Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [557]
“You’re to make for Portsmouth,” Captain Blackwood was told. “To tell them Villeneuve’s here. As fast as you can.”
So it was the little frigate Euryalus, playing the first part of her particular role in history, that sailed, at lightning speed, to fetch the great Admiral Nelson.
They reached the Isle of Wight on September 1. By the next morning, Blackwood called upon Nelson at Merton. Then, on to the Admiralty.
It is often thought that Admiral Nelson saved England from immediate invasion in the great events of autumn 1805. This is not in fact so. For on August 9, just before the Euryalus had begun her dash home, another event of great significance had taken place. Austria had declared war on France.
The response of Napoleon was immediate. He would fight the alliance on land and he would win. But in order to do so, he had to withdraw the huge army threatening England from Boulogne. He did so, as was his habit, with amazing speed. On the day when the Euryalus passed the Isle of Wight, Boulogne was already almost empty.
But for Nelson, now given unrestricted command of the fleet, this was not the point.
If by a single blow he could now smash the French fleet once and for all, he could make it impossible for Napoleon to invade England not only this year, but any year. This was his ambition – his mission – nothing less.
On September 15, 1805, Nelson’s flagship Victory sailed from Spithead. In its company rode Captain Blackwood’s little squadron of frigates: Euryalus, Phoebe, Naiad, Sirius, the schooner Pickle and the cutter Entreprenente. They arrived off Cadiz to join the rest of the fleet on September 28, Nelson’s forty-seventh birthday.
Then they waited three weeks. Meanwhile the Euryalus kept watch.
Night and day, while Nelson and his fleet of twenty-seven huge warships waited patiently on the horizon, the little frigate hung in sight of the harbour mouth. Behind her stretched, at intervals, the chain of her sister frigates so that her messages could be passed back to the waiting fleet.
“What do you see, Wilson of Christchurch?” The haunting question would echo in his mind all his life.
“Nothing yet, sir.”
Nelson even sent several of his ships away, in the hope of tempting them out. Nothing happened.
And then one day after three weeks, young Peter Wilson saw it: a distant mast near the harbour mouth. Then another. And another.
“They’re moving!” he cried in excitement, before correcting himself: “Ship ahoy.” In moments, not only Robert Wilson but Captain Blackwood himself and every officer was on deck, training their telescopes on the spot.
“Are they coming, sir?” he heard Robert Wilson ask.
Then Blackwood’s voice, very calm.
“Not yet, I think.” And then, glancing up, breaking all normal rules, the captain himself: “Well done, Wilson of Christchurch.”
Blackwood was right. For three more days, Villeneuve’s fleet hung about near the harbour mouth. Each day it seemed they might break loose. Each day, tantalisingly, they held back.
Awesome though the thought of the huge battle that would follow must be, Peter Wilson found himself praying: “Please Lord, let them come soon.” The suspense was almost more than he could bear.
And then, on October 20, they came: thirty-four huge ships of the line, rolling majestically out to sea, every one of them capable, with their huge banks of cannon, of blasting the little frigate out of the water with a single broadside: he counted them, all thirty-four, as they came; and as he saw this terrifying fleet he wondered: “Can anything withstand them?”
The huge fleet made southwards towards Gibraltar, past Cape Trafalgar. And the little frigate Euryalus followed, as close as she dared, while Nelson and the main fleet lurked just over the horizon. And as they went, and he felt the hissing salt surf in his face, young Peter Wilson smiled grimly to himself and murmured:
“We’re Nelson’s watchdog all right.”
They watched the fleet all day and all night. The enemy was constantly moving about. Each time Villeneuve’s ships changed their