded@Trafalgar with Nelson's Navy Page 3

by Roger Busby

Day Three

  Transcript of tape recording recovered from Orlop deck HMS Victory at sea

  I don’t get any of this…I mean the gunners’ mates were always top dog on the

  Big Vic, but look at ‘em now, stripped off to rags, all spattered in blood and sweat, and there’s something in the air here …hits me like an electric shock, the wide eyed heart stopping terror of it all. We cross the deck crabwise, crouched down, me and Collins, stuff whistling over our heads, flying all around us. Over to the starboard side, where they’re firing the great guns, thirty-two pounders, leaping and bucking like live things in their carriages, jerking against the side tackles and breeching ropes, spewing heat and flame, with the gun captains screaming orders over an almighty din. Fire…recoil…reload…throwing water on the shower of sparks …powder monkeys running up with cartridge cases, chucking more salt into the salt boxes behind each gun to kill the sparks…heaving round shot from the rope garlands and the hatchway racks in a frantic blur of activity. Jeez I’ve seen gun practice often enough, all ordered and disciplined, but nothing like this. This is bedlam. Then right there in the middle of this mayhem, like in the eye of a storm swirling all around him, I spot a familiar face and it takes a second then it comes to me, Josh Hammond the warrant who gave me a tour of the ship way back..

  Hey scribbles

  Scribbles, that’s what he used to call me because in those days I was always making notes.

  Hey scribbles … you want to see something? Come over here.

  Collins is still hanging onto my arm, so I tow him across to where Hammond is standing, looking out of a gun-port calm as you please, like he’s admiring the view. His shirt, breeches and stockings are pristine, nothing’s touched him and he’s holding a copper speaking trumped in his hand, which tells me he’s in charge of these guns. I can see he’s got belt pouches stuffed with quill stoppers gunlock flints and spare trigger lines slung over his arm. He gestures me to look out and when I do I can see the hull of a ship not fifty feet away, ports open blazing away at us.

  There she lays … our old friend Redoubtable … we’ll be grappling her soon, then the fun will start.

  He steps back and waves an arm to show me kegs brimming with newly flinted pistols, cutlasses, pikes and tomahawks As he does so, two seamen struggle up carrying something wrapped in the bloody canvas of a hammock, it’s the torso of a shipmate, arms and legs gone, ripped apart by a hail of grapeshot, head back, mouth gaping. Hammond jerks a thumb at the open gun port and they dump their burden overboard. He looks at me with no expression on his face.

  Better arm yourself scribbles … those Frenchies don’t take prisoners

  Broadcast media transcription services

  BBC Radio Four – Today programme

  Two-way 0720 this date

  John Humphrys / John Pretty

  JH: Well the war drags on and while everything looks rosy right now, this could just be the lull before the storm. While you’re having breakfast, a mere twenty miles away across the English Channel Napoleon Bonaparte is consolidating his forces getting ready to invade our shores, and if he succeeds the next knock on your door could be a French grenadier. But before you choke on your cornflakes, all is not lost, not yet anyway, because to get across the Channel his invasion barges need the protection of sea power and right now old Boney’s fleet is bottled up in Cadiz under the watchful eye of the Royal Navy. How do I know that? Well for the first time ever, we’ve got a journalist embedded, that’s the latest military buzzword, embedded with the fleet. His name’s John Pretty, naval correspondent of the Daily Chronicle and he’s on the line now.

  John can you hear me?

  JP: Yes John – loud and clear

  JH: Ah the miracle of technology – tell us where you are.

  JP: Well we’re at sea, about fifty miles off the Spanish coast at a place called Cape Trafalgar and I’m on board one of the ships of Nelson’s task force, HMS Pickle

  JH: Now as we understand it, John, the plan is not to fight, but to keep the French and Spanish Fleet from leaving Cadiz.

  JP: Yes that’s right. We’re standing off the coast and the plan is to blockade Cadiz so that’s the combined French and Spanish fleet can’t sail.

  JH: A Mexican stand-off then…if that doesn’t mix the nationalities up too much.

  JP: Yes, it’s a classic naval manoeuvre which has worked well in the past and really is intended to deny the enemy free use of its assets.

  JH: That’s navy-speak for its ships

  JP: Yes indeed John. Nelson believes he can put the squeeze on his opposite number, Admiral Villeneuve and wear him down by playing a waiting game. The longer they’re stuck in port, the less likely the enemy ships are prepared for battle. And because of the stranglehold on Cadiz they will be short of provisions and hungry demoralised sailors don’t fight too well.

  JH: Doesn’t sound much like our hero of The Nile though does it? Catching the enemy napping with a daring night time raid which destroyed the French fleet at anchor I thought that was more Nelson’s swashbuckling style.

  JP: He’s older and wiser now John. I was talking to him over on The Victory only the other day and he seemed determined to sit this one out and let the Frenchies make the first move. An action replay of The Nile doesn’t look like an option right now.

  JH: Oh well I suppose if it’s stalemate, at least Boney can’t make his move.

  JP: Not without his fleet to protect him, his barges would be cut to pieces and his army would find themselves at the bottom of the Channel.

  JH: Well you’ve got a ringside seat, John. How’s it feel to be the first reporter embedded with the fleet?

  JP: You certainly get a first hand account of what’s going on…. see it from Jack Tar’s point of view before it’s all been sanitized by the press office. You get it warts and all.

  JH: And the seasickness?

  JP: I’ve got over that, now I’ve got my sea legs, and the advantage is you actually get the feel of what it’s like to be part of a fighting ship. Everyone here is very helpful and I’m treated like one of the ship’s company

  JH: Glad to hear it John. Well at least you’ve scored a first for front line journalism. Keep us posted, and good luck. Now here’s Steve with the sport.

  Extract of tape recorded interview: subject ident Admiral Villeneuve. Location: aboard Bucentaure, Cadiz Harbour

  Well now Monsieur Pretty, you are either very foolish or very brave coming ashore at a time like this. You must know that poor Cadiz is starving on account of your blockade and fever of the flesh and the spirit runs high. You could have been strung up on sight.

  Then I guess I made my own luck Admiral, the first person I met when I came in from the fishing smack was an AFP stringer … he gave me safe passage to your ship.

  Mmm the Gods smile on you English and if you’ve risked your neck for such a perilous venture, who am I to deny you an audience.

  You are most gracious Admiral…and in return I will do my best to make sure your side of the story gets told. The Chronicle prides itself on fairness.

  Ah the Daily Chronicle, how I enjoyed the crossword in happier times. Of course we always got the paper in Paris a few days late when the news was stale, but the crossword was always a delight.

  You know the Chronicle then Admiral?

  Of course, I have always been an admirer of the British press, so avant garde compared to our own dull papers forever trumpeting the heroic deeds of Bonaparte in nothing more wholesome than trumped up jingoism. Yes you are welcome aboard the Bucentaure, Mr Pretty, and by dint of journalistic enterprise you have earned my protection. Now, despite our parlous state, I must not neglect the manners of a host, will you take a little wine?

  Thank you Sir, I’ll take a glass with you, and you have my assurance that I will always endeavour to be an impartial observer and report the facts without fear or favour….

  Affection or ill will… I never thoug
ht otherwise. You would not be here else. So let me tell you how this sorry business goes, this catch as catch can with my old adversary Horatio, for whom I must say, I have the greatest respect as a seaman, even if his legend is a little overblown for my taste. So here I lie with my ships anchored all around me, squabbling with scurvy Spaniards and if I’d not lingered waiting for Ganteaume I wouldn’t have had to fight off old cautious Calder’s squadron off Finistere and I’d have had the weather gage for a change and shown Nelson a clean pair of heels. But it was not to be, and so I must sit it out here, hoping that my fortunes will change for the better whilst all the while my masters in Paris are demanding that I show a little mettle, put to sea and sink the British fleet lurking out there just waiting for such an opportunity. Ha, what do they know about warfare at sea.

  All they care about is Nelson gave you a bloody nose at The Nile and they expect you to even the score. That’s politicians for you.

  Very perceptive, Mr Pretty. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When our revered leaders get wound up, reason and commonsense fly out of the window.

  So what will you do?

  Discretion is the better part of valour, my friend, I will resist Bonaparte’s demands for as long as I can in the hope that I can get my fleet into some kind of fighting shape and with captains who don’t speak the same language or understand each other’s methods, that’s a tall order.

  You do plan to fight then?

  Only as a last resort. I plan to wait for a good blow, hoist a good press of sail, break out of here, and show your fleet a clean pair of heels. When we’re on the high seas once more the old game is all there to play for and by God I deserve a change of fortune.

  Can I quote you on this Admiral?

  Certainly you can. Nelson knows it as well as I do, it’s plain as the nose on your face, It’s what any sailor worth his salt would do. Oh they will say I have no stomach for the war, relieve me, and hand over my command to some hothead who will go down with all guns blazing.

  Filed via INMARSAT digital / MOD censor cleared for download. Password encripted

  Daily Chronicle news feature exclusive (Part 1)

  The better part of valour

  By John Pretty Naval Correspondent

  Bewigged and powdered he paces the quarterdeck of his flagship the mighty Bucentaure ruminating on the fortunes of war and watching the weather, Every inch the patrician sea officer in striking blue and gold he takes a turn around the deck casting an eye over the forest of masts crowded around him in Cadiz harbour and knows that for him, the sands of time are running out.

  This is Vice Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, at 42, commander of the combined French and Spanish Fleet and lynchpin in Napoleon’s master plan to invade Britain.

  But first he must outwit or outfight the Royal Navy, blockading Cadiz and today I can reveal that the dapper Admiral has no wish to cross swords again with his nemesis of the Nile, Horatio Nelson, standing off the coast waiting for him to make his move.

  In an exclusive interview aboard the Bucentaure, Admiral Villeneuve told me: “I can see no glory in another bloody battle, even though I have more ships and more firepower than my old adversary. No I will bide my time and God willing give him the slip once more.”

  But the furrow of his brow and flicker of angst in his gaze signal his certain knowledge that he does not have the luxury of time. Bonaparte’s patience is wearing thin and soon Villeneuve will be forced to confront the greatest dilemma of his career. His decision could well dictate the outcome of the war.

  And the omens are not good. When I slipped into Cadiz disguised as a fisherman it soon became obvious that the port is starving. Legions of rats run in the backstreets, food is scarce and the plague is rife. The British blockade is squeezing the life out of Cadiz, and the population is growing restive, blaming this battle fleet crammed into the harbour for their misfortune. Blaming Villeneuve for their suffering. And the mood is growing ugly, boiling up to a cauldron of civil unrest. Rioting on any widespread scale would force Villeneuve’s hand.

  And then there are his captains. Despite his attempts to forge the two fleets into one fighting force, many of the commanders have other agendas, differences of language and custom, and allegiances pledged elsewhere, have demoralised the crews. and he knows that he cannot count a hundred percent on their determination to fight.

  Extract of interview with Admiral Villeneuve aboard Bucentaure, Cadiz harbour

  Would you credit it Mr Pretty, sitting here skulking in Cadiz harbour without so much as a breath of wind in my sails, oh I was once quite the adventurer myself you know, not unlike your famous Lord Nelson who would see me at the bottom of the sea. Although I say it myself, with some justification, I have never enjoyed his capacity for self promotion and patronage. You know what I mean?

  Back home we call it the Nelson touch

  Yes, quite so. I have, of course, read the glowing reports of my adversary’s exploits with some astonishment and not a little professional envy. My own poor attempts to make something of this sailor’s life were never so favourably chronicled, but were none the less some small contribution to my nation’s fortunes. Not that Bonaparte sees it that way.

  We’re all seekers of truth Admiral. Leave the spin to the politicians. Were you always a sailor?

  Oh yes, from boyhood salt water has run in my veins. My best of times were out in the West Indies where I learned my trade, escorting convoys of merchantmen, running off privateers and assorted cut-throats as we opened up the trade routes,, giving La Belle France a stake in the new world order. And in French waters too, and the Spanish Main, giving the pirates a run for their money, scavengers of the sea who would hoist the skull and cross-bones and plunder any ship which came within cannon range. Those were the good days Mr Pretty, before this infernal war put power into the hands of equally treacherous dogs.

  Do you have anyone in particular in mind?

  I think in my present predicament the answer is obvious, but I don’t intend to dwell upon it. I will do my duty, as always, not for some jumped up popinjay, but for France. In that I have never wavered.

  Nelson knows you can’t stay here forever, and that sooner or later you’re going to have to fight him.

  We crossed swords at The Nile, and so I know his tactics well enough. If he gets a chance he will come at me like the proverbial bull in a china shop, that’s his way, seize the initiative and trust to luck, damnable luck.

  Sometimes you have to make your own luck Admiral

  And sometimes even luck is not enough. At the Nile we fought like tigers, the battle flowing this way and that, and even when I had he upper hand there was no way I could capitalise on it. I was obliged to withdraw to fight another day and even though I managed to preserve much of my fleet, I was damned for it and the glorious Royal Navy took the honours. It was never that cut and dried.

  War never is…truth is often the first to fall..

  You know I was in Malta when the British took the island. I was your prisoner for a while until I was granted amnesty. So you see, Mr Pretty, but for the largesse of your countrymen I could be whiling away my days in Valetta, my only challenge the Chronicle crossword instead of furling my sails in this god forsaken place. So you see there is no justice

  Depends how you define justice

  I’ve been at sea since I was fifteen, and the only justice I care for is a fair wind in my sails and a good few fathoms under my keel. That’s justice enough for a simple sailor. Would you care for another glass of wine?

  No sir, you have been too kind to me already. I must take my leave now, not everyone is so well disposed towards me, and I wouldn’t want you to be accused of consorting with the enemy.

  Ha ha I’ve been accused of worse. And besides, those curs would never get past one across.

  Filed via INMARSAT digital / MOD cleared for download / password encripted

  Daily Chronicle news feature exclusive />
  The better part of valour (Part 2)

  by John Petty Naval Correspondent

  There he stands, this urbane Frenchman, captive on his own quarterdeck, contemplating past glories, and preparing himself for the show down which must surely come.

  Here in Cadiz harbour, his battle fleet huddled around him; Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve is no longer master of his own destiny. This veteran of the Battle of the Nile who went to sea as a fifteen year old youth and rose to command the greatest battle fleet the world has ever seen knows in his heart of hearts that he must soon test his courage once again on the high seas.

  Trapped between the rock and the hard place this closet anglophile and devotee of the quintessentially English pastime of crossword puzzles gazes out of the bowed gallery windows of his flagship, the mighty Bucentaure and surveys the scene. Beyond the masts and yards of his fleet, the combined naval might of France and Spain, there lies the ancient port of Cadiz, its population starving, and he knows that in that labyrinth of back streets, every many woman and child is praying for him to be gone,. for his accursed fleet to sail so that their lives can return to something approaching normality.

  And every day, a new envoy from Napoleon Bonaparte arrives with further orders for him to break out, crush the Royal Navy and provide the final piece in the jigsaw as the invasion force prepares to cross the last ditch in the long campaign to rule Europe – The English Channel.

  His keen blue eyes squint out under heavy brows, nose hooked over a jutting jaw sniffs the fetid air. It will be soon.

  As if this pressure was not enough, under the adornments of a Vice Admiral, the man himself, seaman through and through, knows instinctively that his greatest challenge lies in the opposite direction, out at sea, just over the horizon, a presence so awesome that he breaks out cold sweats at night fearful of what the immediate future might hold.

  This is a man torn between duty and patriotism and the pragmatic rules of the game, the immutable laws of wind and tide, which will conspire to dictate his destiny. Look deep into those eyes beyond the sang froid of high command and there is the stirring of deep depression. In his heart Villeneuve knows he has but one throw of the dice.

  And waiting for him, out there on the unforgiving sea, is just another such man, stiffened with the same determination.

  When he wakes at night, eyes snapped wide in the gloom of his cabin one word escapes his lips with the venom of a curse.

  Nelson,

  Transcript of audio diary – John Pretty

  Here’s an object lesson for the journalism course. Never get into anything until you know how to get out. I learned that one the hard way. I’d been so obsessed with the Villeneuve interview that I’d clean forgotten how the hell I was going to get back to the ship. And that was almost the end of yours truly I was so cock-a-hoop with my exclusive, writing the piece in my head, that the trouble I was in didn’t sink in until I was wandering the streets of Cadiz, and then it hit me, there was no fishing boat to hitch a ride on this time. Johnny boy, you’re on your own. So why am I telling you this? Well, it’s an interesting anecdote in itself, but more importantly, it’s a tribute to the thirteen-year-old kid to whom I owe my life. It went like this. I’m in the streets of Cadiz and it’s dawning on me that I’m in trouble. I make it down to the harbour thinking maybe I can hire a boat, but I’ve got no GPS or VHF beacon to guide me so I’m going to have to zero in on dead reckoning, and that means finding somebody who knows what they’re doing otherwise I’m sunk. Like I say, reality is starting to sink in. I’m in these back streets, which are really just stinking open sewers, and I’m getting the look from the locals because I stick out like a sore thumb. It’s getting dark and there’s this kind of crackle of violence in the air, like a high tension cable whipping around, and I think it’s time I make myself scarce otherwise I’m either going to stumble into a cess pit and drown in Spanish excrement or I’m going to get ripped apart by an angry mob when they realise I’m an English devil, the source of all their woes. So I slip into a church, cursing my own stupidity. The place has been severely trashed but at least it’s off the street, so I find a corner and settle down for the night. with just rats and roaches for company.. but as you can imagine I don’t get much sleep because the enormity of my predicament is beginning to bear down like a lead weight. So I’m dozing and thinking to myself, man you get lucky in the morning or you’re going to have to hike out of here overland as a last resort, and the prospect of foot slogging across a hostile continent does not appeal, of that I kid you not. So at first light I go down to the harbour again and start flashing money around as discreetly as I can, still thinking I’ll hire a boat. Bad move. In no time at all the word is out that there’s a rich Englishman in town and the rip off merchants start to zero in. They’re going to have some sport before they string me up. So now it’s crunch time and that’s when I come across the skipper of a beat up privateer, a brig that’s got caught in the crossfire and trapped in Cadiz. We sink a few in a crummy bar while he ums and ahs and then finally agrees to take me out to the fleet for a bucket full of money and I don’t have a choice anymore, the dogs are already howling. It’s Sinbad or sayonara, so I don’t want to look for danger signs. I don’t even take a peek into his greedy gimlet dago eyes and see the crazy madness inside his skull. I just jump. Well we put out of the harbour in this filthy little ship and again I do the reality check. and start discreetly eyeballing the crew who suddenly look like the worst bunch of cut-throats who ever drew breath. All of a sudden they’re bristling with pistols and cutlasses and sky high on the local booze, like its party time and I’m the star turn, and I’m thinking; out of the frying pan into the fire. So we come wallowing out of the harbour, and start running down the coast, and now I’m really getting the jitters, because even I can see that we’re not headed for the fleet at all, and anytime they feel inclined I’m going to be chopped up for dog meat and dumped over the side. One of these characters leering at me with black stumps for teeth and breath that would strip paint, takes out a bowie knife and waves it in front of my face in a kind of pantomime which has all his mates cackling. And I’m thinking…oh shit maybe I should just take the dive myself while I’ve still got arms and legs. And then, just as I’m screwing up my courage I spot this sail on our quarter coming up fast, and I can see it’s a cutter, not just any cutter, but the armoured cutter from the Pickle and just in case I’m hallucinating, I let out this terrific rebel yell, and the dagos freeze like a tableau in suspended animation, then all hell breaks loose, they’re blasting away with everything they can lay their hands on, running around like scalded cats but the brig’s losing way because in a neat move the cutter has come up fast to seaward and stolen her wind. The sails are flapping and we’re wallowing in the swell in danger of running in on the lee shore and the cutter hauls in like a racehorse, runs up the ensign and puts a couple of clean shots from her chasers across our bow. In the panic the throat slitters have clean forgotten about me and I can see the skipper wrestling with the wheel, cursing and screaming, trying to shake loose from this terrier snapping at his heels. And that’s when I hear this voice yelling through a speaking trumpet, calling on them to give quarter and holy Moses, I realise it’s Jim Collins the midshipman I taught to play solitaire on my laptop. A thirteen year old kid taking on these psychos who would disembowel their mothers for a gold coin…Jim Collins standing there calm as you please in this little boat yelling at ‘em to surrender in the name of the Royal Navy. I’m laughing now, it’s so absurd; laughing so hard I’ve got tears running down my cheeks. The cutter’s alongside and the tars come swarming over the side and start kicking seven bells out of the brig’s crew, and Jim comes up to me, cool as a cucumber, and invites me to step aboard the cutter without delay as things may get a little ugly. On the way back to the Pickle he tells me quite seriously that he would have liked to have taken the brig as a prize, but as his men were outnumbered ten to one and might n
ot have prevailed in a knock down drawn out fight, he’d reluctantly decided against it. I’m just looking at him kind of stunned. and I ask him why he risked his neck to save mine. And he gives me this little kid smile and tells me gravely that he was keen to try a tactic he believed Nelson would have applauded, a surprise assault on a superior foe. When I thank him for most certainly saving my life because I have no doubt at all that they intended to slit my throat and consign me to the deep six, he just blushes and asks it he can have another go on the magic box, which is how he describes my laptop. This from a thirteen-year-old who should have been in the classroom conjugating Latin verbs. If we hadn’t been in the company of The Pickle’s finest I could’ve kissed him.

  E-mail Harry Oakes to John Petty

  Classy think piece on Frog One son, but regret, I’m not the bearer of glad tidings. Big Billy is displeased. Says he likes his frog’s legs sautéed in a little garlic butter not strutting across the front page spouting Gallic philosophy. Says our readers want their Frenchies crawling and cringing, not giving us a lecture on the etiquette of naval warfare. He’s back-burnered the feature I’m afraid, but nil desperandum, we’ll syndicate through Paris Match so you’ll make a few bob on lineage and I’ll fight for a by line. BB’s bound to print it second time around when his ego calms down. Keep your chin up and in the meantime let’s get weaving on the Nelson biog and anything else that looks tasty. The team’s batting for you.

  Harry

  E-mail John Petty to Harry Oakes

  Roger that H, some you win; some you lose. No tantrums this end, that’s the features game and you’re the boss. Pdf me the Nelson cuts and I’ll start cooking.

  JP

  Daily Chronicle cuttings library – file N43 Horatio Nelson (red flagged for monthly obit update) Note: This file contains jpg and tif images. Confirm copyright and pic credits before publication..

  NEWS IDENT N43 Daily Chronicle features

  To Kill a Mocking Bear

  By John Pretty

  Picture it. Dawn in the Arctic Circle. The first rays of the sun pierce the whiteout in a dazzling gleam of blinding light. Squint hard and stare into the sudden blaze of radium blue which burns into the retina like a branding iron and there in the distance, across the vast tract of ice you can just make out the figure of a youth not long into his teens pursuing a giant lumbering polar bear.

  Watch him shadow the bear mile after mile until the animal tires and the boy subdues the beast with the butt end of his musket to drag it back to his ship. anchored amid the floes.

  When reprimanded for going awol the young bear slayer responds that the lock on his piece had jammed and would not fire, but he was determined to hunt down his quarry and bring back the skin to impress his father.

  This then is the young Horatio Nelson on his first voyage as a crewman aboard a King’s ship displaying the first glimpse of the grit and determination, which will be the hallmark of his naval career.

  Not that he was always a Navy man, far from it. During his early years at sea in the merchant service this fourth son of Edward Nelson, rector of Burnham Thorpe, developed an aversion for the Senior Service, which could easily have changed the course of history.

  Horatio Nelson was born on the 29th September 1758, went to high school at Norwich and when the family moved to North Walsham at the start of hostilities with Spain in 1770 he left school at the age of twelve for his first taste of the sea, aboard Raisonnable, sixty four guns, under the wing of her commander, his uncle Captain Suckling. But his introduction to the Navy was short lived for when peace was declared soon afterwards and the warships paid off, he joined the merchant marine and spent two years plying the West Indian trade routes, discovering his passion for seamanship. And so it might have been, a merchant mariner blazing a trail across the globe opening up new trade routes, but for his uncle now in command of the Triumph who persuaded the young Nelson that his future lay in the service of the King as bright career prospects had opened up with a re invigorated Royal Navy.

  Quick to grasp the opportunity, in ’78 he joined Captain Phipps’s squadron on a voyage of exploration seeking sea routes to the North Pole’ inveigling a position of coxswain to Captain Lutwidge, the only boy among the crew as the voyage was considered too hazardous for junior sailors. The incident with the bear changed all that and astonished messmates later testified to the courage and fortitude of their young shipmate.

  Commented boatswain Toby Swift: “I tell you I couldn’t believe my eyes when we saw young Nelson out there on the ice lugging back this bloody great bear. Half the lads were going over the side to help him, but he just waved them back saying all was in hand. You never saw anything like it in your life, the bear was three times his size. How he knocked it down with just a musket butt beats me, but all he did when I asked him was rebuke me for not making sure the flintlocks in the muskets were in good order, his having jammed when he tried to shoot the bugger. Gave me a good ear wigging, cheeky little whipper snapper. Mind you the skipper gave him what for, leaving the ship without permission and giving us all a right scare. Only secretly the old man was pleased as punch. Dined out on that one many a time I dare say.”

  Returning to England he joined the Sea Horse, twenty guns, sailed with a squadron to the East Indies and in ‘77 passed his examination for Lieutenant and received his commission.

  Second Lieutenant on the Lowestoffe, thirty-two, Nelson again displayed the zeal and courage which was already earning him a reputation as an outstanding officer. In heavy seas the Lowestoffe engaged and captured an American ship but attempts to board the prize were foiled by the treacherous weather. When the first lieutenant failed Capt Locker called out in frustration: “Hells teeth, have I no officer who can secure her!” The Master volunteered, but Nelson stopped him with a flourish yelling into the teeth of the gale: “It’s my turn now…if I fail you shall have yours.” And jumped into the boat, executing rapid commands and feats of seamanship in mountainous seas to leap aboard the Yank and accept her captain’s sword.

  Said the Sailing Master, Samuel Strong reflecting later on the incident, “The sea was running like the very devil and we all knew we’d lose that prize money if we didn’t get aboard sharpish. Even though she’d struck her colours and capitulated, it was touch and go, and I’ve seen many a prize slip away thanking the heavens for a good gale of wind. When the Jimmy couldn’t make it, not for the want of trying, I was ready to have a damned good go, that was a letter of marque, a damned good prize in anybody’s book, but young Nelson wouldn’t hear of it. Pulled rank on me and was over the side in a flash. Made a proper job of it too for such a young ‘un. We broke out the grog that night I can tell you.”

  NEWS IDENT N44 Naval Journal Proceedings

  Chain of Command by Commander William Tucker

  Assault on the Fort

  In July 1770 an expedition set out to assault and destroy the Fort Juan in the Gulf of Mexico. Captain Nelson in his first year in post rank in command of the Hinchinbroke led the naval element and Major Polson commanded the marine assault force. In a textbook operation the fort was attacked and destroyed as precision broadsides from the Hinchinbroke’s “great guns” softened up the target for the military force to seize the initiative. “Thanks to Captain Nelson’s cool calm gunnery under fire it was a walk in the park,” said Polson later.

  But despite these naval triumphs, it was the beach for Nelson and time out at the Parsonage House in Burnham Thorpe until January ’93 when he took command of the Agamemnon, 64 guns, and sailed to join Lord Hood in the Med. With only a skeleton crew of 345 men, his ship’s company depleted in prizes and shoring up the garrison at Toulon; despite the odds stacked against him, Nelson beat to quarters and attacked four French frigates and a corvette, fighting a close action for several hours before the enemy ships hauled their wind and fled. With masts and rigging shot away Nelson was obliged to let them go but his ferocious combat skills earned him a commendation from Lor
d Hood and a growing reputation for pre-emptive strikes against the enemy as a war-fighting tactic.

  His charmed life under fire was however short lived for it was during the siege of Calvi in the summer of ’94 that he was shot in the face whilst engaging the shore battery and lost the sight of his right eye.

  Now Captain Nelson hoisted his broad pennant as commodore aboard the frigate Minerve, thirty two, and during a routine patrol in the Med captured La Sabina, forty guns and two hundred and eighty men under the command of Capt Don Jacobo Stuart. In the dead of night Nelson spotted the faint blurs of the Spanish frigates against the horizon and with Capt Crawford in the Blanche, also thirty two, launched a surprise attack. Despite the superior firepower of the Spaniards eighteen pounders, Nelson’s night sight gunnery in pitch darkness proved more accurate and the Spanish frigate surrendered after an hour and a half with her mizzen mast shot away and her crew dead or wounded so ferocious was the action.

  Scarcely had the firefight ended than a sail hove into sight and the growing daylight revealed three hostiles, two ships of the line and a frigate. Nelson could see that the Blanche was too far to windward to come to his aid so he urged his crew to repair as much of the battle damage as possible so that the Minerva which was dead in the water could make sail and manoeuvre to meet the new threat. Quick to spot the danger, the two lieutenants in the prize ran up false colours to decoy the enemy and then fight a rearguard action, refusing to surrender until the Sabina’s masts were shot away. They had bought time for Nelson and now the Blanche wreathed in the smoke of the nine rapid broadsides which had all but destroyed the Spaniard, veered to rejoin Nelson and together they drove off the new threat. With just the gunner and nine men wounded in the action, Minerva chalked up another victory in her log.

  On the 11th February ’97 Nelson was ambushed by the Spanish fleet off the mouth of the Straits but managed to give the task force the slip and join Admiral Sir John Jervis with his squadron of fifteen sail of the line off Cape St Vincent. Nelson was aboard the Captain, commanded by Capt Miller and after conferring with the Admiral they prepared a battle plan and swung around to confront the enemy fleet with ample sea room. Culloden’s look-out was first to spot the enemy and counted twenty seven ships of the line. The British ships formed up line ahead to execute the plan, to break through the Spanish line and cut the fleet in half. At the signal to engage Culloden commanded by Capt Trowbridge began firing salvos at the enemy’s lead ships and one by one the British ships opened fire as they cut through the enemy formation. Gaining pace on the larboard tack a group of the Spanish vessels attempted a counter ploy swinging around in a move to cut through the British line but were met with such a withering rate of cannon fire that they tacked away and sailed out of range of the deadly British gunners. Now Admiral Jervis turned his attack on the remainder of the Spanish fleet to windward, eighteen ships of the line and the British fleet tacked in succession once again passing through the Spanish line in a classic attack formation. Realising they were in danger of being cut to ribbons, the Spanish commanders attempted to re-group with their ships to leeward by veering around the end of the British line. But Nelson was too wily to fall or the Spanish gambit and immediately stood on the other tack to cut off the approaching ships bringing the Captain alongside the pride of the Spanish navy, the mighty Santissima Trinidad, a 136 gun battleship escorted by two three deckers, ahead and astern. As Nelson engaged the trio, Capt Trowbridge in Culloden and Capt Frederick in Blenheim joined the fray. With Rear Admiral Parker’s group the

  Prince George, Orion, Irresistible and Diadem closing fast the Spanish Admiral broke off the engagement and signalled his ships to haul their wind and make sail on the larboard tack. In the confusion of the retreat the Spanish ships crowded each other and Admiral Jervis moved in with the seven men-o-war of his division to rake them with round-shot in quick succession. Nelson’s HMS Captain was now closely engaged with one of the three deckers which was flying an Admiral’s flag and repeated cannonades brought down the Spaniard’s mizzen mast which entangled her escort, the St Nicholas, effectively silencing her eighty four guns. Seeing Capt Collingwood in Excellent coming up fast, Nelson drew his sword and gave the order to board and as Capt Miller laid his ship alongside the starboard quarter his spritsail yard passed over the Spaniard’s poop deck and hooked her mizzen shrouds. As the two ships locked together, the boarding party of seamen and marines stormed aboard and Nelson, jumping from the fore-chains into the enemy’s quarter gallery was able to dash through the cabin to the quarterdeck in time to receive the sword of surrender from the Spanish captain. But when he looked up he saw the stern of the second three-decker, the St Nicholas swing amidships of the weather-beam of the newly won prize and snipers began firing down on them from the poop and galleries. Calling for more men to come over from the Captain, Nelson swiftly mustered another boarding party and led them across to the second Spanish ship with a battle cry of: Westminster Abbey or glorious victory!” Stunned in disbelief the Spanish crew were quickly overpowered and the brigadier commanding the troops on board dropped to one knee and presented his sword. Nelson took the surrender of the St Josef and then made his way back to the Captain sending boats to untangle the prizes. Admiral Jervis, meantime ordered HMS Victory to the lee quarter of the rearmost ship of the enemy line, the Salvador del Mundo, opened fire and the Spanish commander seeing the Barfleur also closing in, immediately struck his colours. The van of the British ships continued to press home their attack on the Santissima Trinidad and the rear elements of the Spanish fleet. By now the ships which had been separated from the battle at the outset reappeared and Admiral Jervis consolidated his position around the prizes and fought a defensive action until the enemy abandoned the rescue attempt in failing light. The following day the British ships were sheltering close under Cape St Vincent repairing the battle damage to their own vessels and the prizes when lookouts spotted twenty-two sail of the Spanish fleet bearing down on them in battle formation obviously intent upon rescuing their compatriots, but after a short exchange of fire they hauled off and returned to Cadiz.

  It was campaigns such as these which won Nelson his promotion and the following April he hoisted the flag of rear admiral of the blue and set out on a new mission – to spearhead a seaborne assault on the garrison of Porto Ferrajo.

  May of that years saw him commanding the inner squadron of the on going blockade of Cadiz which was an almost permanent feature of he war. The Spaniards attempted skirmishes with gunboats and directing the counter operation from his barge with just his usual crew of ten seamen and a coxswain at the helm. Nelson was attacked by a gunboat with a three to one advantage commanded by Don Miguel Tyreson. Leaping from boat to boat the two crews fought a desperate sword duel until eighteen Spaniards lay dead and they were obliged to limp back into the safety of the harbour. Wounded in the skirmish Don Miguel quietly cursed Nelson’s luck. “That little admiral always led from the front and when the steel started flashing, I almost had him at the point of my sword. How he came away unscathed I will never know. When we realised who he was we knew he had a charmed life.”

  But Nelson’s fabled ability to walk on water was soon to run out when he next weighed anchor and set sail for Tenerife.

  Day Four

  Extract of tape recording, Orlop deck HMS Victory at sea

  All hell breaks loose. I’m flung down on the gun-deck with my face pressed hard against the planking holding my head with both hands as splinters and shot whistle past knowing for certain what its like to be terrified and thinking ‘what a stupid way to go’ My body’s shaking out of control from the adrenalin rush but my mind is strangely crystal clear like I’m watching someone else’s movie. Really weird. There’s mayhem all around and I’m certain I’m about to die in this heaving coffin and |’m thinking all the events of my life should start spooling through my mind before some hot shard of metal puts me out of it, but instead my obit is starting to write itself in
side my head and that makes me angry but the madder I get the faster the words flow until I’m screaming silently. There’s a weight bearing down on me and slowly I realise it’s Jim Collins shielding me with his body and I try to push him off to let me up…..give me a minute to get my breath and I’ll be okay. And it dawns on me that we’ve just taken a broadside from the French ship close alongside now, just soaked up the blast, and it’s Jim who’s thrown me down as grape and canister shot has raked the deck. Saving my stupid neck is getting to be a habit with this kid. I turn my face and look up and I can see gaping holes where the shot has poured in on us and the scream in my head suddenly becomes the screaming and yelling all around me as what’s left of the gun crews drag mutilated shipmates from the cannons and start to reload. The roar of our own guns almost knocks me senseless, the deck suddenly jumps and cracks me in the face and I can taste blood in my mouth from a split lip and the stinging gunpowder smoke blows back, curling low in thick coils and my eyes are burning and I’m choking and I’m coughing and gasping for air and through my blurred vision I see one of the tars on the nearest gun rise up and grab the wooden handspike to lever the breech so that the crouching gun captain can correct the elevation. For some reason I take special note of the fact that he’s wearing a blue jacket and white baggies smudged with black powder, like his clothing is suddenly incredibly fascinating. He’s heaving on the spike when ..Boom, he drops like a stone. Boom…down. My mind does an action replay, but it’s still the same. Boom…down. Alive…boom…down…dead. In the blink of an eye. Unbelievable. The guns fire another salvo and the deck slams me in the face again and I’m struggling to shake Collins off and get to my feet. More smoke envelops us and then right there in front of my streaming eyes I see a ghost floating towards me, a white spectre wreathed in dirty grey smoke and my heart trips into overdrive. Boom…down’s astral spirit rising. The safety catches fly off and my mind flips a sickening somersault like my brain just exploded out of the top of my head. Then just as if I’d been drenched with cold water the apparition materialises into Mr Ping the Chinese cook who spent long patient hours teaching me Da Lu on the Q deck between watches. He’s peering at me through his round eyeglasses ands giving me his big gap toothed grin as he pushes something soft and warm into my hand.

  You eat Mr John … keep your strength up

  I look down, dumbstruck and see I’m holding a slice of Pease pudding and there goes the Da Lu master his white coat flapping, dancing nimbly across the corpse strewn deck doling out his snacks to the men still on the guns like he’s the lunch delivery boy, the words ringing in my ears.

  You eat Mr John….keep your strength up..

  Transcript of tape-recorded interview with Lieutenant Nathan Cable aboard the schooner HMS Pickle at sea.

  JP note: Tenerife. Everybody kept telling me I ought to write up the Tenerife incident, but trawling through the cuttings I couldn’t find any mention of it. Then someone said Lt Cable who’d come over from The Vic on a routine transfer of stores had been there with Nelson. So in the end I got it from the horse’s mouth.

  What’s that?

  A tape recorder

  Oh

  It records what you say and you can play it back

  Mmm looks like a snuff box

  Don’t worry about it, it won’t bite. They tell me you were at Tenerife, the Santa Cruz thing?

  Aye, I was there right enough.

  With Nelson’s squadron?

  Aye. July ’97 it was, sticks in my memory like it was yesterday, and a right lash-up it was too. The little Admiral lost his arm in that one, damned near lost his life into the bargain. We used to call him Hurry-Hurry-Horatio on account of he never stood still. But Tenerife almost stopped him in his tracks.

  So what happened Nathan?

  Oh, Admiralty got some raw intelligence. They were crazy about spies back then, always listening out for the latest scuttlebutt. Some cloak and dagger clown convinced ‘em Santa Cruz was ours for the taking and our lords and masters were eager for a toe hold that close to the evil empire. Go down there and give the Spanish a bloody nose. So who’d they give the job to? Why young Hurry-Hurry of course.

  On the strength of an intelligence assessment?

  Oh aye, on a wing and a prayer. We went roaring down there with a task force but right from the start anyone with half an eye – like Horatio God bless him – could see we were out of our depth. The place was so heavily fortified, it was bristling with guns like a porcupine, and they laid down such a carpet of cannon fire soon as they had us in their sights that we couldn’t get within five miles of the shore. So we hauled off and anchored up to the North West of Santa Cruz. But did Hurry-Hurry call it a day? Did he hell. There was no way he was going back to tell crusty old Admiral St Vincent that his spies had sold him a pig in a poke, so we sat there swinging on our anchor chains while he dreamed up one of his famous up-and-at-‘em routines. Only by now we’d lost the element of surprise. They knew we were coming, where we were coming from and by hell they were ready for us. It was like shooting fish in a barrel.

  You went in then?

  Oh yes. Nelson was really determined. All that “Westminster Abbey or glorious victory” stuff had really gone to his head. He’d go where angels fear to tread without a second thought. Not that he’d ask anyone to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. Always led from the front and the lads loved him for it. They’d follow him into the fires of hell, then do it all over again the next day. But Tenerife, the Santa Cruz thing…that was something else.

  Tell me about it?

  Well like I said, Nelson wasn’t backing off. When he realised he couldn’t get his ships in close enough for a bombardment – and I mean a man-o-war coming in under a full press of sail is a formidable sight, enough to scare the living daylights out of old Pedro any day of the week – only this time they weren’t having any, so like I said we hauled off and Hurry-Hurry got us all together for a pow-wow and unveiled his master plan; we’d take to the boats and go in fast at night when they least expected, a thousand marines and seamen, jump the sentries and storm the citadel before they knew what hit ‘em. Speed and daring, he actually said that. The assault teams were under the command of Captains Trowbridge, Hood, Thompson, Miller and Waller, all armed to the teeth and in the boats at eleven o’clock sharp, Cap’n Freemantle and Bowen went with Nelson in the command boat. In we went, rowing like fury and we almost pulled it off. By half past one in the morning we were sneaking up, a couple of hundred yards off the mole when they spotted us and opened up with everything they’d got. The Fox’s cutter got hit first and went down with Lieutenant Gibson and ninety odd drowned. Then Captain Bowen and his first lieutenant copped it when their boat was blown out of the water.

  It was pandemonium and to cap it all, the night was so dark we couldn’t keep track of each other and the plan began to unravel before our eyes. Nelson with Thompson and Freemantle made it to the mole with five boats, stormed the outer defences, overpowered five hundred of their troops and spiked their six 24 pounders to give the rest of the incoming boats a breather. But soon as they tried to move out they were pinned down by heavy fire from the fort, musket and grape shot pouring down on ‘em like rain. Tore ‘em to shreds. The whole lot was almost wiped out killed or wounded and in the confusion me and the two cap’ns both of ‘em wounded found Nelson with his arm hanging off still waving his sword and yelling orders and we got him out of there in the nick of time. Most of the rest of the lads had tried to land south of the citadel to execute a pincer move but their luck was out too because they hit rough surf when they came in which capsized the boats and soaked their powder. All told only eighty marines, about the same number of pike-men and a hundred and eighty seamen made it ashore, fought their way into town and set up a forward command post in the square. Well that was it, a stand-off Cap’n Trowbridge had assumed command now that Nelson was out of action and in the heat of the moment was all for pressing on
and storming the fortress, which towered over the town itself, until one of the prisoners we’d taken told him there were three thousand heavily armed Spaniards inside and a hundred crack French troops with five field pieces just itching to blow us to kingdom come. He looked around and took stock and that’s when he realised Nelson was badly wounded and most of his men were out of action so he called a truce, sent Cap’n Hood up the road with a message to the Governor offering a cease fire in return for a free passage back to the ships. The Governor sent word back calling on us to surrender as prisoners of war, but Trowbridge had the bit between his teeth and wasn’t having any of that malarkey; told him to his face if they refused to let us go he’d torch the town and go down fighting. Guarantee a bloodbath.

  To his credit, the Governor, Juan Antoine Gutterry saw sense and finally agreed so we limped back to the mole and blow me down, when we got there the Spaniards turned out and provided us with boats to get back to the ships. Juan Antoine himself came down handing out biscuits and wine and when he realised it was Nelson’s squadron, offered to treat the wounded in the town’s hospital and provision the ships while we were off the island. Of course the whole episode was a disaster but it was written up in the official reports as “adding great lustre to his majesty’s arms” on account of the gallantry under fire. Truth of it was we lost a lot of good men that day, Richard Bowen my cap’n off the Terpsichore, forty-four killed, ninety seven drowned, a hundred or so wounded and five missing in action, all in the space of a few hours. That’s one hell of a bloody nose I’d say. And our poor little Admiral was under the sawbones for six months before they’d rate him fit for duty again.

  Funny it never made the press; I can hardly find a mention

  Well for all the fine words we were hardly covered in glory and I think the Admiralty tried to gloss over it. We took a pasting at Tenerife and it just went to prove that Nelson was mortal after all.

  How about you Nathan?

  Oh I was in the thick of it all right, carried Horatio out of there in my arms, his blood soaking into my shirt. I never mentioned that to anyone before.

  You were lucky to get out of there in one piece

  You think so Mr Pretty? (Cable rapped the calf of his left leg with his knuckle) Finest piece of oak the carpenter could find. Nelson got a thousand pound a year war-wound pension out of that one and I got a purser’s berth and a wooden leg. No laddie, don’t go writing this up as a glorious victory. You want my opinion – Tenerife was a bad joke.

  Audio diary of John Pretty HMS Pickle at sea

  Okay I admit it, I’m intrigued. I mean Nelson’s been the peg for this story all along, everybody knows that. The quintessential hero figure. The kind of exploits, which sell papers. And as the only hack on the story with an inside track to the man I’ve become conditioned to that point of view, complacent even. Sure he’s charm itself at the briefings but I’ve never tried to look behind that boys’ own exterior; never poked around inside his skull. Then, out of the blue, that chance interview with Nathan Cable brought me up short, set me thinking. If Cable’s story’s right, and I’ve no reason to doubt it, Nelson was verging on megalomania taking risks like that, a touch of the sociopath even. Tenerife sounded like a suicide mission and if the Admiralty did hush it up, what else have they tucked away? Yeah, I’ve been looking at Nelson as a one dimensional figure and now I’m beginning to think there’s more going on with him than meets the eye. So I’ve started hunting around for some clues in the Navy’s official website which is dull as ditchwater and I’ve come up with a snippet from the Personnel Records, a page quaintly headed Honours and Awards. Apparently it’s the custom for anyone in line for an honour to submit a précis called a Memorial for the King to work on. And I discovered that when Nelson got his knighthood this is what he wrote…I’ll read it onto the tape:

  That during the present war your memorialist has been in four actions with fleets of the enemy viz: On the 13th and 14th of March 1795; on the 13th July 1795 and on the 14th February 1797. In three actions with frigates, in six engagements with shore batteries; in ten actions in boats cutting out of harbour, destroying vessels and taking three towns. Your memorialist has also served on shore with the army for four months and commanded the batteries at the sieges of Bastia and Calvi. That during the war he has assisted in the capture of seven sail of the line, six frigates, four corvettes and eleven privateers and taken and destroyed fifty sail of merchant vessels. Your memorialist has actually been engaged against the enemy upwards of 120 times. In which service your memorialist has lost his right eye and arm and has been severely wounded. All of which services and wounds your memorialist most humbly submits to your Majesty’s most gracious consideration.

  Stirring stuff, which earned him his thousand a year and a knighthood into the bargain. A regular national hero, but at what cost I’m starting o ask myself. That hollow sound when Cable knocked on wood keeps coming back to haunt me and I’m beginning to think about the honours system the spilling of blood and the body count a whole lot deeper. The anti war demo mob get their hands on this it’d be like dynamite, so now I’m thinking I’d better try to get inside Nelson’s skin before it all hits the fan. Hero or danger junkie? The myth or the man? I don’t know, maybe I’ll find some answers in the Battle of the Nile.

  E-mail Harry Oakes to John Pretty

  The Sun’s running a spoiler saying our hero’s having it off with his best mate’s missus, Lady H the fragrant Emma and BB’s doing his crust as usual. Wants you to put it to him. What d’you think John? It’s your call.

  HO

  E-mail John Pretty to Harry Oakes

  You’ve got to be joking Harry. This guy’s got our lives in his hands out here. Take his eye off the ball and we’re all sunk, besides we don’t do smut, remember?

  JP

  Note by John Pretty:

  The beauty of the internet is you can find almost anything you’re looking for on the web, even the most obscure subjects, provided you know where to look. The world and his wife have got personalised websites these days; “my life online” is the ultimate ego trip. Once you’ve got the hang of serious surfing, research becomes a doddle. Trouble is, makes you lazy too. If it’s all laid out at the click of a mouse there’s no need to wear down shoe-leather anymore, and before you know it, you’re one step removed from reality. So when I started looking for The Nile I skipped over all the official guff and cobbled up second hand journalism. I wanted to hear from someone who was there, someone who had gun-smoke in their nostrils. And eventually I hit pay dirt. His name was Clinton Powers, a warrant officer from the Terpsichore who became the Admiral’s chief yeoman. Powers had had a ringside view of the whole cruise from start to finish and had penned a graphic account for an obscure journal called Once Navy Always Navy. This is what he wrote:

  Personal account of the Battle of the Nile by Warrant Officer Clinton Powers, Chief Yeoman to Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.

  I was a signalman on the Terpsichore when we were told that our Commander in Chief, the Earl St Vincent was preparing a task force under Admiral Nelson to head down to the Med and intercept a French battle fleet which had set sail, destination unknown. They were crewing the ships and were short of, gunners and signalmen, so they let it be known that any specialist who volunteered was in line for a petty officer or warrant rating and combat pay. It sounded like a good berth to me and as I was a dab hand at tossing the bunting I put my name forward and got posted to Nelson’s flagship, the Vanguard, seventy-four guns. We took on stores for a long voyage and set sail with our sister ships the Orion and the Alexander, the frigates Emerald and my old ship the Terpsichore and the sloop La Bonne Cotoyenne. Sailed out of Gib in early May and on the 22nd we were in the Gulf of Lyons when, at two in the morning, we were hit by a sudden tempest and the Vanguard took the brunt of the damage losing her topmasts and foremast while we fought like men possessed to keep her afloat.

  In the heavy we
ather it was every man for himself, the formation broke up, the battleships lost contact with the frigates and when the storm was over, we were scattered to the four winds and there was much anxiety that Bonaparte’s fleet might catch us in this parlous state. But luckily we saw no sail of the enemy and when we eventually managed to re-group Nelson decided to head for Sardinia as the Vanguard was severely crippled and we needed to reach a friendly port to carry out repairs. The Alexander took Vanguard in tow with Orion scouting ahead but when we anchored in St Pierre’s road on the 24th the locals proved to be quite hostile to us and we were obliged to repair the damage as best we could from our own resources. Captain Berry, Sir James Saumarez and Captain Bell undertook the Herculean task and the decks rang to the sounds of the shipwrights, carpenters and sailmakers toiling around the clock. They succeeded in rigging a jury foremast, main and mizzen topmasts and to fish the bowsprit and after four days working flat out, Nelson declared that the Vanguard was at last ship shape and ready to sail.

  On the 4th June we rendezvoused with Captain Hardy in La Matine who told us that Captain Trowbridge had been detached with ten sail-of-the-line and a fifty-gun battleship to reinforce our little squadron as it was believed that the French fleet was definitely in our vicinity. On the 8th June Captain Trowbridge’s flotilla joined us and Nelson began to brief his captains on the tactics he intended to employ when we located the enemy. Every possible situation was considered and plans were agreed to drill the crews so that we could function like a well-oiled machine with minimum commands.

  During the days that followed we held battle drills day and night, exercising the great guns and familiarising each of the ships with the signal codes. It was then that Admiral Nelson called me into his cabin and entrusted me with the secret signals, both flag and signal gun, which were to be used in combat and it was my job to make sure that these codes were second nature to all the yeomen in the squadron so that we would be ready, come what may. The Admiral was poring over his charts and he told me that he knew the enemy had sailed with a North West wind and he traced a finger up the Med pointing out their probable course. He sent La Matine to reconnoitre the Italian coast and set a fleet course for Corsica. The hunt was on in earnest now but although we met and spoke with several vessels during the voyage, there had been no sign of the French ships. We cruised up the coast between Corsica and Elba and were rejoined by La Matine without sighting the enemy. This cat and mouse game was beginning to wear on our nerves. We exercised our battle drills until every man knew exactly what to do by second nature on any given order. For my part, I made sure that all the signalmen could read the bunting in their sleep.

  Captain Trowbrdge took La Matine into Naples and learned that the enemy fleet had last been sighted heading for Malta and we set out like a gundog on the scent, taking a short cut through the Straits of Messina where we were warmly greeted by the Sicilians who came out in a drove of boats and told us that the garrison at Malta had in fact surrendered and the French fleet was anchored there. We put on a full press of sail and with a fresh wind from the North West to speed us made immediately for Malta. On 23rd June our scout ship La Matine spoke with a Genoese brig out of Malta and discovered the French had in fact sailed from there five days previously.

  Despite all this frustration, Nelson never once let his personal feelings show. I was on the quarterdeck with him one day sending routine fleet signals when he turned to me, sniffed the breeze and said: “Mr Powers I believe I can smell a whiff of garlic in the air today.”

  The hunt took us back to Sicily where we called at Syracuse to take on supplies and water, which was running desperately low, and put to sea again on the 25th July. By now Nelson was convinced that the French objective was Alexandria and that as they headed for Egypt the two fleets had passed at sea without sight of each other, so went the game of hunt the thimble on the great expanse of the ocean. So we set off in pursuit once more and Captain Trowbridge took the Culloden into the Gulf of Coron and learned from the Turkish Governor that the enemy fleets had been seen steering South East from Candia. We were closing in, of that Nelson was convinced as he remarked to me: “that garlic smells much stronger today, don’t you think, Mr Powers?”

  So Alexandria it was and we hoisted every stitch of sail and made best speed to reach that destination without delay. Imagine our joy then when the port hove into sight and the masthead lookout reported that it was indeed crammed with French sail.

  It seemed clear that Bonaparte’s intention was a full-scale invasion of Egypt and as we made our approach Nelson called a counsel of war aboard the Vanguard and all the officers came over from their respective ships and joined him in the great cabin. He began by assuring them that all the planning and training they had so assiduously undertaken would soon be put to the test and then he shared with them all the possible tactics and manoeuvres he anticipated when we engaged the enemy. Apart from the special attack codes entrusted to me the rest of the signals would be superfluous. So thoroughly did the Admiral brief his commanders that they would be able to anticipate his every intention without further orders and so concentrate on getting the best performance from their ships and crews. Nelson sat at the head of the table with the officers flanked around him as he sketched out diagrams of his plans which that fine body of seamen quickly absorbed without further question. He told them if the battle began at sea they were to form three sub-squadrons to strike at the weakest part of the French line; the first to attack the battleships with the second in support whilst the third sub squadron went for the transports and troop carriers sinking as many as they could. It seemed likely, the Admiral reflected, that the French had on board a large expeditionary force and it was paramount that this should not be permitted to land, which was why he planned to pin down the warships so that the lightly armed transports could be swiftly dealt with. His method of attack should the enemy remain at anchor was equally audacious and can best be described by the manner in which it was executed, for this was, indeed, how the battle of the Nile unfolded,

  At the conclusion of the meeting Nelson told his captains: “I know Villeneuve of old, he is a wily bird and he will be a determined adversary, so we must look to our laurels and ensure that every man in the fleet knows what is expected of him.”

  It was the 1st of August and Nelson sent two ships ahead to reconnoitre the enemy’s disposition whilst the main squadron remained in the offing. First contact was made by Captain Hood in the Zealous and I was on the yard watching through my glass when I saw the code sixteen signal hoisted and immediately reported to he Admiral that the enemy was waiting for us, lying anchored in line of battle in Aboukir Bay at the mouth of The Nile.

  I was still at Nelson’s side when he immediately gave the order to haul-up and the whole squadron followed suit in perfect formation, so well disciplined were the crews. The wind was in the North North West, a topgallant breeze and we took in the royals to haul into our new course. Nelson turned to me and told me to make the signal to clear the guns and prepare for battle saying it was his intention to attack the French van and centre and cut off the enemy’s rear formation, which would be impotent to intervene. No soon had the signal been hoisted than each ship deployed a bower cable abaft, bent forward in readiness to anchor as we continued to carry sail, standing in swiftly in close formation. This was a risky business because we were now in uncharted waters; no one was familiar with Aboukir Bay, a French stronghold, so we took constant soundings as we made our final approach lest we should run onto unseen shoals.

  The enemy was moored in a compact defensive line close to the coast supported by shore batteries of cannon and mortars and flanked by gunboats and frigates. It was a classic French tactic to give their artillery maximum advantage, but the weakness of such a static formation was their inability to manoeuvre to best effect and spotting this with the eye of a seaman, Nelson realised that as the French ships had been obliged to leave sufficient leeway to swing on their moorings, the
re was just enough sea room for our ships to slip between them and anchor. No signal to this effect was necessary as every Captain in the fleet knew the Admiral’s mind and so in we went like a pack of hounds, canvas taut, gunports open, the French gunners holding their fire until we were in range and then commencing a steady barrage.

  Our leading ships took the brunt of the opening broadsides on their bows, testing the mettle of our sailors who were aloft, furling sails, or on deck hauling the braces, but we did not waver as Goliath and Zealous led us in, taking concentrated gunfire from the ships, shore batteries and gun-boats. They broke through this cannonade and with Orion, Audacious and Theseus close behind took up their allotted stations inside the enemy line and were soon in close action. We went in next and dropped anchor within half pistol shot of Le Spartiate, the third ship in the enemy line and opened fire to cover the next wave The Minotaur, Defence, Bellerophon, Majestic, Swiftsure and Alexander, each ship passing us within hailing distance and then anchoring by the stern to give their gunners the best arc of fire, forming an inverted line from van to rear. Captain Thompson took the Leander through to the far side of the enemy’s line, raking the Le Franklin and L’Orient, the French commander-in-chief’s flagship, claiming later to have seen the whites of Villeneuve’s eyes as he passed by.

  The action had begun at sunset and the nimble manoeuvring of the British ships in the opening exchanges had already unnerved the French crews who found themselves to be sitting ducks unable to bring their guns to bear on the moving targets, and to add to their confusion, within half an hour the bay was in total darkness, lit only by the eerie orange glow of gunfire. Our only casualty at that time was the unfortunate Culloden which ran aground as Captain Trowbridge took on the shore based batteries and despite the strenuous efforts of her crew was stuck fast and could not be floated off and so acted as a beacon to warn the incoming ships of the treacherous shallows.

  Now to avoid friendly fire in the darkness, our ships hoisted their distinguishing lights and redoubled their attack.. The lead ship in the enemy line Le Guerrier was dismasted in less than twelve minutes and before a further ten minutes had passed Le Conquerant and Le Spartiate shared the same fate and each ship struck their colours. L’Aquillon and Le Souverain du Peuple, next in line were also overpowered by half past eight. Seeing how the battle was ebbing and flowing, Captain Berry sent Lieutenant Galway with a party of the Vangaurd’s marines to take charge of Le Spartiate and returning with the French captain’s sword our Lieutenant’s delight was diminished when he discovered that his Admiral had been wounded and was being treated below. He went down and presented the sword to Nelson who fortunately was not seriously injured, a ball had opened up his old head wound, and a few minutes later Captain Berry appeared with the good news that another three enemy ships had capitulated and their flagship L’Orient was on fire. Brushing the surgeon aside and leaning on my arm, Admiral Nelson went on deck in time to see the French ship engulfed in flames and immediately gave the order to lower the boats and save as many lives as possible. They were pulled from the inferno in the nick of time as the glow from the fire lit up the bay and then the flames reached the powder magazine and L’Orient blew up with a tremendous explosion which sent a fireball of debris high into the night sky. A deathly silence fell on the scene for several seconds as the horror sank in and then a smouldering tangle of spars yards, masts and rigging came raining down on us sparking the battle into action once more.

  The French attempted to rally their forces and sporadic exchanges took place from half past ten until three in the morning when there was another lull which marked our victory in the van. The British fleet now turned its’ guns on the remaining French ships which had anchored to the rear of the line and at five in the morning Le Guillaume Tell and Le Genereux were the only French battleships still flying their colours. Astonishingly as it may seem, whilst this cannon duel was taking place, a French frigate L’Artimise suddenly appeared out of nowhere, fired an ineffectual broadside and then immediately struck even before we could bring our guns to bear. But before we could board, her dastardly captain set her on fire, beached the blazing wreck and fled ashore. Another of the French frigates, La Serieuse had been sunk early in the battle and lay with her poop above the water, her crew clinging to their little wooden island. Our boats went over and rescued the wretches who after all were still seamen the same as us. On our side the Bellerophon had a lucky escape after her close encounter with L’Orient. Masts and cables shot away she had drifted some distance from the French flagship before she exploded and suffered no further damage. At first light the Audacious went to her aid.

  At eleven o’clock Le Genereax and Guillaume Tell huddled together with two frigates fighting a desperate rearguard action, realised all was lost, cut their cables and stood out to sea taking the French Admiral with them. Although the Zealous set off in pursuit, Nelson called her back and graciously allowed his French counterpart to escape the ignominy of surrendering his sword.

  All the while this whirlpool of battle was raging around him, Captain Trowbridge was forced to watch as a frustrated spectator from the quarterdeck of his crippled Culloden. Even when she was re-floated the next day, she was so badly holed that the pumps had difficulty keeping her afloat and extensive repairs were required.

  Now that the sea battle was over, Nelson trained his guns on the shore garrison at Aboukir which swiftly persuaded the commandant to agree to a truce so that all the wounded French sailors could be taken to hospitals ashore accompanied by their own ships’ surgeons and as the captured French ships were secured the Arabs and Marmelukes who had lined the shore in their droves during the battle celebrated our victory, and even more significantly the consequent foiling of Bonaparte’s plans to invade their land, with festivities which went on long into the night

  The following day when he had received reports from all his ships, Nelson called me to his cabin and dictated the following messages to the fleet:

  The Admiral intends giving public thanks for this victory at two o’clock this day and recommends every ship do the same as soon as convenient.

  On the stroke of two our chaplain, the Rev Couryn, performed a public service on the quarterdeck of the Vanguard, the other ships joining in this solemn act of gratitude at the same time.

  The Admiral most heartily congratulates the captains, officers, seamen and marines of the squadron he has the honour to command on the event of the late action and he desires that they will accept his most sincere and cordial thanks for their gallant behaviour in this glorious battle. It must strike forcibly every British seaman, how superior their conduct is when in discipline and good order compared to the riotous behaviour of the lawless Frenchmen. The squadron may be assured the Admiral will not fail, with his dispatches, to represent their truly meritorious conduct in the strongest terms to the Commander-in-Chief.

  By the skill and courage shown in the Battle of the Nile so shall the British Navy continue to be the admiration of the world ‘till time shall be no more.

  Audio diary John Pretty on board HMS Pickle at sea

  I scrolled through that eyewitness account a few times looking for clues. It was obvious that Nelson was a charismatic commander who won the unswerving loyalty of his men through the force of his own personality and consummate skill as a seaman. So how much of Powers’ version of events had been coloured by his personal regard for Nelson? Had it been reckless to take on a fortified enemy at such close quarters? How much did he rely on his own certainty of victory whatever the odds? Comparing The Nile with Tenerife I began to wonder and made a note to look up Powers and see if he could throw more light on the little Admiral’s state of mind. There was something going on inside his head, something I couldn’t quite see, like a shadow glimpsed out of he corner of an eye, like a premonition which makes the hairs on your neck stand up. Something indefinable that for the life of me I just couldn’t get a handle on. Just a whisper in my ear, which kept me, awake a
t night.

  So while I’m on line I thought I’d log into the Chronicle’s database and download some follow up stuff onto a zip file just for future reference.

  Victory at the Nile did Nelson proud all right and for a modest seaman he played it to the gallery. He shipped out of Aboukir leaving Sam Hood with four sail of the line and two frigates to keep Alexandria bottled up and sailed for Naples where he was feted by our Ambassador Sir William Hamilton and his wife the Lady Emma who then joined him for the voyage back to England. Seems the hero of the Nile made a big impression on Lady H during the sea passage and when he reached Yarmouth the news was already out and he was mobbed by crowds of well-wishers who dispensed with the horses and drew his carriage by hand to the Whistler’s Arms where the mayor immediately made him a freeman of the town.

  But this was nothing compared with his arrival in London where King George conferred on him the peerage of Baron Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe and he received a vote of thanks from both houses of Parliament and a pension of £2.000. Not bad going for a simple sailor.

  The East India Company handed him a £10,000 bonus for keeping the trade routes open and his PR people fixed up a publicity stunt in the city of London when the newly minted Lord Nelson presented the sword of the vanquished French Admiral Blanquet to the city fathers in a packed council chamber with a well crafted headline grabber : As a Freeman of the City of London I take the liberty of handing your lordships the sword of the French Admiral and request that the City honour me with the acceptance of it as remembrance that Britannia still rules the waves, which, that she may ever do, is the fervent wish of your lordship.

  Even the hardhearted hacks of the press corps felt their chests swell with pride, but I was looking for something else. Some clue behind the bravado and veneer of glory. I was wondering about the time Nelson and Emma Hamilton spent on that victorious voyage back to England, their welcome at the Whistler’s and their cosy dinners at Nerot’s Hotel in Kings Street St James, which had been staked out for weeks by the paparazzi. Then there was the Lord Mayor’s parade through the streets of London when the adoring crowd surged forward to haul his carriage from Ludgate Hill to the Guildhall. In the company of such a national hero, no wonder the Lady was smitten.

  The Navy gave Nelson his greatest prize, a new ship, the San Josef, a Spanish first rate of 110 guns which had been captured in the action off Cape St Vincent, refurbished and re-flagged as a British man-o-war and he set sail to take on the Danes in the battle of Copenhagen Roads when negotiations to free up the trade route to and from the Baltic foundered on the sarcasm of a Danish diplomat who declined to sign the treaty saying: “If your guns are not better pointed than your pens, you will make little impression on Copenhagen.” When the fort, which had commanded the sound, demanding tolls from passing shipping for a hundred years, was reduced to rubble under Nelson’s ferocious attack he lived to eat his words.

  More glory back home, but by now the rumours were beginning to spread that Nelson had left his wife for the lovely Emma and the tabloids began to scent a tarnished hero.

  Now it looks like the Sun has finally twisted the lawyers arms and blown the lid off the story and the pack is in hot pursuit. A good sex scandal beats a hot hero every time in the newspaper game and I can see the banners now: Nelson dumps wife for new floozie

  The thing of it is…. I’ve seen what the rat pack can do once they get into full swing and that’s what worries me. I mean here we are staring into the guns of the French and Spanish fleet with the biggest showdown of the little Admiral’s career just a whisker away when news from home is really going to mess his mind.

  Yeah, that really worries me.

  Day Five

  Extract of tape recording recovered from the Orlop deck of HMS Victory at sea

  I can’t do this…. where the hell’s the boat?

  My heart’s pounding like its going to burst out of my chest any minute now and my legs have gone…gone like jelly. And…and… Oh Jesus…I’ve got to get out of here…where’s that damned boat!

  Collins…Collins! Get the boat for Gods sake, GET THE BOAT.

  Wait a minute. Calm down, just get hold of yourself. You’re a sitting duck out here and if you don’t get yourself together right now you’re going to be dead.

  Take a deep breath. That’s it. That’s better. Now think, think what you’re doing.

  We came up out of that hellhole, Jimmy Collins, and me and I’m practically deaf from the noise, and now we’re here on the main deck, and oh man it’s even worse. There’s debris all over the place and I’m looking up and all I can see is this other ship right alongside just looming over us and we hit it with a terrific crash and I go sprawling on the deck. And all around me there’s men running around like they’re demented, then all of a sudden the ringing in my ears stops and my face and chest hurt because I’m holding my breath and my eyes are so wide the skin’s pulled taut as a drum. Then there’s this terrific thunder as all the cannon on this side open up point blank and I clap my hands over my ears and my mouth’s open wide in a soundless scream as the blast of the percussion hits me like a hammer blow.

  I’ve got to get the hell out of this.

  I’m looking up and I can see the decks of this other ship right up close now, the gun ports flapping shut and great splinters of wood flying off as our shot pounds the hull. The noise is incredible.

  I’ve got to find Collins. Get back to our boat. Just get out of here.

  There’s stuff zinging off the deck like angry bees. Whistling past my head and I look up a bit higher, through my fingers, and I can see figures on the yards of this other ship, just sort of hanging there, pointing down at us. Pointing what? Oh sweet Jesus… they’ve got marksmen on the yards and the ratlines shooting down at us!

  Collins! Jim! Where the hell are you?

  There’s people going by me now, like figures in a nightmare, stripped off, streaked in sweat and blood wielding cutlasses and tomahawks and murderous great grappling hooks go swinging past my head trailing snakes of rope.

  If I don’t get out of here now…. come on legs, work for Christ’s sake!

  It’s mayhem and…and what? I don’t get it…now there’s figures jumping back the other way and there’s this one standing over me with a bloody great pike and I’m like paralysed, squealing into this stupid tape recorder.

  This is it. I can see his face, reddish stubble, big nose dripping snot, eyes like hot coals and the iron spike on the end of the pike glinting, kind of winking at me. Got to roll…got to move…got to do something…this is too stupid.

  I’m mesmerised by the spike, its getting bigger, coming down in an arc, but I’m already ahead of it, plotting its course, feeling it get me in the chest, feeling it gouge my flesh shatter my ribs and pierce my heart as in a last spasm I grab the shaft and feel the gush of hot blood on my hands.

  Stupid… stupid… stupid… STUPID

  What the…everything’s gone into reverse. The spike flies backwards. The pike jumps up and the leering face suddenly explodes in pinwheels of vivid colours.

  What the hell…. something’s pulling me back, tugging my shirt. My eyes swivel wildly and there he is Jim Collins, a pistol in his hand, smoke curling from the muzzle.

  Jim Collins…

  Hauling me to my feet. Brushing bits of brain matter and bone fragments from my shirt and grinning like it’s his birthday.

  Come on Mr Pretty…we’re going to board her…you don’t want to miss this.

  Oh Jesus..oh man…I’ve wet myself.

  Audio diary John Pretty on board HMS Pickle at sea

  I want to tell you about Jim Collins. When you’re embedded you get to see the action close up, first hand. But the downside for a reporter is you see too much, too close. There’s lots of things you can’t report. Just too gruesome for the breakfast table. Like the seaman who fell from the main mast during a drill and landed on his head on the deck, hit so hard hi
s eyes popped out, like two hard-boiled eggs on storks. You can’t serve that with tea and toast. Or the time when they were on gunnery practice and a spark fell into a keg of gunpowder and blew up one of the powder monkeys who went screaming around in agony trailing charred flesh, which smelled like sizzling bacon. Far too rich for breakfast. No there are things you see which you can’t report, but they etch themselves into your memory and over the years come back like ghosts to haunt your dreams. Then there are things you should have reported at the time, but for one reason or another never did. One such story was the tale of Jim Collins and the Chevrette Incident. And I’m ashamed to say I never wrote it.

  By the time I heard the story, Jim Collins had already saved my life a couple of times. Bear in mind this is a thirteen-year-old midshipman I’m talking about. Just a kid. He’s got this lean wind burnished face of a child who’s spent most of his young life out of doors, not glued to a computer game or a TV screen. His eyes are the palest cornflower blue and his coarse yellow hair hangs in un-greased skeins which he ties back when he’s working at his profession. To look at him, its hard to believe Jim Collins has been at sea since he was ten…well before that, almost as soon as he could walk and pull on a rope he was obliged to help his father work the family ferry boat. Jim’s a Devon boy, raised in a Plymouth back street, and the family earned a crust carrying passengers across the Tamar in a leaky old cutter. Not much of the fare money went on bread; most of it vanished down his old man’s throat in the alehouse. The only son of an habitual drunk, Jim’s life swung between beatings and whining entreatments, and many a day he ended up running the ferry himself, hauling on the chain until his hands resembled hamburger. No Tom Brown schooldays for young Jim Collins.

  Then one day, as the ferryboat plied its trade across the mud brown river, he saw a King’s sloop moored close to the Barbican steps to take on the catch of the local press gang, trawled from the Devonport taverns. Jim tied up the ferryboat for the last time, took one look back over his shoulder at the dismal town, and with no regrets slipped aboard while the quartermaster’s back was turned. That day he cut himself adrift, and like they say in the adventure books, he quite literally ran away to sea.

  Now that was a risky thing to do. When his hidey-hole in the fore chains was discovered, they were two days at sea and as a child stowaway he could easily have ended up the plaything of the forecastle crew who would have had their fun, slit his throat and tossed him overboard. It happened, even in the Navy, and nobody would have been any the wiser. But luckily for Jim he was found by a good-hearted bosun who took him under his wing and persuaded the captain to enter him in the ship’s books as a boy seaman. Even gave him the Kings shilling to make it legal. And that’s how Jim Collins came to join the finest fighting force in the world. His Britannic Majesty’s Royal Navy.

  Over the next year Jim proved his worth aboard HMS Diadem and was duly rated AB – able seaman. And that’s where he would most likely have stayed for the rest of his naval career, on the lower deck, with petty officer the highest rating to which he could have aspired but for the Chevrette incident, which earned him the patronage of his hero, Lord Nelson, now Vice Admiral of the Red.

  In July 1801 with Bonaparte massing his forces and gathering his ships along the French coast, Nelson led assault after assault on the enemy shipping, daring hit and run raids with gunboats inside fortified French harbours to capture or sink the sheltering warships.

  On this particular night the Chevrette was the target; a French corvette of twenty guns and a crew of over three hundred including troops. She lay under the protective cover of the shore battery at Brest and the plan was to slip in under the cover of darkness, overpower the crew and cut her out. A risky business from the start .

  Jim Collins volunteered to cox’n captain Jameson’s cutter, and all was going well as the oars, carefully muffled with sacking, dipped and rose, sweeping them in, the crescent moon obscured by scudding cloud. As he murmured the stroke and steered for the dark outline against the blur of the shore, Jim had no way of knowing that they had already been spotted and the French gunners were creeping to their nine pounders and taking aim, waiting until they couldn’t miss. Suddenly the dark shape ahead exploded in a ripple of orange flame, the first volley of grapeshot cutting down Lieutenant Jameson who was standing in the bow with a boarding hook at the ready.

  Before the men at the oars could falter Jim took command and slewed the cutter hard alongside, throwing a rope over the taff rail to haul them in tight. He glanced over his shoulder, and saw in that instant tremendous gunfire from the ship and the shore battery passing over his head to rake the following assault boats. Despite the danger, Jim jumped up onto the gunwale and made a leap for the deck of the enemy ship, urging his shipmates to follow, only to discover that the French skipper had ranged his men three deep along the booms, each armed with a tomahawk, boarding pike and a brace of pistols. As the assault teams swarmed aboard furious hand-to-hand fighting left the deck littered with the dead and wounded. Ducking and weaving, Jim fought his way to the quarterdeck where he found Lieutenant Neville of the Uranie in a desperate sword fight with the French captain. Neville stumbled and Jim ran the Frenchman through with his blade, turned in time to see Marine Lieutenant Tom Sinclair killed as he defended a wounded midshipman from the Doris. Swinging his cutlass to fend off the attackers Jim dragged the injured man to safety behind the binnacle, but he could see now that the first wave of the boarding party had been hacked to pieces, limbs cut off by the flashing tomahawks and the second team was faring little better. It seemed the only saving grace in such a desperate situation was that the corvette was so close under the shore battery that the gunners couldn’t depress their pieces sufficiently to bear down on them and the fusillades of grape and canister shot which had done so much damage on the approach was now passing harmlessly overhead..

  Running back aft, Jim saw John Brown, boatswain of the Beaulieu, crouched at the barricaded door of the quarter gallery and squinting through the cracks he saw that the cabin beyond was filled with troops arming themselves with pikes and pistols. They exchanged glances and then burst in, Jim swinging his cutlass and screaming like a banshee. Startled faces greeted them as they flung themselves into the gallery like wild things, so unnerving the soldiers that they dropped their weapons and fled. Back to back they fought their way forward, riding the adrenalin wave, until they reached the forecastle where they held off repeated attacks while Brown calmly organised a band of seamen to cast off and make sail before reinforcements could reach them from the shore and the overwhelming French force regain the upper hand. But the corvette was still held fast by the stern cables and realising their peril as her head swung around, Jim fought his way aft and hacked away the moorings. Then on the quarterdeck he found Henry Wallis, a petty officer from the Beaulieu, a cutlass swinging in each hand, battling to reach the helm. Between them they forced the Frenchmen back, and Brown, bleeding from his wounds took the wheel as Jim chopped through the last of the stern cables and the Chevrette turned her bows towards the open sea.

  Leaping to the ratlines, Jim scrambled aloft to help the men cut loose the main sails which had been lashed down by the French crew, and found quartermaster Richard Smith, blood gushing from a gashed arm, crawling out along a yard to free the sail. When Smith fainted from loss of blood, Jim caught hold of him by the belt and swinging perilously from their lofty perch, managed to tourniquet the wound with his own neckerchief and lower the unconscious man to the deck below where he discovered boatswain’s mate John Wade slumped against the mast clutching his left arm which had been lopped off by a sabre stroke as he fought his way aboard. Jim ripped off his shirt and bound up the stump to staunch the blood until the surgeon could deal with the horrendous wound.

  So the Chevrette was captured, at huge cost in dead and wounded on both sides, in one of the bloodiest encounters of the gunboat campaign, and as he read the after action reports, Nelson noticed the name
of Jim Collins cropping up time and time again. The youngster was everywhere, in the thick of the action, steadying nerves, encouraging shipmates, fighting tenaciously and demoralising the enemy by constantly taking the initiative and rallying the assault force when it faltered in the face of daunting odds. Maybe the Admiral saw something of himself mirrored in the boy’s actions, but one thing is for certain, no sooner had he finished reading the reports than he sent for Collins, and when the young AB was standing before him in his cabin, personally promoted him to Midshipman.

  Now this kind of battlefield promotion was unheard of in the fleet, and when I was first told about it, I took it all with a big pinch of salt. Just another talked up tale, which had become exaggerated out of all proportion with the telling. But whenever the conversation in the wardroom turned to accounts of blood and glory fighting, the Chevrette incident would always come up as a prime example of conspicuous valour. Yeah, you ought to write up Jim Collins story, they would say, not many thirteen year olds got a ship named after them.

  So I checked the records and there it was, sure enough. The captured Chevrette had been renamed HMS Collins. Named after a thirteen-year-old lad? I made a mental note to ask Nelson about that, but as it turned out, I never did.

  The fact that a street kid from Devonport with no education had made Midshipman was also true enough. I checked the Navy List and found that the Admiralty at Nelson’s insistence had confirmed the meteoric promotion, which, as I say, was a significant departure from naval custom. The junior officers were, by and large, the sons of the well connected, and very few came up through the hawse pipe from the lower deck.

  For a while after that I used to watch Jim Collins playing solitaire on my laptop with the wide eyed innocence of youth and turn over the account of the Chevrette incident in my mind comparing the two images. Nah, can’t be, I concluded. They were just swinging the lamp when lurid war stories were ten a penny.

  The days dragged on, and after a while I forget all about it, and I’m ashamed to say Jim Collins story never got told. Until now. So if you’re still out there, Jimmy, captain of a frigate or back on the Torpoint ferry – this is for you.

  In the end I wrote the Nelson feature straight. There was really no other way. The intro went like this:

  He is an unlikely hero, this slight figure, a disabled veteran of numerous campaigns in the long and murderous Napoleonic war, blind in one eye, an arm amputated at the shoulder, his body scarred with more wounds than he cares to remember.

  In any other circumstance this frail looking pensioner would be pottering in the garden in an English village, not pacing the quarterdeck of the Navy’s mightiest flagship, preparing for battle.

  But this is no ordinary combatant of the campaign to thwart the ambitions of Napoleon Bonaparte. This pale, slightly stooped man, wearing the frock coat of a Vice Admiral, adorned with the four stars of the highest Orders of the land, is Lord Viscount Horatio Nelson, hero of the Nile and Copenhagen Roads and the burden of history weighs heavy on his narrow shoulders…

  When I read through on the screen before clicking the send button, I realised it was a pretty wooden piece of cut and paste journalism which lacked even a hint of sparkle and certainly didn’t do the subject justice. So chiding myself for allowing my standards to slip I decided to freshen it up with a few new quotes from Nelson himself just as soon as I had he chance.

  As we cruised off the Spanish coast, changing formation and practicing battle drills, from time to time the Pickle would come within hailing distance of the flagship and our captain would take the opportunity to lower a boat and cross to the Victory to replenish stores and compare notes with his opposite number, Captain Thomas Masterman Hardy. I grabbed the first chance to accompany him and found the Admiral in his usual spot on the quarterdeck, gazing pensively at the horizon, although no land was visible, as though willing himself into the mind of Villeneuve, tucked up in Cadiz. I recorded our conversation.

  Transcript of interview John Pretty / Admiral Nelson / HMS Victory at sea

  Ah Mr Pretty

  Admiral

  I trust you are well

  Perectly, sir, thank you.

  But I imagine your readers are becoming a tad frustrated. All this waiting for something to happen. And your editor expects a daily scoop, no doubt.

  Something like that, Admiral. Its hard for those armchair warriors to appreciate the subtlety of naval tactics from the comfort of the drawing room

  And who can blame them. I share their desire for action, Mr Pretty. This waiting game has gone on long enough. How I yearn for that old sea dog over there to weigh anchor so that we can get this business over and done with, once and for all. This will be the decider in our little game, you know. I feel it in my bones.

  The mother of all battles

  An intriguing expression. A journalistic device, no doubt?

  I think it was picked up in the Middle East, a colourful Arab saying.

  Very apposite…so, without compromising your journalistic integrity, how did you find our French friend…his demeanour?

  Pensive, Admiral. I think he shares your opinion.

  Mmm, that’s the pity of it. Villeneuve is a skilled seaman, worthy of a better master, and a better cause. We have much in common, and in other circumstances…ah well, I fear I must give him a drubbing all the same.

  You’re confident?

  Why shouldn’t I be? I’ve got the best fighting force the world has ever seen, honed to perfection, the cutting edge of righteousness. If I wasn’t confident, I wouldn’t be here.

  So you believe in destiny?

  Oh most certainly. I can’t leave it to the likes of Calder who play it safe; draw back from the brink. No Mr Pretty, a leader leads by example, makes his own luck and mine has held so far.

  No doubts?

  Oh, I wouldn’t go that far. This is a mighty trial of strength and I don’t cast the runes. All I pray for is a fair fight on even terms.

  But I’ve heard you urge your crews to hate all Frenchmen.

  And if hate will keep them alive in the heat of battle, I certainly do. As I’m sure you will have observed already, the stout hearted British tar likes it black and white, not shades of grey. There is no room for doubt or philosophical notion in the breast of a warrior. He who hesitates…as poor Calder has discovered to his cost.

  You’ve sent him back then?

  I offered him the choice to stay and fight alongside me and redeem himself, or go back and face a court martial for that debacle off Finistere. He chose the latter and I have lost a ninety-gun ship into the bargain. I could hardly send him home with his tail between his legs in a frigate, even though he has sorely tried my patience.

  He had his chances, so I’m told, the luck of the draw.

  Oh yea, sometimes this seafaring life of ours is like that. The hand of fate. I had more or less decided to call it a day myself, you know, resign myself to the pension and a quiet life tending my roses. How different it might have been if Blackwood had not come to Merton and told me about Calder, how the combined enemy fleet had slipped through his fingers and made safe harbour at Cadiz. Even then I was of half a mind, only my good friend Emma, you know Lady Hamilton, Mr Pretty?

  Yes, Admiral, a charming lady

  Quite so, quite so. Well I was walking in the garden, pondering Blackwood’s words. He dropped in on his way to London with dispatches, to give me an account of how things were going, another good friend, I’m glad to say. Well Emma…Lady Hamilton, found me there and with the greatest conviction told me I would never rest easy in my bed if I knew our fleet was under the command of another man. And so I offered my services.

  An obligation to the Navy?

  An honour, Mr Pretty. And Burham …Lord Burham that is, God bless him, handed me the Navy List and gave me carte blanche to choose my own officers and ships. Naturally I chose the Victory for my flagship and my watchword.

  There’s a story that on
the way to London you stopped off to inspect your coffin, Admiral.

  Mmm just a morbid whimsy of the moment, but the sea breeze soon blew away such dark cobwebs

  You know they’ll make a dead set for the Victory

  And so they should. I wouldn’t have it any other way. It is my intention to be at the very heart of the battle. I owe it to my countrymen. You should’ve seen the crowds at Portsmouth when I arrived to join the ship, they would have gladdened the heart of any Englishman.

  I don’t put that much faith in public opinion, Admiral. One day you’re riding high and the next, pulled down into the gutter. Relying on the fickle public mood is like walking on quicksand. In my game we call it “suckers law”

  Ha,ha, very droll, then we shall reserve that particular statute for politicians of every stripe, damn their eyes. When my barge pushed off from the jetty, the sentries could hardly keep the people back, their cheers rang in my ears all the way out to he ship. But mark my word, I did not throw caution to the wind, Mr Pretty, when I arrived to join Collingwood’s squadron it was my birthday, but I requested that there should be neither salute nor celebration to alert the enemy to my presence. That old fox Villeneuve discovered me despite our best endeavours, but reinforcing our ships one by one to conceal the true strength of our fleet was the real ruse

  I believe he’s had orders from Bonaparte to sail. Boney’s getting impatient to launch his invasion

  Oh I’m sure of it. We have intelligence that Bonaparte has threatened him with dismissal if he doesn’t comply swiftly and put to sea. Harsh words like “skulking in safe harbour” were used, I’m told, the unkindest cut of all for a seaman of Villeneuve’s rank. He’s pricked by the point of Boney’s sword, true enough, and sooner or later, even against his better judgement, he’ll be forced to put to sea without really knowing what he’s up against. It is a French doctrine, Mr Pretty, never to offer battle unless your fleet is at least one third stronger than your opponent. Once he believes that to be the case, he will set sail, and when he does he’ll be in for a rude awakening.

  Have you received any news from home by any chance?

  Not since you joined us in that schooner of yours, the Pickle was the last ship to come out to complete the task force. Why do you ask?

  Oh no reason, Admiral. As you say the whole country is behind you. I just wondered if there had been any last minute orders

  No, I am a free agent. Mr Lords and Masters know my worth by now, and my determination. Unlike our French friend over there, they know better than to vex me when judgement draws so fine a line. But enough of me, how about you Mr Pretty. I trust you are being well looked after.

  In the boat on the way back to the Pickle, our skipper Lieutenant John Lapenotiere, a young up and comer, but a good guy with an easy no nonsense manner, says to me:

  You get your chat with Nelson then, John?

  Yeah – he seems a bit up tight though. Like the waiting around is getting on his nerves.

  Mmm, patience isn’t always his strong suit, but he’s all right, just keen to get it done, that’s all. This one’s been a long time coming.

  You think this’ll be the final showdown?

  No doubt about it. We’ve been whistling in the wind long enough. Villeneuve’s between a rock and the hard place now, nowhere to go but right into our guns.

  How’s Hardy feel about it?

  Oh he’s confident if we don’t show our hand too soon, we’ll get the better of them. These combined fleets never really work out in practice, France and Spain are like chalk and cheese, too many divided loyalties, lots of squabbling and hidden agendas under that veneer of unity. They don’t even have the same signals, so when it comes to the crunch they’ll be at sixes and sevens, every ship for itself, you wait and see.

  Nelson’s got a lot on his plate, but he’s gung ho Navy all right. They were telling me he even raised the flag in the Lords

  Best we ever had. Yeah, that would’ve been when he was last on the beach, before this shindig with Bonaparte started up again. Wore his uniform when he took his seat in the House of Lords.and the first thing he did was give those bloodsuckers a taste of their own medicine.

  Bloodsuckers?

  The prize agents, John. Those shylocks and their fat cat camp followers getting rich off Jack’s bounty.

  How’s that work?

  See, in time of war, when we capture an enemy supply ship, that’s called a prize, and the prize agent, well, he’s our negotiator ashore. He sells the cargo for the best price, takes his commission, and then we divide the spoils amongst the crew... What with the war dragging on, prizes have become a growth industry, and the agents have been cheating us for years with impunity, like they’ve got a licence to print. Flogging stuff to their merchant cronies, cooking the books, and paying us off with a pittance. See we’d got nobody to fight our corner with all the back handers going around until His Lordship got into the House and threw a spanner into their little game. Passed a Bill to clip their wings right off the bat; set up a Commission to investigate the lot of ‘em. That brought the pains on all right, and three cheers from Jack.

  I never knew that

  Well you’re not a sailor are you, John? But now you’re practically one of the family, you’ve got to understand how we make a living. You won’t go far on Navy pay, that’s for sure, so prize money’s what keeps us seamen out of the poor house.

  Puts me in mind of an old Russian curse.

  Oh yes, what’s that?

  May you have to live on your wages.

  Ha-ha, that’s a good one, go down well in the wardroom….

  Lively there lads, I’d like to be back on my own deck sometime today.

  Pickle Patrol

  By John Pretty

  Naval Correspondent

  Dateline: Cape Trafalgar off Cadiz

  In the dead of night, with no lights showing we sneak as close as we can to the enemy shoreline to gauge the strength of the battle fleet ranged against us.

  She’s fleet of foot, HMS Pickle, a fast schooner built in Bermuda from the finest seasoned cedar, which glows with a dull red sheen. Her vast spread of canvas, taut to the breeze and trimmed fore and aft, which gives her the edge on even the most nimble square-rigger, carries her swiftly through the darkness. Even the phosphorescent wake of her passage deep into the dangerous waters off Cadiz seems muted under a starlit sky.

  But vital as it is for a clandestine mission such as this, speed has its drawbacks. It demands pinpoint navigation and an even sharper lookout, for the slightest mistake could so easily spell disaster.

  As we race in the usual banter of the crew tails off and a heavy stillness falls across the deck, punctuated only by the creak and groan of wood under strain, the snap of canvas as sails are trimmed for maximum effect, the almost human sigh of rope sliding through blocks in the complex web of rigging. At moments like this you find yourself believing that this little ship has a life of her own, a living, breathing creature of the sea, and you take comfort in the knowledge that she will protect and preserve you, come what may. So you see I’m already thinking and reacting like a sailor with salt water in my veins.

  On this moonless night we’re running in as close as we dare to Cadiz harbour to get an exact count of the enemy ships lying at anchor. We’re showing no lights and our skipper Lieutenant John Lapenotiere has his eye glued to his night glass, peering intently at the dark mass of the land coming up on the bow and murmuring subtle course changes to our very best helmsman on the wheel. Pause a moment and through your toes and fingers you can actually feel the Pickle quiver with excitement.

  For she is no stranger to this cloak and dagger duty. Every inch a racer, she was originally christened The Sting for her lightning ability to hit and run, and once acquired by the Navy for just such attributes, the sting gained added venom with the installation of ten guns, including two devastating carronades for close quarter action. Back in oh-three Pickle had her first
chance to show her paces when she was assigned to Admiral Cornwallis’s inshore squadron blockading Brest. Time after time the Pickle carried out daring forays behind enemy lines to report on the deployment of the hostile fleet until the French, in exasperation, posted a two-thousand bonus to any gunner who could sink that “damned gherkin” and she became the darling of the fleet when HMS Magnificent ran onto the Black Rocks and Pickle slipped in between the treacherous shoals to rescue the six hundred and fifty crew from the stricken vessel.

  Even here, on rear echelon duty in the fighting stakes, Pickle has shown her mettle. On one recent recon patrol just such as this, we captured a Portuguese merchantman out from Tangier, laden with fresh meat, and to the delight of the crews who were down to hard tack, hauled her cargo back to the fleet and put prime beef on the mess deck menu to the rousing cheers of the sailors.

  But tonight we see no hostiles as the dark waters slip by under the belt of Orion and we adjust our eyes to the night. At the masthead is our secret weapon, a Norwegian sailor named Croll, who served his time on a whaling ship, and possesses uncanny night vision. He’s already counting ships in that umbra out there as we run in fast..twenty eight, twenty-nine, thirty. thirty-one, thirty-two, thirty-three….

  Helm over, and we slingshot out. Another tally in the log for the tactics team to mull over. Only this time there’s something more than the routine sit-rep.

  Croll comes skinning down to the deck and knuckles his forehead to the skipper.

  “Could be wrong Your Honour,” he reports, “but I’d swear them Frenchies have got their lines singled up – getting ready to weigh anchor.”

  Lapenotiere, the scope still to his eye, face set in studied concentration, replies, “You could be right, eagle eyes – you could be right.”

  Even the sea knows it’s coming. The green blue swell, which has gently lulled our flotilla as we perform an intricate ballet, holding formation off Cadiz, begins to darken to an ominous dull grey. The breeze grows sullen, the autumn sun glares through a yellowish haze and from the decks of the ships comes the ritual of the Articles of War as commanders step up to the rail to address their ships’ companies and stiffen the sinews of the fleet.

  This is a ritual I’ve read about but never seen before. The reading of the Articles carries the gravity of holy writ aboard a warship and it is the captain’s solemn duty to perform this rigid ceremony in time of war, usually following a church service. God, the law and the Navy; the sailor’s trinity. Each ship carries a complement of red coated marines who stand stiffly at attention in their platoons, muskets at the present-arms facing the seamen drawn up in their divisions. As the Articles are recited the master-at-arms, the ship’s policeman, fixes the known waverers, malcontents and assorted known trouble makers with a baleful eye as the long list of possible offences is read out, the voice of the captain taking on a steely tone at that most feared penalty …”shall suffer death.”

  I can hear snatches of the recital drifting across the waves as, at the appointed hour, each ship in the squadron prepares for battle. From the “Fighting” Temeraire I recognise the voice of Eliah Harvey…”or who upon likelihood of engagement shall not make necessary preparation for fight and shall not in his own person and according to the place, encourage the inferior officers and men to fight courageously, shall suffer death.”

  Counterpoint from the Neptune, I can hear Thomas Freemantle…”every person in the fleet who shall not duly observe the orders of the admiral, flag officer, commander…for assailing, joining battle…shall not obey the orders of his superior officer in the time of action to the best of his power…and being convicted thereof by the sentence of court martial, shall suffer death.”

  From the Belleisle and Revenge close on the beam, come the voices of William Hargood and Robert Mowson, drifting on the breeze…”who through cowardice, negligence or disaffection shall in time of action withdraw or not go into the fight or engagement; shall not do his utmost to take or destroy every ship which it shall be his duty to engage, every such person so offending and being convicted thereof by the sentence of the court martial, shall suffer death.”

  “Every person in or belonging to the fleet who shall desert or entice others to do so, shall suffer death.”

  The strong baritone of Philip Durham from the Defiance…”Any person in or belonging to the fleet shall make or endeavour to make any mutinous assembly, upon any pretence whatsoever…sentence of the court martial…shall suffer death.”

  The litany comes rolling across the ocean like the mournful tolling of a bell, resonating with the elements and echoing from ship to ship…shall suffer death …shall suffer death…shall suffer death.

  Hands to battle stations is the order of the day and Nelson has declared a fifty mile no-sail exclusion zone and posted his frigates on picket duty, so any stray vessel is now fair game as the first-rates complete their final work up and clear for action. As I watch this awesome transformation from drill to the real thing, my thoughts turn to Villeneuve, the tormented French Admiral sitting alone in his cabin aboard the Bucentaure already losing the psychological duel as he finishes off a crossword in a dog eared copy of the Chron. Six across…four…six and five letters, naval penalty for defeat. Shall suffer death.

  Lost in my own thoughts for a moment, a presence behind me impinges on my consciousness and I turn and find myself looking into the gap toothed grin of Mr Ping, head cocked to one side.

  See the ships Mr John – they shake out the bin chi ready for big fight

  Sure enough the sails shimmer and shiver like living things and I get the point he’s making; like living entities, the ships are clearing out the bin chi the bad vibes. It’s something that would never have entered my head if Mr Ping hadn’t introduced me to the world of three-gate breathing, spiral force and the mysteries of Da Lu. I give him a smile and he shudders suddenly.

  Feel it in the air Mr John, bin chi thick as cookies soup

  Which brings me to a point I need to make before it gets lost in the fog of war. They say truth is the first casualty in any conflict, but I’ve got a slightly different take on that old adage, the real casualties, which litter the battlefield, are the deeds of the unsung heroes. They receive no medals, no promotion, no parades, and no glory. Pass them by on the street and you wouldn’t give them a second glance. Their acts of unimaginable bravery are trodden into the dust in the aftermath of battle, lost in the clamour as to the victor go the spoils. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I don’t begrudge Nelson one moment of his triumph; one scintilla of the stuff of legend. After all he’s the strategist, the leader who makes it happen by force of his own personality. But in paying homage, let’s just pause for a moment to remember those brave souls who step out of nowhere, perform amazing feats of valour and then disappear into obscurity. Men like Sifu Ha Chu Peng, the Da Lu master masquerading as the head cook on HMS Victory where the sailors swiftly bastardised his name to Mr Ping.

  If young Jim Collins saved my stupid hide a few times, then it was Mr Ping who preserved my sanity when the chips were down. I don’t mind admitting it now, when I first shipped over on this “embedded” detail I was way out of my depth. The most sea time I’d ever put in was a couple of trips on the Isle of Wight ferry, so by the time the Pickle made it into the combat zone my nerves were shredded and my stomach was constantly churning

  from the pitch and roll. When I first hitched a ride over to the Vic in the cutter the sea was lively and the boat was lurching around so much I was afraid I’d never be able to hack the white knuckle ride. So once my rubber knees were safely aboard the flagship I slunk away to get myself together, thinking it would look bad for the first of the Navy’s “embedded” reporters to throw up in the Admiral’s state room. I crept down to the main deck and that is where I first met Mr Ping, giving his galley boys their Da Lu workout. He saw right through me straight away.

  You no sailor boy

  No, I said, I was a journalist. That didn’t faze him
at all. He just gave me that inscrutable oriental look of his.

  Da Lu help you keep clear head

  It was all about balance, he told me, tuning into the inner force of an ancient Chinese combat technique. He’d marked out a four foot square on the deck, invited me to step inside and demonstrated the moves, p’eng, the forearm block, chou, the elbow strike, t’sai lich, the split and kou, the shoulder press as we gyrated around inside the square, dodging an attack and redirecting the qi back into the sparring partner. Mr Ping showed me the technique for converting centrifugal force from defence to attack without wasting an ounce of energy. The whole idea was to use internal force rather than the power of muscles, the most economical way of moving the body to generate maximum power for an attack whilst at the same time expending the least possible energy.

  I was clumsy at first, but as I began to get the hang of it my head cleared and my limbs recovered to the point where I began to feel a new energy flowing through my body. That’s amazing, I told him innocently, and he just smiled and told me that Da Lu, The Great Repulse was a classic training method from the internal fighting arts of China. He called one of his boys over to show me how it could be done and they whirled around throwing each other into the air, never leaving the Da Lu square.

  Much later, when I knew him better, Mr Ping described the force as jing and told me that fa-jing was the ultimate power as he demonstrated the one inch punch, grinning at my amazement.

  In fa-jing the whole body becomes the weapon. The fist does not punch, the whole body punches. The elbow does not strike, the whole body strikes. Think of it like the power you generate when you sneeze, Mr John, the whole body reacts violently, even the eyes are closed in that split second and your whole body shakes at high frequency throwing out a deadly fist, palm or elbow.

  He took hold of my hand, extended the index and middle fingers, closed the fourth and little finger with the thumb to make a circle and when he was satisfied I’d got it right he said: No need for cutlass or sabre, my friend, now you have sword fingers,

  Needless to say the whole Da Lu experience blew my mind and thanks to Mr Ping I never felt that sickening queasy sensation again. I was no martial artist, but I would practice the moves as often as I could after that and always looked forward to going over to the Vic so that I could seek out the little Chinaman for another lesson.

  He must have taken a shine to me because after a while he even let me in on the ancient secret of dim-mak the death touch, showing me the strike points which could knock out an opponent, kill at a stroke, or induce delayed action death.

  Practice, practice Mr John, you be the new Bruce Lee.

  A huge grin spread across his moon-like features.

  So what has any of this got to do with unsung heroes? Well I’ll tell you. Physical bravery is one thing, visible, tangible, easy to describe. The storming of a trench, taking out a machine gun nest single-handed. But the real essence of courage is in the mind and the amazing feats I saw Mr Ping perform, seemingly so effortlessly during the battle of Trafalgar defy my ability as a scribe. He won’t thank me for it, but I just want to take a moment before the first shots are fired and all the memories get blown away. Mr Ping is my true hero.

  Day Six

  I don’t care what you say, ask anyone who’s been there, and they’ll tell you the same story. It’s nothing like you see in the movies or read about in the penny-dreadfulls. War fighting is ninety percent pure boredom and ten percent total terror. The boredom is the worst part because it eats away at morale, dulls the senses, saps the adrenalin, so that when the terror comes it hits you like a sledgehammer, all the reflexes freeze like a rabbit caught in a headlamp. Nothing functions and if that happens, you’re dead meat.

  On a ship the boredom becomes infectious, cooped up together day after day, nowhere to go, no privacy worth the mention and just the tedium of the daily routine with the prospect of fighting gnawing away inside your imagination. Captains know this and they combat the boredom factor in different ways, the less imaginative resort to iron discipline, flogging half the crew at the grating for minor offences, bearing down on the officers, the warrants and the POs with an iron fist until fear displaces boredom and the ship runs on a knife edge. Many a mutiny has been triggered by ill-conceived notions of discipline. The more enlightened dig deep into their psyche and lead by example, encouraging and motivating, rewarding their men, building the crew into a team which takes pride in their collective skills and commitment to each other. Whichever method is applied, the ones who’ve been there before endure the boredom and try to forget the nagging ache at the base of their skull, that constant reminder of the terror.

  For my part, observing this phenomenon as a spectator, I’ve come to be glad I’m aboard HMS Pickle, a slim graceful schooner with none of the lumbering characteristics of a first rate ship of the line. The Pickle is the fastest and most lightly armed vessel in the squadron. She serves as Nelson’s communications ship, which is partly the reason why I’m on board. The other, more pragmatic reason is purely tactical. I did try to wangle a berth aboard the Vic, thinking I ought to be right there at the epicentre of the action, but for all his gentility Nelson balked at the notion of a scribe breathing down his neck and so I slung my hammock aboard the Pickle and now I’ve got some sea time in I can’t say I’m sorry. You see the Pickle’s not just the comms ship, running errands, the fetch and carry of the fleet. Because of her agility, low profile and turn of speed, she’s also the greyhound of the recon pack. Ask the question and you’ll get the same answer every time, recon is the best antidote to boredom, beats every other potion hands down.

  I’m sitting here on the main-deck, tapping this note into my laptop so that I don’t lose the moment, with the sound of the ship’s routine going on all around me, sounds which have become a kind of litany, the sailor’s mantra, amazing myself when I pause to reflect on how I’ve adapted so easily to life at sea.

  Steady as you go Mr Furbelow, bring her up ‘till the flagship lies two points on the larboard bow and hold station there if you please…and from somewhere aloft, a different voice…Look lively on the stays there Mr Franklin, this isn’t your daddy’s sloop! Lulled by the daily business of holding this restless package of wood and canvas in perfect formation with the rest of the flock, pacing back and forth on this featureless expanse of blue-green sea, just waiting, waiting, waiting for the ten percent of terror to kick in.

  But where was I? Oh yes, the recon group. Every fighting force down the ages needs to know it’s enemy, and the commander with the best intelligence on hostile strength and deployment holds the trump cards. In Iraq it was spy satellites and remote controlled battlefield drones feeding intel into computer controlled network centric warfare systems. In the First World War observation balloons did the trick, and in the rematch Mosquitoes flew the photo recon missions. In the Falklands spy in the sky and U2s sent back the images, and in Vietnam Ops and LPs in the jungle kept tabs on Charlie’s every move. Even the Romans sent their scouts ahead of the legions. Know your enemy, that’s the watchword. And here at Trafalgar, Nelson has the Pickle.

  Since I’ve made her my catchline those down-table wags on the subs desk have started calling her Pretty Pickle, which brings me to my other little problem. Apart from the boredom and the terror I’ve got newspaper politics to contend with. Things are going bad at the paper. Big Billy’s on the warpath again. He’s got this king sized ego, models himself on those bold press barons of old and the Chron’s his personal fiefdom, so the editorial line comes straight from Big Billy’s penthouse. The first inkling came in an e-mail from Harry Oakes.

  e-mail traffic transcripts

  Harry Oakes to John Pretty

  Hey John, Big Billy’s gone ape. He’s got in with a bunch of his cronies from the golf club, talking about chartering a privateer and a bunch of mercenaries, sailing in playing Ride of the Valkyries over the loudspeakers and grabbing Frog One. Apparently a bu
nch of ‘em have been stomping around the nineteenth muttering darkly about how Nelson don’t have the balls for it anymore, and all this ducking and diving out there is symptomatic of battle-fatigue when he ought to be going in like the Nile with all guns blazing. Amazing what a few gins in the clubhouse can do. He’s strutting around in sea boots and a sailor’s hat already. Sam and me are trying to talk him out of it, but you know BB, thinks he’s God Almighty. Tore us off a strip just for raising an eyebrow. Caught him down on the subs desk the other night on the page-maker VDU fooling around with headlines: Chron Scuppers French Fleet under Nelson’s Nose. No hurrahs for Horatio.

  Crazy or what?

  John Pretty to Harry Oakes

  He tries to pull off a stunt like that the Navy’ll blow him out of the water. Use his boat for target practice. All he’s going to get is the deep six.

  Harry Oakes to John Pretty

  Yeah, right. I’m just warning you that’s all. I mean how’s it going to play if the Navy sink a press boat? Even if it is full of lunatics.

  John Pretty to Harry Oakes

  Bad news all round. The pops’d have a field day. Be a replay of the crucifixion.

  Harry Oakes to John Pretty

  Which is why I’m tipping you the wink, John. Maybe you can get a friendly to head him off if he does try it. Clap him in irons for the duration. What would be better though, would be if Nelson got weaving. Any sign of action?

  John Pretty to Harry Oakes

  Could be. We went in last night on a scouting run and it looks like they’re coming out at last. This isn’t the Nile H, Nelson hasn’t lost his bottle; he needs them to put to sea before he attacks so he can get the drop on ‘em with the element of surprise on his side and plenty of sea room to manoeuvre.

  Harry Oakes to John Pretty

  Sounds promising. Can you file something asap. Might help to cool BB down.

  John Pretty to Harry Oakes

  Sure, I’ll put a piece on the wire.

  Harry Oakes to John Pretty

  Oh and John, erase these e-mails OK? It’s not that we’re paranoid back here, just walking on egg-shells.

  John Pretty to Harry Oakes

  Roger that H. I sure as hell don’t want the mad golfer on my case

  Day Seven

  Nelson summoned his captains to the Victory and laid it out for them one last time. The orthodox doctrine of naval warfare dictated that the most effective formation was line-of-battle, with the opposing fleets sailing parallel to each other, blazing away, until one succumbed. The logic of this was straightforward. The heavily armed battle ships were slow and ponderous and difficult to manoeuvre, prone to the vagaries of wind, weather, and the run of the sea and anyway the weapons systems were not versatile enough to take advantage of rapid changes in speed and course. The ships were built to fire broadsides and therefore were most effective as stable gun platforms pounding away at the enemy at reasonably close range; pulverising the opposition with heavy ordnance, then closing with boarding parties for the capture and the kill. Consequently, most sea battles were protracted affairs, duels of attrition, which relied as much on brute force as accurate gunnery.

  Nelson would have none of it. As he had demonstrated at the Nile, a spearhead attack, slicing through the enemy line, had caused chaos and confusion, which effectively reduced the odds, and he planned to employ the same tactics at Trafalgar. His genius was to share his plans, to the last detail, with his commanders, so that fleet orders in the heat of battle would be kept to a minimum and captains could concentrate on fighting their own ships, without one eye always on the signal halyards of the flagship.

  Call me old fashioned, but I still write shorthand. And not that Mickey Mouse stuff they teach the trainees on the J course, but good old dependable Pitman’s. The young newsroom bucks, these days, would be lost without their mini-tapes and electronic palm pads, but if needs be, I can get by with a notebook and a stub of pencil. And I was never more glad of it than at Trafalgar, when those grizzled warriors of the sea filed into the great cabin and fixed me, the interloper in their midst, with their ball-bearing gaze, heavy with suspicion. In that moment, as I endeavoured to blend into the furniture, I was heartily glad that I had decided to leave my hi-tec kit behind, in case it spooked the inner circle of senior commanders who had already expressed concern about my being privy to their battle plans.

  Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, the second in command, had been particularly vocal following my escapade in Cadiz and my audience with Villeneuve. There had even been mutterings that I might be a fifth columnist, but Nelson, bless his heart, nipped that in the bud straight away. The Navy had accredited me and that was good enough for him. He treated the doubters to a little lecture on the freedom of the press, and reminded them that the Chronicle had always been a good friend of the Service. Out of deference to his generosity of spirit, I forsook my usual correspondent’s field kit of laptop, tape recorder and sat phone and gave my shorthand a workout. Much later, when I emptied my footlocker on the Pickle, I found a small stack of notebooks and leafing through the pages with their spider’s crawl of outlines I found the passages I was searching for. These are the verbatim notes I made at the time.

  Nelson: Well the Pickle did a good job for us, my friends, the picket ships are on full alert, within sight of each other, with Mars and Sirius on point. We must at all costs keep our main fleet out of view so that he does not discover our true strength. My guess is that he knows by now that we’ve sent Louis with his six sail to Gib for re-supply, so he’ll do his sums and come to the conclusion that this is the opportune moment to sneak out.

  Collingwood: We’ll need cool nerves and sharp eyes to keep them guessing.

  Nelson: That’s why we’ll hold in the offing and if we can lure him out into the BZ (battle zone) right here on the chart, if conditions are favourable we will strike in two thrusts. I will lead the Weather column and you Coll will take the Lee. A two pronged attack, slicing through his line and cutting off his rear elements.

  Collingwood: Villeneuve’s no fool, when he realises our true strength, he’ll do his damndest to get back into Cadiz.

  Nelson: Then we must prevent him, Coll. Prevent him at all costs. I want this to be a decisive action, not a long drawn out scrap with no clear outcome. We must finish him now.

  Collingwood: If he’s got no choice he’ll probably go for a defensive line, give his guns their best chance to do us maximum damage.

  Nelson: Then we must get in close, as quickly as we can; get under his guns and pound him.

  Blackwood: We’ve all seen the Santissima Trinidad close up my Lord; she’s a big bruiser, going to take some punishment when we tangle with her.

  Nelson: No doubt. That’s one good reason why we must keep the element of surprise for as long as possible, rattle their gun crews. If Coll’s right and they form a line, they’ll expect us to stand off and exchange fire, but if we rush in smartly, as I have described, we’ll be on them before they can get our range. You know what they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

  Laforey (Spartiate): True, my Lord, and their commanders will be confused. The Spanish are already resentful because they feel Villeneuve deliberately put them in harms way in that skirmish with Calder.

  Nelson: Then we’ll play on their confusion, make lots of smoke to obscure their signals, divide and conquer. I fear the Spanish have chosen poor bed-fellows and we will make sure that they regret their allegiance to Bonaparte.

  Blackwood: Amen to that. Gravina is a good seaman, one of the best, I’d sooner have him on my side than hoisting his flag with the Frenchies.

  Nelson: Perhaps he feels the same, Henry, skulking in Cadiz is hardly his style, but he must obey his political masters, and for their sins they’ve thrown in with the devil. But we’re all seamen, whatever our colours, and if it goes our way we’ll be magnanimous in victory and treat them kindly.

  Rutherford (Swiftsur
e): They’re bound to have sharpshooters in the tops, my Lord, if we get in close they’ll pick us off like a shooting gallery at the fair. Should we send our marines aloft?

  Nelson: You know I don’t hold with that kind of skulduggery, William, we’re Englishmen and we’ll fight fair and square. I’ll have no marksmen in the rigging, besides their infernal musket sparks just set fire to the sails and where are we then eh? Blue on blue, dead in the water by our own hand. No, damn their eyes, I don’t hold with that at all.

  Conn (Dreadnought): Villeneuve will surely fly his flag in the Bucantaure, if we can take him out, then we will have cut off the head.

  Collingwood: True enough, but they play the same game and will throw all they’ve got at the Victory. We must protect our flagship; let others take the brunt of the first assault.

  (general agreement)

  Nelson: Enough, my friends, it will be warm work certainly and we must stay sharp and look to our laurels. When we see how he intends to play his hand, I will issue the order of attack.

  Blackwood: And we’ll put a few in the hurt locker, that old box made from l’Orient’s mast.

  Nelson: That’s got my name on it. How many do you suppose we’d need to take out to cripple him?

  Collingwood: Fourteen would put him out of action.

  Nelson: Then we’ll make it twenty; I won’t be satisfied with less.

  When the meeting broke up, the captains went off to dine together and I made myself scarce, not wishing to intrude further into their private world. Instead I took a turn around the deck when I felt a hand on my arm. I looked around and found myself confronting a slim young man with an anxious expression on his face.

  Mr Pretty, may I ask you a question?

  Sure, you’re John Scott, aren’t you, Lord Nelson’s secretary?

  Yes, yes I am, and I’m proud to be at my Admiral’s side

  So what’s the question, John?

  I heard journalists protect their sources, is that true?

  Yes, yes we do. Why do you ask?

  Can I speak to you…privately?

  You mean off the record?

  Not for your newspaper

  That depends on what you want to talk to me about.

  I don’t know anyone else to speak to on this matter. I can’t approach any of the officers; they’d think me disloyal.

  You’re not a Navy man

  Oh I am sir, but not subject to the same blind discipline. I have to talk to someone, and you’re…well you’re apart from all this.

  What’s on your mind?

  First I need your assurance that we can speak in confidence that this will go no further.

  John, we’ve got a saying in the newspaper business, deep background. Where a reporter has information, which he uses as the basis for a story, but doesn’t reveal his source.

  Never?

  Never. We go to court, even go to prison to protect a source.

  Will you promise to do that for me, give me your word?

  I’ll protect you John, what’s on your mind, what’s bothering you?

  I’m worried about his Lordship

  Why? He seems fine to me.

  He had a fit the other night.

  What do you mean, a fit?

  A spasm, in the night. He was shuddering and shaking like a leaf for hours. He hides it well, but his health is not good and his mind…

  What about his mind?

  That’s really what I want to tell you about, in case…

  In case of what?

  In case of the worst.

  Then you’d better spit it out, John.

  He has this morbid fascination with dying…you know he even insisted on making a detour to Mr Pedderson’s house in Brewer Street to view his coffin, the one they made from the French ship’s mast they brought back from the Nile…and he looked inside and said it was highly probable he’d wind up in there on his return.

  Well, you know, he only had three weeks R&R at Merton before he set out on this mission, and the strain’s bound to tell, but he’s a pretty tough customer. You’re sure you’re not imagining it?

  I’ve been with the Admiral a long time. I’ve seen him fatigued before, but this time it’s different.

  What do you base that on?

  His letters, private letters, in the pouch ready to go home on the next shuttle.

  I don’t doubt your word, John, but I’d need to see them.

  He took me down to his cabin which also served as the ship’s office and opened the seals on the canvas sack which bulged with official mail; took out a small bundle, tied with a blue clasp bearing the Admiral’s seal, and handed it to me.

  Any one of them will flog me within an inch of my life if they find out…

  His voice trailed off as I scanned the letters. They were in Nelson’s hand all right, absolutely authentic, and as I read them, a cold shiver crawled up my neck.

  In a letter to Admiral Stirling he wrote: My health is bad. I ought to retire, but as my gracious country seems to think I can do something if I were to meet the enemy, I feel it a duty to do what I can. I hope I shall be able to meet and conquer them, and I shall think my life gloriously sacrificed in such a cause.

  To an old friend he wrote: I have had, about four o’clock this morning, one of my dreadful spasms, which has almost enervated me.

  Another letter read: The enemy is still in port but something must be done to provoke or lure them into battle. My duty to my country demands it. In less than a fortnight, expect to hear from me, or of me, for who can foresee the fate of battle.

  And in another: It is the first desire of my heart to bring the enemy to action and die in the arms of victory

  I didn’t read any more. I handed the bundle back to John Scott and told him it was probably just a symptom of post traumatic stress and that Nelson would never let anything bad happen to him. Scott nodded and said: I wanted you to know, just in case. I gripped his shoulder and assured him that his confidence was safe with me. But afterwards I couldn’t shake off that creeping cold sensation, like flecks of ice in my veins. When I wrote up my notes of the conversation I added two unspoken words to the end of the page, underlined with a question mark: DEATH WISH?.

  I was back on the Pickle when we heard from the Sirius. Signal three-seven-zero. The yeoman didn’t have to reach for the codebook, we all knew the signal by heart: Enemy ships coming out of port.

  So Villeneuve had finally taken the bait, weighed up the odds and decided they fell in his favour. I felt sorry for him, because on the Victory I’d seen the solid determination of the British commanders to execute Nelson’s daring battle plan. But after reading those letters, I was equally worried about the Admiral’s state of mind. Maybe he was finally burned out and ready to go down in a blaze of glory. I’d overheard him asking his steward to remove the portrait of Emma Hamilton from it’s place in the great cabin and keep it safe. That was another indication that the hard-wiring in his head was beginning to short out, and for the sake of the fleet, I began to worry that if he succeeded in luring the enemy into the BZ, that killing square he had marked on the charts, then he might just turn the mission into a kamikaze run, a one way ticket. That’s what I was thinking when we got the signal. My stomach muscles fluttered and my head felt light. I was on the point of calling the paper when the sat phone chirruped and a somewhat agitated Harry Oakes came on the line.

  Hey John

  Harry?

  Yeah…well he finally did it.

  What

  Our revered leader…he actually went and did it.

  Hang on

  …I mean he actually did it this time for Chrissake

  Woah, Harry, Harry slow down, you’re not making any sense. Who did what?

  Big Billy, who else.

  Big Billy?

  Right after his song and dance on Breakfast

  Breakfast?

  You’ve got to do something, John, he pulls a stroke like this we�
��re going to be the laughing stock of fourth estate.

  Calm down, H, just take a deep breath and tell me what the hell’s going on.

  OK, OK, like I told you before, Big Billy’s been shouting the odds, Nelson’s lost his bottle, all that blow-hard stuff. Got the networks all steamed up too. You know how they didn’t rate Trafalgar, just another boring blockade, nothing to write home about, and certainly not worth pulling a game show for…

  Yeah, yeah, the telly boys never could see the story, unless it’s instant action in your face.

  Well they can now. Billy’s lit the blue touch paper, they’ve chartered this floating gin palace off some Arab potentate, and they’re on their way to your co-ordinates, all revved up to give Nelson a king sized headache. Sailed this afternoon.

  Jesus

  Mary and Joseph. Took off straight after Big Billy blew his top on the telly when Charlie told him he was talking through his hat. Stomped out of the studio and hit the blue feature with the telly boys in tow and an entourage of thrill junkies.

  The Admiralty will do their nut.

  Already have. Had the networks hammering on their door, demanding to get accredited, and ended up royally pissed off when the brass gave them the thumbs down. Gave old Pitt a hard time too, but at least Number Ten had the sense not to budge, and so the whole crowd shipped out with Big Billy’s circus.

  Listen Harry…

  I mean you don’t go ballistic just because a talk show jockey throws down the gauntlet. Charlie put the boot in, but I reckon it was Susanna giving him her sweet little girl you-must-be-off-your-rocker smile which finally blew his fuse.

  For Christ’s sake Harry, will you listen to me.

  What

  It doesn’t matter

  You don’t think so?

  I know so. We’ve just got a signal from Sirius, the guard ship. They’ve hoisted sail, they’re coming out.

  Frog One?

  The whole kit and caboodle

  Whew…so you reckon…

  Yeah, unless he’s rocket assisted, by the time Big Billy gets here the show’ll be over. He’s missed the boat.

  Well that’d be one in the eye for the tellys

  D’you want me to file?

  Oh yeah, let’s hit it. You read it first in the Chron, even if we don’t have anyone at the helm right now. You’ve got a confirm on that, John? Not just wishful thinking?

  Don’t worry H, I won’t jump the gun, we’ve got frigates bird-dogging ‘em, so I’ll send you a holding piece, you can hit the button when I see the whites of their sails this end. Only if you want my opinion…we’re on

  OK, listen, can I set up a live feed into Newsnight? Off the sat phone? Just a trail for our on-scene eyeball exclusive?

  Big Billy’ll skin you alive

  Just doing my job, John, rolling news, twenty-four-seven, got to keep ahead of the game.

  Not until I get a hundred percent this end, though?

  Absolutely

  Who’s going to do it?

  Paxman’ll be the anchor, but I’ll ask Mark Urban to do the down-the-line with graphics and everything. Our circulation’ll hit the roof. The opposition’ll be eating our dust.

  Hold your horses until I give you the green light, H. We don’t want to go off

  half-cocked on this one, too much at stake.

  Day Eight

  BBC Transcription services

  BBCTWO TV Newsnight prog

  Live feed: Trafalgar package

  Link: Paxman

  Interviewer: Mark Urban, Foreign Affairs Ed

  Interviewee: John Pretty, Naval Corr Daily Chronicle

  Paxman: It looks as if the will-he-won’t-he shilly-shallying, which has been boring the socks off us for weeks, may actually be over. As yet unconfirmed reports are coming in that the pride of the French and Spanish navies, the great battle fleet, on which Bonaparte has pinned his hopes of invading Britain, has actually sailed from Cadiz to have it out with Nelson. Well, we’ll see…here’s Mark Urban.

  Urban: The military call it ‘full spectral dominance’, the ability to project overwhelming firepower anywhere in the world, go anywhere around the globe at will, subdue any enemy, defeat any foe. There is no doubt about it, the Royal Navy has the capability of delivering such a devastating hammer blow, the Nile and Copenhagen offer clear demonstrations that anyone foolish enough to take on the British fleet will suffer the consequences. So the political message is simple, ‘don’t mess with us’, and Napoleon Bonaparte, an old hand at the political game, is on the horns of a dilemma . He knows he must wrest this advantage from the British if his grandiose master plan to dominate Europe is to succeed. Put simply, he needs to tip the power balance in his favour, something which no single nation has ever achieved, and so with infinite cunning he has persuaded the Spanish that ending Britain’s dominance at sea is in their best interests too, and out of this alliance has emerged a huge French and Spanish battle fleet with one primary mission – sink the Royal Navy. Now if that was a hard trick to pull off politically, in practice it has proved nigh on impossible, as the navy has interdicted all attempts to pull together such a combined task force. But Bonaparte has finally succeeded; a fleet of thirty-three of the most powerful battleships ever to set sail, is in harbour at Cadiz, poised for a Herculean trial of strength which will undoubtedly settle the question of who rules the waves once and for all. And it seems that the moment of truth is fast approaching. Our man with the British fleet off Cadiz, John Pretty, naval correspondent of the Daily Chronicle is on the line. What can you tell us John?

  Pretty: Well, Mark, it certainly looks as if the combined fleet is coming out, but its early days yet and we’re getting reports from the frigates, our picket ships, that about seven battle ships and three of their frigates have made it out of harbour.

  Urban: Not all the fleet then?

  Pretty: No, not at the moment. There’s a good breeze, so we think this is the opening gambit to test our strength. It’s Magon’s squadron.

  Urban: Vice Admiral Magon de Medine?

  Pretty: Yes, its his flagship the Algesiras, so that seems the most likely tactic, drive off our frigates and get the measure of us before committing the main task force.

  Urban: Doesn’t he have a problem with Gravina, his Spanish opposite number?

  Pretty: That’s right, there’s no love lost, which may account for the confusion. Whether Magon’s squadron has been ordered out ahead to scout, or whether it’s just the usual squabbles and bloody-mindedness, which had dogged the combined fleet, we have yet to discover.

  Urban: Whichever way its going to work in our favour.

  Pretty: Well, I’d say so Mark. If they’re going to come out in dribs and drabs, then they’ll have to spend some time forming up, and Nelson will have plenty of opportunity to get their measure before we go in.

  Urban: You’re out there, John, what’s your feeling on this?

  Pretty: Well we’ve heard Rosilly is on his way to take over, so Villeneuve’s got no choice. He can either jump the gun and fight, or be relieved of his command and go home in disgrace. I don’t think this is just a recon skirmish, I think he’s going to do it.

  Urban: You’ve met him, of course, Admiral Villeneuve.

  Pretty: Yes indeed. He’s a proud man, I’m sure he’s going to give it his best shot before it all starts to unravel, he’s not on the best of terms with Gravina.

  Urban: Vice Admiral Federico Carlos Gravina, the Spanish commander.

  Pretty: The very same, and we hear that one of his captains was so incensed at the way they were being treated that he wanted to challenge Magon to a duel, and the locals in Cadiz have started turning on French sailors who go ashore, a bunch of ‘em have been found in an alley with their throats cut, so Villeneuve doesn’t have much leeway. He’s between Scylla and Charybdis, so if I was a betting man, I’d lay money on he’s going to fight.

  Urban: We hear he’s got a thirty-three sh
ip battle group, if they come out in any sort of fighting formation, that’d be a tough nut to crack, John. What’s our strength out there?

  Pretty: I’m not at liberty to say, Mark, but put it this way, Nelson thinks we’ve got enough to get the job done.

  Urban: Pick ‘em off you mean? So it could drag on for days.

  Pretty: I don’t think so. When it comes to it, I think it’s going to be short and sweet. Drawn out engagements aren’t Nelson’s style at all.

  Urban: So if hey come out in line of battle, Nelson will take them on?

  Pretty: Yes, very much so. Once he gets them into what he calls ‘the battle zone’, then he’ll give the order to engage. No doubt in my mind about that.

  Urban: Battle zone?

  Pretty: It’s an area of sea he’s marked off in red on all the charts, where he feels we’d have the maximum tactical advantage. It’s like an oblong section off the Cape.

  Urban: Which Cape are we talking about, John?

  Pretty: Trafalgar

  Reuters Cadiz Bureau

  SNAP

  FRANCO SPANISH FLEET STALLED

  The trouble dogged combined fleet fell victim to more bad luck today. As night fell here, the breeze dropped and suddenly becalmed the huge armada. Admiral Villeneuve ordered his ships to anchor for the night.

  more follows

  Audio diary, John Pretty

  Now it’s |Nelson’s turn to calculate the odds. How does he do it? With no radar, no tactical plot, no long-range communications beyond line-of-sight, no way of knowing the disposition of an unseen enemy beyond his seaman’s intuition. If the elements had not played their trick, robbing him of motive power, and Villeneuve had come out in full strength, the calculation would have been relatively easy. Watch from a distance without showing your hand, and then strike when his ships are in the designated BZ. Only now, with his picket line playing tag with Magon and the main force of the combined fleet at anchor still in the Cadiz Roads, Nelson must either wait and take his chance, or go for a pre-emptive manoeuvre and trust his judgement. Guess that’s why he gets Admiral’s pay.

  Note: I learned later that as he pondered his dilemma during a sleepless night in his cabin he eased the mill-race of his mind by penning a personal prayer in his diary. It went like this: May the great God whom I worship, grant to my country, and for the benefit of Europe in general, a great and glorious victory, and may no misconduct by anyone 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 this I resign myself, and the just cause, which I am entrusted to defend. Amen..Amen..Amen

  When I played back the tapes of the battle sequence, a lot of the audio was garbled with heavy background noise, so for the sake of clarity, I’m going to refer to my notes made at the time for much of what follows

  As the first rays of the sun send a long gleaming ripple of pale fire along the horizon, Nelson takes one last turn around the quarterdeck and makes hi9s decision. Calls for his yeoman and issues the following signal to the fleet: General chase – South West.

  The signal flags flutter from the halyards of the Victory and the column of ships wheel under a light morning breeze unfurling sails like a host of lilies blooming in a field of deepest green, take up their positions and make best speed for the BZ.

  Nelson’s key objective is to steer for the Straits of Gibraltar to prevent the combined fleet from reaching the Mediterranean, but when he reaches the intercept line without sight of sail, he realises that he has outrun the enemy and orders a U-turn onto a new fleet course, North West, back along the track.

  Wind from the West, light breezes; sea state, long heavy swell.

  Blackwood signals from Euryalis: First contact, enemy fleet sighted, steering Westward.

  Second contact: Combined fleets of France and Spain at sea, distance ten miles

  Villeneuve in the Bucentaure is sailing South Wes in light winds and making slow progress, his ships strung out in line ahead with Juan de Nepomuceno in the van and Neptuno bringing up the rear. Gravina’s observation squadron is scouting ahead of the main fleet.

  Signal from French frigate Hermione on point: British fleet sighted to windward.

  How the hell did they get there? Villeneuve feels a trickle of cold sweat run down his back. He knows if he is forced to fight off a lee shore he’s sailing right into an action replay of the Nile. Once again he curses Nelson’s luck as his nerve fails and he takes he only alternative course of action, orders his fleet to wear, turn around and run back for Cadiz. For the first time he realises he’s up against the full might of the Royal Navy.

  As the combined fleet about turns, his captains struggle to regain formation and Gravina’s squadron is left trailing to the rear. In the light wind the battle ships are having difficulty re-grouping and the middle of the line sags to leeward in a ragged crescent.

  A bolder commander might have pressed on for Gibraltar in the hope of outstripping the enemy in a running battle, but Villeneuve just cannot screw up enough courage to take the risk. To hell with it, he’s going back to his bolt hole.

  But Nelson has already closed the door. Aboard the Victory he calls his yeoman, Lieutenant Pascoe to the quarterdeck where he stands staring out at the sails of the distant enemy, making the final calculations in his head as the intercept line closes. He turns with a slight smile of satisfaction, knowing that his gambit has worked.

  We’ve got him where we want him. Mr Pascoe, make the following signal to the fleet: England confides that every man will do his duty

  By your leave Admiral, might I substitute ‘expects’ for ’confides’ the word is not in the signals book and we’d have to spell it out in flags, would take a while…

  Yes, that will do just as well, make it England expects.

  The flags flutter from Victory’s halyards, followed immediately by another signal: Engage the enemy more closely.

  I’m watching all this from the deck of the Pickle. We’re stationed with the frigates up on te northern edge of the BZ, so we can see the big picture unfold. What a sight, our battleships have formed up in two perfect columns, crowding on every stitch of sail as they bear down on that ragged crescent of the enemy line. Collingwood makes his run first, leading in the lee column and the pop and puff of smoke from the Fougueux marks the first shot fired as the Royal Sovereign closes in.

  This is it. Got to call the paper

  Harry?

  Yeah

  It’s started.

  John? Ok..Ok..can you file?

  That’s what I’m here for. Give me a copytaker

  Bugger that son, I’ll take it myself. Just give me short takes and I’ll knock it into shape this end. Ok.. shoot

  I see fire dance along the flank of the Fougueux and the ship suddenly disappears, swallowed up in a cloud of grey and white smoke. Plumes of water leap up all around the Royal Sovereign, closing in fast. Looking down the line, I can see the Victory at the head of the weather column making her turn onto the go-plot, the yardarms swinging around and the sails snapping taut as she turns onto the new heading and starts her run in, heeling under the press of canvas, the white curve of her bow wave clearly visible. Now the Bucentaure, the flagship, and that monster Santissima Trinidad start taking pot shots at the Vic, one at a time, slow and deliberate, the gunners dialling in the range. A single flash and a puff of smoke from each ship, fine tuning the gunnery before unleashing a broadside. Villeneuve’s order of the day: Dismast and disable.

  Are you getting this, Harry?

  You’re doing fine John, keep it coming.

  The French gunners are cool customers all right, still taking their time with single ranging shots, groping for the best elevation. Half a dozen of the enemy line are firing now and all the while the Vic is closing the distance. Oh Jesus, they just winged her Harry; I sa
w the shot go through her main top gallant sail. That’s the signal they’ve been waiting for. Now they’re opening up with everything they’ve got…Jesus, can you hear that Harry, like thunder rolling across the sea.

  Just keep it coming son, tell me what you can see

  The Big Vic’s taking a hammering now. Even at this distance I can see debris flying all over the place, a whirl of fragments, bits of mast spars, sails rigging. They’re tying to stop her dead in the water before she reaches them…but oh boy she’s just ploughing on, soaking up punishment. It’s agonising just watching it.

  Easy John. Just keep talking

  They’re right on top of each other now, its hard to tell…My God did you hear that? That’s our guns opening up, point blank, and the smoke, you wouldn’t believe it, the whole scene just vanished in this terrific pall of smoke and all I can hear is the furious cannon fire and the smoke’s layering down in thick grey coils.

  Damn..can’t see a damned thing now

  Who’s that…John are you still there?

  It’s our skipper, Harry, he’s right beside me; we’re watching this through our scopes, only now the smoke’s blotted it all out.

  I need a volunteer…who’s going to take the sea boat over there and get me a sitrep

  .Harry, I’ll call you back.

  What?

  I’ll call you back Harry

  Note (That’s when Jimmy Collins steps forward. He looks over to me, his blue eyes glittering with excitement, the invitation unspoken. I feel my heart leap in my chest and I say to myself, ‘what the hell…yeah, why not’)

  Day Nine

  I’m never going to play that tape again. The one I made on the Vic. It seemed a good idea at the time, keep up a running commentary whilst it was all happening, but when it was over and I played it back, I couldn’t bear it. I’m supposed to be a hard bitten seen-it-all hack, impervious to emotion, only when I played back that tape and heard the screams and moans of the dying and the maimed, I couldn’t stop the tears flowing down my face, it was so awful. Extracts like the ones I gave you earlier to set the scene, are the most you are going to get, and when I’m done, I’m going to burn the tape. Nobody should ever have to listen to that again.

  So, to recap, I grab my combat correspondent’s kit, laptop, sat phone, notebooks and tape recorder, and stuff it all into a waterproof satchel, sling it over my shoulder, and follow Jim Collins down the ladder into the boat. The breeze has died, but we’re not going to rig the sail anyway; too tempting a target for a trigger-happy gunner. No, the crew is shipping the broad bladed sweeps for the half-mile pull, so we’ll keep a low profile. The sea is running a long solemn swell, and all we can see as we close the distance, is the huge pall of smoke pitted with flashes of orange marking the spot where the two fleets have locked horns in almost zero visibility. Lapenotiere would dearly have loved to have taken the Pickle in; I could feel his frustration when he handed me over the side into the cutter. But his orders are clear; stay on the perimeter ready to help ships in distress. With just ten guns, the Pickle would be no match for the battleships.

  We come up on the Vic more by luck than judgement, and it is really hard to work out what is happening from down here, with debris crashing ll around us. So we inch along until we see an open gun-port and when Jimmy says jump, I jump. And he follows me, calling back to the coxswain to lay off a hundred yards and keep his eyes peeled. As I get to my feet on the lower gun-deck, I press the record button on the tape, the red indicator light winks back at me, and as you will have noted from the earlier extracts, that’s when the nightmare begins.

  I’ve been on the Vic plenty of times before, but never like this. Fifty of the crew were slaughtered on the run in, and no one has had time to tend to the corpses. They lie mangled where they have fallen, and the stench of blood mingled with gun smoke is nauseating. We work our way through the toiling gun crews and I can feel the panic rising inside me like a living thing, building up the pressure until my head feels as though it will explode. The ship is hardly moving, just rising and falling a foot or so on the long swell, and when we come up through the hatch onto the main deck and the open air, I can see why. We are locked tight with the French cruiser Redoubtable on the starboard side, spars meshed together. All the Vic’s studding sails and booms have been shot away, and the main topmast is gone. Rigging is hanging down in a confusion of rope and canvas and splintered wood, blasted away in those desperate moments when the French gunners did their utmost to stop her reaching their line. The Vic’s lieutenants are running around, ordering the gun crews to fire low velocity rounds and organising the firemen into chain gangs to dash buckets of water into the gaping holes in the flank of the French ship, lest she should catch fire, or worse still explode. The two ships wallow in the swell with no weigh on, clasped in a murderous embrace, their steering gear shot away, and then through a gap in the smoke I see the cause of the officers’ anxiety. Outboard of the Redoubtable, another ship has joined the waltz. It Is Eliab Harvey’s Temeraire pounding away on the far side of the French ship. Set at maximum depression, the Vic’s cannons thunder, muzzles almost touching the target’s hull, leaping and bucking in their carriages, tended by near naked figures daubed in a woad of sweat and blood.

  I turn and look around to get my bearings, and there, through the smoke, looming up like a cliff on the starboard side, the huge ghostly outline of the Santissima Trinidad, gunports blazing. And it occurs to me that the monster Spanish four decker must have been right behind us when we approached in the cutter, and a moment or two later would certainly have mown us down, unseen in the fog.

  The panic is in my throat, now, gripping tight, throttling me. My inner voice pitches in: There’s no way you’re going to survive this.

  The blood drains away and my knees buckle, and just as I feel I am about to faint, the diminutive figure of Mr Ping appears before me, his white cook’s coat flapping like the wings of a sea bird, eyes squinting through his bottle glass spectacles. He has sensed my fear and come to my rescue.

  Don’t be scared Mr John…Da Lu make you strong

  He reaches up and places his palms against my temples, encircling the upper Dan Tien and I feel a warm sensation as the chi flows into me. As if a plug has been pulled somewhere inside me, the panic drains away.

  I am about to thank him when he whirls around on his kung fu slippers, and leaps to the gunwale, coat tails flapping. Immediately half a dozen marksmen, in the tops of the French ship, take aim and the yell of warning is still rising in my chest when they fire, and I see Mr Ping shudder into a blur of energy and the hail of musket shot clatters harmlessly to he deck. He bounds back to my side, grinning at my gaping amazement.

  Da Lu, Mr John, you watch

  And he’s across the deck at the far rail, where the Spanish battleship’s big guns are pounding away relentlessly. Again I try to cry out, but to my astonishment, my field of vision suddenly shrinks down to one open gun-port, the black O of one cannon. I see the barrel kick and the ball, glowing red, leave the muzzle in slo-mo, spinning, trailing sparks and blazing fragments of the spent powder charge. The ball comes flying towards us, straight as a die, direct hit, and then Mr Ping is in the frame; another blur as he fa jings again, and the ball shatters and falls into the sea. Mr Ping is at my side again, all gap toothed grin.

  Da Lu is the power, Mr John, you not be scared now

  And he’s gone.

  Did I imagine it? An hallucination; a figment of a feverish mind on overload, wrestling with blind panic? I don’t think so.

  One thing is for certain; for the rest of that horror filled day I never once succumbed to panic again.

  I crawl across the open deck and wedge myself between a capstan and a hatch cover, pull the sat phone out of my bag and press the redial.

  Harry?

  John? Where the hell have you been?

  I’m on the Vic

  The Vic? With Nelson?

  Yeah, r
ight in the thick of it.

  How did you pull that off?

  Grabbed a ride in the Pickle’s boat.

  So what’s the score now?

  Too early to say…could go either way.

  Made the splash with your last piece…can you file some more of the same?

  Jesus, Harry, you kidding me? There’s stuff going down here I just can’t start to describe.

  Give it a whirl, John, do your thing.

  Oh yeah? You want me to tell you about body parts strewn all over the place? Heads exploding like melons?

  Get a grip, son.

  Nobody ought to see this.

  Just report it, John, don’t live it.

  Easy for you to say, you know what? You know what I’ve just seen? They’re throwing rats over, rats doused in oil and set on fire.

  Come on John, easy boy, talk to me.

  We’ve got demented chickens running around in pools of blood, a goat with its leg shot off screaming blue murder and rats on fire, Harry. It’s the barnyard from hell out here.

  Easy does it, John, just report it like you see it. I’ll do the rewrite.

  We’re drowning in blood, H. They killed fifty before we even fired a shot, raked the deck for fifteen minutes before our guns even came to bear. The slaughter’s just appalling.

  Ok..Ok..What’s the sitch now?

  We’re up tight on the Redoubtable, snipers in the rigging firing down on us, it’s a turkey shoot. There’s guys going down all around me.

  What about Nelson?

  He’s on the Q deck, with Hardy, the captain, directing operations.

  Can you get a quote?

  Not from here. I’m on the main deck. I’ll see if I can get up there and call you again…got to go Harry.

  Wait up John, one last thing. Who’s winning, what’s your guess?

  Christ knows. Its bedlam out here, they’re going at it hammer and tongs. If they keep this up, H, there’ll be nothing left, we’re all going to die.

  Hey John, you just keep your head down, son, get the hell out of there if you have to. You don’t get any bonuses for being a dead hero.

  Oh sure, where am I going to go, H? Swim home?

  The Bucentaure, Villeneuve’s flagship has joined the Santissima Trinidad, trading broadsides with the Victory on the larboard beam and another French warship has run alongside the Temeraire; five ships, two British and three hostiles, locked in a furious fire-fight. The Vic’s gunners are keeping up a steady rate of fire, sending out salvo after salvo, when suddenly, from the stern of the Trinidad comes a lick of flame as though some disaster has occurred on board and sailors are jumping into the sea and swimming for the Vic. The Spanish ship’s guns fall silent.

  Hey, scribbles, that you? What’re you doing down there, taking a nap? You’re missing all the fun.

  Josh Hammond, standing over me, musket shots zinging past his ears. His blue uniform jacket, white shirt with a crisp stock at the throat, breeches and stockings are immaculate; even the buckles on his highly polished shoes are gleaming.

  You should’ve been there, scribbles, you missed a treat, all right, when we came in. Me and the boatswain, old Willmet went up there on the forecastle, loaded up the larboard carronade, the sixty-four pounder, with round shot and a keg of five hundred musket balls and enough powder to blow your socks off. We just bided our time up there and when the old man brought her around under the stern of the Bucentaure, we let then Frenchies have it, skittled ‘em like nine-pins.

  A seaman running past, with an armful of ammo pouches, suddenly spins and falls, shot in the face as sniper fire continues to rain down. Hammond doesn’t even flinch.

  Yeah, we sure hit ‘em where it hurts. That old ’smasher’ packs a punch all right, cleared the deck in one sweep, stern to stem. Would have made a good one for your paper, scribbles…

  He waves a hand to emphasise the point and a red-coated marine, down on one knee, firing his piece at the French troops in the rigging, topples over, spraying blood.

  Come on…I’ll show you before it’s too late. Going to be all over bar the shouting anytime now, they’re going to strike….

  Two sailors stagger up, dragging a third man who looks like a drowned rat, his eyes swivelling in his head.

  …hey mates, that a Frenchie you’ve got there?

  Hammond reaches for his sword

  No, Spanish, your honour, from yonder big bugger. We just fished him out

  Hammond’s hand moves from the hilt of his sword to the flask of rum hanging from his belt. He squats down and offers the flask to the bedraggled sailor.

  Spaniard eh…well here you go, mate, any man can dance the fandango can drink out of my canteen.

  Deadly sniper fire comes thick and fast. Thirty of the Vic’s deck force have been cut down already and there’s no sign of a let up. When she fought off the boarding party, Redoubtable slammed her gun ports shut to prevent any further assaults, and the wreckage now strews between the two ships makes it impossible to leap from deck to deck. In their frustration, the Vic’s close combat teams came up with a crazy plan to dive in and swim under the keel to board her from the far side, but that was vetoed as too risky, we’re losing too many people as it is without going in for kamikaze runs. Leave the hand-to-hand stuff to the Temeraire on the other side.

  With their cannon silent, the Redoubtables have switched to small arms, swarming into the rigging which is now thick with sharp-shooters, their weapons zeroed in on the killing ground, pinning us down, firing at anything that moves and tossing grenades.

  At this moment, Jim Collins comes zigzagging across in a running, weaving crouch, shots chipping at the deck all around him. He hurls himself the last few feet and squirms in beside me.

  Going to have to head back Mr Pretty, got to report to the captain.

  Calm as you please.

  What’s the word then, Jimmy?

  For the sake of brevity, I’ll paraphrase his account. He’s got a hard back book in which he’s jotted copious notes and he consults it as he tells me he’s been down in the wardroom which serves as a rudimentary command and control centre. Most of the captains have followed Lapenotiere’s example and sent boats scuttling between the battleships to report and receive intelligence from Nelson’s tactics team. The couriers are mostly midshipmen and Jim tells me he’s run into a bunch of his oppos down there and gives me a run down on the state of play. As he lays it out for me, his soot streaked face grave, I have to keep reminding myself that this specialist in naval warfare is actually a thirteen-year-old boy.

  He tells me Collingwood is cock-a-hoop, having taken out the Santa Anna and the Fougeaux single handed in the opening moves of the battle, fighting for a full thirty minutes before the rest of the lee column could catch up and wreak havoc with the enemy line which just caved in. Battered and dismasted, his ship, The Royal Sovereign was left wallowing in the swell until captain Blackwood spotted the Vice Admiral’s predicament and sailed to the rescue. As the Euryalis drew near the stranded crew hailed the frigate: My little ship, heave our head around so that our broadside may bear, and we shall soon be at the sally port. It was smartly done and the Royal Sovereign did fire again, putting paid to the Santa Anna, flagship of the Spanish Vice Admiral Don Ignatio d’Aliva. Mars was not so lucky, with most of her sails and rigging lost, and drifting helplessly, captain Duff leaned out to get his bearings in the turmoil and was decapitated by a round shot. Could have been blue on blue, the scene was so confused. As he fell, the Pluton emerged out of the fog and raked them, so what actually happened was never established.

  Nelson’s tactic of cutting the head off the combined fleet appears to have worked. The lightning two-pronged strike into the underbelly has shattered nerves and morale. By the time Admiral Dumanoirs in the Formidable, commanding the lead element, realised what was happening and turned back to join the battle, the advantage was lost and he could see that his four ships were standing into the muzzles of
the British guns, so he merely traded broadsides at long range and then sailed away, heading back for Cadiz. Only the Intrepide and the Neptuno summoned up the courage to go to Villeneuve’s aid and were immediately engaged in a ferocious battle with several British ships, fighting on, with such tenacity, despite overwhelming odds, that they earned the praise of several British captains.

  But of particular significance, Jim explained, was the fact that the enemy, until now deliberately unflagged, had begun to run up their colours, not in defiance as I had assumed, but quite the opposite, as a precaution ready to strike, the universal symbol of surrender.

  All this Jim tells me matter of factly and without embellishment, rehearsing his operational report, but in my mind I’m visualising each scenario in all its gory horror; the hell here on the Vic multiplied time and time again across the battle zone.

  I drag my thoughts back and realise Jim has stopped speaking and is looking at me expectantly.

  Very good Mr Collins, the captain will be pleased with that.

  He grins, and now I notice that he is festooned with pistols, half a dozen pieces, sticking out of his belt and pockets, weapons he’s grabbed from the small arms caches he’s passed. Can never have enough pistols, eh Jimmy.

  We’d best be getting back, Mr Pretty, I’ll call the boat in

  I look at my watch; amazing, only two hours have passed since the battle began, seems like an eternity, and there’s nothing I’d like better than to get out of this hole…only I’ve got to get a quote.

  Hang on a minute Jim, I need to get a word with Nelson first.

  His brow furrows.

  I don’t know if we can make it to the quarterdeck

  I feel this crazy rush of Da Lu courage well up inside me, thinking: I can sprint

  through the fire storm. And I get into a runner’s crouch.

  You stay here, I’ll be back in a jiffy

  He grabs my arm

  No..no..the cap’n’ll kill me if you get hurt. I’ll take you. It’s too dangerous up here, we’ll go down a deck and come back up the poop ladder.

  My turn to grin

  Hey, Jimmy, that’s what I call a plan.

  Day Ten

  We come up the stern ladder onto the Q deck, and I’m in for a shock. I can’t believe my eyes. I’d assumed that this key conning position, from which the battle is being directed, would be heavily fortified. But no, no awning, no screen, no netting crammed with hammocks, no wall of sandbags. No nothing. It is open to the elements

  I do a double take. Are we in the wrong place? Has the kid brought us up the wrong stairway?

  In front of my eyes the deck is smeared with great gobs of brown jelly, congealed blood. I later learn it is where poor John Scott, Nelson’s loyal secretary and my confidante, was prophetically killed in the opening moments of the battle. I look up in disbelief, and there he is, the man himself, walking the deck with captain Hardy, like nothing is amiss. You can’t mistake him, he’s wearing his frock coat with the admiral’s insignia and the stars of his Orders gleaming in the strange yellow light. I look higher, the shredded rigging of the Redoubtable looms over us, just a stone’s throw away, full of gunmen. Jesus H Christ, he’s a sitting duck out there! Where are his bodyguards, the platoon of marines assigned to close protection?

  Without thinking, I’m on my feet, yelling.

  Admiral…

  He’s walking with Hardy, strolling more like.

  Admiral Nelson!

  He turns at the shout of his name and Hardy takes three steps further. For some reason I’m suddenly reminded of the Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination; everything his slowed down, clicking by, frame after frame.

  Admiral Nelson …look out…

  I see no flicker of recognition in his eyes, just the thousand-yard stare, and icy fingers squeeze my insides.

  Look out…incoming!

  He just stands there, in freeze frame, for what seems an eternity, then his knees buckle and down he goes onto his face. Hardy turns in slo-mo and retraces his steps. It’s just like when Oswald’s bullet hit Kennedy in the head, disbelief makes time stand still.

  Nelson’s down and as he hits the deck; everything speeds up into frantic action. We’re all running and a couple of sailors reach him first and lift him up. His face is ashen with shock and there’s a hole in the shoulder of his coat where the gold epaulette has been shot away. Hardy is down on one knee.

  They’ve done for me at last, Hardy

  Spoken almost in relief.

  I hope not

  Hardy joins the rest of us, yelling for a medic.

  Yes, I fear my backbone is shot through.

  Medic…where the hell is that medic!

  Jim Collins jumps forward, eyes huge in his sooty face.

  Help him, for Gods sake captain, we can’t wait for the medics, we’ve got to get him below.

  Hardy is in shock, just staring into the face of his stricken commander. From somewhere behind, a voice cries:

  Christ, we begged him not to wear that bloody coat, might as well have hung a target around his neck!

  Marines come running up – apparently Nelson ordered them to disperse around the ship after eight were mown down by a double-headed shot -- and start pumping suppressing fire into the enemy ship to cover the medevac.

  I’m next to Hardy. His face is blank.

  See that…

  The buckle of his shoe has been torn away and his foot is beginning to swell.

  …Shot hit the four-brace bits and passed between us, got winged by the shrapnel, I urged him to take cover, but he wouldn’t listen.

  Jim has the makeshift stretcher-bearers lowering Nelson down the ladder, the one we came up. All the while the red coats are blazing away to give us cover.

  Got to get him down to the Orlop deck, in the bowels of the ship, where the doc and the medics are patching up the wounded. Its hard work manhandling the dead weight of the Admiral who insists that his face and uniform are covered, so that the crew will not know he has been shot.

  On the way down he notices that the rudder ropes have parted and orders them replaced. He’s got balls all right. Maybe the wound isn’t so bad after all. Isn’t that what they thought when they were rushing Kennedy to hospital? Wishful thinking always holds sway when the unthinkable happens.

  If the upper decks were bad, this is much worse. The cramped, gloomy cockpit is packed with bodies, the place where the steady flow of wounded washes up, and looking around, I question my sanity. It’s a charnel house down here, the air fetid with the stench of blood. The Vic’s surgeon, William Beatty, and his band of helpers, are doing their best to stem the tide, and in the confined space the slow roll of the ship just adds to the lingering sensation of horror. I do not want to be here.

  Beatty hurries across and probes the wound. I can see from his expression that he isn’t hopeful; too much death has passed his way today for him to miss-read the signs. If only we could air lift him out of here get him to a hospital with proper facilities, there might be a chance. But of course we can’t.

  Jim Collins, eyes brimming

  They won’t let him die, will they?

  I can’t answer him

  One by one they troop down to the Orlop deck as the word spreads. Nelson is moved to a pallet in the adjacent midshipmen’s mess. We take it in turns to fan his feverish face and give him sips of lemonade to quench a raging thirst.

  All the while the battle continues, unabated, and each time an enemy ship strikes it’s colours, a cheer goes up from the decks above and a smile plays on Nelson’s lips.

  Hardy comes back and reports that ten ships have struck.

  I fish out a note book and jot this down:

  Nelson: I hope none of our ships has struck

  Hardy: There’s no fear of that.

  Nelson: I am a dead man, Hardy, I’m going fast.

  Hardy: Oh no, I’m sure Beatty can save you

  Nelson: It is
impossible, my back is shot through. I feel the gush of blood in my chest. Go back to the deck, Hardy, tell me how it goes.

  Beatty comes over.

  Nelson: You know I am gone

  Beatty: How great is the pain?

  Nelson: So great, I wish I was dead.

  Jim Collins is fanning him when he murmurs: What will become of my poor Lady Hamilton if she knows my situation?

  Hardy comes back

  Nelson: What is it Hardy?

  Hardy: A total victory, ten or fifteen captured already

  Nelson: Thank God I have done my duty. I bargained for twenty. Anchor. Hardy, anchor.

  Hardy: Will Admiral Collingwood take command?

  Nelson: Not while I live, Hardy, order the fleet to anchor.

  Nelson beckons Hardy closer.

  Nelson: Don’t throw me overboard,

  Hardy: Never.

  Nelson: Take care of my poor Emma…kiss me Hardy.

  Hardy kneels and kisses him on the forehead,

  Nelson: God bless you, Hardy.

  Slowly he drifts into unconsciousness, and Jim Collins, on his knees beside the pallet twists two brass buttons from Nelson’s coat in his anguish. He presses one into my hand.

  We both look down. Nelson’s face is in repose. We both know he’s good as dead.

  That’s when the shock of it hits me. I have been so traumatised by events that the enormity of all this only occurs to me now as the picture in my mind widens out. This isn’t just a private tragedy, a family affair, a Navy thing even. Jesus, if I hit the button, this will go around the world in a flash. Horatio Nelson, the great British hero, snuffed out at the height of his triumph over the evil empire. What a story. What pathos. What dynamite. The kind of beat a newspaperman’s reputation is made of. I feel guilty even thinking this, looking down at the distraught Jim Collins kneeling at the side of his dying commander.

  Turning away, I slip the sat phone out of my bag and my finger hovers over the redial. Some great reporter I turned out to be. I just can’t do it.

  Without warning the phone chirrups and I almost jump out of my skin.

  John?

  Yeah…Harry?

  He’s dead

  What!

  Snuffed it

  How the hell do you know that?

  Just got it from the coastguard

  The coastguard?

  What’s the matter with you, John, you turned into a parrot or something?

  What are you telling me, Harry?

  I just told you, he’s dead. Big Billy’s dead.

  Big Billy?

  Jesus, will you stop doing that parrot thing.

  I just thought…

  Thought what?

  Never mind .. What the hell happened?

  I told you, we’ve just got it from the horse’s mouth. Big Billy’s gone to that great newsroom in the sky.

  Yeah?

  Seems the Arab geezer they got the yacht from left a whole bunch of fun loving bimbos on board and they were all having an orgy when BB stepped out for a pee over the side, only the guard rail gave way, and in he went. They didn’t realise he was missing ‘till the morning and when they went back to look for him, there he was, like the red red robin, just bob, bob bobbin’ along.

  Drowned?

  Totally. Of course we’re going to dress up the obit, lion of the media, champion of the people, all that bullshit.

  Nice touch, Harry.

  Well, we could hardly tell the truth, could we? Fat madman gets pissed, falls overboard. The coroner will want to look at it, no doubt, see if there was any suggestion of foul play, and there’s bound to be an inquest, but there you go, adios Big Billy.

  Lucky they found him; he could’ve been shark bait.

  Sharks aren’t stupid; they’d give him a wide berth, dead or alive. So anyway, how’s the Trafalgar story shaping up now?

  Looking good. We’ve got them on the run, surrendering in droves. Just a matter of time.

  Okay, I’ll box a par and rejig for the main run. Any more juicy quotes from Nelson? Loved that ‘England expects’ line, plastered that all over the billboards.

  I’m working on it. Shame about Big Billy

  Yeah, isn’t it just

  I can’t tell him, can I? Not that the nation’s hero is gasping his last breath just feet away from me. Not with Jim Collin sobbing his heart out. Would be too cruel.

  HMS Euryalis – Cape Trafalgar

  Cuthbert Collingwood doesn’t like me. Its nothing personal, Nelson’s right hand man has an aversion to journalists, thinks we’re jackals picking the bones of other peoples’ misfortunes. Guess he’s had some bad experiences with the media.

  He looks at me speculatively from under knitted brows, his face etched with battle fatigue.

  I didn’t want you along on this mission, Mr Pretty, argued against it in fact. Horatio overruled me.

  I know Admiral, it’s all water under the bridge now.

  You people have all the power and none of the responsibility. You can destroy a good man with the stroke of a pen.

  We’re not all cowboys, Admiral; maybe I can change your mind.

  Maybe so, Mr Pretty. I understand the Admiralty conferred upon you the rank of lieutenant.

  Acting, unpaid and purely honorary, merely a device to ensure I didn’t starve.

  But a King’s rank, nonetheless

  I suppose so, Admiral. What are you driving at?

  We’ve lost a lot of men in the battle, including our scribes. I want you to do me a service, Mr Pretty, but first I must be sure of your allegiance.

  I am at your disposal, Admiral Collingwood. What kind of service?

  I’d like you to take down my official report, and knock it into shape for the Admiralty. Now that Nelson’s gone, it falls to me to do the official honours. I would pen it myself, but the glass is falling and I fear there is a blow coming and I must look to my ships and the prizes. You take an excellent note, I’m told.

  Yes, yes, I do. You can dictate your report to me Admiral. I won’t betray any confidences; you have my word as a naval officer.

  He almost smiles

  It’s important that I get this down whilst its still fresh in my mind. I owe it to the memory of my good friend and as a tribute to the stout heart of the British seaman.

  I nod

  I’ll go along with that. We can do it right now if you like, a pad and a pencil is all I need.

  Admiralty Confidential

  REPORT TO THE COMMISSIONERS

  After Action: Cape Trafalgar

  Reporting officer: Vice Admiral C, Collingwood 2ic naval task force

  The ever to be lamented death of Vice Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, who, in the late conflict with the enemy, fell in the hour of victory, leaves to me the duty of informing you that on the 19th instant, it was communicated to the C-in-C from the ships watching the motions of the enemy at Cadiz, that the combined fleet had put to sea.

  As they sailed with light winds westerly, his Lordship concluded their destination was the Mediterranean and immediately made all sail for the straits entrance with the British squadron, consisting of twenty seven ships, three of them sixty-fours, where his Lordship was informed by captain Blackwood (whose vigilance in watching and giving notice of the emery’s movements has been highly meritorious) that they had not yet passed the straits.

  On Monday 21st instant, at daylight, when Cape Trafalgar bore east by south about, seven leagues, the enemy was discovered, six or seven miles to the eastward, the wind about west and very light. The C-in-C immediately made the signal for the fleet to bear up in two columns, as they were formed in the order of sailing, a mode of attack his Lordship had previously directed to avoid the inconvenience and delay in forming a line of battle in the usual manner.

  The enemy’s line consisted of thirty-three ships (of which eighteen were French and fifteen Spanish) commanded in chief by Admiral Villeneuve, the Spanish under the
direction of Admiral Gravina, wore with their heads to the north and formed their line of battle with great closeness and correctness, but, as the mode of attack was unusual, so the structure of their line was new. It formed a crescent, convexing to leeward, so that in leading down to the centre, I had both their van and rear abaft the beam.

  Before the fire opened, every alternate ship was about a cable’s length to windward of her second, ahead and astern, forming a kind of double line, and appeared, when on their beam, to leave very little interval between them, and this without crowding their ships. Admiral Villeneuve was in the Bucentaure at the centre, and the Prince of Asturias bore Gravina in the rear, but the French and Spanish ships were mixed, without any apparent regard to order of national squadron.

  As the mode of our attack had been previously determined, and communicated to the flag officers and captains, few signals were necessary, and none were made, except to direct close order as the lines bore down. The C-in-C in the Victory led the weather column and the Royal Sovereign, which bore my flag, the lee.

  The action began at twelve o’clock by the leading ships of the columns breaking through the enemy’s line, the C-in-C at the tenth ship from the van, myself about the twelfth ship from the rear, leaving the van of the enemy unoccupied; the succeeding ships breaking through in all parts, astern of their leaders, and engaging the enemy at the muzzle of their guns.

  The conflict was severe; the enemy’s ships were fought with a gallantry highly honourable of their officers, but the attack on them was irresistible, and His Majesty’s arms were granted a complete and glorious victory. About three pm, many of the enemy ships having struck their colours, their line gave way and Admiral Gravina with ten ships joining their frigates to leeward, stood towards Cadiz. The five headmost ships of their van, tacked, and standing to the south, to windward of the British fleet, were engaged and the stern-most of them taken; the others went off, leaving to His Majesty;s squadron nineteen ships of the line (of which two are first

  rates, the Santissima Trinidad and the Santa Anna) with three flag officers, Admiral Villeneuve, Vice Admiral Don Ignatio Maria d’Aliva and the Spanish Rear Admiral, Don Baltazar Hidalgo Cisneros.

  After such a victory, it may appear unnecessary to enter into eucomiums on the particular parts taken by the several commanders. The conclusion says more on the subject than I have language to express; the spirit which animated all was the same. When all exert themselves zealously in their country’s service, all desire that their high merits should stand recorded, and never was high merit more conspicuous than in the battle I have described.

  The Achille, a French seventy-four, having surrendered, by some mismanagement of the Frenchmen, took fire and blew up and our tenders saved two hundred of her crew.

  A circumstance occurred during the action, which so strongly marks the invincible spirit of the British seamen, when engaging the enemies of their country, that I cannot resist the pleasure in making it known to your Lordships. The Temeraire was boarded, by accident or design, by a French ship on one side and a Spanish on the other. The contest was vigorous, but in the end the combined ensigns were torn from the poops and the British hoisted in their place.

  Such a battle could not be fought without sustaining a great loss of men. I have not only to lament, in common with the British navy and the British nation, the fall of the C-in-C, the loss of a hero whose name will be immortal, and his memory ever dear to his country, but my heart is rent with the most poignant grief for the death of a friend, to whom, by many years intimacy, and a perfect knowledge of the virtues of his mind which inspired ideas superior to the common race of men, I was bound by the strongest ties of affection, a grief to which even the glorious occasion on which he fell, does not bring the consolation which perhaps it ought. His Lordship received a musket ball in the left breast, about the middle of the action, and sent an officer to me immediately with his last farewell, and soon after expired.

  I also have to lament the loss of those excellent officers, captain Duff of the Mars and captain Cooke of the Bellerophon. I have yet heard of none other, but I fear the numbers that have fallen will be very great when the returns come to me.

  The Royal Sovereign, having lost her masts, except the tottering foremast, I called the Euryalis to me while the action continued, which ship, lying within hail, made my signals, a service which captain Blackwood performed with great attention. After the action I shifted my flag to her, that I might more easily communicate my orders, and we towed the Royal Sovereign out to seaward.

  The whole fleet is now in a very perilous state, most dismasted, all shattered, in thirteen fathoms of water off the shoals of Trafalgar and when I made the signal to prepare to anchor, few of the ships had an anchor to let go, their cables being shot, but the same good providence which aided us through such a day, preserved us through the night by the wind shifting a few points and drifting the ships out of danger, except for four of the captured vessels which are now at anchor off Trafalgar, and I hope, will ride safe until the coming gale is over.

  Having thus detailed the proceedings of the fleet on this occasion, I beg to congratulate your Lordships on a victory, which, I hope, will add a ray to the glory of His Majesty’s crown, and be attended with public benefit to our country.

  C Collingwood

  Vice Admiral

  HMS Euryalis

  October 22 1805

  Annex One

  Medical log of W. Beatty, Surgeon

  The ball struck the forepart of his Lordship’s epaulette and entered the left shoulder immediately before the processus acromion scapulae, which it slightly fractured. It then descended obliquely into the thorax, fracturing the second and third ribs and after penetrating the left lobe of the lung and dividing a large branch of the pulmonary artery, it entered the left side of the spine, between the sixth and seventh dorsal vertebrae, fractured the left transverse process of the sixth vertebrae, wounding the medulla, and, fracturing the right transverse process of the seventh vertebrae, it made its way through the right side of the spine, directing its course through the muscles of the back and lodged therein, about two inches below the inferior angle of the right scapula. On removing the ball – a shot from a common musket not a rifled barrel – a portion of the gold lace and pad of the epaulette, together with a small piece of his Lordship’s coat were found firmly attached to it.

  W Beatty

  Surgeon

  HMS Victory

  It’s a while before we can board the Redoubtable. The French ship is down by the head, still entangled with the Vic’s wreckage, and flames can be seen licking from the fore-chains.

  Ever since she surrendered, following a furious fire-fight twenty minutes after Nelson was shot, damage control parties have been hacking away the debris and racing to reach the burning timbers. Its touch and go. If she sinks, or worse, explodes, there is the real danger she could take us down with her, so the activity is frantic, but not as desperate as the determination to get the sniper who dropped Nelson.

  Still immaculate and untouched by any of this mayhem, Josh Hammond tells me the story.

  We got the son of a bitch bang to rights, scribbles. Old Carter Moss the quartermaster saw it all, pointed him out to a couple of our lads who were blazing away from the poop. Couldn’t miss him, he’s got on a white coat and a glazed cocked hat perched up in the mizzen top. Plugged him good, they did, one in the head and one in the chest. See this? His musket, got it as a souvenir.

  He shows me the weapon and all of a sudden, I realise something is not quite kosher. The French sharp-shooters have been issued with the latest, more accurate, rifled musket, and when I take a look, sure enough, there’s the grooving in the barrel. Only I know from Beatty’s report that the fatal ball came from a smooth bore gun. Looks like in their haste to avenge their fallen commander, they got the wrong man, and there was another shooter up there. The minute I get the chance, I’m going over to take a look for myself.
/>   As Collingwood predicted, the weather is beginning to turn and the two ships are grinding against each other as the tangle of rigging and shattered masts and spars are hacked away. They are all too busy to take any notice of me, so when I see my chance, I leap across, landing heavily on the French deck.

  Now I can see just how devastating the Vic’s gunnery has been. The deck is a morgue. Hardly any of the crew have survived, and the sickening waft of death makes me retch dry. I inch my way forward, all the while wondering why the hell I’m bothering to do this, when I stumble on him, crouched behind the shattered carriage of a twisted deck cannon, his face deathly pale. Glazed cocked hat and white frock. Our eyes meet and I know for sure it’s him. To my astonishment, the pistol Jim pressed on me is in my hand, pointing at his forehead.

  Don’t shoot, for pity’s sake, don’t shoot!

  Spoken in English

  What?

  Don’t shoot me, I’m not to blame.

  English?

  Cornwall, I was born. We was captured fishing off the Lizard and I was pressed by the Frenchies. If I’d known we was going to strike, I wouldn’t have fired.

  You know what you did then?

  Killed him, didn’t I? That strutting cock.

  That strutting cock was Nelson.

  The cap’n said two hundred gold pieces for every officer we shot. I’ve got mouths to feed.

  You shot Nelson, for two hundred gold?

  Aye…

  A flicker of anger in his eyes.

  …and I’d do it again. It was us or them, we were getting massacred.

  What’s your name?

  Trehearn, Toby Trehearn. They calls me ‘the crab’ on account of I was a crabber back home.

  You’re coming with me, Toby Trehearn, is that your gun?

  Aye, sir, but it isn’t loaded. We ran out of ammunition and no one came to help us. All my mates were killed.

  I’m thinking a ballistics test on the musket will settle it. Could Nelson really have been laid low by an Englishman? The irony is staggering. Trehearn is looking at me in abject terror as the penny drops.

  Nelson you say? Admiral Nelson?

  Yeah, Admiral Nelson.

  Then I’m a dead man.

  Suddenly I feel very tired.

  No, you’ll be OK, I’ll take you over to the master-at-arms. Whatever you did, you’re a prisoner of war, and you know we don’t execute prisoners in the British navy, not after you’ve struck your colours. On your feet.

  I gesture with my gun.

  He’s starting to rise up, like an animal at bay, under the muzzle of my pistol, when I see his eyes suddenly pop wide, and reflected in them is a lightning flash and a terrific bang goes off behind my head. The shooter flies backwards and sags against the bulwark, a gaping hole in his face. I blink and spin round, and there’s Jim Collins, a smoking pistol in his hand.

  I had to do it

  Oh, shit.

  I followed you…heard it all…heard him confess

  Oh SHIT

  Couldn’t let him live.

  Jim…Oh Jimmy.

  Solemnly he reverses the pistol and holds it out to me.

  On my honour, Mr Pretty, you can turn me in now.

  What?

  I shot him after he’d surrendered. That’s a court martial for me.

  ‘Shall suffer death’ , the verdict reverberates in my ear with the echo of the gunshot. I grab the pistol out of his hand, and with a sweep of my arm, toss it over the side. Then I seize the smock of the dead assassin and bundle him over too. There’s a splash as he hits the water. Jim Collins is just standing there, looking at me.

  Nothing happened here, Jim, nothing at all. We’d best get back over to the Vic, there’s a storm brewing and it’s been a long day.

  He’s just standing there, dumbstruck. Underneath it all, he’s still just a kid in a man’s world. I take his arm and guide him back through the carnage to the safety of the flagship. When we’re back on our own deck, I say to him:

  Well they got Nelson’s killer OK. Hammond told me he was a French sniper; found him hanging in the mizzen top, one in the head and one in the heart. Lots of witnesses, Josh says, it’s all in the official report.

  Jim Collins just nods and I think to myself: another story I’m never going to write.

  Daily Chronicle

  Comment Page – First leader

  The price of freedom

  The next time you pop down to the High Street for a little retail therapy; drop into Tesco for something tasty, or just enjoy a quiet pint in the pub, remember the price of such everyday freedom you take for granted has been paid – in British blood.

  Until yesterday, Cape Trafalgar was just a place on a map, an undistinguished stretch of sea, where two great battle fleets circled each other like prize fighters waiting for the bell.

  Today, the bout is over, and victory is ours, but not without a terrible toll in human life.

  Four hundred and forty nine gallant British servicemen are dead - 1241 lie wounded.

  The enemy’s body count is horrendous: 4408 KIA and 2545 wounded or MIA.

  All in the space of 4 hours 18 minutes.

  What might have happened if the tables had been turned and the enemy had triumphed?

  Reflect on life as it would be under the jackboot of the tyrant Bonaparte; the iron first of the police state would rule our nation.

  In that grey world, neighbour spies on neighbour, and the midnight knock is dreaded. A world of secret police and execution squads, where friends vanish, never to be seen again.

  Gulag Britain would be the new reality.

  It will not come to pass, because fathers, lovers, sons and brothers who will never come home have paid the price in your name. They are the true warriors of liberty.

  So today, savour the glory, enjoy the freedom – but never forget the cost,

  There is another complication. As the crews toil to repair the shattered ships sufficiently to ride out heavy weather, the prisoners must be rounded up and secured. Now that the heat of battle has passed, there have been attempts to retake surrendered ships from the prize crews, contrary to the accepted rules of engagement, and so the much depleted deck force have their hands full.

  There are more flag officers among the captives than you could shake a stick at, and the British prisoner-handling teams aboard the prizes have been issued with decks of playing cards bearing the portraits of the key players they need to identify. I’m told some of the French commanders have even discarded their uniforms in fear of reprisals, now that news of Nelson’s death has flashed around the fleet. Bonaparte’s edict for treatment of prisoners has been drummed into them: Put the officer corps to the sword. Not so the Spanish. Mortified that their erstwhile allies have raked their surrendered ships, the Spanish sailors offer to man the guns and fight alongside the prize crew, should another French vessel approach.

  Admiral Collingwood is more relaxed around me now. He gives me permission to visit Admiral Villeneuve, who is being held aboard the Euryalis which is lying close to the Vic whilst the shipwrights and carpenters make hurried repairs

  Ah, Mr Pretty, I’m glad to see you came through that ordeal unscathed. I was just thinking about you.

  He seems genuinely pleased to see me, but I’m shocked by his appearance. Without the beehive coiffure, his clothes dirty and his stockings snagged, he seems to have shrunk into himself. It is as if I am looking at a shell from which the man inside has retreated.

  I’m pleased you have also escaped the worst of it Admiral.

  You find me in a parlous state, my friend, this time I cannot offer you even modest hospitality.

  No need, and I haven’t come to crow. I know you had no choice.

  My hand was forced, yes, and I was more or less resigned to the outcome. It may seem strange, coming from my lips, but I am sorry Nelson had to die.

  He frowns

  But maybe it is as well. He was a self-public
ist par excellence and he would have made much personal honour from such a victory. I don’t mean this disrespectfully, you understand, but sometimes it is best that success is tempered with humility. My heart bleeds for my fleet, rent and savaged and mostly destroyed. Gravina played it close to his chest, Dumanoir (his Vice Admiral) never really had the stomach for the fight and my captains lacked the steel of yours. I feel for my poor sailors, in their watery graves.

  We all feel for them, Admiral,. Old men start wars, but it’s the young who die.

  Yes, I fear it was ever thus. You have reported the battle, I suppose, a great British victory. There will be dancing in the streets, no doubt.

  I wouldn’t be surprised.

  And many tributes to the fallen hero.

  I guess so. The armchair warriors will have a field day.

  Bonaparte will be gnashing his teeth, and putting the best complexion on it. He’ll play up Nelson’s death as a triumph, but I won’t get any credit for it, neither would I seek it. Dumanoir scuttled back to Cadiz with the four ships of our van which were never engaged. No doubt he will reap the glory, he is a vain fellow.

  I give him a moment to reflect.

  I want to get the record straight, Admiral Villeneuve. You know the Chronicle always tries to be fair. Whatever you tell me will be faithfully reported.

  Oh yes, I don’t doubt it, I enjoyed your earlier work. You were very fair to me, and that was much appreciated.

  He sounds OK, but his eyes are vacant. Inner demons are gnawing away.

  You can read my dispatch before I file.

  He waves a hand

  There’s no need for that, Mr Pretty, I don’t doubt your integrity. Besides, I am no longer the story, just a footnote. We both know I am finished, done for. I imagine I will be exchanged, crawl home in disgrace, and vanish into obscurity.

  Don’t be so hard on yourself; you could’ve done no more.

  I don’t know. As far as the battle goes, I had guessed correctly what the mode of attack would be. I know Nelson’s tactics of old. I had prepared my defences accordingly, but in the event I was powerless to ward off such a ferocious onslaught.

  He gives me a wan smile

  They say Nelson cared for his men, yet he was prepared to watch them die in their droves, as he ploughed into us.

  I think he thought short and quick was the best option.

  Well, he always was a swashbuckling commander

  If you’re up there on a pedestal, a national hero long enough, you’re more or less programmed to do the heroic.

  For my sins, I have always erred on the side of caution. If I had pressed on for Gibraltar and given him a run for his money, things might have been different, who knows.

  You can never second guess it, Admiral; hindsight is a wonderful thing. You did what you had to do, and you have no cause to reproach yourself.

  I am melancholy all the same. So many lives lost, and for what?

  You know the answer to that as well as I do. It was the only way we could convince Bonaparte that his plan to invade Britain is a lost cause. Sometimes a demonstration of overwhelming force is the only lesson that gets through. You were the means to that end, no ifs or buts, the combined fleet had to be destroyed.

  So turns the wheel of destiny, eh my friend. Sometimes I envy your nation, you know, your pig-headed determination to put the whole world to rights. A noble cause.

  We don’t have a monopoly on nobility, just a sense of justice.

  And on that note I fear we must leave it, Mr Pretty. I feel a great fatigue setting in, and I regret I am poor company. Allow me to rest with my miserable thoughts, if you will…oh, and grant me one favour.

  If it’s in my power, Admiral

  Tell your crossword compiler how much I have enjoyed the intellectual stimulus. He has long preserved my sanity.

  This broken French patriot rises stiffly to his feet and offers me his hand.

  Goodbye, Mr Pretty, I doubt we shall meet again.

  I accept his handshake, dry as parchment.

  Goodbye, Admiral Villeneuve. Its been an honour

  The Daily Chronicle breaks the news with a 76-point screamer inside a black border

  NELSON DEAD

  The second deck reads: Hero Horatio falls in hour of triumph

  It is a journalistic tour-de-force. Ten pages of glittering biog and a eulogy of an obit, all perfectly timed to wrong foot the opposition.

  The broadsheets and the tabloids scramble to catch up, re-plating like fury. The broadcast media goes into overdrive, scrapping schedules for hastily cobbled ‘specials.’

  It’s a feeding frenzy.

  Harry’s cock-a-hoop, practically chewing my ear off down the phone.

  You never saw anything like it, John boy. Circulation took off like a rocket; the ad boys are coining it in like a licence to print, and we’d sold out ten extra editions before the rest were off the starting blocks. What a winner, it’s a bean feast.

  Pleased to hear it H.

  And you know the best part of it, kid?

  Tell me

  Pushed Big Billy’s demise down to a few crummy pars on page twenty-three. It’s Nelson all the way.

  Yeah, you can’t beat a good celebrity death to sell papers.

  Never a truer word. Now we need a good strong follow-up to keep the potboiling. Battle of Trafalgar, blow-by-blow account. I’ve re-heated some of your stuff, but we need more colour; some vox pops from the boys in blue, spread the hero thing about a bit. We’ve got the great and the good and every politician in the book jamming the phones, trying to get in on the act, so there’s acres of bread and butter copy. All we need from you is the glitter, John. Pour it on. How’s it feel to be the great award-winning journalist? The world’s your oyster, son, all the networks are clamouring for you, we’re having to fight ’em off.

  I’ll do my best, Harry.

  You don’t sound too crazy about it, John. You OK?

  Just tired, that’s all

  Day Eleven

  If Collingwood had ordered the fleet to anchor, things might have been different. But he didn’t, don’t ask me why. Nelson had issued the order to Hardy on his deathbed, but somewhere down the chain of command, the last instruction from their dying Admiral had become garbled and lost in the heat of the moment and the trauma of death.

  Blame Collingwood if you like, he was the 2IC and automatically assumed the mantle of command. But the man was wasted, that I can tell you. When he dictated his after-action report to me, his eyes would glaze over, and he would need a moment to gather his thoughts. Nowadays it’s called post traumatic stress disorder. Guilt that he came through without a scratch; anguish at the loss of a friend, combined to trip out the relays in his brain.

  The falling glass didn’t mean much to me. Everyone was still scurrying to patch up our own ships and secure the prizes wallowing in the increasing swell, and I was too preoccupied with my new ‘official’ role to sense anything was wrong. My reputation as a speed-scribe, that’s how they described my shorthand, had gone around like wildfire, and my services were in demand. This is what I jotted down at the time.

  Still aboard the Euryalis when the captains troop aboard for a; hot; wash-up and Admiral Collingwood asks me if I’d be good enough to take the minutes. Seems like I’m a member of the inner circle.

  Combat log

  1204Many of our ships had two or more of the enemy on them at a time in the opening moments. Both the French and the Spanish fought desperately and British courage was pushed to the limit in this terrible conflict. Two ships boarded the Temeraire at once; they poured onto the quarterdeck and rushed the flagstaff, tearing down the colours. The British crew rallied, cleared the deck of the enemy, most of whom was killed, the rest forced overboard, our colours were hoisted again and the two enemy ships in their turn were forced to surrender.

  1300Having captured two of the enemy ships, the crew of the Temeraire turned the enemy�
��s guns to good account during the rest of the action, a unique event in naval combat. The Neptuno, of ninety-eight guns, captain Freemantle, had two Spanish ships of the same firepower to contend with. In the calm which prevailed he brought both broadsides to bear so effectively that both enemy ships were simultaneously dismasted. Although the Neptuno lost comparatively few men, the slaughter on the Spanish side, when they struck, was truly dreadful.

  1400The Dreadnought captain Conn, after dismasting her first opponent, passed on to the Prince of Asturias, bearing the flag of the Spanish C-in-C, and raked her with such a well-aimed broadside that she crowded sail and departed the BZ. Captain Bayntun, in the Leviathan, passed through the enemy line, dismasted one ship, raked the Santissima Trinidad and passed on to the St Augustine, one of seven ships advancing towards him. She was silenced within a quarter of an hour, the others driven off as the crew of the Leviathan rigged a hawser and towed the St Augustine into our fleet with the British flag flying.

  1500The Earl of Northesk in the Britannia (Old Ironsides) broke through the enemy line astern of their fourteenth ship, pouring in on each side such effective fire, that havoc spread through the enemy ships. Seizing the initiative, he totally dismasted a French eighty-gun from which a white handkerchief was waved in surrender. Leaving her to be picked up by one of our frigates, Britannia continued to engage enemy ships, often on both sides, two and three at a time, with little intermission for upwards of four hours. The Santa Anna struck to the Tonnant and when a lieutenant with sixty seamen and marines went aboard they found her starboard side severely damaged.

  1600Enemy ships captured – Nineteen sail of the line Combined fleet command and control structure out of action: Admiral Villeneuve C-in-C Bucentaure, captured. Admiral don Frederico Gravina, Principe d’Asturias wounded in the arm, escaped. Vice Admiral don Ignatio Maria d’Aliva, Santa Anna, wounded in the head, captured. Rear Admiral don Baltazar Hidalgo Cisneros, Santissima Trinidad, captured. Rear Admiral Magon, Algeziras, KIA. Rear Admiral Dumanoir, Formidable, escaped.

  When the de-brief breaks up, I’m dog tired and I find a bunk in the corner of the wardroom and collapse into it. In no time, I’m dead to the world.

 

‹ Prev Next ›