NELSON AND THE NILE.
The first day of August in the year of our Lord 1798 is a day to be long
remembered by every Briton with a piece of constitution in him. For on
that day our glorious navy, under the immortal Nelson, administered to
the Frenchmen, under Admiral Brewer, as pure and perfect a lathering as
is to be found in all history. This I never should venture to put upon
my own authority (especially after the prominent part assigned therein
by Providence to a humble individual who came from Newton-Nottage), for
with history I have no patience at all, because it always contradicts
the very things I have seen and known: but I am bound to believe a man
of such high principles and deep reading as Master Roger Berkrolles. And
he tells me that I have helped to produce the greatest of all great
victories.
Be that one way or the other, I can tell you every word concerning how
we managed it; and you need not for one moment think me capable of
prejudice. Quite the contrary, I assure you. There could not have been
in the British fleet any man more determined to do justice to all
Crappos, than a thoroughly ancient navigator, now master of the Goliath.
We knew exactly what to do, every Captain, every Master, every
quarter-master; even the powder-monkeys had their proper work laid out
for them. The spirit of Nelson ran through us all; and our hearts caught
fire from his heart. From the moment of our first glimpse at the
Frenchmen spread out in that tempting manner, beautifully moored and
riding in a long fine head and stern, every old seaman among us began to
count on his fingers prize-money. They thought that we would not fight
that night, for the sun was low when we found them; and with their
perpetual conceit, they were hard at work taking water in. I shall never
forget how beautiful these ships looked, and how peaceful. A French ship
always sits the water with an elegant quickness, like a Frenchwoman at
the looking-glass. And though we brought the evening breeze in very
briskly with us, there was hardly swell enough in the bay to make them
play their hawsers. Many fine things have I seen, and therefore know
pretty well how to look at them, which a man never can do upon the
first or even the second occasion. But it was worth any man's while to
live to the age of threescore years and eight, with a sound mind in a
sound body, and eyes almost as good as ever, if there were nothing for
it more than to see what I saw at this moment. Six-and-twenty ships of
the line, thirteen bearing the tricolor, and riding cleared for action,
the other thirteen with the red cross flying, the cross of St George on
the ground of white, and tossing the blue water from their stems under
pressure of canvass. Onward rushed our British ships, as if every one of
them was alive, and driven out of all patience by the wicked escapes of
the enemy. Twelve hundred leagues of chase had they cost us, ingratitude
towards God every night, and love of the devil at morning, with dread of
our country for ever prevailing, and mistrust of our own good selves.
And now at last we had got them tight; and mean we did to keep them.
Captain Foley came up to me as I stood on the ratlines to hear the
report of the men in the starboard fore-chains; and his fine open face
was clouded. "Master," he said, "how much more of this? Damn your
soundings. Can't you see that the Zealous is drawing ahead of us? Hood
has nobody in the chains. If you can't take the ship into action, I
will. Stand by there to set top-gallant-sails."
These had been taken in, scarce five minutes agone, as prudence
demanded, for none of us had any chart of the bay; and even I knew
little about it, except that there was a great shoal of rock betwixt
Aboukir island and the van ship of the enemy. And but for my warning, we
might have followed the two French brigs appointed to decoy us in that
direction. Now, having filled top-gallant-sails, we rapidly headed our
rival the Zealous, in spite of all that she could do; and we had the
honour of receiving the first shot of the enemy. For now we were rushing
in, stern on, having formed line of battle, towards the van of the
anchored Frenchmen.
Now as to what followed, and the brilliant idea which occurred to
somebody to turn the enemy's line and take them on the larboard or inner
side (on which they were quite unprepared for attack), no two
authorities are quite agreed, simply because they all are wrong. Some
attribute this grand manœuvre to our great Admiral Nelson, others to
Captain Hood of the Zealous, and others to our Captain Foley. This
latter is nearest the mark; but from whom did Captain Foley obtain the
hint? Modesty forbids me to say what Welshman it was who devised this
noble and most decisive stratagem, while patriotic duty compels me to
say that it was a Welshman, and more than that a Glamorganshire man,
born in a favoured part of the quiet village of N--N--. Enough, unless I
add that internal evidence will convince any unprejudiced person that
none but an ancient fisherman, and thorough-going long-shore-man, could
by any possibility have smelled out his way so cleverly.
Our great Admiral saw, with his usual insight into Frenchmen, that if
they remained at anchor we were sure to man their capstans. For Crappos
fight well enough with a rush, but unsteadily when at a standstill, and
worst of all when taken by surprise and outmanœuvred. And the manner in
which the British fleet advanced was enough to strike them cold by its
majesty and its awfulness. For in perfect silence we were gliding over
the dark-blue sea, with the stately height of the white sails shining,
and the sky behind us full of solemn yellow sunset. Even we, so sure of
conquest, and so nerved with stern delight, could not gaze on the things
around us, and the work before us, without for a moment wondering
whether the Lord in heaven looked down at us.
At any rate we obeyed to the letter the orders both of our Admiral and
of a man scarcely less remarkable. "Let not the sun go down on your
wrath," are the very words of St Paul, I believe; and we never fired a
shot until there was no sun left to look at it. I stood by the men at
the wheel myself, and laid my own hand to it: for it was a matter of
very fine steerage, to run in ahead of the French line, ware soundings,
and then bear up on their larboard bow, to deliver a thorough good
raking broadside. I remember looking over my left shoulder after we bore
up our helm a-weather, while crossing the bows of the Carrier (as the
foremost enemy's ship was called), and there was the last limb of the
sun like the hoof of a horse disappearing. And my own head nearly went
with it, as the wind of a round-shot knocked me over. "Bear up, bear up,
lads," cried Captain Foley, "our time has come at last, my boys! Well
done Llewellyn! A finer sample of conning and steerage was never seen.
Let go the best bower. Pass the word. Ready at quarters all of you. Now
she bears clear fore and aft. Damn their eyes, let them have it."
Out rang the whole of our larboard battery, almost like a single gun; a
finer thing was never seen; and before the ring passed into a roar, the
yell of Frenchmen came through the smoke. Masts and spars flew right
and left with the bones of men among them, and the sea began to hiss and
heave, and the ships to reel and tremble, and the roar of a mad volcano
rose, and nothing kept either shape or tenor, except the faces of brave
men.
Every ship in our fleet was prepared to anchor by the stern, so as to
spring our broadsides aright; but the anchor of the Goliath did not bite
so soon as it should have done, so that we ran past the Carrier, and
brought up on the larboard quarter of the second French 74, with a
frigate and a brig of war to employ a few of our starboard guns. By this
time the rapid darkness fell, and we fought by the light of our own
guns. And now the skill of our Admiral and his great ideas were
manifest, for every French ship had two English upon it, and some of
them even three at a time. In a word, we began with the head of their
line, and crushed it, and so on joint by joint, ere even the centre and
much more the tail could fetch their way up to take part in it. Our
antagonist was the first that struck, being the second of the
Frenchman's line, and by name the Conquer-ant. But she found in Captain
Foley and David Llewellyn an ant a little too clever to conquer. We were
a good deal knocked about, with most of our main rigging shot away, and
all our masts heavily wounded. Nevertheless we drew ahead, to double
upon the third French ship, of the wonderful name of Sparticipate.
From this ship I received a shot, which, but for the mercy of the Lord,
must have made a perfect end of me. That my end may be perfect has long
been my wish, and the tenor of my life leads up to it. Nevertheless, who
am I to deny that I was not ready for the final finish at that very
moment? And now, at this time of writing, I find myself ready to wait a
bit longer. What I mean was a chain-shot sailing along, rather slowly as
they always do; and yet so fast that I could not either duck or jump at
sight of it, although there was light enough now for anything, with the
French Admiral on fire. Happening to be well satisfied with my state of
mind at that moment (not from congratulation, so much as from my inside
conscience), I now was beginning to fill a pipe, and to dwell upon
further manœuvres. For one of the foremost points of all, after
thoroughly drubbing the enemy, is to keep a fine self-control, and be
ready to go on with it.
No sooner had I filled this pipe, and taken a piece of wadding to light
it, which was burning handy (in spite of all my orders), than away went
a piece of me; and down went I, as dead as a Dutch herring. At least so
everybody thought, who had time to think about it; and "the Master's
dead" ran along the deck, so far as time was to tell of it. I must have
lain numb for an hour, I doubt, with the roar of the guns, and the
shaking of bulkheads, like a shiver, jarring me, and a pool of blood
curdling into me, and another poor fellow cast into the scuppers and
clutching at me in his groaning, when the heavens took fire in one red
blaze, and a thundering roar, that might rouse the dead, drowned all the
rolling battle-din. I saw the white looks of our crew all aghast, and
their bodies scared out of death's manufacture, by this triumph of
mortality; and the elbows of big fellows holding the linstock fell
quivering back to their shaken ribs. For the whole sky was blotched with
the corpses of men, like the stones of a crater cast upwards; and the
sheet of the fire behind them showed their knees and their bellies, and
streaming hair. Then with a hiss, like electric hail, from a mile's
height, all came down again, corpses first (being softer things), and
timbers next, and then the great spars that had streaked the sky like
rockets.
The violence of this matter so attracted my attention that I was enabled
to rally my wits, and lean on one elbow and look at it. And I do assure
you that anybody who happened to be out of sight of it, lost a finer
chance than ever he can have another prospect of. For a
hundred-and-twenty-gun ship had blown up, with an Admiral and
Rear-Admiral, not to mention a Commodore, and at least 700 complement.
And when the concussion was over, there fell the silence of death upon
all men. Not a gun was fired, nor an order given, except to man the
boats in hopes of saving some poor fellows.