Trafalgar: A Tale

by Benito Pérez Galdós

Then I had the extreme satisfaction of helping the carpenters who were constantly employed in repairing the holes made in the ship’s sides; but my youth and inefficiency made me less useful than I would fain have been.

Blood was flowing in rivulets on the upper and lower decks and in spite of the sand the motion of the ship carried it from side to side making sinister patterns on the boards. The cannon-balls, fired at such a short range, mutilated those they killed in a terrible manner, and I saw more than one man still standing with his head blown away, the force of the shock not having been great enough to fling the victim into the sea, whose waters would have extinguished almost painlessly the last sensation of existence. Other balls struck a mast or against the bulwarks, carrying off a hail of hot splinters that pierced and stung like arrows. The rifle-shots from the tops and the round-shot from the carronades dealt a more lingering and painful death, and there was hardly a man to be seen who did not bear the marks, more or less severe, of the foe’s iron and lead.

The crew—the soul of the ship—being thus thrashed by the storm of battle and utterly unable to deal equal destruction, saw death at hand though resolved to die with the courage of despair; and the ship itself—the glorious body—shivered under the cannonade. I could feel her shudder under the fearful blows; her timbers cracked, her beams creaked, her ribs groaned like limbs on the rack, and the deck trembled under my feet with audible throbs, as though the whole huge creature was indignant at the sufferings of her crew. Meanwhile the water was pouring in at a hundred holes in the riddled hull, and the hold was fast filling.

The Bucentaure, the Admiral’s vessel, surrendered before our very eyes. Villeneuve struck to the Victory. When once the leader of the fleet was gone, what hope was there for the other ships? The French flag vanished from the gallant vessel’s mast and she ceased firing. The San Augustin and the Héros still persevered, and the Rayo and Neptuno, of the van, made an effort to rescue us from the enemy that was battering us. I could see what was going on in the immediate neighborhood of the Trinidad, though nothing was to be seen of the rest of the line. The wind had fallen to a calm and the smoke settled down over our heads shrouding everything in its dense white wreaths which it was impossible for eye to pierce. We could catch a glimpse now and then of a distant ship, mysteriously magnified by some inexplicable optical effect; I believe indeed that the terror of that supreme moment exaggerated every impression.

Presently this dense cloud was dispersed for an instant—but in what a fearful manner! A tremendous explosion, louder than all the thousand guns of the fleet fired at once, paralyzed every man and filled every soul with dread; and just as the ear was stunned by the terrific roar an intense flash lighted up the two fleets, rending the veil of smoke and revealing the whole panorama of the battle. This catastrophe had taken place on the side towards the South where the rear line had been posted.

“A ship blown up!” said one to another. But opinion differed as to whether it was the Santa Ana, the Argonauta, the Ildefonso, or the Bahama. We afterwards learnt that it was a Frenchman, the Achille. The explosion scattered in a myriad fragments what had a few moments before been a noble ship of 74 guns and 600 men. But a few seconds after we had already forgotten the explosion in thinking only of ourselves.

The Bucentaure having struck, the enemy’s fire was directed on us, and our fate was sealed. The enthusiasm of the first hour was by this extinct in my soul; my heart quaked with terror that paralyzed my limbs and smothered every other emotion excepting curiosity. This I found so irresistible that I could not keep away from places where the danger was greatest. My small assistance was of no great use now, for the wounded were too numerous to be carried below and the guns had to be served by those who had some little strength left. Among these was Marcial who was here, there, and everywhere, shouting and working to the best of his small ability, acting as boatswain, gunner, sailor, and carpenter all at once, doing everything that happened to be needed at this awful moment. No one could have believed that, with hardly more than half a body, he could have done the work of so many men. A splinter had struck him on the head and the blood had stained his face and given him a most horrible appearance. I could see his lips move as he licked the blood from them and then he spit it out viciously over the side, as if he thought he could thus punish the enemy.

What astonished me most, and indeed shocked me somewhat, was that Marcial even in this scene of horror could still cut a good-humored joke; whether to encourage his dejected comrades or only to keep his own courage up I do not know. The fore-mast fell with a tremendous crash, covering the whole of the fore-deck with rigging, and Marcial called out to me: “Bring the hatchets, boy; we must stow this lumber in Davy Jones’ locker,” and in two minutes the ropes were cut and the mast went overboard.

Then, seeing that the enemy’s fire grew hotter, he shouted to the purser’s mate, who had come up to serve a gun: “Daddy, order up some drink for those ‘great-coats,’ and then they will let us alone.”

To a soldier, who was lying like a dead creature with the pain of his wounds and the misery of sea-sickness, he exclaimed as he whisked the slow-match under his nose: “Take a whiff of orange-flower, man, to cure your faintness. Would you like to take a turn in a boat? Nelson has invited us to take a glass of grog with him.”