Part 15

At nine o'clock the two fleets were about six miles apart. It was a gloriously fine morning, with the sky almost cloudless. A light breeze blew from the north-west, before which, with every sail set, the fleet bore down towards the enemy, the ships lifting on the swell as the long surging rollers from the ocean bore them forward.

At this point we may for one moment glance across at the enemy and see how they on their side have been faring. With the Combined Fleet,[93] as it happened, the situation was by no means promising. The coming event was already casting its shadow before. Things had already begun to shape themselves awkwardly. Admiral Villeneuve had found it advisable to go about, and the Combined Franco-Spanish Fleet was now standing northward, heading back towards Cadiz, and forming into line of battle as they went along. The sight of the British fleet that morning had been an unpleasant surprise for Admiral Villeneuve. His look-out ships on the previous evening had reported the British fleet to him as not more than eighteen sail of the line, and to leeward. There were now in sight,--he could see them with his own eyes--upwards of ten sail of the line, including several three-deckers, more than that. Also--what weighed even more with Admiral Villeneuve--they were to windward of him. That meant that a stronger force than Villeneuve cared to meet was within striking distance of him and had the weather gage. Whether he went on or whether he went back, he would have to fight. He had cast the die. He had crossed the Rubicon.

'Twas vain to seek retreat and vain to fear, Himself had challenged and the foe drew near.

As the best thing, if not indeed the only thing he could do in the circumstances, he decided to turn back and make for Cadiz. If he could not avoid a battle, he trusted to be able to get sufficiently near Cadiz to have the port open to him after the battle, for his damaged ships or as a place of general refuge should things go wrong.

With such thoughts in his mind, Villeneuve, just about the time that Nelson was sitting down to breakfast, issued orders for the Combined Fleet to go about, every ship independently, and form in line of battle on the port tack, with half a cable interval between ships. They were still in the middle of the manoeuvre at nine o'clock. It was not till after ten o'clock that anything approaching the line of battle as ordered had been formed, and then hardly half-a-dozen ships were in station. All the enemy's efforts, at the end of two hours, resulted in the formation of a crescent or bow-shaped array of ships, sagging in the centre away to leeward like a slack cord, with the ships distributed irregularly along its length, here in single file and with wide gaps between, there in two's and three's. As things turned out this malformation proved ideal for the occasion; but it was entirely by chance.

It has been said, indeed, that Admiral Villeneuve had already begun to anticipate defeat. As he took in the grouping and disposition of the British fleet, the double column of attack and how the leaders were pointing, there broke from his lips, we are told, an exclamation of blank dismay. Before a shot was fired Villeneuve had already admitted himself beaten. There was no precedent known to him for a battle formation such as Nelson was adopting.[94] There was nothing like it in Paul Hoste, nothing like it in the pages of De Morogues or Ramatuelle. No text-book could help him, and to improvise a new order of battle for himself on the spur of the moment was beyond Admiral Villeneuve's capacity. Practically he could only await events and meet an absolutely new form of attack, specially devised for the occasion by the greatest master of the art of naval war that ever lived, with an order of battle that was not new in the days of the Grand Monarque, with tactics such as Tourville had employed at La Hogue. It was like the Prussian General Ruechel at Jena opposing Napoleon with the tactics of Frederick at Kolin; attempting to foil Ney and Murat by giving the order 'Right shoulders up.'

There were on the Franco-Spanish side thirty-three ships (eighteen French and fifteen Spanish); in the British fleet twenty-seven. Nelson's plan of battle at the outset, as we shall presently see, reversed the odds and turned them into odds in his own favour, of twenty-seven against twenty-three. That is, the odds reckoned numerically, by counting ships. The average British ship of the line in 1805 could fire three broadsides while a French ship was firing two, which vastly increased the odds in Nelson's favour. The British fleet came on in two columns; one (Nelson's own) comprising twelve ships; the other (Collingwood's column) of fifteen. Nelson's plan of battle was for Collingwood to break the enemy's line at about a third of its length from the rear, and hold fast in close action the ships cut off. He himself, after that, would break through the remaining two-thirds of the Franco-Spanish line midway, and fall on the enemy's centre, joining hands with Collingwood. With the wind as it then was, a little to the north of west, the ten ships of the enemy's van squadron would be cut off by these tactics and thrust to leeward, out of the battle. They would have to work up round laboriously against the wind before they could get to the aid of their consorts, a business that must take a considerable time. Meanwhile the whole force of the British fleet would have been brought to bear on two-thirds of the enemy with, as Nelson confidently trusted, decisive results.

Throughout the British fleet the men were in the highest spirits, eager and ready for the fray, and at the same time cool and confident. 'As we neared the French fleet,' an officer in the _Ajax_ relates,[95] 'I was sent below with orders, and was much struck with the preparations made by the bluejackets, the majority of whom were stripped to the waist; a handkerchief was tightly bound round their heads and over the ears, to deaden the noise of the cannon, many men being deaf for days after an action. The men were variously occupied; some were sharpening their cutlasses, others polishing the guns, as though an inspection were about to take place instead of a mortal combat, whilst three or four, as if in mere bravado, were dancing a horn-pipe; but all seemed deeply anxious to come to close quarters with the enemy. Occasionally they would look out of the ports, and speculate as to the various ships of the enemy, many of which had been on former occasions engaged by our vessels.' Elsewhere, we are told, the men kept pointing out various ships in the Franco-Spanish line, as seen through the open ports, and calling to one another, 'What a fine sight them ships will make at Spithead!' Particularly keen was every man that his ship should if possible get alongside the huge Spanish four-decker which all could see, near the centre of the enemy's fleet, the _Santisima Trinidad_. On board the _Bellerophon_, one of Collingwood's leading ships, the men at quarters on the main deck chalked '_Billy Ruff'n_, Victory or Death' on their guns.[96]

How keen was the rivalry among the ships at the head of Nelson's line, as the morning advanced, is shown by two incidents in which the _Neptune_--a 98-gun three-decker like the _Temeraire_, the ship next in the line to her--and the _Temeraire_ herself, both figured.

The _Temeraire_ had the post of honour in Nelson's line, that of 'second,' or chief supporter to the _Victory_, but the _Neptune_ had gradually drawn up level with her. Not content with that, the _Neptune_ began to edge past the _Temeraire_, until, forging ahead, she had come up alongside the flagship herself. Indeed, it appeared as though she was ambitious of passing ahead of the _Victory_, and leading Nelson into the battle. The Admiral himself stopped her. Nelson at the moment that the _Neptune_ began to draw up level with the _Victory_, happened to be in the stern gallery leading out of his cabin, observing how the rear ships of the fleet were coming on. He saw what was taking place, and at once hailed the _Neptune_. '_Neptune_ there,' he called out in a sharp, rasping tone, 'take in your stu'ns'ls and drop astarn. I shall break the line myself!'[97] The _Neptune_ had to comply forthwith, and on her falling back the _Temeraire_ pushed up and resumed her allotted berth as the ship next to the _Victory_.

Then came the incident that specially concerned the _Temeraire_. A little time after the _Neptune_ had resumed her station the _Temeraire_ was herself hailed from the _Victory_ and ordered to pass the flagship and lead the line. Captain Blackwood of the _Euryalus_, who with the other frigate captains was on board the flagship, in his anxiety for Nelson's personal safety that day, on having his first suggestion that Nelson should direct the battle from on board the _Euryalus_ set aside by the admiral, next suggested that the _Temeraire_ should be allowed to lead the _Victory_ into battle, to help in drawing off some of the enemy's fire. The enemy's fire, urged Blackwood, would be certain to fall with exceptional severity on the leader of the line, particularly when the leading ship was so easily recognisable a vessel as the British flagship. Nelson assented--or seemed to assent. 'Oh yes,' the admiral answered, with a significant smile and giving a look towards Captain Hardy, 'let her go ahead--if she _can_!' Blackwood went aft and himself hailed the _Temeraire_ to move up, and she was also signalled to do so.

The hail was heard. Blackwood had a voice about which a number of good stories used to be told in the Navy. 'It could,' one of his officers once said, 'carry half a mile.'

At once the _Temeraire_ made every effort to press forward. She was, as the sailors said, 'flying light' that day; having been away from port for some time she was carrying less dead-weight than usual, most of her sea-stores and heavy casks of beef and water having been used up. Fast sailer as the _Victory_ was--she was admittedly the fastest three-decker in all the Royal Navy--the _Temeraire_ before long began to close on the flagship and overlap her, by degrees working up closer to the _Victory_, and finally racing her side by side, almost abreast. It was a grand moment for Captain Harvey and his gallant _Temeraires_. But the goal was not yet won.

Nelson's mood had yet to be taken into account, and Nelson was in no humour to see his flagship passed. No ship in the world should give the _Victory_ a lead on the day of battle. As the _Temeraire_ sheered alongside, the admiral stepped up briskly to the _Victory's_ poop and from there hailed across in a curt tone to the quarter-deck of the _Temeraire_. Speaking with a strong nasal twang, in his Norfolk accent, as we are told, he called over: 'I'll thank you, Captain Harvey, to keep your proper station, which is _astarn_ of the _Victory_!'

The _Temeraire_ had to drop back, exactly as the _Neptune_ had previously had to do, and content herself with following in the _Victory's_ wake. She closed up astern and kept so near that her jib-boom, in Captain Harvey's own words, 'almost touched the stern of the _Victory_.'[98]

The same spirit of eager anxiety to get early into battle prevailed everywhere, coupled with the utmost friendliness and good-comradeship. The _Tonnant_, the second ship in Collingwood's line, was ordered in the course of the morning to give up the place of honour to the faster _Belleisle_. As the _Belleisle_ was passing her. Captain Tyler of the _Tonnant_ on a carronade slide and called across to the other captain (Hargood): 'A glorious day for old England: we shall have one a-piece before night!' A moment later the _Tonnant's_ band, by way of greeting to the _Belleisle_, began to play 'Britons Strike Home.'[99]

Such was the spirit in which Nelson's Captains went into battle at Trafalgar as the hour for the opening of the fight drew on.

There is, as it happens, no note in the _Temeraire's_ log of Nelson's famous signal, 'England expects that every man will do his duty'; but it is on record that it was received by Signal Midshipman Eaton, who acknowledged it to the _Victory_. We know from Captain Blackwood, who was with the Admiral at the time, how it was received by all the ships near by with 'a shout of answering acclamation,' and the _Temeraire_ was the nearest ship of all to the _Victory_ at that moment. After the battle the _Temeraire's_ officers had the words engraved on a brass plate which was let into the quarter-deck in front of the steering wheel, where it remained till the ship came to her end.

* * * * *

At noon, almost to the minute, the first shot was fired--by the enemy. It came from a French ship lying nearly opposite the head of Collingwood's line, the _Fougueux_. It was aimed at the _Royal Sovereign_--to try the range. The shot went home, and at once other French and Spanish ships near by took up the firing. The _Royal Sovereign_ was about 400 yards off at the moment, about three-quarters gunshot.

At the same time the enemy all along their line hoisted their colours, the Spaniards in addition hanging up large wooden crosses at their gaffs. Why they did so has never been explained. Some of the Spanish captains had held special religious services on board their ships at an earlier hour that morning,[100] but it is not known that that had any connection with the display of the crosses.

A midshipman fired the first shot on the British side at Trafalgar--by accident. It came from the _Bellerophon_. To the surprise of the whole fleet, as they were nearing the enemy a spurt of smoke flew out from the side of the _Bellerophon_ followed by the boom of a single gun. It was, according to the _Spartiate's_ log--the _Bellerophon_ herself does not record it--just as Nelson's great message was going up. On board every other ship they were holding their hands: the officers of the batteries had orders to wait until their ship was in the act of passing through the enemy. A boy midshipman of the _Bellerophon_ tripped, or caught his foot, in the loose end of a gun-lock lanyard and let off one of the ship's 32-pounders. His name is not on record, nor what they did to him. The shot had the unfortunate effect of drawing the enemy's attention specially to the _Bellerophon_, and as they got the ship's range a little later they turned their guns on her and pounded at her heavily, under the impression that the gun had been meant as a signal, and that some officer of distinction was on board that particular ship.

Collingwood opened the battle on the British side and first of all broke the enemy's line at Trafalgar, as all the world knows. All the world knows also how he did it. The _Royal Sovereign's_ first broadside, as she broke through immediately astern of the Spanish flagship _Santa Ana_, struck down 400 men and dismounted fourteen guns. 'Il rompait todos,' it smashed down everything--as a Spanish officer on board the _Santa Ana_ afterwards wrote. 'What sheep,'--asked in broken English the Spanish officer who came on board Collingwood's flagship on the surrender of the _Santa Ana_ to give up his sword on behalf of the wounded Vice-Admiral Alava,--'What sheep is dis?' He was told. '_Royal Sovereign!_' the Spaniard exclaimed, 'Madre de Dios! she should be named de _Royal Devil_!'

The ships immediately facing Nelson as he advanced began their firing a few minutes after the others, the _Victory_ and _Temeraire_ and the leading ships of that column being farther off from the enemy. The _Bucentaure_, an 80-gun ship, on board which Admiral Villeneuve was, led off here.

Of the opening scene on the enemy's side at that point, we have a vivid narrative from a French officer--Captain Lucas of the _Redoutable_, a ship destined to fill a large part in the _Temeraire's_ story.[101] 'At half-past eleven,' says Captain Lucas,--giving the time, as it would appear, according to his own watch, which was slow,--'the fleet hoisted its colours, and those of the _Redoutable_ were done in an imposing manner, the drums and fifes playing, and the soldiers[102] presenting arms as the flag was hoisted. The enemy's column, which was directed against our fleet, was now on the port side, and the flagship _Bucentaure_ began firing. I ordered a number of the chief gunners to mount to the forecastle and told them to notice how many of our ships fired badly. They found that all their shots carried too low. I then ordered them to aim at dismasting, and above all to aim well. At a quarter to twelve the _Redoutable_ opened fire with a shot from the first gun-division which cut through the foretopsail yard of the _Victory_, causing it to lie over the foremast, whilst shouts of joy resounded all over the ship.'

Lord Nelson held his fire. No notice was taken of the firing of the French and Spaniards, except that, in response to the enemy's opening shots, the whole British fleet simultaneously hoisted their colours. Nelson showed a Vice-Admiral of the White's flag at the fore in the _Victory_; Collingwood the flag of a Vice-Admiral of the Blue at the fore in the _Royal Sovereign_; Lord Northesk, the third in command, a Rear-Admiral of the White's flag at the mizen of the _Britannia_. All the ships in both divisions displayed the White Ensign at the peak, and, by Nelson's particular order, to ensure that there should be no firing into friends in the smoke and confusion of battle, and in case colours got shot away, every ship flew at least two other British flags besides their ensigns: Jacks or Union flags, one on the foretopmast stay and one on the main-topmast stay. Some ships showed more; the _Victory_, for instance, flew five British flags; the _Orion_ flew (including her ensign) four.

A young officer of the _Neptune_, the ship next astern to the _Temeraire_, Midshipman Badcock, thus describes what things were like near him about this time. 'Lord Nelson's van was strong: three three-deckers--_Victory_, _Temeraire_, _Neptune_--and four seventy-fours, their jib-booms nearly over the others' taffrails, the bands playing "God Save the King," "Rule, Britannia," and "Britons Strike Home"; the crews stationed on the forecastle of the different ships, cheering the ship ahead of them when the enemy began to fire, sent those feelings to our hearts that ensured victory.'[103] 'The _Temeraire_ at this moment,' Captain Harvey himself says, in a letter to his wife after the battle, 'almost touched the stern of the _Victory_, which station she had taken about a quarter of an hour previous to the enemy having commenced their fire upon the _Victory_.'

The _Temeraire's_ log thus describes the opening of the battle:--

P.M. Variable light winds. Running down with lower topmast and topgallant studding sails set, on the larboard side, within a ship's length of the _Victory_, steering for the fourteenth ship of the enemy's line from the van. Quarter past noon, cut away the studding sails and hauled to the wind. At 18 minutes past noon the enemy began to fire. At 25 minutes past noon the _Victory_ opened her fire. Immediately put our helm a-port to steer clear of the _Victory_, and opened our fire on the _Santisima Trinidad_ and two ships ahead of her, when the action became general.

Nelson broke through immediately astern of the French _Bucentaure_, the ship on board which he had himself made up his mind, from her position, Villeneuve would most likely be found. For some unknown reason the French admiral's flag was not flying that day. Nelson, however, as they advanced, had kept the _Victory's_ bowsprit pointing for the _Santisima Trinidad_. Something instinctively told him that he should find the enemy's Commander-in-Chief on board one of the two ships immediately astern of the big Spanish four-decker, probably in the ship next astern. He was right. Villeneuve was on board that ship; the next astern to the _Santisima Trinidad_, the _Bucentaure_.

As the _Victory_ steered through the enemy's line the _Temeraire_ put her helm over to port and drew out from her leader's wake. She had to find a passage through the enemy for herself. It was not easy. Immediately ahead of her the French _Redoutable_, a seventy-four, the ship following the _Bucentaure_, barred the way. The _Temeraire_ for some little time drifted along slowly. She had received serious damage aloft to sails and rigging during the previous half-hour as she and the _Victory_ were nearing the enemy under fire, and the breeze was dropping lighter every minute. She opened a brisk cannonade on the _Redoutable_ and on the French _Neptune_, a large 80-gun ship that came next astern of her.

The _Redoutable's_ fire shot away the head of the _Temeraire's_ mizen-topmast. She held on, however, standing to the south-east and outside the enemy's line, until at length she bore up to avoid being raked by the _Neptune_ and to go through the line. There was scarcely any wind at all now, and the smoke hung heavily all round. Slowly the _Temeraire_ forged her way ahead, groping her course forward in some little uncertainty as to her own whereabouts. As she passed through the line, she unavoidably gave a chance to the French _Neptune_, which ship, getting her port broadside to bear on the _Temeraire's_ starboard bow, attacked her fiercely. The _Neptune_ shot away the _Temeraire's_ main-topmast and foreyard, and crippled the foremast and bowsprit, besides causing other damage which rendered the _Temeraire_ almost unmanageable. In the dense smoke all round her officers hardly knew for the moment where they had got to. 'We were engaged with the _Santisima Trinidad_ and the other ships,' wrote Captain Harvey in his letter home, 'when for a minute or two I ceased my fire, fearing I might, from the thickness of the smoke, be firing into the _Victory_.'

Then for a brief space there was a rift in the smoke. It showed the _Victory_ alongside a French two-decker (the _Redoutable_), and foul of her. The two ships were seen not far off and were drifting down directly on to the _Temeraire_. Every effort was made to move out of the way and keep clear, but in her disabled state it was impossible to get the _Temeraire_ under control. Within the past few minutes, under the _Neptune's_ punishing fire, all three of the _Temeraire's_ topmasts had been shot away, her mizen yard had come down, the rudder head had been smashed off. All that could be done was to cannonade the _Redoutable_ as she gradually drifted nearer until the actual collision came.

That took place just as Captain Lucas was about to make an attempt to board the _Victory_. His musketry from the tops seemed to have almost cleared the _Victory's_ upper decks of men, and, mad as was the idea of so settling with a British first-rate, and Lord Nelson's flagship to boot, the captain of the _Redoutable_ actually entertained it. A sweeping _mitraille_ of grape from the 68-pounder carronade on the _Victory's_ forecastle, fired into the thick of the French boarders as they crowded on the gangways from below, did not daunt him, and he still persevered after the first rush had been checked by the impossibility of getting across the space between the bulwarks of the two ships. That difficulty Captain Lucas saw his way to meet. 'I gave the order,' he says, 'to cut the supports of the main yard and to cause it to serve as a bridge. Midshipman Yon and four seamen sprang on board by means of the anchor of the _Victory_, and we observed that there was no one left in the batteries. At that moment, when our men were hastening to follow, the ship _Temeraire_, which had noticed that the _Victory_ fought no longer, and that she would be captured without fail, came full sail on our starboard side, and we were subjected to the full fire of her artillery.'