Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys (30 page)

“If it had not been for you English, I would have been Emperor of the East,” he told the
Bellerophon
’s captain, Frederick Maitland, over dinner that evening. “But wherever there is water to float a ship, we are sure to find you in our way.”

Napoleon had finally been beaten at Waterloo—that much is certainly true—but his ambitions had been hobbled 10 years before. England’s greatest hero, Lord Horatio Nelson, had completed that particular job on the afternoon of October 21, 1805, in the sea off the southwest coast of Spain, not far from the city of Cadiz, at a place called Cape Trafalgar.

Nelson was born in 1758, three miles from the sea in the Norfolk village of Burnham Thorpe. His father Edmund was the local parson—a man of modest means but occupying that particular stratum of society that traditionally sent its sons to be trained as naval officers. When at the age of 11 young Horatio—or Horace as he preferred to be known—said he wanted to go to sea, it was easily arranged. His uncle, Maurice Suckling, brother to his mother Catherine, was already a captain in His Majesty’s Navy and more than happy to take his nephew with him.

Horace had been a sickly baby—so frail, in fact, his parents had had him baptized when he was only 10 days old, just to be on the safe side—and then hardly the sturdiest of boys. But despite all that, he showed promise as an officer right from the start. By 17
he was an acting lieutenant and by 20 had been promoted to captain—first of the brig
Badger
and then of the 32-gun frigate the
Hinchingbrooke.
He saw active service in the Americas during the Revolutionary war, before being put on patrol duty in the West Indies. During that time he met and married the widow Fanny Nisbet, but the letters exchanged between the pair suggest it was a relationship of mutual respect rather than passion.

By the end of the 1780s they were back in Norfolk, living a quiet life while Nelson awaited his next ship. In 1793 he was made captain of the 64-gun
Agamemnon
—the vessel he would ever after describe as his favorite. War with France broke out again within weeks of his new assignment and for the next 12 years until his death, Nelson’s star was usually in the ascendant—and his eagerness to fight put him in harm’s way again and again.

In 1794, during a siege of French fortifications at Calvi, on the island of Corsica, he was blinded in his right eye. In February 1797 he was commanding the
Captain
as part of a fleet led by Lord Jervis when they encountered the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent. The battle that ensued was a sensational victory for the British, and at the height of it Nelson elevated himself to stardom by personally leading boarding parties to capture two Spanish warships in quick succession. In July of the same year, during a disastrous attack on the island of Tenerife, a musket ball smashed his right arm and elbow. He suffered the amputation with all the equanimity expected of a gentleman.

By 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte had declared that Europe was too small to provide him with enough glory—and Nelson was put in command of the fleet to find out precisely what the great general had in mind. The expedition culminated in the Battle of the Nile, a masterstroke choreographed by the British commander, in which the French were comprehensively crushed and Napoleon had to abandon his army to its fate in Egypt.

Hero though he already was both to the Navy and, increasingly, to the British people, Nelson was always able to put himself in jeopardy—and not always aboard warships or in the shadow of enemy forts. During 1798, still married to Fanny, he embarked upon his affair with Lady Emma Hamilton, herself a married woman. Having infuriated his superiors, he was briefly recalled to England. But he was already a personality too large in the imagination of the public to be kept out of action, or the limelight, for long.

Historians look back upon this period and call it “The Age of Nelson”—and it was. But it was also the time when the Royal Navy itself had come of age. Their systems worked and the service had become one for which victory was second nature, almost routine. Nelson was surrounded by other men of greatness like Cuthbert Collingwood, William Cornwallis, Adam Duncan, Samuel Hood, John Jervis and Augustus Keppel—and much of what he achieved was made possible by this atmosphere of success in which he came to maturity.

It’s almost traditional to imagine that life aboard the great ships of the line in the 18th century was one of unimaginable hardship, enlivened only by the occasional horror of a full-blown battle. But while it would certainly be a shock to most of us, it’s important to remember that for the mass of the population in the 18th century, life was unimaginably hard by our standards whether lived at sea or on land. The great warships required a crew of 800 men or more, and conditions aboard were of necessity cramped and lacking in any kind of luxury, but they gave men something to belong to and to fight for. Food rations were usually plentiful—if repetitive—and crews understood that the conditions demanded stiff discipline if the ship was to function as a successful fighting unit. The press-gangs were still in operation, plucking civilians out of their lives and spiriting them away to the sea without the chance
to say good-bye to family, but in effect this was no more than the system of conscription that would survive well into the 20th century.

Men like Collingwood, Cornwallis and Nelson ruled by example rather than by fear, in any case. They impressed their men with their skill, ability and personal bravery—and along the way they inspired genuine admiration and fondness. In the case of Nelson, of course, it was love. Some quality of his personality enabled him to reach people of every station, and the attentions he paid, the many little kindnesses he extended to those around him, won him adoration that lasted all his life.

Despite the disaster of Egypt and the Battle of the Nile, Napoleon, too, remained a rising star, by sheer force of will. In December of 1799 he was made First Consul of the new French Consulate, and the following year crushed the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo. The nations of Europe were finding it easier to make peace with him than fight him. But always beyond his clutches was Britain—on the far side of that frustratingly narrow, yet impossibly wide “ditch” of an English Channel.

Britain made its own peace with France—the Peace of Amiens—in March 1802. Napoleon saw to it, however, that it was an unhappy interlude and spent the time preparing for his own further aggrandizement. The peace came to an end, as it had to eventually, in the May of 1803, and Napoleon at once unrolled his plans to add Britain to his empire. Soon an army 160,000 strong was gathering on the French coast. It would fall to the Royal Navy, and to Nelson, to make sure that those men would come no closer.

Looking out from Dover with a good telescope and a good eye it was possible to see the encampment of
la Grande Armée
—the Grand Army—spreading like mushrooms in the green fields. In harbors and ports the landing craft for the troops were being assembled. Menacing though these preparations were, the cool
heads of the Admiralty understood one fact—something that was certainly known to Napoleon as well: it was impossible to bring an army across the Channel without control of the sea.

The Royal Navy’s initial solution to the problem was to keep the enemy ships trapped in all their harbors between Brest in the Bay of Biscay and Toulon in the Mediterranean. If they couldn’t get into the open sea, they couldn’t cause any trouble, far less clear the way for an invasion. The fulfilment of this objective was an achievement unequaled by seamen before or since.

While Nelson was given the task of monitoring the enemy navies in the relative calm of the Mediterranean, the job of hemming the French fleet, under the command of Admiral Ganteaume, into their base at Brest went to Cornwallis.

There is no one alive today who could begin to explain how Cornwallis and his men kept their fleet on station in those waters for month after month. The skills required to maintain mastery of the great timber ships of the line are long gone and will never be recovered. The conditions off the coast of Brest are challenging today for lone yachtsmen wishing only a safe passage. But the skills of navigation and seamanship required to keep an entire fleet of great ships of the line in position, static among those restless currents and ceaseless onshore winds, is beyond belief. Whenever the French sailors looked out, in fair weather or in foul, the British ships were there. That great blockade remains a unique accomplishment, testament to the skills of a lost world.

When Napoleon finally lost patience with it all and ordered the fleets of France and Spain to sail first to the West Indies in a feint, and then back to the Channel to attack the British, he was acting out of pure petulance. Even the most ardent Bonapartist would have to admit that Napoleon was a land mammal. He may have crowned himself Emperor in December 1804, but the golden circlet he placed upon his own head conferred no understanding
of the ways of the sea. He thought it was all about force of numbers—that the commander of the largest fleet would carry the day. He was wrong, of course, and Nelson would shortly show him why.

Toward the end of March 1805, Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve reluctantly brought his fleet out of Toulon and made for the West Indies as he’d been instructed. Nelson chased him there and then followed his trail back across the Atlantic without ever managing to bring him to battle. The British Admiral returned to England, to spend some time with Emma.

Collingwood was on station off the coast of Cadiz when Villeneuve appeared. The Vice-Admiral had only a few ships and so simply stood away to allow the French ships access to the harbor. For the British sailors it was a depressing moment. It looked as though they would now begin yet another fall and winter watching nothing happen at yet another enemy harbor. But Napoleon had reached the end of his tether and Villeneuve, believing he would shortly be replaced by his unhappy Emperor in any case, would shortly make one last roll of the dice.

Word of the French fleet’s arrival at Cadiz was sent to England, and to Nelson, aboard the frigate
Euryalus.
Her captain, Thomas Blackwood, delivered the news to Nelson himself.

It was before dawn but Nelson was already up and dressed: “I am sure you bring me news of the French and Spanish fleets and I think I shall yet have to beat them,” he said.

Blackwood left then, to inform the Admiralty. But Nelson was right. After just three weeks at home with his family, he had to leave and make his way to Portsmouth and the
Victory.
He joined the fleet off Cadiz on September 28 and, with all his famed diplomacy, gently replaced Collingwood in overall command.

The long game of cat and mouse came to an end at dawn on October 21. As the sun rose above Cape Trafalgar the players
stepped out on to the stage. To the astonishment of the watching British ships, Villeneuve’s 33 sail emerged into open water.

Aboard the
Royal Sovereign
, Collingwood could hardly have seemed less impressed. When his servant entered his quarters just after daybreak he found his master shaving, just as he did every day.

“Have you seen the French fleet?” asked the Admiral, scraping more stubble from his chin with a slow, steady hand.

“No sir, I have not,” came the reply.

“Well, go and take at look at them,” said Collingwood. “And in a little while you’ll see a great deal more.”

While the sun balanced on the horizon, Nelson’s ships began the ponderously slow business of forming into the two divisions he had ordered. Although a heavy swell was rolling in from the ocean, there was precious little wind, and for many hours to come every movement of the fleet would be in slow motion.

Throughout the British fleet the men were called to breakfast as usual. As the morning wore on, and the approach toward the enemy continued, the officers were to be seen in full dress uniform—the more conspicuous the better as far as British gentlemen were concerned. In time of battle it was the duty of officers to show their confidence and their bravery by taking up highly visible positions in full view of the foe. This was an era when nailing one’s colors to the mast demanded both bravery and a certain flair.

Audible above the roll and wash of the waves was the sound of bands playing upon the decks of warship after warship. There was almost an air of celebration already, before a shot had been fired. Still the molasses-slow advance continued. For men on the open decks it was bad enough, but at least they could look at the scene around them and take in the sight of the distant French and Spanish fleets. But for those waiting below in the gloom of
the gun-decks it must have been next to intolerable. The wind was blowing no more than two or three knots and the fleets were closing upon each other at a speed slightly less than that required for a leisurely stroll. Men took turns to peer through the gun-ports and craned their necks to try to gauge the distance still to be traveled.

Aboard the
Victory
Nelson’s simmering excitement was palpable. If Collingwood was the living embodiment of sangfroid, then the Lord Admiral seemed ablaze with the thrill of it all. He entered every battle convinced he was certain to die—and today was no different. But his fatalism seemed to thrill him, freeing him from fear and driving him always toward the place where he felt the greatest danger lay. He had made his personal preparations in any case. That very morning he had added a codicil to his will asking that Emma Hamilton, and their daughter Horatia, be looked after by the nation in the event of his death. Into his journal he had written a prayer in which he offered up his life to the God he felt observed and judged his every move.

At around 11:30 a.m., fairly fizzing with boyish enthusiasm and desperate to be in the thick of the fray, he called his flag lieutenants to him.

“I will now amuse the fleet with a signal,” he told them. “Suppose we say, ‘Nelson confides that every man will do his duty.’”