“But you have nothing to complain of friend,” said I, “since you were on board the Rayo which hardly did any fighting.”
“I was not in the Rayo but in the Bahama, one of the ships that fought hardest and longest.”
“She was taken and her captain killed, if I remember rightly.”
“Aye, so it was,” he said. “I could cry over it when I think of him—Don Dionisio Alcalá Galiano, the bravest seaman in the fleet. Well, he was a stern commander; he never overlooked the smallest fault, and yet his very severity made us love him all the more, for a captain who is feared for his severity—if his severity is unfailingly just—inspires respect and wins the affection of his men. I can honestly say that a more noble and generous gentleman than Don Dionisio Alcalá Galiano was never born. And when he wanted to do a civility to his friends he did not do it by halves; once, out in Havana he spent ten thousand dollars on a supper he gave on board ship.”
“He was a first-rate seaman too, I have heard.”
“Ah, that he was. And he was more learned than Merlin and all the Fathers of the Church. He made no end of maps, and discovered Lord knows how many countries out there, where it is as hot as hell itself! And then they send men like these out to fight and to be killed like a parcel of cabin-boys. I will just tell you what happened on board the Bahama. As soon as the fighting began Don Dionisio Alcalá Galiano knew we must be beaten on account of that infernal trick of turning the ships round—we were in the reserve and had been in the rear. Nelson, who was certainly no fool, looked along our line, and he said: ‘If we cut them through at two separate points, and keep them between two fires, hardly a ship will escape me.’ And so he did, blast him; and as our line was so long the head could never help the tail. He fought us in detachments, attacking us in two wedge-shaped columns which, as I have heard say, were the tactics adopted by the great Moorish general, Alexander the Great, and now used by Napoleon. It is very certain, at any rate, that they got round us and cut us in three, and fought us ship to ship in such a manner that we could not support or help each other; every Spaniard had to deal with three or four Englishmen.
“Well, so you see the Bahama was one of the first to be under fire. Galiano reviewed the crew at noon, went round the gun-decks, and made us a speech in which he said: ‘Gentlemen, you all know that our flag is nailed to the mast.’ Yes, we all knew the sort of man our Captain was, and we were not at all surprised to hear it. Then he turned to the captain of the marines, Don Alonso Butron, ‘I charge you to defend it,’ he said. ‘No Galiano ever surrenders and no Butron should either.’
“ ‘What a pity it is,’ said I, ‘that such men should not have had a leader worthy of such courage, since they could not themselves conduct the fleet.’
“Aye, it is a pity, and you shall hear what happened. The battle began, and you know something of what it was like if you were on board the Trinidad. The ships riddled us with broadsides to port and starboard. The wounded fell like flies from the very first, and the captain first had a bad bruise on his foot and then a splinter struck his head and hurt him badly. But do you think he would give in, or submit to be plastered with ointment? Not a bit of it; he stayed on the quarterdeck, just as if nothing had happened, though many a man he loved truly fell close to him never to stand up again. Alcalá Galiano gave his orders and directed his guns as if we had been firing a salute at a review. A spent ball knocked his telescope out of his hand and that made him laugh. I fancy I can see him now; the blood from his wound stained his uniform and his hands and he cared no more than if it had been drops of saltwater splashed up from the sea. He was a man of great spirit and a hasty temper; he shouted out his orders so positively that if we had not obeyed them because it was our duty, we should have done so out of sheer alarm.—But suddenly it was all over with him.—He was struck in the head by a shot and instantly killed.
“The fight was not at an end, but all our heart in it was gone. When our beloved captain fell the officers covered his body that we men might not see it, but we all knew at once what had happened, and after a short and desperate struggle for the honor of our flag, the Bahama surrendered to the English who carried her off to Gibraltar if she did not go to the bottom on the way, as I rather suspect she did.”
After giving this history and telling me how he had been transferred from the Bahama to the Santa Ana, my companion sighed deeply and was silent for some time. However, as the way was long and dull I tried to reopen the conversation and I began telling him what I myself had seen, and how I had at last been put on board the Rayo with young Malespina.
“Ah!” said he.
