On the morning of the 20th there was a stiff breeze blowing and the
vessels kept at some distance from each other; but as the wind had
moderated soon after noon the admiral signalled that the ships were to
form in five lines--the van, centre, and rear, and two lines of
reserve. I was enchanted with watching the docile monsters, obediently
taking their places; for, although the conditions of naval manœuvres
did not admit of great rapidity nor of perfect uniformity in the line,
it was impossible to see them without admiration. The wind was from
the southwest, according to Marcial, and the fleet, catching the
breeze on the starboard quarter, ran towards the straits. During the
night a few lights were seen and by dawn on the 21st we saw
twenty-seven ships to windward, among which Marcial pointed out three
as three-deckers. By eight o'clock the thirty-three vessels of the
enemy's fleet were in sight, forming two columns. Our fleet displayed
a wide front, and to all appearance Nelson's two columns, advancing in
a wedge, were coming down upon us so as to cut our lines through the
centre and rear.
This was the position of the hostile fleets when the _Bucentaure_
signalled that we were to put about; maybe you do not understand this.
It means that we were to turn completely round and that whereas the
wind was on our port side it would now be on the starboard, so that we
should sail in the opposite direction. The ships' heads were now
turned northwards and this manœuvre, which was intended to place us
to windward of Cadiz so that we might reach it in case of disaster,
was severely criticised on board the _Trinidad_, especially by
Marcial, who said:
"The line of battle is all broken up; it was bad before and is worse
now."
In point of fact what had been the vanguard was now in the rear and
the reserve ships, which as I heard said, were the best, were hindmost
of all. The wind had fallen and the ships, being of various tonnage
and inefficiently manned, the new line could not form with due
precision; some of the vessels moved quickly and rushed forward;
others went slowly, hanging back or losing their course, and forming a
wide gap that broke the line before the enemy took the trouble of
doing it.
"Reform the line" was now the signal; but, though a good ship answers
her helm with wonderful docility, it is not so easy to manage as a
horse. As he stood watching the movements of the ships nearest to us,
Marcial observed: "The line is wider than the milky-way. If the
_Señorito_ cuts through it, Heaven help us! we shall not be able to
sail in any sort of order; they will shave our heads for us if they
fire upon us. They are going to give us a dose through the centre and
how can the _San Juan_ and the _Bahama_ come up to support us from the
rear--or the _Neptuno_ and the _Rayo_ which are in front. (Murmurs of
applause.) Besides, here we are to leeward and the 'great-coats' can
pick and choose where they will attack us, while all we can do is to
defend ourselves as best we may. All I have to say is: God get us well
out of the scrape and deliver us from the French for ever and ever,
Amen."
The sun had now nearly reached the meridian and the enemy was coming
down upon us.
"And is this a proper hour to begin a battle?" asked the old sailor
indignantly. "Twelve o'clock in the day!"
But he did not dare to express his views publicly and these
discussions were confined to a small circle into which I, with my
eternal and insatiable curiosity, had squeezed myself. I do not know
why, but it seemed to me that there was an expression of
dissatisfaction on every face. The officers on the quarter-deck, and
the sailors and non-commissioned officers at the bows, stood watching
the ships to leeward, quite out of the line of battle, four of which
ought to have been in the centre.
I forgot to mention one preliminary in which I myself had borne a
hand. Early in the morning the decks were cleared for action, and when
all was ready for serving the guns and working the ship, I heard some
one say: "The sand--bring the sand." Marcial pulled me by the ear, and
taking me to one of the hatchways set me in a line with some of the
pressed men, ship's boys, and other supernumeraries. A number of
sailors were posted on the ladders from the hatchway to the hold and
between decks, and in this way were hauling up sacks of sand. Each man
handed one to the man next to him and so it was passed on without much
labor. A great quantity of sacks were thus brought up from hand to
hand, and to my great astonishment they were emptied out on the upper
deck, the poop, and the forecastle, the sand being spread about so as
to cover all the planking; and the same thing was done between decks.
My curiosity prompted me to ask the boy who stood next to me what this
was for.
"For the blood," he said very coolly.
"For the blood!" I exclaimed unable to repress a shudder. I looked at
the sand--I looked at the men who were busily employed at this
task--and for a moment I felt I was a coward. However, my imagination
reverted to the ideas which had previously filled it, and relieved my
mind of its alarms; I thought no more of anything but victory and a
happy issue.
Everything was ready for serving the guns and the ammunition was
passed up from the store-rooms to the decks by a chain of men, like
that which had brought up the sand-bags.
The English advanced to attack us in two sections. One came straight
down upon us, and at its head, which was the point of the wedge,
sailed a large ship carrying the admiral's flag. This, as I afterwards
learned, was the _Victory_, commanded by Nelson. At the head of the
other line was the _Royal Sovereign_, commanded by Collingwood. All
these names, and the strategical plan of the battle, were not known to
me till later.
My recollections, which are vividly distinct as to all the graphic and
picturesque details, fail me with regard to the scheme of action which
was beyond my comprehension at the time. All that I picked from
Marcial, combined with what I subsequently learnt, sufficed to give me
a good idea of the arrangement of our fleets; and for the better
intelligence of the reader I give in the next page a list of our
ships, indicating the gaps left by those that had not come up, and the
nationality of each.
It was now a quarter to twelve. The fatal moment was approaching. The
anxiety was general, and I do not speak merely from what was going on
in my own mind, for I was absorbed in watching the ship which was said
to contain Nelson, and for some time was hardly aware of what was
going on round me.
Suddenly a terrible order was given by our captain--the boatswains
repeated it; the sailors flew to the tops; the blocks and ropes
creaked, the topsails flapped in the wind.
"Take in sail!" cried Marcial, with a good round oath. "The infernal
idiot is making us work back."
And then I understood that the _Trinidad_ was to slacken her speed so
as to run alongside of the _Bucentaure_, because the _Victory_ seemed
to be taking measures to run in between those two ships and so cut the
line in the middle.
Neptuno, Sp. }
Le Scipion, Fr. }
Rayo, Sp. }
Le Formidable, Fr. } Front.
---- Le Duguay Trouin, Fr.}
Le Mont Blanc, Fr. }
Asís, Sp. }
San Augustin, Sp. }
Le Héros, Fr. }
Victory Trinidad, Sp. }
_Nelson_. Le Bucentaure, Fr. } Centre.
--------------------> ---- Neptune, Fr. }
Le Redoutable, Fr. }
L'Intrépide, Fr. }
---- Leandro, Sp. }
Royal
Sovereign ---- Justo, Sp. }
_Collingwood_. ---- L'Indomptable, Fr. }
--------------> Santa Ana, Sp. } Rear.
Le Fougueux, Fr. }
Monarca, Sp. }
Le Pluton, Fr. }
Bahama, Sp. }
---- L'Aigle, Fr. }
Montañes, Sp. }
Algeciras, Sp. }
Argonauta, Sp. }
Swiftsure, Fr. } Reserve.
---- L'Argonaute, Fr. }
Ildefonso, Sp. }
---- L'Achille, Fr. }
Príncipe de Astúrias, Sp. }
Le Berwick, Fr. }
Nepomuceno, Sp. }
In watching the working of our vessel I could see that a great many
of the crew had not that nimble ease which is usually characteristic
of sailors who, like Marcial, are familiar with war and tempests.
Among the soldiers several were suffering from sea-sickness and were
clinging to the ropes to save themselves from falling. There were
among them many brave souls, especially among the volunteers, but for
the most part they were impressed men, obeying orders with an ill-will
and not feeling, I am very sure, the smallest impulse of patriotism.
As I afterwards learnt, nothing but the battle itself made them worthy
to fight. In spite of the wide differences in the moral stamp of all
these men, I believe that during the solemn moments that immediately
preceded the first shot a thought of God came to every mortal there.
So far as I am concerned, in all my life my soul has never gone
through any experiences, to compare with those of that hour. In spite
of my youth, I was quite capable of understanding the gravity of the
occasion, and for the first time in my life, my mind was filled with
grand ideas, lofty aspirations and heroic thoughts. A conviction that
we must conquer was so firmly rooted in my mind that I felt quite
pitiful towards the English, and wondered to see them so eagerly
advancing to certain destruction. For the first time too I fully
understood the ideal of patriotism, and my heart responded to the
thought with a glow of feeling such as I had never experienced before.
Until now my mother-country had been embodied in my mind in the
persons of its rulers--such as the King and his famous minister, for
whom I felt different degrees of respect. As I knew no more of history
than I had picked up in the streets, it was to me a matter of course
that everybody's enthusiasm must be fired by knowing that the
Spaniards had, once upon a time, killed a great number of Moors, and,
since then, swarms of French and of English. I considered my
countrymen as models of valor; but valor, as I conceived of it, was as
like barbarity as one egg is like another; and with such ideas as
these, patriotism had been to me nothing more than boastful pride in
belonging to a race of exterminators of Moors.
But in the pause that preceded the battle I understood the full
significance of that divine word; the conception of nationality, of
devotion to a mother-country, was suddenly born in my soul, lighting it
up, as it were, and revealing a thousand wonderful possibilities--as
the rising sun dissipates the darkness that has hidden a beautiful
landscape. I thought of my native land as a vast place full of people
all united in brotherly regard--of society as divided into families,
married couples to be held together, and children to be educated--of
honor, to be cherished and defended; I imagined an unspoken agreement
among all these human beings to help and protect each other against any
attack from without, and I understood that these vessels had been
constructed by them all for the defence of their native land; that is
to say, for the soil on which they lived, the fields watered by their
sweat, the homes where their ancestors had dwelt, the gardens where
their children played, the colonies discovered and conquered by their
forefathers, the harbors where their ships found shelter after long
voyages--the magazines where they stored their wealth--the Church which
was the mausoleum of those they had loved, the dwelling-place of their
saints, and the ark of their belief--the public places where they might
take their pleasure, the private homes where the venerable household
gods, handed down from generation to generation, seemed to symbolize
the perpetuity of the nation--their family hearth round which the
smoke-dyed walls seem still to re-echo with the time-honored legends
with which the grand dame soothes the flightiness or the naughtiness of
the little ones, the street where friendly faces meet and smile--the
field, the sea, the sky--everything which from the moment of birth
makes up the sum of existence, from the crib of a pet animal to the
time-honored throne of the king; every object into which the soul seems
to go forth to live, as if the body that clothes it were too narrow a
shell.
I believed too that the disputes between Spain and France or England
were always about something that those countries ought to give up to
us, and in which Spain could not, on the whole, be wrong. Her
self-defence seemed to me as legitimate as the aggression was brutal;
and as I had always heard that justice must triumph, I never doubted
of victory. Looking up at our red and yellow flag--the colors nearest
to that of fire--I felt my bosom swell, and could not restrain a few
tears of enthusiasm and excitement; I thought of Cadiz, of Vejer, of
the whole Spanish nation assembled, as it were, on a vast platform and
looking on with eager anxiety; and all this tide of emotion lifted up
my heart to God to whom I put up a prayer, which was neither a
_Paternoster_ nor an _Ave_, but a gush of inspiration that came to me
at the moment.
A sudden shock startled me from my ecstasy, terrifying me with its
violent vibration. The first broadside had been fired.