Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [558]
They did their work well. Not a motion of the French fleet was missed.
Then Nelson came out into the open, and bore down upon them.
He did what he had been planning to do for months: he divided his own force into two, one half, the weather column, he led himself, the other, the lee, was led by Collingwood in Royal Sovereign. Then, aiming to converge somewhat above the centre of the huge, crescent-shaped line of the French, they began their approach.
The performance of the Euryalus had been faultless. As he made his formation at six o’clock that morning, Nelson summoned the little frigate to Victory’s side, and ordered Captain Blackwood aboard to congratulate him.
“We shall surprise the enemy now,” he declared. “They won’t know what I am about.”
As the advance began, Euryalus rode proudly by Nelson’s side.
“One eye and one arm,” an old seaman told Peter, “but you see what he does with what he’s got left!”
At eight o’clock Villeneuve reversed course, but he could not now avoid Nelson’s battle.
The final approach began. At 11.45 am, the famous signal from the flagship went out:
“England expects every man to do his duty.”
“And when we have,” Midshipman Robert Wilson remarked, “I dare say it’ll be the end of the French.” Then under his breath he said a prayer.
As for seaman Peter Wilson, he said no prayer; but he gave the wedding ring a nervous squeeze and muttered: “You see me safe out of this.”
The battle began at noon.
The great sea battles of the tall-masted sailing ships were slow, ponderous, stately affairs – at least until they came in close. The final approach took an hour. There was a gentle Atlantic swell; the wind a slight breeze from west-north-west; the day was clear, and as the huge crescent of the French fleet stood before them, Peter Wilson stood with the older seamen and watched with fascination. There was Collingwood, in almost parallel course with them, leading the mighty British warships: Mars, Bellerophon, under John Cooke, Achilles, Revenge, and others. There, ahead of them, was the huge Bucentaure, the flagship of Villeneuve; close by it, Neptune, Heros. San Leandro.
“See there,” one of the sailors pointed far down the French line. “Recognise her?”
“By God I do,” cried another. “’Tis one of ours.” And he showed Peter, far in the distance, where the English ship Swiftsure that had been captured by the enemy some years before, now sailed in the French line.
“We’ve another to match her,” he laughed.
For it was one of the curiosities of the battle of Trafalgar that in Admiral Collingwood’s column under Captain William Rutherfurd there now sailed a new British ship, once again named Swiftsure – so that two British ships of the same name fired upon each other from different sides.
The two collisions of the British columns with the French – first Collingwood, then Nelson – were unlike anything Peter Wilson could have imagined. As he saw the Royal Sovereign split through the line first, saw her, minute after minute edge with painful slowness between the enemy ships who poured broadside after broadside in to her, he could not believe that any ship could survive. Even from a distance, it seemed to him the whole sky must crack open with the roar of the mighty guns.
“And that,” he would say afterwards, “was before we entered the mouth of hell ourselves.”
Nelson made the most of every inch of his journey. First he headed towards the van. Then, suddenly, he swung up, straight at the centre and at Villeneuve himself. It was a daring move. And Peter Wilson, as the little frigate bobbed by Victory’s side, thought the world had come to an end.
For by crossing the line as he did, Nelson exposed himself to withering enemy fire, to which he could not reply, for half an hour. As crash after crash shook the ships, it seemed to Peter that he was in the midst of a