Victory

The yeoman of signals yanked out the flags from the locker and toggled them on to the halliards, spilling them clear for Pasco to check.

‘Hoist!’ The first lift of the signal soared up, and as it did so, Pasco found the next. ‘Two-six-nine!’ It was bent on to another halliard and one by one the hoists ascended. When it was completed Bowden noted the signal and time, then waited for the acknowledgements from the fleet.

While this was being done, Nelson was watching the lee column close in on the enemy, Royal Sovereign now nearly hidden in gun-smoke. ‘See how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into action! How I envy him!’ he exclaimed to Hardy.

The first crump of shots sounded from ahead – Victory was now under fire herself. From this point on she would be the focus of aim for a hundred – two hundred – gun-captains and her ordeal was just beginning.

Another signal. ‘Engage the enemy more closely’ – ‘Number sixteen!’ This was the last that Nelson could be sure would be seen and was hoisted at the main-mast head, where it remained.

With barely suppressed emotion the admiral said, ‘Now I can do no more. We must trust to the Great Disposer of All Events, and the justice of our cause.’ He and Hardy descended to the quarterdeck and began a slow pacing up and down between the main-mast and the wheel.

Ahead, the enemy line was now a loose succession of ships, their details clear and forbidding, and it wasn’t long until the first ball struck Victory, reaching out in violence and punching loudly through the main topgallant sail.

Soon after, several other enemy ships joined in, the sound of firing building as the deadly cannonade intensified. Strikes could now be heard forward, and the whirr and slam of invisible projectiles overhead were chilling.

A quick shriek came as a seaman paid with his life for doing his duty; other anonymous screams penetrated above the continuous fearful thunder of guns from now six or eight ships, furiously hammering at the oncoming column. It was a race that would turn on whether the ships now at their mercy were smashed to submission and stopped, or whether they could get inside the enemy firing arc, pierce the line and deliver a battle-winning raking of the stern and bow each side as they passed through.

On the poop Bowden’s vitals froze at the awful feeling of exposure: at the ship’s side there were only deal boarding and rolled hammocks to keep out the storm of shot and, with nothing to do but keep at his post, a rising feeling of helplessness threatened to engulf him.

One of the marines was knocked sprawling as if kicked by a horse and his musket slid across the deck. He sobbed, writhing, and Adair motioned to another two to take him below.

Imitating Pasco, Bowden began a regular calm pacing. A strange detachment stole over him, a feeling of unreality that separated him from the chaos and fear. Through his feet he sensed Victory’s own guns opening up, their heavy thump quite distinct from the sharp concussion of a shot-strike. Nothing now could be seen of the enemy except the upper masts above the smoke – but Villeneuve’s pennons were still giving Victory her mark.

Bowden reached the poop rail and glanced down on the quarterdeck. One unfortunate had taken a ball squarely, his body flung grotesquely, its half-human features and an appalling amount of blood-soaked innards scattered widely. Nelson looked on sadly as it was dragged away.

Straightening, Bowden turned back, suddenly acutely aware of the whites of the eyes of the files of marines. Then, as if in a dream, the entire rank was torn down in a welter of blood and kicking limbs. Choking sobs were cut off and parts of half-clothed bodies were left lying on each other, like so many joints in a butcher’s shop.

The carnage was indescribable but the remaining marines held firm until a breathless midshipman arrived from the quarterdeck, ordering Captain Adair to disperse his men about the ship. Eight men killed with one shot! It couldn’t go on.

But it did: with the splinters still flying from a boat hit by a round-shot, Victory’s wheel was smashed, the big first-rate now in an uncontrollable lurch towards the enemy line until emergency tackles on the tiller in the gunroom could be rigged – but the ship fought on with undiminished fury.

Bowden felt the wind buffet of a cannon-ball. Next to him a seaman turned, apparently with a question: his mouth opened, and as it did so, blood spurted in a gush of scarlet from where his arm had been – carried off invisibly and without warning. The man gave a piteous moan and sank to his knees.

Dispassionately Bowden recognised that the intensity of the slaughter was such that it was more reasonable not to expect to survive – at some point one of the invisible whirling scythes of death would seek him out and put an end to his existence. Strangely, he felt peace, the resolution of hope against fear, but a deep sadness that for him the future was now shut off.

A seaman beside him was suddenly spun around, falling without a sound, and as he was dragged to the side there was an ear-splitting crack aloft. When Bowden looked up to see, his world turned dark and he was savagely pressed down.

It was some seconds before he realised he was suffocating under a smother of canvas. Near panic with claustrophobia he struggled for his knife and in a frenzy sawed and hacked at the cloth until the smoky daylight emerged.

A seaman helped him out; the mizzen topmast had been shot away and hung along the side suspended by the upper rigging, the sail draped over the poop. ‘Axes! Get this clear!’ he roared. ‘You, Clayton – on the lee side, Nicolson on the weather!’

He worked a bayonet free from a dead hand and began sawing at the tarred strands of a shroud. Panting, he stopped to look out – there was gun-smoke everywhere, a rain of splinters and stranded lines whipping down, but what froze him was the awesome sight of the enemy ships so very close.

Wreathed in smoke with livid gun-flash stabbing, they lay across Victory’s path but she was steering now for a gap astern of Villeneuve’s flagship and its next in line. Mesmerised by the terrible sight, he saw other ships beyond the gap equally as big and quite untouched.

The noise was appalling – a crescendo of violence that paralysed his thoughts. Hacking away the remains of the fallen rigging in a demented fury, he was utterly unprepared for what happened next.

The guns were falling silent.