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Maid Of Sker

<h2>CHAPTER LX. NELSON AND THE NILE.</h2> 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, [Pg 412] 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 [Pg 413] 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 [Pg 414] 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), [Pg 415] 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. <hr class="chap" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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