Girl on the Orlop Deck (19 page)

The next day the wind blew fair and tension aboard the British ships increased by the hour for now surely the enemy would come out. But still nothing happened and although the wind continued fair the French stayed where they were and refused to move. Nelson’s frustration was even more acute than that of his men. He knew that some action was needed to break the tension or tempers would begin to flare. He sent a squadron of frigates, the
Sirius
among them, to cruise as close to the harbour mouth as they could get to see if they could tempt the combined fleet out, and a second squadron of 74s to a point ten miles east to guard against any attempt to cut and run into the Mediterranean. Then, since there were still many more ships with nothing to do, and crews that needed occupation, he set sail for a rendezvous point ten miles out to sea. The wind continued fair but still nothing happened. The frigates couldn’t tease the French out of harbour no matter how
tantalizingly
close they sailed. There was no French shipping heading for the Straits. Tension rose no matter what Nelson tried to do about it. In fact, the one and only good thing that came out of their long fidgeting vigil was that other ships of the line had time to join them, one from Gibraltar and five from home.

Then, at last, on the 18 October, there were signs of action. A
look-out
on one of the frigates reported that troops were being embarked on the French ships of the line and that the Spanish ships had got their topsails up. The next morning, to Nelson’s great relief, the combined fleet began to get under way. As soon as the news was flagged to him, he ordered a general chase in a south-easterly direction and signalled to his fleet to prepare for battle. It was a bright clear day but with little wind and by the end of it only twelve of the Spanish ships had managed to get clear of harbour and were tacking northward dogged by two British frigates. But the battle was now imminent and the decks were cleared for it.

That night, Nelson snatched a few quiet moments to compose a letter to Emma.

The next day the rest of the combined fleet gradually emerged from the shelter of Cadiz and by daylight on the 20 October Admiral Blackwood sent a signal from the
Euryalus
to report that all thirty-four enemy ships were out of port. By then the weather had changed yet again and it was pouring with rain but
Victory
hove to so that Collingwood could come aboard to report. He brought Captains Duff, Hope and Morris with him, for they were the three who had been passing Blackwood’s messages from ship to ship down the line and they knew better than most what the present position was. After their visit, Nelson spent the day on
Victory
’s poop so that he could watch the weather and would see Blackwood’s continuing signals as soon as they came in.

Now the two great fleets were manoeuvring for position, Nelson determined to cut off his enemy from the Straits and to lure him so far out to sea that it would be impossible for him to retreat to port, Villeneuve endeavouring to find the most advantageous position for the battle he could no longer avoid. That evening Nelson sent a message to his captains detailing the signals that should be used during the night. If the French were heading south towards the Straits they were to burn two blue lights together every hour, if they were moving westward, they were to fire three guns, quick, every hour. Whatever else, his old enemy was not to be allowed to slip out of his clutches again.

So the night watch began and the crews took themselves to their duties or retired to snatch what sleep they could. On the dark gun deck of the
Victory
, Marianne rolled herself tightly in her blanket because the thought of what was to come was making her shiver and said her prayers and tried to sleep, and on the open deck of the
Sirius
, Jem and Tom, smoking together for what they both knew would be the last time before
the battle, looked out over the night-black water and saw the ominous glow of the lamplight from the stern-cabin windows of thirty-four enemy men of war.

I
T WAS SUCH
a gentle dawn. Not a rough breaking of day but a gradual shimmer of expanding light over retreating darkness. Everything about it was calming and beautiful, from the pale lilac clouds drifting in a sky the colour of woodsmoke to the soft breeze playing the sails and ruffling the quiet swell of a green sea. Seasoned mariners like Nelson and Hardy knew that the swell would mean a storm later in the day, but the breeze was almost exactly right. It would give them enough power to manoeuvre into position for the battle but be insufficient for the French to make a run for it back to port. To Marianne, carrying buckets down to the orlop deck ready to scrub Mr Beattie’s table, it was a good omen and she was cheered to feel it against her face.

The crew were up and about long before first light, dressed, fed and ready for action, and Nelson was ready alongside them, standing on the quarter-deck in the familiar undress uniform he’d worn ever since they left Portsmouth, the four stars of his Orders of Knighthood that were embroidered on the left breast of his jacket glinting in the half light. All decks were cleared for action; furniture had been taken from the cabins and stored in the hold; the midshipmen’s berth in the after cockpit had been cleared and the space made ready for the wounded; the nets were slung ready to catch falling splinters; the gun ports were open; cooks had prepared what food they could before they had to put out the galley fires and leave the gun deck; marines had made sure that their cutlasses were sharp and their muskets primed; gunners had stripped to the waist, bound kerchiefs round their heads to stop the sweat dripping into their eyes and provided themselves with plugs of gun-cotton to block their ears; ship’s boys had carried buckets of water down to the gun decks and set them by the scuttlebutts ready for use when the gunners needed to quench their thirst; Mr Beattie and his two assistants had sharpened
their knives and saws; the entire ship from Nelson down to the newest recruit was in a state of implacable readiness. The orderliness of it all was reassuring and calming, even to Marianne.

At twenty minutes to seven Nelson sent out his first signal of the day, saying that the order of sailing was to be in two columns, each ship ‘to engage her opponent’. His captains already knew what had to be done for this was the order of battle he’d shown them on his birthday, so the columns began to form up immediately, Nelson leading the northern column in
Victory
, Collingwood heading the southern one in the
Royal
Sovereign
. When both columns were ready, Nelson sent the signal:
Bear up and steer east
. Then they set sail towards their waiting enemy.

They were still too far out to see the French fleet but, as they progressed, the watchers on the quarter-decks began to make out the tops of their masts, rising like black trees against the skyline. Towards mid morning when the clouds had cleared, an autumnal sun was shining and the sea was a rich dark blue, the enemy sails came into view. Now it was possible to see what an enormous fleet they were for they stretched along the horizon for miles. Even a novice like Marianne could see that it was a huge distance and her heart contracted with fear at the thought of all those guns and how soon they would be firing.
Please God
, she prayed,
don’t let anyone be hurt
. But that was a foolish request and she knew it, so she amended it to
Please God don’t let too many men be hurt
as they sailed on towards that terrible, waiting, death-dealing line. The breeze was so light it was hard to make much progress so their long advance was achingly slow. They were taking an hour to cover a mile and a half and, as Jem said to his old friend Tom when he was working through the gun decks checking that all his bungs were ready and in place, ‘we could walk there quicker’.

‘Can’t command the wind, my ol’ lubber,’ Tom said, ‘an’ that’s a fact. We shall get there come the finish, depend on it.’

As he was speaking, six bells were struck to mark the fact that it was eleven o’clock and the military bands, which had been standing ready on various quarter-decks waiting for the signal, began to play their martial music. On
Victory
they gave a spirited rendering of the National Anthem followed by
Rule Britannia
and
Britons strike Home
. On the
Sirius
they played the sailor’s hornpipe. There was instant pandemonium on the gun deck as the gunners leapt to the dance like dervishes, hooting and yelling.

‘Come on,’ Tom said to his friend. ‘Let’s see if you can still cut a caper.’

Jem had no desire to cut anything at all. He was too full of
apprehension
to be leaping about. But he could hardly say no, when they were all jumping like fleas, so he joined in and after a second or so he found that he too was dancing like a madman.

They only stopped when the music changed to
Rule Britannia
and by then they were out of breath and dripping with sweat. ‘My dear heart alive,’ Tom said. ‘That
was
a caper an’ no mistake.’

‘Done us all good,’ his mates said. ‘Just what we was a-needin’ of. Let off a bit a’ steam like. We might not have the legs for it when this day’s over.’

‘How close have we got to get afore we takes up our positions?’ Jem asked, as Tom peered through the gun port at the distant ships. He didn’t know much about naval engagements except that the two sides took up positions facing one another before they began firing.

Tom threw back his head and gave a roar of laughter. ‘Close!’ he said. ‘There’s a fool question. We don’t take up no positions, my ol’ lubber. We sails till we can’t go no further without ramming the beggars. Then we blows ’em to Kingdom Come, straight through the stern and out the other side. What you’m a-goin’ to see today, my friend, is the Nelson touch, what en’t never been beat yet an’ won’t be beat today.’

The others roared their agreement. ‘That’s the style of it, young Tom. You’ll see, Mr Templeman.’

They can’t mean it, Jem thought, appalled by what they were saying. Surely to God. If we just keep going we’ll be shot to ribbons as soon as the French are in range and we won’t be able to do a thing about it because our guns will all be pointing the wrong way, out to sea instead of at the enemy. It was the most foolhardy plan of action he’d ever heard of. And the most idiotic. And the bravest. Oh well and away the bravest. It was making his stomach shake just to think of it.

‘Must get on,’ he said gruffly, and walked away.

Nelson was on the poop deck when the band on
Victory
began to play and his mood was lifted by hearing music too. ‘Do you not think,’ he said to Captain Blackwood, who was standing beside him, ‘that there is one more signal wanting?’ And when Blackwood nodded and seemed in agreement, he said, ‘I’ll now amuse the fleet’, and sent a midshipman to fetch John Pascoe, his signal lieutenant.

‘Mr Pascoe,’ he said when the lieutenant arrived, ‘I wish to say to the fleet
England confides that every man will do his duty
. You must be quick, for I have one more signal to make which is for close action.’

Mr Pascoe took note of the signal but asked leave to suggest that the word
expects
should be substituted for
confides
, explaining that the first word was in the signal book and that the use of it would save seven hoists.

The suggestion was accepted. ‘That will do,’ the Admiral said. ‘Make it directly.’

So the signal was sent and passed along the columns. Its effect was electrifying. Some crews gave it three cheers, others shouted ‘Aye, Aye sir!’ and waved their hats towards the flagship. Jem, looking across the water at the towering hulks of their enemy, found he had a lump in his throat.

The French fleet were now in full view, boldly painted in scarlet and white, and black and yellow, and the crews on the
Victory
and the
Royal Sovereign
knew they would be coming under fire within minutes. Captain Blackwood and Captain Prowse were rowed back to the
Euryalus
and the
Sirius
ready to take command when the bombardment began, Nelson ordered his last signal, which was for close action, and his crews hardened their sinews to endure whatever horrors were coming in the last twenty minutes of their approach.

Marianne was down on the orlop deck trimming the lamps when the French opened fire and the sudden roar made her jump. My dear heart alive, she thought, that was close. But Mr Beattie and his two assistants were standing calmly by the table and although all the loblollies looked at one another in trepidation none of them said anything so she got on with the lamps and tried not to show how frightened she was. Seconds later they heard the splash of a cannon ball that had missed its mark and fallen into the sea beside them and then there was an uproar of sound as more guns fired and the ship shuddered as it took the shots and they could hear the crack of a great timber immediately above their heads and knew that the mainmast had been hit. The guns were still firing when their first casualty came staggering down the steps dripping blood, a great splinter of wood sticking out of his arm.

Mr Beattie dealt with him at once. He took his largest pair of pincers, pulled the splinter from the man’s arm in one heaving movement and tossed it in a bucket. Then, since there were two more injured men being
carried down the steps by the marines, he handed the first man over to Marianne telling her to bind the wound ‘tightly, mind’ and turned his attention to the new arrivals. The first man had a shattered arm – even from where she stood in the shadows, Marianne could see white bones sticking out of the gory mess of his flesh – and he was grey-faced and speechless with shock. He didn’t even say anything when Mr Beattie told him the arm would have to come off but lay on the table meek as a lamb come to slaughter, took the gag between his teeth and turned his head away from the agony that was coming. Marianne and the other
loblollies
watched in horror as the two marines held him down and Mr Beattie cut off his arm with those appalling knives and that terrible saw. Even then the man didn’t scream or call out but his groans were worse than screams. They seemed to come from deep inside him and were low and terrible as if they were being torn out of him with every cut. It made her ache to hear them. But there was no time for pity. No time for anything except the job in hand. The stump had to be bandaged and there were more injured men staggering down the companionway, slipping on the blood-smothered steps. Dear God, she thought, as she bandaged the grey-faced man as gently as she could, if ’tis like this down here what must it be like on deck?

It was a shambles, for once the French had found their range they pounded the ship without mercy. Their sixth shot went through the main topgallant sail, then there was a short silence, then seven or eight enemy ships fired simultaneously and accurately. The mizzen topmast was shot clean away, the sails were riddled with holes and a round shot, flying hot across the quarter-deck, hit Nelson’s secretary Scott and tore him into unrecognizable pieces. The deck was covered with blood and guts and bits of flesh and bone, and before Captain Hardy could divert him, Nelson turned to see what had happened and knew who’d been hit, saying ‘Is that poor Scott?’ But there was no time for pity, even here among friends. Two sailors were already shovelling the remains into the sea.

From then on the fire was hard and accurate and there was nothing anyone aboard the
Victory
could do about it. They weren’t close enough yet to come about and aim their own guns, and there was so little wind that they were a sitting target, moving with agonizing slowness or merely shifting on the swell. They drifted for the next ten minutes and took more and more casualties until the cockpit was full of injured men.

But at last they were close enough for Nelson to give the order to port the helm and the ship hauled to starboard and the gunners on the leeward side could fight back. They were passing under the stern of the
Bucentaure
, which was a three-decker and Villeneuve’s flagship, and the broadside went through her cabin windows and straight along the gun decks, smashing the guns and causing carnage among the crews. The air was full of black smoke and flying splinters of wood, which fell like rain on everyone on the quarter-deck. Now the battle proper had begun.

As
Victory
hauled to starboard she came within range of the
Redoutable
and the
Neptune
. Hardy saw at once that she had no hope of breaking through and sailing between them but would be forced to run into one or the other and turned to ask Nelson which it should be.

‘It does not signify which we run aboard of,’ Nelson told him. ‘Take your choice.’

Minutes later they collided with the
Redoutable
. It was a glancing blow and the
Victory
rebounded from it with little damage but her yardarm was caught in the
Redoutable
’s rigging and the two ships were locked together as they drifted before the wind. The gunners on the
Victory
now had clear targets on either side, pounding the
Santissima Trinidad
to port while they smashed in the
Redoutable
’s sides with their starboard guns. By this time the following ships of the column were manoeuvring into position and engaging the enemy too. The air was full of flying debris and the smoke from their guns massed like clouds about them obscuring the targets they were trying to hit. The fight was hot and unstoppable now.

The
Sirius
was between the
Heros
and the
Santissima
Trinidad
and firing broadsides at both of them. The noise of the guns was so incessant it was a continuous ear-battering roar. Jem had gone beyond excitement and even beyond fear so the noise no longer stirred his senses or shook his belly. He was working automatically, plugging holes and making what repairs he could with such calm that it was as if he was back in Portsmouth working in Mr Henderson’s wood-yard, as if his old master was standing beside him saying. ‘Don’ ’ee pay ’em no mind, my sonny. You got a job to do.’ There was no battle, no death, no blood, no pity, no fear, just a job to do – and another, and another. ‘Order an’ method. That’s the style. One thing at a time.’