A vessel in the rear had been the first to fire on the _Royal
Sovereign_, commanded by Collingwood, and while that ship carried on
the fight with the _Santa Ana_ the Victory came down on us. On board
the _Trinidad_ every one was anxious to open fire; but our captain
would not give the word till he saw a favorable opportunity.
Meanwhile, as if the ships were in such close communication that a
slow-match was lighted from one to the other, the fire ran along from
the _Santa Ana_ in the middle, to each end of the line.
The _Victory_ fired first on the _Redoutable_, and being repulsed,
came up to the windward of the _Trinidad_. The moment had come for us;
a hundred voices cried "fire!"--loudly echoing the word of command,
and fifty round-shot were hurled against the flank of the English
man-of-war. For a minute I could see nothing of the enemy for the
smoke, while he, as if blind with rage, came straight down upon us
before the wind. Just within gun-shot he put the ship about and gave
us a broadside. In the interval between our firing and theirs, our
crew, who had taken note of the damage done to the enemy, had gained
in enthusiasm. The guns were rapidly served, though not without some
hitches owing to want of experience in some of the gunners. Marcial
would have been only too glad to undertake the management of one of
the cannon, but his mutilated body was not equal to the heroism of his
spirit. He was forced to be satisfied with superintending the delivery
of the charges and encouraging the gunners by word and gesture.
The _Bucentaure_, just at our stern, was, like us, firing on the
_Victory_ and the _Téméraire_, another powerful English vessel. It
seemed as though the _Victory_ must fall into our hands, for the
_Trinidad's_ fire had cut her tackle to pieces, and we saw with pride
that her mizzen-mast had gone by the board.
In the excitement of this first onslaught I scarcely perceived that
some of our men were wounded or killed. I had chosen a place where I
thought I should be least in the way, and never took my eyes off the
captain who stood on the quarter-deck, issuing his orders with heroic
coolness; and I wondered to see my master, no less calm though less
enthusiastic, encouraging the officers and men in his quavering voice.
"Ah!" said I to myself, "if only Doña Francisca could see him now!"
I am bound to confess that at times I felt desperately frightened, and
would gladly have hidden myself at the very bottom of the hold, while,
at others, I was filled with an almost delirious courage, when I
longed to see the glorious spectacle from the most dangerous posts.
However, I will set aside my own insignificant individuality and
relate the most terrible crisis of our fight with the _Victory_. The
_Trinidad_ was doing her immense mischief when the _Téméraire_, by a
wonderfully clever manœuvre, slipped in between the two vessels thus
sheltering her consort from our fire. She then proceeded to cut
through the line behind the _Trinidad_, and as the _Bucentaure_, under
fire, had got so close alongside of the _Trinidad_ that their yards
touched, there was a wide space beyond into which the _Téméraire_
rushed down and, going about immediately, came up on our lee and
delivered a broadside on that quarter, till then untouched. At the
same time the _Neptune_, another large English ship, ran in where the
_Victory_ had previously been, while the _Victory_ veered round so
that, in a few minutes, the _Trinidad_ was surrounded by the enemy and
riddled on all sides.
From my master's face, from Uriarte's heroic fury, and from a volley
of oaths delivered by Marcial and his friends, I understood that we
were lost and the idea of defeat was anguish to my soul. The line of
the combined fleets was broken at several points, and the bad order in
which they had formed after turning round, gave place to the most
disastrous confusion. We were surrounded by the enemy whose artillery
kept up a perfect hail of round and grape-shot on our ship, and on the
_Bucentaure_ as well. The _Agustin_, the _Héros_, and the _Leandro_
were engaged at some distance from us where they had rather more
sea-room, while the _Trinidad_, and the Admiral's ship, utterly hemmed
in and driven to extremities by the genius of the great Nelson, were
fighting heroically--no longer in hopes of a victory which was
impossible but anxious, at any rate, to perish gloriously.
The white hairs which now cover my old head almost stand on end as I
remember those terrible hours, from two to four in the afternoon. I
think of those five ships, not as mere machines of war obeying the
will of man, but as living giants, huge creatures fighting on their
own account, carried into action by their sails as though they were
active limbs and using the fearful artillery they bore in their sides
for their personal defence. As I looked at them then, my fancy could
not help personifying them and to this hour I feel as though I could
see them coming up, defying each other, going about to fire a
broadside, rushing furiously up to board, drawing back to gather more
force, mocking or threatening the enemy;--I can fancy them expressing
their suffering when wounded or loftily breathing their last, like a
gladiator who in his agony forgets not the dignity which beseems
him;--I can imagine that I hear the voices of the crews like the
murmur of an oppressed sufferer, sometimes eager with enthusiasm,
sometimes a dull roar of desperation the precursor of destruction,
sometimes a hymn of triumph in anticipation of victory, or a hideous
storm of voices lost in space and giving way to the awful silence of
disgrace and defeat.
The scene on board the _Santísima Trinidad_ was nothing short of
infernal. All attempt at working the ship had been abandoned, for it
did not and could not move. The only thing to be done was to serve the
guns with the utmost rapidity, and to do as much damage to the enemy
as they had done to us. The English small-shot rent the sails just as
if huge and invisible nails were tearing slits in them. The splinters
of timber and of masts, the stout cables cut through as if they were
straws, the capstans, spindles, and other heavy machinery torn from
their place by the enemy's fire, strewed the deck so that there was
scarcely room to move. Every minute men, till then full of life, fell
on deck or into the sea; the blasphemy of those who were fighting
mingled with the cries of the wounded, till it was impossible to say
whether the dying were defying God or the living crying to him for
mercy while they fought.
I offered my services for a melancholy task, which was carrying the
wounded into the cock-pit where the surgeons were busy doing their
utmost. Some were dead before we could get them there, and others had
to suffer painful operations before their exhausted bodies could be
left to repose.
Then I had the extreme satisfaction of helping the carpenters who were
constantly employed in repairing the holes made in the ship's sides;
but my youth and inefficiency made me less useful than I would fain
have been.
Blood was flowing in rivulets on the upper and lower decks and in
spite of the sand the motion of the ship carried it from side to side
making sinister patterns on the boards. The cannon-balls, fired at
such a short range, mutilated those they killed in a terrible manner,
and I saw more than one man still standing with his head blown away,
the force of the shock not having been great enough to fling the
victim into the sea, whose waters would have extinguished almost
painlessly the last sensation of existence. Other balls struck a mast
or against the bulwarks, carrying off a hail of hot splinters that
pierced and stung like arrows. The rifle-shots from the tops and the
round-shot from the carronades dealt a more lingering and painful
death, and there was hardly a man to be seen who did not bear the
marks, more or less severe, of the foe's iron and lead.
The crew--the soul of the ship--being thus thrashed by the storm of
battle and utterly unable to deal equal destruction, saw death at hand
though resolved to die with the courage of despair; and the ship
itself--the glorious body--shivered under the cannonade. I could feel
her shudder under the fearful blows; her timbers cracked, her beams
creaked, her ribs groaned like limbs on the rack, and the deck
trembled under my feet with audible throbs, as though the whole huge
creature was indignant at the sufferings of her crew. Meanwhile the
water was pouring in at a hundred holes in the riddled hull, and the
hold was fast filling.
The _Bucentaure_, the Admiral's vessel, surrendered before our very
eyes. Villeneuve struck to the _Victory_. When once the leader of the
fleet was gone, what hope was there for the other ships? The French
flag vanished from the gallant vessel's mast and she ceased firing.
The _San Augustin_ and the _Héros_ still persevered, and the _Rayo_
and _Neptuno_, of the van, made an effort to rescue us from the enemy
that was battering us. I could see what was going on in the immediate
neighborhood of the _Trinidad_, though nothing was to be seen of the
rest of the line. The wind had fallen to a calm and the smoke settled
down over our heads shrouding everything in its dense white wreaths
which it was impossible for eye to pierce. We could catch a glimpse
now and then of a distant ship, mysteriously magnified by some
inexplicable optical effect; I believe indeed that the terror of that
supreme moment exaggerated every impression.
Presently this dense cloud was dispersed for an instant--but in what a
fearful manner! A tremendous explosion, louder than all the thousand
guns of the fleet fired at once, paralyzed every man and filled every
soul with dread; and just as the ear was stunned by the terrific roar
an intense flash lighted up the two fleets, rending the veil of smoke
and revealing the whole panorama of the battle. This catastrophe had
taken place on the side towards the South where the rear line had been
posted.
"A ship blown up!" said one to another. But opinion differed as to
whether it was the _Santa Ana_, the _Argonauta_, the _Ildefonso_, or
the _Bahama_. We afterwards learnt that it was a Frenchman, the
_Achille_. The explosion scattered in a myriad fragments what had a
few moments before been a noble ship of 74 guns and 600 men. But a few
seconds after we had already forgotten the explosion in thinking only
of ourselves.
The _Bucentaure_ having struck, the enemy's fire was directed on us,
and our fate was sealed. The enthusiasm of the first hour was by this
extinct in my soul; my heart quaked with terror that paralyzed my
limbs and smothered every other emotion excepting curiosity. This I
found so irresistible that I could not keep away from places where the
danger was greatest. My small assistance was of no great use now, for
the wounded were too numerous to be carried below and the guns had to
be served by those who had some little strength left. Among these was
Marcial who was here, there, and everywhere, shouting and working to
the best of his small ability, acting as boatswain, gunner, sailor,
and carpenter all at once, doing everything that happened to be needed
at this awful moment. No one could have believed that, with hardly
more than half a body, he could have done the work of so many men. A
splinter had struck him on the head and the blood had stained his face
and given him a most horrible appearance. I could see his lips move as
he licked the blood from them and then he spit it out viciously over
the side, as if he thought he could thus punish the enemy.
What astonished me most, and indeed shocked me somewhat, was that
Marcial even in this scene of horror could still cut a good-humored
joke; whether to encourage his dejected comrades or only to keep his
own courage up I do not know. The fore-mast fell with a tremendous
crash, covering the whole of the fore-deck with rigging, and Marcial
called out to me: "Bring the hatchets, boy; we must stow this lumber
in Davy Jones' locker," and in two minutes the ropes were cut and the
mast went overboard.
Then, seeing that the enemy's fire grew hotter, he shouted to the
purser's mate, who had come up to serve a gun: "Daddy, order up some
drink for those 'great-coats,' and then they will let us alone."
To a soldier, who was lying like a dead creature with the pain of his
wounds and the misery of sea-sickness, he exclaimed as he whisked the
slow-match under his nose: "Take a whiff of orange-flower, man, to
cure your faintness. Would you like to take a turn in a boat? Nelson
has invited us to take a glass of grog with him."
This took place amidships; looking up at the quarter-deck I saw that
Cisneros was killed; two sailors hastily carried him down into his
cabin. My master remained immovable at his post, but his left arm was
bleeding severely. I ran up to help him, but before I could reach the
spot an officer had gone to him to persuade him to retire to his
state-room. He had not spoken two words when a ball shot away half his
head and his blood sprinkled my face. Don Alonso withdrew, as pale as
the corpse which fell on the quarter-deck. When my master had gone
down the commander was left standing alone, so perfectly cool that I
could not help gazing at him for a few minutes, astounded by such
courage. His head was uncovered, his face very white, but his eyes
flashed and his attitude was full of energy, and he stood at his
post, commanding the desperate strife, though the battle was lost past
retrieval. Even this fearful disaster must be conducted with due
order, and the captain's duty was still to keep discipline over
heroism. His voice still controlled his men in this struggle between
honor and death. An officer who was serving in the first battery came
up for orders, and before he could speak he was lying dead at the feet
of his chief; another officer of marines who was standing by his side
fell wounded on the deck, and at last Uriarte stood quite alone on the
quarter-deck, which was strewn with the dead and wounded. Even then he
never took his eyes off the English ships and the working of our
guns--the horrible scene on the poop and in the round-house, where his
comrades and subalterns lay dying, could not quell his noble spirit
nor shake his firm determination to face the fire till he too should
fall. As I recall the fortitude and stoical calmness of Don Francisco
Xavier de Uriarte, I understand all that is told us of the heroes of
antiquity. At that time the word Sublime was as yet unknown to me, but
I felt that there must be, in every language under heaven, some human
utterance to express that greatness of soul which I here saw incarnate
and which revealed itself to me as a special grace vouchsafed by God
to miserable humanity.
By this time most of our guns were silenced, more than half of our men
being incapable of serving them. I might not, however, have been aware
of the fact, but that being impelled by curiosity I went out of the
cabin once more and heard a voice saying in a tone of thunder:
"Gabrielillo, come here."
It was Marcial who was calling me; I ran to his side and found him
trying to work one of the guns which had been left silent for lack of
men. A ball had shot away the half of his wooden leg, which made him
exclaim: "Well! so long as I can manage to keep the one of flesh and
bone...!"
Two sailors lay dead by the gun; a third, though horribly wounded,
still tried to go on working it.
"Let be, mate!" said Marcial. "You cannot even light the match," and
taking the linstock from his hand, he put it into mine, saying: "Take
it, Gabrielillo.--If you are afraid you had better jump overboard."
He loaded the cannon as quickly as he was able, helped by a ship's boy
who happened to come up; we ran it forward: "fire!" was the word, I
applied the match and the gun went off.
We repeated this operation a second and a third time, and the roar of
the cannon fired by my own hand produced an extraordinary effect on my
nerves. The feeling that I was no longer a spectator but an actor in
this stupendous tragedy for the moment blew all my alarms to the
winds; I was eager and excited, or at any rate determined to appear
so. That moment revealed to me the truth that heroism is often simply
the pride of honor. Marcial's eye--the eyes of the world were upon me;
I must bear myself worthy of their gaze.
"Oh!" I exclaimed to myself with an impulse of pride: "If only my
young mistress could see me now!... Bravely firing cannon like a man!"
Two dozen of English were the least I might have sent to the other
world.
These grand visions, however, did not last long for Marcial, enfeebled
by age, was beginning to sink with exhaustion; he breathed hard as he
wiped away the blood which flowed profusely from his head, and at last
his arms dropped by his side, and closing his eyes, he exclaimed: "I
can do no more; the powder is rising to my head. Gabrielillo, fetch me
some water."
I ran to obey him, and when I had brought the water he drank it
eagerly. This seemed to give him fresh energy; we were just about to
load once more when a tremendous shock petrified us as we stood. The
main-mast, cut through by repeated shots, fell amidships and across
the mizzen; the ship was completely covered with the wreck, and the
confusion was appalling.
I happily was so far under shelter that I got no harm but a slight
blow on the head which, though it stunned me for a moment, did not
prevent my thrusting aside the fragments of rope and timber which had
fallen above me. The sailors and marines were struggling to clear away
the vast mass of lumber, but from this moment only the lower-deck guns
could be used at all. I got clear as best I could and went to look for
Marcial but I did not find him, and casting my eyes up at the
quarter-deck, I saw that the captain was no longer at his post. He had
fallen senseless, badly wounded in the head by a splinter, and two
sailors were just about to carry him down to the state-room. I was
running forward to assist when a piece of shell hit me on the
shoulder, terrifying me excessively, for I made sure my wound was
mortal and that I was at my last gasp. My alarm did not hinder me from
going into the cabin; I tottered from loss of blood and for a few
minutes lay in a dead faint. I was roused from my short swoon by
hearing the rattle of the cannon below and then a voice shouting
vehemently:
"Board her! bring pikes!--axes!"
And then the confusion was so complete that it was impossible to
distinguish human voices from the rest of the hideous uproar. However,
somehow--I know not how--without thoroughly waking from my drowsy
state, I became aware that all was given up for lost and that the
officers had met in the cabin to agree to strike; nor was this the
work of my fancy, bewildered as I was, for I heard a voice exclaiming:
"The _Trinidad_ never strikes!" I felt sure that it was Marcial's
voice; but at any rate some one said it.
When I recovered perfect consciousness, I saw my master sunk on one of
the sofas in the cabin, his face hidden in his hands, prostrate with
despair, and paying no heed to his wound.
I went to the heart-broken old man, who could find no way of
expressing his grief but by embracing me like a father, as if we were
both together on the brink of the grave. He, at any rate, was
convinced that he must soon die of grief, though his wound was by no
means serious. I comforted him as best I might, assuring him that if
the battle were indeed lost it was not because I had failed to batter
the English to the best of my power; and I went on to say that we
should be more fortunate next time--but my childish arguments failed
to soothe him.
Going out presently in search of water for my master, I witnessed the
very act of lowering the flag which was flying at the gaff, that being
one of the few spars, with the remains of the mizzen-mast, that
remained standing. The glorious flag, the emblem of our honor, pierced
and tattered as it was, which had gathered so many fighting-men under
its folds, ran down the rope never to be unfurled again. The idea of
stricken pride, of a brave spirit giving way before a superior force,
can find no more appropriate symbol to represent it than that of a
flying standard which sinks and disappears like a setting sun. And our
flag thus slowly descending that fatal evening, at the moment when we
surrendered, seem to shed a parting ray of glory.
The firing ceased, and the English took possession of the conquered
vessel.