Victory

Chapter 14

The feeling of unreality deepened. It seemed the eyes of half London were on them as L’Aurore lost way, carefully and precisely ceasing to move, her bows into the swift current of the Thames. Her anchor plunged as she eased into position astern of the vessel they had escorted from the open sea to the heart of the capital.

It was the Honourable George Grey’s yacht Chatham, on its most important mission ever: to take the body of Horatio, Lord Nelson, from Victory at the Nore to Greenwich, where it was to lie in state. Now, opposite the magnificence of Wren’s buildings, the final act was to take place that would see Nelson return from the sea to the land that had given him birth.

Captain Kydd signalled discreetly and the boatswain pealed out his call. Instantly men leaped for the ratlines and by the beat of a drum mounted each mast in unison, spreading out along the yardarms in grave silence, every man with a black armband.

On Chatham Nelson’s coffin was prepared for lowering into the ceremonial barge alongside. Of great size and superbly ornamented, it was made from the main-mast of L’Orient, the French flagship that had exploded into fiery oblivion at the Nile.

As it was hoisted clear of the deck, Kydd whipped off his full-dress cocked hat. The rest of the little party on the quarterdeck followed suit, and out on the yards far above, every man did likewise. Into the awful silence came the flat thud of the first minute gun and a spreading murmur from the vast crowds lining the riverbank.

Next to Kydd, captured enemy officers were nobly paying their respects. Standing apart from them, however, was a tall, deathly pale individual whose greatest wish – to die in his flagship where so many others had done so – had been denied him. It was the French commander, Villeneuve.

Kydd glanced at him. What conceivably could he be thinking at this time? He had done his duty and more, but he had had the monumental misfortune to have Horatio Nelson as his opponent. When he had left Cadiz he must have known what was waiting, yet still he had sailed.

And it had been far worse for him than even the most pessimistic could have foreseen. A battle of annihilation that had left the Combined Fleet shattered, sunk, captured or fleeing. Ten times the casualties that the English had suffered and a psychological wound that would last far longer. It was defeat on a heroic scale to be talked about for all of time.

In his frigate Kydd had necessarily stayed clear of the carnage but from his vantage-point he had seen the dread grandeur of the conflict unfold through to its finality when, as if to signal an end to the cataclysm, Achille had taken fire and exploded.

He had also been witness to the shameful act of the French van, appearing to be finally turning back in aid of the centre but instead careering on through the fighting, firing on friend and foe alike to flee the field. A dozen of the Spanish also had taken the opportunity to turn and run for Cadiz, no longer able to stand against the fury of the English guns.

But what he knew would for ever stay with him was what had followed after the guns had fallen silent, when he had closed with the mile square of wreck-strewn water off Cape Trafalgar: over there was Victory, no mizzen, her fore-mast and bowsprit a stump, trailing a tangle of stranded rigging and splintered spars. Belleisle was even worse: totally dismasted and a hulk, her sides appallingly battered by shot, yet her white ensign still gallantly flying, tied to the riven remains of her main-mast.

All told there were seventeen dismasted hulks from both sides drifting in the sea, along with the pathetic blobs of floating corpses, the stench of fire and the all-pervasive reek of powder-smoke. But for Kydd nothing was more poignant and shocking than the broken cry of a seaman noticing that Admiral Nelson’s flag no longer flew in Victory.

The news had taken hold and, when confirmed by the commander-in-chief’s flag rising first in Collingwood’s crippled Royal Sovereign and then in Euryalus, a pall of mourning had descended that touched every man.

Now, at Greenwich, they were still in a haze of disbelief and bereavement, the joy of victory invisible behind a curtain of grief. They stood motionless as the coffin was gently lowered, the officers’ heads bowed in the utmost solemnity.

Shortly after the barge had left, another arrived alongside L’Aurore. Villeneuve with great dignity bowed gravely, first to Kydd and then his officers, and entered the boat to be taken into captivity. For him it was a parole and gracious living, even an exchange to return to France; for the surviving seamen who had fought so heroically for him, it was the fetid hulks or prisons far inland – even the lonely desolation of the one being built on Dartmoor – to rot out their life, their only crime to have served their country faithfully.

Kydd had himself boarded and taken possession of a Spanish ship-of-the-line, and the cruel devastation that a raking pass had inflicted aboard had shaken him. More than a hundred and fifty seamen in one stroke killed or hideously wounded, their pain and suffering a living hell of unimaginable piteousness. Below decks they had found a charnel house of blood and remains, bodies still heaped by their guns, the racking groans of the maimed . . .

Yet the ship had fought on hopelessly until battered into helplessness by two British ships standing safely off.

‘Mr Kydd – sir?’ It was the anxious boatswain. ‘Sir, you’ve made y’r arrangements wi’ Sheerness dockyard about them larb’d fore-shrouds? Rare strained they was in the blow, an’ we has t’ renew ’em.’

‘Oh, er, they’ve been advised, Mr Oakley . . .’ The interchange sent his mind down another track to when the storm foretold by the heavy swell had finally struck.

The remainder of the day of the battle had been spent obeying Collingwood’s instructions to bring the fleet to order and to secure the prizes, taking the helpless in tow and trying to shape course for Gibraltar. Kydd had men away as prize crew and, with the rest, had had to manhandle messengers and heavy hawsers in the rising sea.

The dead weight of the heavy battleship in tow was a sore trial for the delicate-lined L’Aurore, and as darkness fell, it had turned into a nightmare, the jerking and surging straining her bitts and the increasing swell now abeam making sheer existence a misery. What it must have been like for the helpless wounded in the bowels of the capture was beyond imagining.

By morning the barometer had dropped precipitously a whole two inches and driving squalls of heavy rain made working aloft a slippery death-trap, and then as the bluster intensified, reefs had to be taken in by the depleted and exhausted crew.

The day wore on and they struggled south, but an inshore current of some strength was setting relentlessly to the north, destroying their gains even as the long hours passed.

The wind increased, white combers on the back of the great swell crashing with force on the ship’s side. In the afternoon breakers were sighted through the veils of rain – these were the treacherous sandbanks that ranged far out from the Spanish coast, exposed by the deep scend of the swell.

It got worse: a developing fresh gale, coupled with the relentless urging of the swell out of the west, was creating every mariner’s dread – a dead lee shore. Now the struggle was for survival, a desperate clawing off from the shoreline against the wind.

Night drew in, and with it torrential rain and a raging whole gale that screamed and moaned in the rigging as if the souls of the slain were haunting them. Two seamen were swept from the lower shrouds in a particularly savage roll. They disappeared into the white torn murk with no possible hope of rescue. Another two suffered injury before the terrible night was over.

Kydd shuddered. That, with the piteous sight of Fougueux driving ashore and breaking up on the shoals, her pitiful cargo of helpless wounded to perish in the pounding surf, would stay in stark clarity in his mind for ever.

Yet incredibly their time of trial had not been over: the violent squalls backed to the south-west during the night, and when morning came it brought a sight that was as unexpected as it was unthinkable.

From Cadiz an enemy heavy squadron of six battleships and more frigates were clawing their way out into the wild weather to renew the fight.

Caught scattered over the sea in battle-damaged ships and others with prizes, the British were in no condition to face a fresh engagement – but they did. Collingwood signalled his dispositions: those with prizes under tow would continue on while any that were able would close on him and confront the squadron.

With scraps of sail, jury-rigged masts and men dropping with fatigue, they went for the enemy, and where their ships were in such desperate condition they made up for it by consummate seamanship and transparent resolution. The squadron turned about and retreated on Cadiz, their honour satisfied with the retaking of a couple of the worst-damaged prizes.

The weather clamped in yet again, intense white squalls under dark grey-green clouds slashed with lightning, visibility dangerously impaired time and again so close to the reefs and banks of Trafalgar. It hammered at the worn ships for days.

The prizes were now a liability – not only that but if the weather moderated there was every chance of an even bigger sortie by the emboldened Spanish. Reluctantly, Collingwood gave the order to abandon them, but this brought problems of its own for each prize had to be cleared of its pitiful cargo of wounded and others in numbers quite capable of a rising to seize a small frigate. It took adroit boatwork to transfer the prisoners and find somewhere for them.

When it was over L’Aurore was packed with suffering humanity and sullen captives – but they were now making headway south. Slowly but surely the victorious, grief-stricken, mutilated but ultimately triumphant fleet crept over the seas to Gibraltar.

There, the worst afflicted were brought alongside the mole and at last the casualties found rest – or burial in the little graveyard.

Kydd quietly went aboard Victory, her ship’s company and the small dockyard labouring to fit her for the final voyage home. He was met by Bowden, who gravely took him to see the gaping wounds she had suffered, his own place of trial, and then below to where their commander-in-chief had breathed his last.

Admiral Collingwood had earlier sent his dispatches home in the little Pickle schooner but the Mediterranean Squadron would remain at its post. No glorious homecoming for the ships that had fought the greatest battle in all sea history, they would be repaired and ordered out again to stand once more as England’s enduring shield.

Except HMS Victory. She would be sent home bearing the body of Lord Nelson – escorted by the smallest frigate that Collingwood could spare.

The tinny sound of a distant band intruded into Kydd’s thoughts and brought him back to the present. The ceremonial barge had reached the embankment where Lord Hood was standing and, amid the melancholy strains of the Dead March from Saul, the coffin was prepared for lifting.

It was done. Kydd clapped his hat on and turned, meeting the solemn eyes of his officers. ‘Carry on, please,’ he said, and went below to his cabin.

It was over. The world was now a different place. The ‘Great Fear’ that had seized England since Bonaparte had set in motion his invasion plan was now lifted from northern sheep-herders, midland ironmasters and the powerful financiers in the City of London.

What lay ahead? Had the tide turned or were endless years of conflict still to come until one or the other triumphed?

And the Royal Navy without Horatio Nelson. It was beyond conceiving, the absence of such a figure at the summit of the profession beckoning each and every man to deeds of valour and standards of conduct that had forged a weapon of the sea that stood so far in advance of every other.

The pricking of a tear caught him unawares. He had seen common seamen weeping at the news, officers making their excuses, but he had known the man himself, the warmth, iron strength and utter devotion to duty, and to think . . .

He blinked furiously, trying to hold back. It was by Nelson’s own act that he had been plucked as an unemployed commander and sent to the heights of glory that was post-captaincy. What had Nelson seen in him? Whatever it was, he had been sent for to join the illustrious band – he, Thomas Kydd, whose origins were as a pressed man, to know for ever that he had once been part of—

He couldn’t help it. The tears coursed down and sobs shook him. Then he felt an arm round his shoulders, tender, understanding. ‘It’s victory, Nicholas, but at such a cost . . .’

‘Dear fellow, in truth my grief is as yours – but nothing is surer than that Horatio Nelson’s memory will ever be immortal.’