Tested by Fate (19 page)

Berry was already out on the bowsprit, edging on to the spirit sail yard as the two ships collided, sword in hand, yelling like a
banshee
, preparing to jump. Around him Nelson could see other old Agamemnons: Thorpe, Warren, Sykes, and Thompson, both Johns, and Francis Cook. Beside him, swearing loudly, stood William Fearny, one of his bargemen, normally the quietest soul in creation, now raring to get into the fight.

“Permission to lead the boarding party, sir?”

Nelson turned to answer Millar, his look almost pleading. “We cannot both leave the deck, Ralph, and I cannot stay while there is a fight. My nature couldn’t bear it.”

The silent exchange lasted only a few seconds, enough for Ralph Millar to impart his opinion that commodores had no right to lead boarding parties. But then neither, really, had captains. Behind them Berry was swinging his sword, driving down the heads of those who would stop him, allowing those behind him to drop on to the poop and take them on. Marine muskets were fired and reloaded to clear the enemy deck of opposition. And the ship was spinning slowly, now locked into the
San
Nicolas
, hanging on to the enemy stern. Millar smiled, touched his hat, and went back to his station.

“To me,” Nelson called, leading a group of men forward to the quarter-gallery windows, now nestled up against a point where the bulwarks were smashed open. A marine stepped forward and smashed the glass, Nelson immediately leading his party—seamen, marines, and three midshipmen—through. They found themselves in a small cabin with a locked door. That, too, fell to the butt of a musket, allowing his party into the fore part of the great cabin, led by a wild-eyed commodore, repeatedly shouting, “Death or Westminster Abbey!”

“Heads!” Nelson yelled, pushing one midshipman one way, a second the other, then diving himself for one of the bulkheads as a fusillade of musket balls, mixed with the sound of shattering glass, came through the skylight above their heads.

“Marines, clear them!”

That order was aimed at the rest of the party, still exiting from the quarter gallery. The muskets were up and fired almost before the words were out of his mouth, a salvo that killed several men and aided Berry, still fighting desperately on the poop. Nelson was already out of the cabin on to the open deck, heading for a companionway full of Spanish sailors. He discharged his own pistol, before turning it to use as a club, felling a man who had been stabbing his pike towards one of his mids.

He had to step back to get his sword free, then lunged
immediately
, missing his main target in his haste but taking another enemy sailor in the thigh, enough of a wound to make the fellow collapse in a heap. In a fight that is a mêlée, all the swordsmanship practised
on deck counts for nothing. This was hacking, jabbing work, with the hilt just as vital as the blade, close-quarters fighting in which instinct, or a flash of something in the corner of an eye, counted for as much as skill.

It was that which alerted him to the swinging club. Even though his sword sliced into it, the jarring up his arm was painful. Keeping his embedded sword aloft exposed his assailant’s lower body and a swift kick in the groin doubled him over. It was his own club that finished him, retrieved and swung by Nelson so hard he could hear the fellow’s skull crack open. A pike, pointed and serrated, shot past his nose, missing him by a fraction as he fought to dislodge his sword. Thorpe, who had jammed a hand on to the shaft just in time, unbalancing the pikeman, had disrupted the enemy aim. The blade of Nelson’s sword sliced up under the pikeman’s throat,
cutting
through his neck so hard that his head nearly came off.

Fighting their way up the companionway was hard, a compact mass of British facing an even more dense crowd of Spaniards. Willpower won out over numbers, aided by the first sight of
sunlight
at the enemy back. Jab—cut—jab—cut, slice—parry—jam the hilt into a face, kick, bite, scratch, anything to keep the forward momentum. Nelson was soaked with sweat, his mouth dry and his arms aching. But he was leading his men to a point where the enemy must break, which they did with a suddenness that nearly had him falling on to his knees.

He emerged on to the deck to find Berry in occupation of the poop, in the act of hauling down the Spanish flag. Odd that the lower deck guns were still firing, unaware of what was happening above their heads, still trying to fight
Prince
George
, probably
convinced
that she had stopped firing through their efforts rather than the dropping of the Spanish ensign, unaware that the British ship was now concentrating its fire on the
San
Josef;
this while their
officers
, on the deck, were in the act of surrendering their swords; this while all fighting had ceased on the upper and maindecks.

“God bless you, Berry,” Nelson croaked. “She is ours.”

“A party below, sir, to still those guns.”

“Make it so, Mr Berry.”

Berry hadn’t made it to the companionway when the fusillade of musket fire swept across the deck, fired from the cabins of the
San
Josef
, still stuck fast to
San
Nicolas
, scything through a party of sailors and marines celebrating their victory. Several fell in such a way as to make Nelson think them dead. But that was not foremost in his mind.

“To me, lads,” he shouted, waving his sword, which gathered every available man. “Marines form up and give them a volley. Mr Hardy, a party at the hatches to keep those below in check.”

Pierson had his red-coated bullocks in line and ready within half a minute, their fusillade poured into the area from which the
gunfire
had come. Nelson followed the musket balls at a rush, jumping from the bulwarks of one Spanish ship, a Second Rate, on to the main chains of another, to grapple his way on to a First Rate
three-deck
112-gun ship.

Berry was with him, using main force to push his commodore up high enough to get over the bulwark of the bigger vessel. Nelson was shouting, his cracked voice sounding mad. He emerged on to the deck prepared to kill everyone in sight, only to find a line of Spanish officers, swords extended, waiting to surrender to him. One, on his knees, informed him in stilted English that his admiral was dying. Nelson took his hand to lift him to his feet, and requested of him in even worse Spanish that all the ship’s officers should be informed of the surrender.

A salvo from
Prince
George
slammed into the side of the
San
Josef
, to remind Nelson that a battle was still in progress.

“Berry, the flag, cut it down.”

Berry rushed to obey as Nelson took the swords, handing them to Giddings, who, with an air about him of studied calm, tucked them under his arm.

“They’ve struck already, sir,” Berry shouted, from the poop.

“Then show yourself to
Prince
George
, but don’t get your head blown off doing it.”

Thorpe grabbed his hand and shook it, gazing into Nelson’s
astounded face. “You don’t know it, do you, yer honour, what you’ve done? I’m shaking your hand now while I has the chance. When this gets out they’ll be queuing up.”

“
Victory
, sir,” cried Berry, bloodstained but unbowed, pointing to the approaching flagship, fast coming down on the three closely entwined warships,
Captain
,
San
Josef
, and
San
Nicolas
. The rigging was full of sailors. On the quarterdeck Nelson could see Admiral Jervis, Captain Calder, and all the flag officers. As they came abreast Sir John raised his hat, and led, in the most flattering fashion, the cheers of every man aboard his ship.

E
MMA
H
AMILTON
read Nelson’s letter for the third time that morning, trying to imagine the battle that had taken place a month before, not helped by the way her correspondent played down what must have been a bloody affair. The Spaniards had been soundly trounced, those not taken forced to run for the shelter of Cadiz.

Both she and Sir William had had other letters, from London, that told of how the news of the victory had been greeted. The bells had rung, gold medals had been struck, and every civic body in the land vied to give one of the heroes the freedom of their city. Sir John Jervis had been raised to the peerage, and was now Earl St Vincent. Nelson had become both a rear admiral and a Knight of the Bath. And those letters also told of that new raree-show that was enacted in all the pleasure gardens and playhouses: Nelson’s Patent Bridge for the Taking of First Rates, in which the feat of crossing one ship to take another, never before achieved, was played endlessly to an adoring, patriotic audience.

Sir William had been right all those years ago, when he had introduced Horatio Nelson as a man of exceptional ability. Emma began a reply couched in warm terms that would, of course, include a fond wish that a British fleet should once more come to Naples, and that Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson would lead it.

Fanny Nelson, staying in Bath with her husband’s father, couldn’t deal with the letters she received. They were too
numerous
. Everyone who knew Admiral Nelson wanted to write with praise of his actions. But so did many who had never made an
acquaintance
: people from all over the country who had read of his exploits in the newspapers, eager to tell her that her husband, by his actions and his application, had saved the nation.

She had letters from him, too, in which she knew he had played
down the blood and danger, more eager to tell her that her son had behaved well, that money would flow from the battle: head money for the enemy sailors captured, gun money for the guns, as well as prize money for the ships themselves.

With
Captain
a near wreck he had shifted his flag to HMS
Theseus
and hoisted his blue pennant at the mizzen, the flag of his new rank. It worried her that the acclaim he had garnered didn’t seem to satisfy him, and that he was already talking of a new
adventure
which, if it succeeded, would eclipse the fame he had already acquired. Together with the Reverend Edmund Nelson she pored over maps to locate an island somewhere off the coast of Africa she had never heard of: Tenerife.

There is always a moment before going into action when a sailor faces the prospect of death, convinced that this is his day to
succumb
. Pessimism abounds at the moment of composition, when it is easy to conjure up images of those you love and cherish: family, friends, fellow officers, and seamen in a world in which you no longer exist. Nelson had written just such a letter off Portugal in February, and he was writing another off Tenerife in July. That
pessimism
, in Nelson’s experience, usually evaporated as soon as he turned his mind to more practical things. But not on this occasion! Not for the recently promoted and knighted Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson KB!

First mooted after the victory at Cape St Vincent by a junior admiral keen to enhance his already glowing reputation, the
operation
to take the island had been viewed with confidence. Tenerife lacked a full garrison; what forts it had were weak and under-gunned. Land a substantial force, take those forts and invest the main port of Santa Cruz, and it would only be a matter of time before the island fell, there being no hope of relief from Spain who had seen its Grand Fleet soundly beaten six months previously.

Surprise, a vital element of the plan, was lost when the weather turned against him: a strong gale allied to a foul current meant his frigate commanders couldn’t land their troops in the dark. The next
attempt involved landing forces in broad daylight while the line-
of-battle
ships pounded Santa Cruz. This was frustrated by a flat calm that had him wearing to and fro off the bay called the Lion’s Mouth, unable to aid the progress of Troubridge, who battered uselessly against the hillside forts until he was forced to withdraw, re-
embarking
his landing parties, weary and unsuccessful.

When proposed, Nelson’s latest plan, a direct attack on the town via the mole that protected the harbour, caused even his bravest subordinate to pale, making him wonder if it was a product of his vanity rather than sound tactical sense. With the success against the Grand Fleet he was loath to return to Admiral Jervis, now Earl St Vincent, without a triumph under his belt. The last time he had seen him his irascible commander in chief had been up to his ears in the suppression of mutiny, the tidewash of the insurrections at Spithead and the Nore, which had led to the unpleasantness of two hangings.

Nelson was glad to be away from that, an impossible
conundrum
. He sympathised with the sailors’ demands while at the same time deploring the methods chosen to effect change. And in a fleet at sea, which might face battle at any time, sentiment had to take second place to the maintenance of efficiency. He hoped another resounding success would do more to stifle discontent in the fleet than any number of yardarm ropes.

“Gentlemen, I shall lead this attack. Please be assured that my desire to do so has no bearing on the conduct of any officer in this room. I think you know my character, and will readily understand that I find it ten times closer to hell to be a mere observer, rather than a participant.”

The numerous nodding heads reassured him. There would be no jealousies, but he would have been cheered by more smiles. “I intend to anchor off the town and give every indication of my
intention
to bombard. Conscious of the difficulties, and not wishing to keep his troops under heavy cannon fire, the Spanish commander must assume another landing and I hope will reinforce his forts, thus denuding the town. In darkness complete, which at this time
of year will be close to midnight, we will take to the boats and secure the mole. From there we will attack and take Santa Cruz, manning the walls on the landward side to repel any attempt at a counter attack.”

Plans for timing, numbers to be employed, which boats to take which parties, marines or sailors, signals, both to advance and retire, used up most of the afternoon, so that when the captains left to return to their own ships it was time to stand into the bay. Now it was dark in his great cabin and, with all his affairs in order, Nelson took his sword and pistols from Tom Allen and went on deck. His sight, once it was accustomed to darkness illuminated by stars, alighted on an officer preparing to board one of the boats.

“Lieutenant Nisbet, a word, if you please?”

“Sir?”

“Do I observe by your dress that you are about to embark?”

“I am, sir.”

“You know that I lead the attack?”

“I look forward to the honour of accompanying you, sir.”

“Josh, what if we were both to fall? What would become of your poor mother? The care of this ship is yours. Stay, therefore, and take charge of her.”

“
Theseus
must take care of itself. I’ll go with you tonight if never again.”

“I cannot insist,” Nelson responded softly, but sadly, hiding his foreboding. “Not for an answer I myself would have given.”

He could feel the wind on his face, and the swell lifting and dropping the ship under his feet, neither a good omen for what would be a difficult task even on a calm windless night. At least the Spanish governor had fallen for his ploy. They had observed a great number of men departing Santa Cruz for the forts, lessening the numbers he and his men would have to face.

Troubridge and Waller would be embarking the left flank party from
Culloden
. Captains Freemantle, Thompson, and Bowen would join him in the central division once he was in the boats from
Theseus
, and young Sam Hood and his own flag captain, Ralph
Millar, would take the right. Movement was always preferable to being stationary: better to worry about keeping your footing when getting into a boat than standing on the deck thinking of the ball from musket or cannon that might kill you.

The slight swell on the 74-gun
Theseus
was more telling once he had lowered himself in to the ship’s cutter. That and the tide had the boat crews hauling like madmen just to get them inshore, their efforts not aided by the way the boats were lashed together to ensure they maintained cohesion. Off to the left firing broke out where he perceived the head of the mole to be, though he could not be
certain
of his own heading, a sharp fight with muskets, the yells of hand combat floating on the wind. Suddenly rockets shot up from behind the arc of the mole, illuminating the stone structure,
showing
in the harbour behind it several vessels warped right into the beach, as far away as possible from any impending harm.

“Señor Guiterrez is expecting us,” Nelson called, naming the Spanish governor. “Let us hope he has laid out a decent table for our breakfast.”

It was a feeble joke, but enough to make his men laugh, even those who, by the light of the rockets, could see that they were now within gunshot range.

“Cast off,” he shouted, adding, as soon as the cutter was free of its rope, “pull like the devil, give a hurrah to let them know we’re coming, and when you get ashore remember your orders. All
parties
to make for the main square and wait.”

The water before them was suddenly full of canister and grapeshot, each small ball tearing up its own patch of seawater, so heavy that it looked as though nothing could live through it. Off to his right the boats led by Captain Freemantle had already made the mole and were clambering on to the stonework, engaging
defenders
. Nelson’s blood was racing, as it always did when he was going into action. The thoughts he had harboured in his cabin, that this was an action from which he would probably not return, were
suppressed
by the sheer excitement that animated him.

Crunching on to the soft ground that lay at the foot of the
harbour mole, he was first out of the boat, the sword that had served his ancestor, Captain Gadifrus Walpole, held out to lead the charge. And charge they did, his men, screaming obscenities, firing pistols and muskets, clubbing, stabbing, jabbing with pikes, driving back the strong defence. Nelson, seeking to get everyone on to dry land, was waving his sword, yelling to cheer on his fighters, one eye
noting
that Josiah was fighting like a demon.

Then he felt himself spun round so hard he nearly fell to the ground, the sword knocked from his hand by the blow. His
reaction
, to pick it up with his left hand, was automatic, taken before he realised that his elbow was smashed and that his right arm was hanging at an odd angle. He felt no pain, just the shock of
recognising
the wound and watching his own blood pump from his arm to stain the stonework, and glisten in the light from the rockets fired by the defenders. Then he fell to his knees, aware that he was going to die.

“Father,” said Josiah, taking his upper arm in a tight grip.

That word opened his eyes, the silhouette of his stepson
outlined
against the rocket-lit sky. Nelson wanted to say to him, “You have never called me that until now and I had wanted so much to hear it these last twelve years.” But he couldn’t. Instead he asked, “How goes the fight?”

“Well …” Josiah said evasively, knowing that all along the mole, even though they had carried it, the British assault was on the defensive from a strong counter-attack launched from the town. Cannons were firing from the streets that led down to the port, while at both ends guns were still in Spanish hands, playing on the flanks of the assault. “We must get you to a surgeon.”

“Take the town, forget me.”

“To me, Theseus,” Josiah shouted, a call that was immediately acknowledged by half a dozen voices. “The Admiral is shot in the arm. Get him down to a boat.”

The pain came as they raised him, so acute that he nearly passed out, but they lowered him on to the thin strand of beach, Josiah holding his arm to slow the blood flow. Then they lifted and laid
him in the bottom of the boat. A rocket obliged with a strong light overhead, and that showed how much blood he was losing.

“A tourniquet,” Josiah demanded.

One of the men pulled off his shirt and, completely ignoring the balls whizzing past his ears, tore it and wrapped one sleeve round Nelson’s arm as a tourniquet, the remainder being fashioned into a sling.

“I thank you, Lovell,” Nelson hissed, recognising a man who had served him on three ships. “Should I expire take a shirt from my cabin, the best you can find.”

“You’se going to be all right, your honour, don’t you fret.”

“Mr Nisbet, now that Lovell has given up his shirt, do not let the purser dock his pay warrant.”

Nelson heard those words, but no one else did. They were too busy heaving the boat off the sand so that it would float, grunting and cursing as they rocked and pushed.

“Man the oars,” Josiah said, as they got it into the sea. “Set me a course to go under those guns. We must make dark water.”

Nelson was in a state of suspended animation. Yet he was
com
pos
mentis
enough to admire Josiah’s thinking. To row straight out to sea, with the sky still illuminated, was to invite every cannon left on the mole to take a shot at them. Josiah had them row under those very guns, so close they could not depress enough to reach, aware that their attention would be concentrated on what they could see far off, not at the water twenty feet below them. Once out of the arc of light, he put down the tiller and headed out to sea, before handing it over to another so that he could attend to his stepfather.

“How fare you?”