That took place just as Captain Lucas was about to make an attempt to board the Victory. His musketry from the tops seemed to have almost cleared the Victory's upper decks of men, and, mad as was the idea of so settling with a British first-rate, and Lord Nelson's flagship to boot, the captain of the Redoutable actually entertained it. A sweeping mitraille of grape from the 68-pounder carronade on the Victory's forecastle, fired into the thick of the French boarders as they crowded on the gangways from below, did not daunt him, and he still persevered after the first rush had been checked by the impossibility of getting across the space between the bulwarks of the two ships. That difficulty Captain Lucas saw his way to meet. 'I gave the order,' he says, 'to cut the supports of the main yard and to cause it to serve as a bridge. Midshipman Yon and four seamen sprang on board by means of the anchor of the Victory, and we observed that there was no one left in the batteries. At that moment, when our men were hastening to follow, the ship Téméraire, which had noticed that the Victory fought no longer, and that she would be captured without fail, came full sail on our starboard side, and we were subjected to the full fire of her artillery.'
It proved for the Redoutable, in the language of the prize-ring, a 'knock-out' blow. As the Téméraire came into collision with the Redoutable she fired her entire broadside, double-shotted, full into the French boarding-parties as they stood massed thickly and packed along the Redoutable's upper decks from end to end. It meant instant annihilation. It was a massacre. The awful tornado of the Téméraire's fire swept the Redoutable's crowded decks clear of men, as a garden broom sweeps a path clear of autumn leaves. It struck down everything. At one blow it hurled into eternity nearly a third of the Redoutable's whole crew. Midshipman Yon, we are told, disappeared, and was never seen again. Lieutenant Dupotet, at the head of the boarders, was struck down, mangled and dying. Captain Lucas himself received an ugly flesh wound—his first after seeing service in nine battles.
Speaking of the Téméraire's onslaught Captain Lucas in his official report says: 'It is impossible to describe the carnage produced by the murderous broadside of this ship; more than 200 of our brave men were killed or wounded; I was wounded also at the same time, but not sufficiently to prevent me staying at my post.'
CAPTAIN LUCAS
The gallant captain of the Redoutable stayed at his post. He set his teeth and refused to admit that his ship had received her coup de grâce. In spite of his awful losses the gallant fellow still tried to make a show of fight. 'I ordered the rest of the crew to place themselves promptly in the batteries and fire at the Téméraire the guns that her fire had not dismounted. This order was carried out.' At the same time the Redoutable met the Téméraire, as she swung alongside, with a hail of bullets from the tops that almost cleared the upper deck of Captain Harvey's ship, while the topmen also flung down hand grenades and fire-balls. The Redoutable's topmen, indeed, flung the fire-balls about with criminal recklessness.[104] They endangered their own ship. Some of the fire-balls falling short rebounded back on board the Redoutable and set the French ship herself on fire. One fell blazing on board the Téméraire and caused a fire below that nearly led to a catastrophe which threatened to involve Téméraire, Redoutable, and Victory alike in one common destruction. The pluck and presence of mind of the Téméraire's master-at-arms, Mr. John Toohig, saved the after-magazine, and with it the ship. The fire-ball, as it was, caused a serious explosion and loss of life on the main deck. At the same time the Téméraire was set ablaze elsewhere, on the upper deck, by a fire that had been caused on board the Redoutable by one of her own fire-balls falling short, and had spread across to the Téméraire, and also to the Victory on the other side, but the flames in all three ships were fortunately got under before they had time to take serious hold.
The Téméraire's captain very soon had something else to think of besides the Redoutable. Hardly had the Redoutable been lashed fast alongside than another enemy came on the scene, and one that was apparently approaching with the fixed intention of attacking the Téméraire at close quarters. The French Neptune was at the same time remaining near by, barely a ship's length off, firing her hardest into the Téméraire.
The newcomer was the French Fougueux, the ship that had fired the first shot in the battle. She had already had a rough time of it elsewhere, but she was still full of fight, and with nearly 700 men on board, was likely to prove a dangerous foe to a ship situated as was the Téméraire at that moment. The Fougueux had been matelot d'arrière, or 'second astern' to the Spanish flagship Santa Ana, just as the Redoutable had been the Bucentaure's second. In that capacity she had experienced some hard knocks at Collingwood's hands, and then, after a brisk exchange of fire with the British Belleisle, as that ship followed Collingwood into the fight, she had had a sharp set-to with the Mars. Through all this the Fougueux had not come unscathed, but she was still a very formidable opponent for the Téméraire to tackle.
The Fougueux came on as though bent on rescuing the Redoutable. It did not look an impossible task. Both the Victory and the Téméraire showed signs of having undergone a very severe mauling, and there was the French Neptune near by, apparently quite fresh and ready to lend a hand, only waiting for an opportunity to join in the fray. The Téméraire particularly, looked in a bad way. Under the Neptune's punishing fire, she had been reduced aloft to the appearance of a wreck. Her topmasts had gone, her foreyard was gone, her foremast was tottering, all her rigging was torn and tangled, her sails hung down in rags. Her ensign, too, had been shot away, or at least was down owing to the fall of the gaff; very few men were to be seen alive on her upper deck; not a shot came from her guns on the broadside facing the Fougueux.