to 'the Team' off Brest, as the big ship division of Cornwallis's
main fleet was familiarly called in the Navy. There was more to do
and see off Brest, perhaps, but the life there was no less hard and
toilsome. The three-deckers cruised by themselves outside Ushant,
patrolling night and day; keeping far out to seaward when the wind was
from the west, and, as the standing order ran, 'well up with Ushant in
an easterly wind.' Off Black Rocks, between Ushant and the mainland,
cruised four or six two-deckers, the 'Inshore Squadron'; while close
in, off the mouth of Brest Harbour itself, just out of gunshot of the
shore batteries, watching every move in the French fleet as it lay at
anchor in the roadstead, were frigates and cutters on the look-out.
Every day they expected the enemy to leave port, but, as it had been
off Rochefort, in vain.
Then the winter storms set in, hard gales continuously and squally
weather. Twice during October severe storms from the south-west
compelled Cornwallis to stand off the coast and bear up for Torbay: to
lie there with the 'Blue Peter' at the fore, and not a soul allowed
on shore, until at the first sign of the wind shifting anchors were
weighed for Brest again. In November a rough north-easter drove part of
the fleet off the station many leagues out into the Atlantic. The rest
found shelter on the enemy's own coast, in Douarnenez Bay, less than
twenty miles from Brest, and rode the storm out there. 'It is with
great satisfaction,' says the _Times_ of the 16th of November 1804, 'we
understand that our fleet off Brest, has withstood the violent gales
which have of late prevailed, and continues to maintain that vigilant
position, which, we trust, will effectually obstruct the designs of the
enemy.'[88] December and the January of the New Year (1805) brought
worse weather still, a succession of fierce gales--'it blows harder
than ever we remember,' wrote the _Naval Chronicle's_ Portsmouth
correspondent in January--that crippled half the fleet and forced
Cornwallis to spend all February and half March repairing damages in
Torbay. Seven of the big ships, leaking seriously, with hulls strained,
gear swept overboard, masts sprung, spars carried away, had to go into
dock at Plymouth, among them the _Téméraire_, whose repairs took two
months to make good.
[Illustration: CAMP OF THE GRAND ARMY AT BOULOGNE, 1804
From a sketch by a British naval officer in the blockading squadron.
[The tents north of the harbour (to the reader's left) belong to
Vandamme's Division of Marshal Soult's Army Corps (the 4th). Those to
the south belong to an outlying brigade of Marshal Ney's Corps (the
6th). The camp inland is that of Suchet's and St. Hilaire's Divisions
of Soult's Corps. Napoleon's headquarters were near Mont Lambert, the
hill crowned by a signal station. In the centre of the sketch are seen
the masts of the 'Invasion Flotilla' behind a breakwater mounting heavy
guns.]]
She rejoined the flag off Brest in April, just as the startling news
came to hand that the French Toulon Fleet had appeared off Cadiz,
joined hands with the Spanish Fleet there and gone off westward. Their
destination was unknown and there was no news of Lord Nelson. All that
month of May the _Téméraire_ and her consorts off Brest held themselves
ready to clear for action at the shortest notice, daily expecting the
sails of Admiral Villeneuve's fleet to appear on the horizon to the
south-west. As if awaiting Villeneuve's arrival, also, the whole of the
Brest fleet had come out of harbour and was riding at single anchor,
twenty-one sail of the line completely equipped for sea, under the
cliff batteries of Bertheaume Bay. The British fleet off Brest for the
moment could only muster seventeen sail. In England, meanwhile, the
newspapers were full of accounts of how the Grand Army at Boulogne,
now vauntingly styled _l'Armée d'Angleterre_, was duly holding
embarkation and landing parades and drills on the sea-shore under the
eyes of Soult and Ney. At the end of the month intelligence arrived
that Villeneuve was in the West Indies, and that Nelson had gone in
pursuit of him. June passed in waiting for information of Villeneuve's
return to Europe, the Channel Fleet being continuously reinforced from
England, which enabled Collingwood and a 'Special Service' squadron
to be detached to keep guard off Cadiz and the Straits of Gibraltar.
On the 11th of July came the news that Villeneuve had been sighted in
Mid-Atlantic, homeward bound; after which, a fortnight later, came the
further news that Admiral Calder had had an indecisive battle with the
enemy off Cape Finisterre, and that Villeneuve had put into Ferrol.
Calder himself rejoined Cornwallis a few days afterwards, and then
Nelson came in with his fleet.
Cornwallis, from the ships now at his disposal, immediately made up
a new fleet of eighteen sail of the line to blockade Villeneuve in
Ferrol. It was placed under Calder's orders and sent off on the 16th
of August. The _Téméraire_ sailed with Calder, and so the story of her
service with the 'Western Squadron' ends.
Before they arrived off Ferrol they heard from a frigate that
Villeneuve had left the port. He had put to sea as though intending to
cross the Bay of Biscay direct to Brest, but when two days out, had
suddenly, for some unfathomable reason of his own, gone about and stood
southward. Whither he was bound could only be guessed, but Calder's
orders were to follow the French wherever they might go, and he made
for the Straits of Gibraltar under all sail.
Did he pass over a certain spot, some ninety miles north-west of Cape
Finisterre, where a mass of frigate wreckage and splinters and jagged
chips was floating about--like the ring of fluttered feathers that one
sometimes sees at the corner of a wood on an autumn afternoon telling
how a sparrow-hawk has passed that way? That flotsam off Finisterre,
could it have spoken, would have told a tale; the story of the incident
on which the campaign of Trafalgar hinged:--_why_ Admiral Villeneuve
had gone south instead of north.[89]
Off Cadiz Calder found Collingwood with half a dozen ships, and learned
that the French were refitting in that port. Collingwood had had the
narrowest of narrow escapes of being cut off and overpowered by the
enemy's sudden appearance off Cadiz,[90] but he had cleverly got out of
their way in the nick of time, and was now 'observing' them, making
believe by sham signals every day that he was in touch with a large
British fleet in the offing. Collingwood as the senior officer took
Calder under his orders, and the united forces continued to watch Cadiz
until at the end of September Lord Nelson himself arrived from England
to take the supreme command.
For three weeks, as we all know, Nelson kept watch and ward over the
enemy in Cadiz, until on the morning of Saturday the 19th of October
his look-out frigates off the mouth of Cadiz harbour at last made the
longed-for signal that the combined fleet was coming out of port.
They began to come out between seven and eight o'clock on Saturday
morning, and from that time until the two fleets were in presence of
each other off Cape Trafalgar on Monday morning, every move the enemy
made was signalled to Nelson, lying out of sight from Cadiz, off
Cape St Mary, by flag signals passed along a chain of ships in the
day-time, and with rockets and blue lights and the firing of guns
at night. 'For two days,' writes Midshipman Hercules Robinson of the
frigate _Euryalus_, Captain Blackwood's ship, in charge of the look-out
squadron, 'there was not a movement that we did not communicate, till
I thought that Blackwood, who gave the orders, and Bruce our signal
mid, and Soper our signal man who executed them, must have died of
it; and when we had brought the two fleets fairly together we took
our place between the two lines of lights, as a cab might in Regent
Street, the watch was called and Blackwood turned in quietly to wait
for the morning.'[91] So close to the enemy did the _Euryalus_ keep all
Sunday night that, in the words of one of the men on board (a marine
named Pearce) in a letter home, 'their lights looked like a street well
lighted up.'
Monday was Trafalgar Day. The enemy when first sighted from the British
Fleet at daybreak were about eleven or twelve miles off, 'a forest
of masts to leeward,' as one officer described them, standing along
the coast towards the Straits of Gibraltar. Nelson at once headed
eastward, straight for them:--'ere it was well light the signals were
flying through the fleet to bear up and form the order of sailing in
two columns.' Then, immediately after that, up went the flags 'Prepare
for battle,' Signal No. 13, and in response throughout the fleet, the
drums on board every ship at once struck up the stirring old war-beat
of the Navy, 'Hearts of Oak'--
Come cheer up, my lads, 'tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year.
By seven o'clock every ship in the fleet had been cleared for action
and all were ready for the enemy. A quarter of an hour was sufficient
to clear for action on board a smart ship in 'Eighteen hundred and
War time,' as our grandfathers called the days when the 'Fighting'
_Téméraire_ was at sea.
So admirably had Nelson organised his fleet and arranged things
beforehand that three signals were all that he needed to make to set
the day's work in train. At twenty minutes to seven the _Victory_
signalled--'Form the order of sailing in two columns.' Then, a moment
later, up went 'No. 13,'--the fighting flags--two flags, the upper one
comprising three horizontal bands, yellow, red, yellow; the lower,
three vertical bands, blue, white, blue--'Prepare for battle.' Ten
minutes later another signal went up--'Bear up and sail large on the
course steered by the Admiral.' The whole fleet on that headed directly
for the enemy under all sail. These three signals were all that were
necessary for the tactics of the battle, and all that Nelson made. What
other signals were made from the _Victory_ during the day, until after
the fight had been won, dealt with subsidiary points and were merely
incidental.
Here is the opening entry for the day in the _Téméraire's_ log. 'At
daylight saw the enemy's fleet in the S.E. Cleared ship for action and
made all sail. Light airs. Standing for the enemy.'
At eight o'clock all hands throughout the fleet were piped to
breakfast. 'The officers,' we are told by one of them, 'now met at
breakfast, and though each seemed to exult in the hope of a glorious
termination to the contest so near at hand, a fearful presage was
experienced that all would not again unite at that festive board.' More
than one seemed 'particularly impressed with a persuasion that he would
not survive the day.... The sound of the drum, however, soon put an end
to our meditations; and, after a hasty, and, alas, a final farewell to
some, we repaired to our respective posts.'[92]
All on board now went to quarters, to their stations for the battle;
the cooks' fires were put out, and the magazines opened and powder sent
up to the guns.
At nine o'clock the two fleets were about six miles apart. It was a
gloriously fine morning, with the sky almost cloudless. A light breeze
blew from the north-west, before which, with every sail set, the fleet
bore down towards the enemy, the ships lifting on the swell as the long
surging rollers from the ocean bore them forward.
At this point we may for one moment glance across at the enemy and see
how they on their side have been faring. With the Combined Fleet,[93]
as it happened, the situation was by no means promising. The coming
event was already casting its shadow before. Things had already
begun to shape themselves awkwardly. Admiral Villeneuve had found it
advisable to go about, and the Combined Franco-Spanish Fleet was now
standing northward, heading back towards Cadiz, and forming into line
of battle as they went along. The sight of the British fleet that
morning had been an unpleasant surprise for Admiral Villeneuve. His
look-out ships on the previous evening had reported the British fleet
to him as not more than eighteen sail of the line, and to leeward.
There were now in sight,--he could see them with his own eyes--upwards
of ten sail of the line, including several three-deckers, more than
that. Also--what weighed even more with Admiral Villeneuve--they were
to windward of him. That meant that a stronger force than Villeneuve
cared to meet was within striking distance of him and had the weather
gage. Whether he went on or whether he went back, he would have to
fight. He had cast the die. He had crossed the Rubicon.
'Twas vain to seek retreat and vain to fear,
Himself had challenged and the foe drew near.
As the best thing, if not indeed the only thing he could do in the
circumstances, he decided to turn back and make for Cadiz. If he could
not avoid a battle, he trusted to be able to get sufficiently near
Cadiz to have the port open to him after the battle, for his damaged
ships or as a place of general refuge should things go wrong.
With such thoughts in his mind, Villeneuve, just about the time that
Nelson was sitting down to breakfast, issued orders for the Combined
Fleet to go about, every ship independently, and form in line of
battle on the port tack, with half a cable interval between ships.
They were still in the middle of the manoeuvre at nine o'clock. It
was not till after ten o'clock that anything approaching the line of
battle as ordered had been formed, and then hardly half-a-dozen ships
were in station. All the enemy's efforts, at the end of two hours,
resulted in the formation of a crescent or bow-shaped array of ships,
sagging in the centre away to leeward like a slack cord, with the ships
distributed irregularly along its length, here in single file and with
wide gaps between, there in two's and three's. As things turned out
this malformation proved ideal for the occasion; but it was entirely by
chance.
It has been said, indeed, that Admiral Villeneuve had already begun to
anticipate defeat. As he took in the grouping and disposition of the
British fleet, the double column of attack and how the leaders were
pointing, there broke from his lips, we are told, an exclamation of
blank dismay. Before a shot was fired Villeneuve had already admitted
himself beaten. There was no precedent known to him for a battle
formation such as Nelson was adopting.[94] There was nothing like it in
Paul Hoste, nothing like it in the pages of De Morogues or Ramatuelle.
No text-book could help him, and to improvise a new order of battle
for himself on the spur of the moment was beyond Admiral Villeneuve's
capacity. Practically he could only await events and meet an absolutely
new form of attack, specially devised for the occasion by the greatest
master of the art of naval war that ever lived, with an order of battle
that was not new in the days of the Grand Monarque, with tactics such
as Tourville had employed at La Hogue. It was like the Prussian
General Rüchel at Jena opposing Napoleon with the tactics of Frederick
at Kolin; attempting to foil Ney and Murat by giving the order 'Right
shoulders up.'
There were on the Franco-Spanish side thirty-three ships (eighteen
French and fifteen Spanish); in the British fleet twenty-seven.
Nelson's plan of battle at the outset, as we shall presently see,
reversed the odds and turned them into odds in his own favour,
of twenty-seven against twenty-three. That is, the odds reckoned
numerically, by counting ships. The average British ship of the line in
1805 could fire three broadsides while a French ship was firing two,
which vastly increased the odds in Nelson's favour. The British fleet
came on in two columns; one (Nelson's own) comprising twelve ships;
the other (Collingwood's column) of fifteen. Nelson's plan of battle
was for Collingwood to break the enemy's line at about a third of its
length from the rear, and hold fast in close action the ships cut off.
He himself, after that, would break through the remaining two-thirds of
the Franco-Spanish line midway, and fall on the enemy's centre, joining
hands with Collingwood. With the wind as it then was, a little to the
north of west, the ten ships of the enemy's van squadron would be cut
off by these tactics and thrust to leeward, out of the battle. They
would have to work up round laboriously against the wind before they
could get to the aid of their consorts, a business that must take a
considerable time. Meanwhile the whole force of the British fleet would
have been brought to bear on two-thirds of the enemy with, as Nelson
confidently trusted, decisive results.
Throughout the British fleet the men were in the highest spirits, eager
and ready for the fray, and at the same time cool and confident. 'As we
neared the French fleet,' an officer in the _Ajax_ relates,[95] 'I was
sent below with orders, and was much struck with the preparations made
by the bluejackets, the majority of whom were stripped to the waist;
a handkerchief was tightly bound round their heads and over the ears,
to deaden the noise of the cannon, many men being deaf for days after
an action. The men were variously occupied; some were sharpening their
cutlasses, others polishing the guns, as though an inspection were
about to take place instead of a mortal combat, whilst three or four,
as if in mere bravado, were dancing a horn-pipe; but all seemed deeply
anxious to come to close quarters with the enemy. Occasionally they
would look out of the ports, and speculate as to the various ships of
the enemy, many of which had been on former occasions engaged by our
vessels.' Elsewhere, we are told, the men kept pointing out various
ships in the Franco-Spanish line, as seen through the open ports, and
calling to one another, 'What a fine sight them ships will make at
Spithead!' Particularly keen was every man that his ship should if
possible get alongside the huge Spanish four-decker which all could
see, near the centre of the enemy's fleet, the _Santisima Trinidad_. On
board the _Bellerophon_, one of Collingwood's leading ships, the men at
quarters on the main deck chalked '_Billy Ruff'n_, Victory or Death' on
their guns.[96]
How keen was the rivalry among the ships at the head of Nelson's
line, as the morning advanced, is shown by two incidents in which the
_Neptune_--a 98-gun three-decker like the _Téméraire_, the ship next in
the line to her--and the _Téméraire_ herself, both figured.
The _Téméraire_ had the post of honour in Nelson's line, that of
'second,' or chief supporter to the _Victory_, but the _Neptune_ had
gradually drawn up level with her. Not content with that, the _Neptune_
began to edge past the _Téméraire_, until, forging ahead, she had come
up alongside the flagship herself. Indeed, it appeared as though she
was ambitious of passing ahead of the _Victory_, and leading Nelson
into the battle. The Admiral himself stopped her. Nelson at the moment
that the _Neptune_ began to draw up level with the _Victory_, happened
to be in the stern gallery leading out of his cabin, observing how the
rear ships of the fleet were coming on. He saw what was taking place,
and at once hailed the _Neptune_. '_Neptune_ there,' he called out in a
sharp, rasping tone, 'take in your stu'ns'ls and drop astarn. I shall
break the line myself!'[97] The _Neptune_ had to comply forthwith, and
on her falling back the _Téméraire_ pushed up and resumed her allotted
berth as the ship next to the _Victory_.
Then came the incident that specially concerned the _Téméraire_. A
little time after the _Neptune_ had resumed her station the _Téméraire_
was herself hailed from the _Victory_ and ordered to pass the flagship
and lead the line. Captain Blackwood of the _Euryalus_, who with the
other frigate captains was on board the flagship, in his anxiety for
Nelson's personal safety that day, on having his first suggestion that
Nelson should direct the battle from on board the _Euryalus_ set aside
by the admiral, next suggested that the _Téméraire_ should be allowed
to lead the _Victory_ into battle, to help in drawing off some of the
enemy's fire. The enemy's fire, urged Blackwood, would be certain to
fall with exceptional severity on the leader of the line, particularly
when the leading ship was so easily recognisable a vessel as the
British flagship. Nelson assented--or seemed to assent. 'Oh yes,' the
admiral answered, with a significant smile and giving a look towards
Captain Hardy, 'let her go ahead--if she _can_!' Blackwood went aft and
himself hailed the _Téméraire_ to move up, and she was also signalled
to do so.
The hail was heard. Blackwood had a voice about which a number of good
stories used to be told in the Navy. 'It could,' one of his officers
once said, 'carry half a mile.'
At once the _Téméraire_ made every effort to press forward. She was,
as the sailors said, 'flying light' that day; having been away from
port for some time she was carrying less dead-weight than usual, most
of her sea-stores and heavy casks of beef and water having been used
up. Fast sailer as the _Victory_ was--she was admittedly the fastest
three-decker in all the Royal Navy--the _Téméraire_ before long began
to close on the flagship and overlap her, by degrees working up closer
to the _Victory_, and finally racing her side by side, almost abreast.
It was a grand moment for Captain Harvey and his gallant _Téméraires_.
But the goal was not yet won.
Nelson's mood had yet to be taken into account, and Nelson was in no
humour to see his flagship passed. No ship in the world should give
the _Victory_ a lead on the day of battle. As the _Téméraire_ sheered
alongside, the admiral stepped up briskly to the _Victory's_ poop and
from there hailed across in a curt tone to the quarter-deck of the
_Téméraire_. Speaking with a strong nasal twang, in his Norfolk accent,
as we are told, he called over: 'I'll thank you, Captain Harvey, to
keep your proper station, which is _astarn_ of the _Victory_!'
The _Téméraire_ had to drop back, exactly as the _Neptune_ had
previously had to do, and content herself with following in the
_Victory's_ wake. She closed up astern and kept so near that her
jib-boom, in Captain Harvey's own words, 'almost touched the stern of
the _Victory_.'[98]
The same spirit of eager anxiety to get early into battle prevailed
everywhere, coupled with the utmost friendliness and good-comradeship.
The _Tonnant_, the second ship in Collingwood's line, was ordered in
the course of the morning to give up the place of honour to the faster
_Belleisle_. As the _Belleisle_ was passing her. Captain Tyler of the
_Tonnant_ on a carronade slide and called across to the other captain
(Hargood): 'A glorious day for old England: we shall have one a-piece
before night!' A moment later the _Tonnant's_ band, by way of greeting
to the _Belleisle_, began to play 'Britons Strike Home.'[99]
Such was the spirit in which Nelson's Captains went into battle at
Trafalgar as the hour for the opening of the fight drew on.
There is, as it happens, no note in the _Téméraire's_ log of Nelson's
famous signal, 'England expects that every man will do his duty'; but
it is on record that it was received by Signal Midshipman Eaton, who
acknowledged it to the _Victory_. We know from Captain Blackwood, who
was with the Admiral at the time, how it was received by all the ships
near by with 'a shout of answering acclamation,' and the _Téméraire_
was the nearest ship of all to the _Victory_ at that moment. After the
battle the _Téméraire's_ officers had the words engraved on a brass
plate which was let into the quarter-deck in front of the steering
wheel, where it remained till the ship came to her end.
* * * * *
At noon, almost to the minute, the first shot was fired--by the
enemy. It came from a French ship lying nearly opposite the head
of Collingwood's line, the _Fougueux_. It was aimed at the _Royal
Sovereign_--to try the range. The shot went home, and at once other
French and Spanish ships near by took up the firing. The _Royal
Sovereign_ was about 400 yards off at the moment, about three-quarters
gunshot.
At the same time the enemy all along their line hoisted their colours,
the Spaniards in addition hanging up large wooden crosses at their
gaffs. Why they did so has never been explained. Some of the Spanish
captains had held special religious services on board their ships at an
earlier hour that morning,[100] but it is not known that that had any
connection with the display of the crosses.