Part 16

It proved for the _Redoutable_, in the language of the prize-ring, a 'knock-out' blow. As the _Temeraire_ came into collision with the _Redoutable_ she fired her entire broadside, double-shotted, full into the French boarding-parties as they stood massed thickly and packed along the _Redoutable's_ upper decks from end to end. It meant instant annihilation. It was a massacre. The awful tornado of the _Temeraire's_ fire swept the _Redoutable's_ crowded decks clear of men, as a garden broom sweeps a path clear of autumn leaves. It struck down everything. At one blow it hurled into eternity nearly a third of the _Redoutable's_ whole crew. Midshipman Yon, we are told, disappeared, and was never seen again. Lieutenant Dupotet, at the head of the boarders, was struck down, mangled and dying. Captain Lucas himself received an ugly flesh wound--his first after seeing service in nine battles.

Speaking of the _Temeraire's_ onslaught Captain Lucas in his official report says: 'It is impossible to describe the carnage produced by the murderous broadside of this ship; more than 200 of our brave men were killed or wounded; I was wounded also at the same time, but not sufficiently to prevent me staying at my post.'

The gallant captain of the _Redoutable_ stayed at his post. He set his teeth and refused to admit that his ship had received her _coup de grace_. In spite of his awful losses the gallant fellow still tried to make a show of fight. 'I ordered the rest of the crew to place themselves promptly in the batteries and fire at the _Temeraire_ the guns that her fire had not dismounted. This order was carried out.' At the same time the _Redoutable_ met the _Temeraire_, as she swung alongside, with a hail of bullets from the tops that almost cleared the upper deck of Captain Harvey's ship, while the topmen also flung down hand grenades and fire-balls. The _Redoutable's_ topmen, indeed, flung the fire-balls about with criminal recklessness.[104] They endangered their own ship. Some of the fire-balls falling short rebounded back on board the _Redoutable_ and set the French ship herself on fire. One fell blazing on board the _Temeraire_ and caused a fire below that nearly led to a catastrophe which threatened to involve _Temeraire_, _Redoutable_, and _Victory_ alike in one common destruction. The pluck and presence of mind of the _Temeraire's_ master-at-arms, Mr. John Toohig, saved the after-magazine, and with it the ship. The fire-ball, as it was, caused a serious explosion and loss of life on the main deck. At the same time the _Temeraire_ was set ablaze elsewhere, on the upper deck, by a fire that had been caused on board the _Redoutable_ by one of her own fire-balls falling short, and had spread across to the _Temeraire_, and also to the _Victory_ on the other side, but the flames in all three ships were fortunately got under before they had time to take serious hold.

The _Temeraire's_ captain very soon had something else to think of besides the _Redoutable_. Hardly had the _Redoutable_ been lashed fast alongside than another enemy came on the scene, and one that was apparently approaching with the fixed intention of attacking the _Temeraire_ at close quarters. The French _Neptune_ was at the same time remaining near by, barely a ship's length off, firing her hardest into the _Temeraire_.

The newcomer was the French _Fougueux_, the ship that had fired the first shot in the battle. She had already had a rough time of it elsewhere, but she was still full of fight, and with nearly 700 men on board, was likely to prove a dangerous foe to a ship situated as was the _Temeraire_ at that moment. The _Fougueux_ had been _matelot d'arriere_, or 'second astern' to the Spanish flagship _Santa Ana_, just as the _Redoutable_ had been the _Bucentaure's_ second. In that capacity she had experienced some hard knocks at Collingwood's hands, and then, after a brisk exchange of fire with the British _Belleisle_, as that ship followed Collingwood into the fight, she had had a sharp set-to with the _Mars_. Through all this the _Fougueux_ had not come unscathed, but she was still a very formidable opponent for the _Temeraire_ to tackle.

The _Fougueux_ came on as though bent on rescuing the _Redoutable_. It did not look an impossible task. Both the _Victory_ and the _Temeraire_ showed signs of having undergone a very severe mauling, and there was the French _Neptune_ near by, apparently quite fresh and ready to lend a hand, only waiting for an opportunity to join in the fray. The _Temeraire_ particularly, looked in a bad way. Under the _Neptune's_ punishing fire, she had been reduced aloft to the appearance of a wreck. Her topmasts had gone, her foreyard was gone, her foremast was tottering, all her rigging was torn and tangled, her sails hung down in rags. Her ensign, too, had been shot away, or at least was down owing to the fall of the gaff; very few men were to be seen alive on her upper deck; not a shot came from her guns on the broadside facing the _Fougueux_.

Captain Baudoin, the captain of the _Fougueux_, seemed at first uncertain whether he would lie off to leeward, and with the _Neptune's_ help rake and cannonade the _Temeraire_ into submission, or come to close quarters at once and board. The second alternative seemed to promise quicker results, and he adopted it. He made up his mind to bring the matter to an issue on the spot before other British ships could interfere, and carry the _Temeraire_ by a _coup de main_. The few people he saw about on the _Temeraire's_ upper deck was one inducement to try boarding her. He could not know, of course, that Captain Harvey had ordered everybody who could possibly be spared to go below so as to avoid unnecessary loss of life from the _Redoutable's_ musketry. Another was that the _Temeraire's_ attention seemed to be wholly devoted to the _Redoutable_. Captain Baudoin put the _Fougueux's_ head directly for the _Temeraire_, and as they closed, the French ship's shrouds quickly became black with men, cutlass in hand, while more swarmed on the forecastle and gangways cheering and shouting 'A l'abordage! a l'abordage!' So the _Fougueux_ neared the _Temeraire_. For her part, as it befell, the _Temeraire_ had for some time foreseen what was coming. She was by no means so incapable of meeting a new antagonist as she looked.

The _Temeraire_, as it happened, had not yet fired a single shot from her guns on the starboard broadside. She had her triple tier of 32-pounders and long 18's ranged there all ready, all double-shotted and clear for action. To man these guns was quick work. Without checking the fire that the _Temeraire_ was keeping up into the _Redoutable_ and the _Neptune_, Lieutenant Kennedy, the first lieutenant, rapidly called away sufficient hands from the guns on the port side to man all the starboard batteries. Then the gallant officer and his men waited--the captain of each gun standing ready with arm raised and his firing lanyard out-stretched stiff as wire--all eagerly watching the coming on of the _Fougueux_. Not a sign that the guns were manned came from the _Temeraire's_ ports, as nearer and nearer the French seventy-four swept down on her. Now she was 200 yards off--now 150--now 100--now 80 yards! Confidently came the _Fougueux_ on as to certain conquest, amid wild tempestuous shoutings of 'A l'abordage!' 'Vive l'Empereur! Vive l'Empereur!' The supreme moment came.

'_Temeraires_--stand by--fire!'

Holding back until the yard-arms of the two ships all but touched, with a deafening thunder-burst that for the instant overpowered all other sounds of battle, the _Temeraire's_ whole starboard broadside went off at once, in one salvo, like one gigantic gun. A terrific crash re-echoed back, with yells and shrieks. There was no more shouting from the _Fougueux_. As the smoke drifted off, the _Temeraire's_ men looked and saw the enemy's rigging and forecastle and decks swept clean and bare. The next minute, with her whole side practically beaten in, crushed in like an eggshell trampled under foot, the hapless seventy-four ran, blundering blindly, in hopeless confusion, right into the _Temeraire_.[105]

Like the _Redoutable_ she was promptly lashed fast, and then--'Boarders away!' was the call. A master's mate, a little middy, twenty seamen, six marines, followed close behind Lieutenant Kennedy as he clambered into the _Fougueux's_ main rigging, and thence down on to the _Fougueux's_ quarter-deck. One of the seamen with the boarding-party had a Union Jack rolled round his neck. 'It'll come handy perhaps,' said the brave fellow as he followed his messmates over the side. There was a sharp tussle on the quarter-deck of the _Fougueux_, where Captain Baudoin, struck down by the _Temeraire's_ broadside, lay mortally wounded. Second-Captain Bazin hastily rallied seventy or eighty men, called up from below to meet the boarders, but the impetuous onset of the nine-and-twenty _Temeraires_ carried everything before it despite the odds. The _Fougueux's_ second captain was cut down. A lieutenant who took his place was shot dead with a pistol bullet through the heart. The Frenchmen then gave way and broke and were driven off the quarter-deck pell-mell. Slashing and stabbing their way, without a single fresh man from the ship, in less than twelve minutes Lieutenant Kennedy's party were masters of the _Fougueux_. They hustled the surrendered Frenchmen down into the hold, clapped the hatches on them, and then the Union Jack came in 'handy' to hoist over the tricolour on the _Fougueux_' ensign staff.

So the _Redoutable's_ would-be rescuer was added to the row of four ships, all fast to one another side by side, the _Victory_, _Redoutable_, _Temeraire_, and _Fougueux_.

Relieved from the hostile presence of the _Fougueux_, the _Temeraire_ turned her attention to finishing off the _Redoutable_, now plainly at her last gasp, though still unsubdued. Her guns were silenced, but musket shots still came from the tops. A few minutes later the _Victory_ broke herself clear and steered away from the group. She boomed herself off, leaving Captain Harvey to receive in due course the submission of the _Redoutable_.

But even now Captain Lucas would not give up. 'The _Temeraire_, to quote Captain Lucas's own words once more, 'hailed us to give ourselves up and not prolong a useless resistance. I ordered some soldiers near me to answer this summons by firing, which was done with alacrity.' The end, though, was at last really at hand. Scarcely had the British flagship broken away than the _Redoutable's_ main and mizen masts came down. The main-mast crashed over the _Temeraire's_ poop, and in its fall formed a bridge from ship to ship, across which a party of the _Temeraire's_ officers and men, headed by the second lieutenant, John Wallace, promptly clambered. With more than 500 of his original crew of 600 odd _hors de combat_, dead or wounded, there was no opposition possible, and Captain Lucas had to yield up his sword.

No captain, perhaps, ever fought his ship better against overwhelming odds than Captain Lucas fought the _Redoutable_ at Trafalgar. Napoleon had him specially exchanged as soon as possible, and sent for him to St. Cloud where, in the presence of the assembled _Etat Major_, he decorated him with his own hand with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour.[106] 'Had my other captains,' said the Emperor, 'behaved as you did, the event of the battle would have been very different.' There is an ironclad _Redoutable_ in the French navy to-day which bears the name in remembrance of the gallant two-decker lost with honour at Trafalgar.

The _Temeraire_, however, had still one of her first foes left. The French _Neptune_ was still dangerously near. She was lying where she had been from the first, pounding away steadily into the _Temeraire_ from a short distance off, 'willing to wound but still afraid to strike.' It says little for the courage of the French captain that he had not ventured to force home an attack at close quarters, and less still for the gunnery of his men that it had not before this reduced the _Temeraire_ to a sinking state. Not far off, also, there was, as the _Temeraire's_ log notes, 'a Spanish two-decked ship ... on the larboard bow or nearly ahead, who had raked us during great part of the action.' On seeing the _Victory_ move off, the French _Neptune_ apparently took heart of grace. She now made as if she really meant at last to close with the _Temeraire_. It was not very brave of the _Neptune_, seeing how the _Temeraire_ was situated, with five-sixths of her guns blocked in by the two prizes alongside. But all the same the _Temeraire_ did her best to give the _Neptune_ a warm reception. By clearing away the wreckage from aloft that overlay most of the _Temeraire's_ upper-deck guns, Captain Harvey was able to get some of these into action and keep the _Neptune_ off. Then a few minutes later assistance arrived. The approach of the _Leviathan_, a British seventy-four, once more daunted the _Neptune_, and she sheered off and withdrew altogether from the scene.

After that came a well-earned breathing space for the _Temeraire_ and her gallant crew, a brief half-hour's pause that Captain Harvey and his men made use of in putting prize-crews in charge of the _Redoutable_ and _Fougueux_, and doing what they could towards repairing their own damages and clearing away their wrecked top-hamper. The _Sirius_ frigate during this spell, in response to a signal from Captain Harvey, took the _Temeraire_ and her prizes in tow.

A note in the _Temeraire's_ log shows how intermixed some of the British ships had now got. 'The _Royal Sovereign_,' it says, 'was a short distance to leeward, and the _Colossus_, dismasted, with one of the enemy's two-deckers on board of her, who had struck, and appeared to be Spanish.'

In the half-hour that the _Temeraire_ stood by, the battle passed through its crisis, although fighting went on fiercely at many points for another two hours yet. Before half-past two, six or seven of the enemy had given in and could be seen 'lying with British ensigns displayed at the stern over tricolours or Spanish flags.' By three o'clock nearly a third of the enemy's fleet had either struck their colours or were on the point of striking them, and another third were hauling out of line and preparing to quit the battle and run for Cadiz. The Spanish flagship _Santa Ana_, with every mast down and her starboard side shattered to matchwood, had surrendered to the _Royal Sovereign_. The French flagship _Bucentaure_ had hauled down her ensign and Admiral Villeneuve was a prisoner on board the British _Mars_.

The surrender of the _Bucentaure_--although perhaps it only comes incidentally into the _Temeraire's_ story--was one of the most dramatic events of Trafalgar. When the French flagship, beaten to a standstill, with her three masts shot down, one after the other within five minutes, was on the point of surrendering, Admiral Villeneuve ordered a boat to be lowered to take him on board another French ship. 'Le _Bucentaure_,' said Villeneuve as he gave the order, 'a rempli sa tache, la mienne n'est pas encore achevee.'[107] But every one of the _Bucentaure's_ boats was found to have been smashed to pieces. Then Villeneuve's flag-captain, Majendie, hurried aft and clambering into the wreckage of the ship's stern gallery with his speaking-trumpet hailed the _Santisima Trinidad_ to send a boat at once. There was no reply. The _Trinidad_ was lying quite close to the _Bucentaure_ at that moment, so close that only a very few yards separated Majendie from her as he hailed, but the tremendous thunder of the guns all round completely overpowered his voice. Nor did any one on board the Spanish ship see him. There was no means of attracting help from elsewhere. The _Bucentaure_ had indeed done her work--and Villeneuve's too. There was left now but one thing to do. The colours of the _Bucentaure_ were hauled down to the nearest British ship,--a seventy-four named, by something of a coincidence, the _Conqueror_,--'and a white handkerchief was waved from her in token of submission.' Captain Israel Pellew was in command of the _Conqueror_. He was at the moment unable to spare Lieutenant Couch, his First Lieutenant, to whom in ordinary course the duty of boarding the prize would have fallen, and being unaware, from the absence throughout the battle of Villeneuve's flag from the _Bucentaure's_ mast-head, that the enemy's Commander-in-Chief had surrendered to him, he told Captain Atcherley of the _Conqueror's_ marines to go in the First Lieutenant's place and take possession of the _Bucentaure_. Atcherley went off in a small boat with two seamen and a corporal and two marines. He was pulled alongside and clambered on board the prize, little dreaming whom he was going to meet and the reception in store for him. This is what then took place.

As Atcherley gained the _Bucentaure's_ upper-deck and the British officer's red coat showed itself on the quarter-deck of the French flagship, four French officers of rank stepped forward all bowing and presenting their swords. One was a tall, thin, sad-faced man of about forty-two, in a long-tailed uniform coat with flat high collar and dark green corduroy breeches, gold-laced at the sides. It was Admiral Villeneuve himself. The second was a short, rotund, jolly-faced man, a typical _boulevardier_ in appearance:--Flag-Captain Majendie.[108] The third was Second-Captain Prigny of the _Bucentaure_; and the fourth a soldier resplendent in the full-dress uniform--somewhat besmirched by powder-smoke--of a Brigadier of the Grand Army, General de Contamine, the officer in charge of the four thousand troops that were serving on board the French Fleet that day.

'To whom,' asked Admiral Villeneuve in good English, 'have I the honour of surrendering?'

'To Captain Pellew of the _Conqueror_.'

'I am glad to have struck to the fortunate Sir Edward Pellew.'

'It is his brother, Sir,' said Captain Atcherley.

'His brother! What; are there two of them? Helas!'

'Fortune de guerre!' said Captain Majendie with a shrug of his wide shoulders as he became a prisoner of war to the British Navy for the third time in his life. Prigny and De Contamine said nothing, as far as we know.

Captain Atcherley politely suggested that the swords of such high officers had better be handed to an officer of superior rank to himself--to Captain Pellew. He then went below to secure the magazines, passing between decks amid an awful scene of carnage and destruction. 'The dead thrown back as they fell lay along the middle of the decks in heaps, and the shot passing through these had frightfully mangled the bodies.... More than four hundred had been killed and wounded, of whom an extraordinary proportion had lost their heads. A raking shot which entered in the lower deck had glanced along the beams and through the thickest of the people, and a French officer declared that this shot alone had killed or disabled nearly forty men.'[109]

Atcherley locked up the magazines and put the keys in his pocket, posted his two marines as sentries at the doors of the Admiral's and flag-captain's cabins, and then returning on deck, he conducted Villeneuve, Majendie, and Second-Captain Prigny down the side into his little boat which rowed off in search of the _Conqueror_. The ship, however, had ranged ahead to engage another enemy, and as her whereabouts could not be discovered in the smoke, the prisoners were temporarily placed on board the nearest British ship, which happened to be the _Mars_.

The battle, however, even though both the French Commander-in-Chief and the Spanish Second in Command[110] and also the big _Santisima Trinidad_ with the Spanish Third in Command,[111] had surrendered, was not yet over. There were still a number of ships of the enemy that were yet apparently unbeaten, besides one group that had hardly fired a shot as yet.

At three o'clock, or a few minutes after that, the _Temeraire's_ men had again to stand to their guns. Fresh foes were seen approaching.

These were five of the ships of Villeneuve's van squadron under Rear-Admiral Dumanoir. Admiral Villeneuve's last signal had been to order Dumanoir's squadron, which had been cut off by Nelson's tactics and had so far not been engaged at all, to head round and come to the rescue of the centre and rear. There were originally ten ships under Dumanoir's command, but five of them, after they came round, broke away, and edged off to leeward towards where Admiral Gravina (the Spanish Commander-in-Chief, now left by Villeneuve's surrender the senior officer on the enemy's side) was rallying some of the rear ships to try and escape into Cadiz. What befell these does not concern us.

Dumanoir's remnant of five (four French ships and one Spaniard) stood along a little to windward of the ships engaged as far as where the _Temeraire_ lay, making it appear as though they were coming down to attack. 'At 3,' says the _Temeraire's_ log, 'observed five of the enemy in good order, starboard side. Sent the men from the quarter-deck guns to assist on the other decks. The _Sirius_ made sail from us, when four of the enemy's ships opened their fire on our starboard side; having but few guns clear of the prizes, cut them loose.' 'While they were about three-quarters of a mile to windward,' says Captain Harvey describing what happened in his letter home, 'they opened their guns upon the _Temeraire_ and her prizes, and for some time I could return no guns; but when those we could fight with were brought to bear upon the enemy, the gentlemen thought proper to haul to a more respectable distance, and thus towards evening with me ended this most glorious action.'[112] Dumanoir's fire did little harm to the _Temeraire_ herself. It mortally wounded one of her midshipmen who was on board the _Redoutable_, and cut away the _Fougueux_' main and mizen masts,--the _Fougueux_ had been cleared away from alongside the _Temeraire_ a few moments previously, and allowed to swing athwart the _Temeraire's_ stern, end-on to Dumanoir's ships as they passed by,--but that was practically all they did.

'Half-past 4,' says the _Temeraire's_ log, 'ceased firing.' The _Temeraire_ had now played her part. It only remained to house and secure the guns.

The battle was over--although near by there were still some three or four of the enemy who had not yet gone through the formality of lowering their ensigns. They were feebly firing, though they could neither fight nor fly. All could see that the inevitable end could hardly be long deferred. The knife was already at the throats of the last of the destined victims of the day. The _Temeraire's_ last gun, as a fact, went at the same instant that Nelson, in the cockpit of the _Victory_, breathed his last.

Three-quarters of an hour later all resistance on the part of the enemy had ceased, and there was a silence on the sea. Trafalgar had been fought and won. Seventeen of the enemy had surrendered--eight French ships and nine Spaniards. One French ship, in addition, was on fire and her crew were being rescued by the boats of the nearest British ships. The remainder of the enemy had run out of the battle and were in full flight, some in one direction, some in another.

The scene all round at that moment, as it appeared from the _Temeraire_, was one that the last survivor of Trafalgar could hardly have forgotten to his dying day--

Nobly, nobly, Cape Saint Vincent to the north-west died away, Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay, Bluish 'mid the burning water, full in face, Trafalgar lay.