Every Man Will Do His Duty (47 page)

As we in the
Endymion
had the exclusive charge of the convoy of transports, it was our business to remain to the very last, to assist the ships with provisions, and otherwise to regulate the movements of the stragglers. Whilst thus engaged, and lying to, with our main-topsail to the mast, a small Spanish boat came alongside, with two or three British officers in her. On these gentlemen being invited to step up and say what they wanted, one of them begged we would inform him where the transport 139 was to be found?

“How can we possibly tell you that?” said the officer of the watch. “Don’t you see the ships are scattered as far as the horizon in every direction? You had much better come on board in the mean time.”

“No, sir, no,” cried the officers; “we have received directions to go on board the transport 139, and her we must find.”

“What is all this about?” inquired the captain of the
Endymion;
and being told of the scruples of the strangers, insisted upon their coming up. He very soon explained to them the utter impossibility, at such a moment, of finding out any particular transport amongst between three and four hundred ships, every one of which was following her own way. We found out afterwards that these gentlemen were naturally apprehensive of having it imagined they had designedly come to the frigate for better quarters. Nothing, of course, was farther from our thoughts; indeed, it was evidently the result of accident. So we sent away their little boat; and just at that moment the gun-room steward announced breakfast. We invited our new friends down and gave them a hearty meal in peace and comfort, a luxury they had not enjoyed for many a long and rugged day.

Our next care was to afford our tired warriors the much-required comforts of a razor and clean linen. We shared the party amongst us; and I was
so much taken with one of these officers, Colonel de Lancey,
¹⁰
that I urged him to accept such accommodation as my cabin and wardrobe afforded. He had come to us without one stitch of clothes beyond what he then wore, and these, to say the truth, not in the best condition. Let that pass; he was as fine a fellow as ever lived, and I had much pride and pleasure in taking care of him during the passage.

We shortly became great friends; but on reaching England we parted, and I never saw him more. Of course he soon lost sight of me; but his fame rose high, and, as I often read his name in the
Gazettes
during the subsequent campaigns in the Peninsula, I looked forward with a gradually-increasing anxiety to the renewal of an acquaintance begun so auspiciously. At last I was gratified by a bright flash of hope in this matter, which went out, alas! as speedily as it came.

Not quite six years after the events here related, I came home from India in command of a sloop of war. Before entering the Channel, we fell in with a ship which gave us the first news of the battle of Waterloo, and spared us a precious copy of the Duke of Wellington’s despatch. Within five minutes after landing at Portsmouth, I met a near relation of my own, which seemed a fortunate
rencontre,
for I had not received a letter from home for nearly a year, and I eagerly asked him,—

“What news of all friends?”

“I suppose,” he said, “you know of your sister’s marriage?”

“No, indeed! I do not! which sister?”

He told me.

“But to whom is she married?” I cried out, with intense impatience, and wondering greatly that he had not told me this at once.

“Sir William de Lancey was the person,” he answered. But he spoke not in the joyous tone that befits such communications.

“God bless me!” I exclaimed, “I am delighted to hear that. I know him well; we picked him up in a boat at sea, after the battle of Corunna, and I brought him home in my cabin in the
Endymion.
I see by the despatch, giving an account of the late victory, that he was badly wounded. How is he now? I observe, by the postscript of the Duke’s letter, that strong hopes are entertained of his recovery.”

“Yes,” said my friend, “that was reported, but could hardly have been believed. Sir William was mortally wounded and lived not quite a week after the action. The only comfort about this sad matter is that his poor
wife, being near the field at the time, joined him immediately after the battle and had the melancholy satisfaction of attending her husband to the last!”

Basil Hall, whose long naval career took him to the far reaches of the globe, became a prolific writer. His nine-volume work, Fragments of Voyages and Travels (1831–1833), included his experiences and observations regarding a wide spectrum of naval topics and was much reprinted. In 1816 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. He was also a fellow of the Royal Astronomical, Royal Geographical, and Geological societies. Hall died at Haslar Hospital in 1844.

While Lieutenant Hall was engaged on the Peninsula, in the thick of the struggle with Napoleon’s forces, Lieutenant George Jackson was on the North American station, where the fighting was no less fierce, even if on a smaller scale. He proves as relentless in seeking freedom as he was in fighting for it.

¹
Napier, [Sir William Francis Patrick (1785–1860), History of the War in the Peninsula
(London:1835)]
vol.i.p.
78.

²
Ibid. p. 479.

³
Napier, vol. i. p. 488.

⁴
Ibid. p.492.

⁵
Napier, vol. i. p. 475.

⁶
Napier, vol. i. p. 492.

⁷
General Sir David Baird (1757–1829) lost his arm as the result of his wound at Corunna. This was to be his last active command, although he later served as commander in chief of Ireland.

⁸
Napier, vol. i. p. 498.

⁹
Ibid.

¹⁰
Colonel Sir William Howe Delancey, who was born in New York, served in the Peninsula as the Duke of Wellington’s assistant, and, from 1809 to 1814, as Deputy Quartermaster General.

T
HE FIVE SONS OF
Navy purser George Jackson of Godshill, on the Isle of Wight, all entered the Royal Navy. Of them, three were killed and one retired a commander. George Vernon Jackson, the eldest son and the author of this narrative, is a bright and resourceful lieutenant. But his promotion to the recently taken frigate
Junon
, now commanded by Captain John Shortland, proves to be a dubious reward. Once again she will be confronted by superior numbers and, in the same year that she was taken by the Royal Navy, she will revert back to French ownership. Jackson’s short cruise leads to an extended and peripatetic existence behind enemy lines.

During the voyage out to Halifax I had said nothing about my hopes of promotion; and all were astonished when, soon after our arrival, Admiral Lee came on board, and after shaking hands congratulated me on my appointment as second lieutenant to one of the finest frigates in the Navy, the
Junon,
38, Captain John Shortland. This was on 20th April 1809. I joined her during the same evening, and on the following day received an invitation to dine with the admiral and attend a ball afterwards.

This was the beginning of a great change from the hardships and uncertainties of a tarpaulin midshipman hitherto without a friend to interest himself on my behalf.

An old shipmate named Conn was third lieutenant in the
Junon;
the rest of the officers were strangers. Of the first lieutenant I have nothing to say. The marine officer, John Green, stood about six feet high, and might be compared to a switch in personal appearance. There was plenty of length but no breadth about him. I had a great regard for him, and believe the feeling was mutual, though this did not prevent us from being too often at variance. He was always going to call me out, but I always made an absurd joke of it, and declined to go out to fight a man with as much chance of hitting him as of splitting a bullet on a penknife. Poor Green, the sequel of his life proved that he was not such a difficult mark after all.
¹

Captain Shortland bore the character of an austere disciplinarian, and I felt rather nervous at the prospect of serving under him; however, I have reason to think that he took a liking to me. He was particularly celebrated as a navigator and a good seaman, and he showed preference for me in one respect, as he would allow no one to touch his chronometer but myself. This instrument was his own private property. He did not entirely depend upon my management of it when he was taking observations, but he obliged me to call over the time as it transpired.

The day before we left port an alarm was given of fire forward. I called for the drummer to beat to quarters—a foolish thing to do in those days, as it wasted time, while a word passed would have sufficed—and told the captain. It transpired that some matches had ignited somehow, but the fire was soon got under. The contents of the match-room, however, had been damaged by water, and although the damage was thought to have been rectified, it proved ere long to have been otherwise, as will shortly be seen, when occasion for their use arose.

While cruising off Guadeloupe on the afternoon of the 13th December 1809, during my watch we sighted four vessels. At first we supposed them to be Spaniards, and when the captain came on deck, he ordered me to fire and bring them to. I did so, and they obeyed the summons, and we cleared for action. We found that our enemies consisted of the two frigates
Renommée
and
Clorinde,
each with 40 guns, and the two
armées-en-flute
²
Loire
and
Seine,
each carrying 20 guns. From this moment until the termination of the ensuing engagement I was ignorant of what took place on deck, being on duty on the main-deck; but just as we were about to pass under the stern of the leading ship, the
Renommée,
they changed their colours and let fire a broadside. I was looking out of the port at the time. Our helm must have been put down,
and as we came up into the wind the second frigate, the
Clorinde,
drew alongside of us, her bowsprit abreast of our main-mast. She manifestly did not like her position, and hauled off. The
Renommée
meantime had placed herself on our weather bow, and the
Clorinde
then resumed her old position to an inch. About this time the purser hurried up to me and said that there were no matches, and as he spoke a shot came into us and struck away an iron stanchion which stood directly between us. Once during the action I received a fearful blow across my body, caused by a poor fellow being blown into smithereens—by my side. Passing aft to my quarters I stepped over a prostrate seaman who was literally disembowelled, whom I afterwards found to be my own servant. Towards the last part of the fight, the
armée-en-flute Loire,
on board of which were some 200 French soldiers, came up as close as possible and poured volley after volley of musketry along the deck, and the
Renommée,
still on our weather bow, ran up and put her bowsprit between our main- and mizzen-mast. It was now dark. Then came a midshipman named Auchinlick, who told me that the captain was dangerously wounded, and took me to the foot of the quarter-deck ladder where he lay—not a soul near him. I approached close, and he said, “Jackson, take me down,” and we carried him below directly. At the bottom of the ladder he exclaimed, “Thank you, Jackson, thank you; now encourage the men to fight bravely.”

I returned to my post and saw the gunroom steward coming towards me. He said that we had struck. To satisfy myself as to the fact, I went to the quarter-deck ladder, where I was met by a salute of bayonets and the exclamation, “En bas …” On this I repaired as fast as I could to the captain’s cabin. Poor fellow, he was lying there disabled by four severe wounds; and as Ï entered he turned his head and remarked with a smile, “Damn ’em, Jackson, they’ve spoilt my dancing
³
.”

The French commodore then came on board and went to the captain. Whitehurst, one of the midshipmen and an old messmate of mine in the
Inflexible,
acted as interpreter, of whom more by-and-by. The Frenchman behaved with the utmost courtesy, requesting to know whom the captain would like with him, and offering him every attention. The captain chose myself, Auchinlick, and another midshipman named John Thompson. The latter was a brave young fellow, and I could not help being forcibly struck with his courage when, previous to the ship being taken, he was ordered to find the signal-book, which the captain had left aft. He passed amidst the shower of musket-balls to execute his commission, displaying the most
consummate coolness and indifference to the risk he ran, luckily escaping without a wound. The book was ultimately found by the Frenchmen on the binnacle. Auchinlick also deserved his meed of praise for his assiduous and affectionate consideration for his captain. The scene on board during the night was a trying and miserable one. The doctor’s abilities were enlisted for the dead and dying on all sides.

One poor man, a marine, was completely perforated through the jaws, and each time I passed him he called for water, but not a drop was to be found. At last I procured a bottle of porter and poured him out a glass, which he drank with grateful avidity. He died within a few hours. Whenever the captain wanted anything he sent for me, and the prayers of the wounded men were loud everywhere for water. I was stepping across a figure apparently dead on my passage from the captain’s cabin once, when it suddenly raised itself and caught hold of my arm. “God bless me, Appleby,”
⁴
I exclaimed, “what are you doing here? Go below, man.” He pointed to his wound and remarked, “It matters not where I die, Mr. Jackson; as well here as elsewhere.” I insisted on his going below, and he dragged himself off and took possession of my cabin.

The doctor, Evan Evans by name, was in a most pitiable position. Besmeared up to his shoulders with blood, he was plying his instruments with untiring energy and encouraging the sufferers with kind words, but hardly able to turn for the implorations of those yet unattended to. He had no one to help him in his dreadful work, and the men would crawl about him with the bleeding forms of their messmates; while those who could amongst the wounded would clutch him with their hands and beseech him to turn to them if only to stop the blood gushing from their bodies. At times he would cry out in a way peculiar to him, “N’am of goodness me men, bear with it a bit, bear with it a bit; I’ll serve you in yer turn,” and then call out for his boy. “Where is my boy?” he would shout, but no boy was forthcoming, nor would he ever come again. In going the rounds I went forward in the bow of the ship, and there I soon discovered the reason of his absence from his post of duty. Excepting his legs and his arms nothing remained of him the size of an apple. He must have been bending down with his body in a horizontal position when a shot through the bow struck him straight on end, carrying away the trunk and shivering it into atoms. The last duty I performed on board was to throw the dead bodies into the sea. Our losses amounted to sixty killed and wounded.