NELSON
Poor youngsters! Scarred old Nelson joins you soon.
BEATTY
And wounded: Bligh, lieutenant; Pasco, too,
and Reeves, and Peake, lieutenants of marines,
And Rivers, Westphall, Bulkeley, midshipmen,
With, of the crew, a hundred odd just now,
Unreckoning those late fallen not brought below.
BURKE
That fellow in the mizzen-top, my lord,
Who made it his affair to wing you thus,
We took good care to settle; and he fell
Like an old rook, smack from his perch, stone dead.
NELSON
’Twas not worth while!—He was, no doubt, a man
Who in simplicity and sheer good faith
Strove but to serve his country. Rest be to him!
And may his wife, his friends, his little ones,
If such be had, be tided through their loss,
And soothed amid the sorrow brought by me.
[HARDY re-enters.]
Who’s that? Ah—here you come! How, Hardy, now?
HARDY
The Spanish Admiral’s rumoured to be wounded,
We know not with what truth. But, be as ’twill,
He sheers away with all he could call round,
And some few frigates, straight to Cadiz port.
[A violent explosion is heard above the confused noises on deck.
A midshipman goes above and returns.]
MIDSHIPMAN [in the background]
It is the enemy’s first-rate, the “Achille,”
Blown to a thousand atoms!—While on fire,
Before she burst, the captain’s woman there,
Desperate for life, climbed from the gunroom port
Upon the rudder-chains; stripped herself stark,
And swam for the Pickle’s boat. Our men in charge,
Seeing her great breasts bulging on the brine,
Sang out, “A mermaid ’tis, by God!”—then rowed
And hauled her in.—
BURKE
Such unbid sights obtrude
On death’s dyed stage!
MIDSHIPMAN
Meantime the “Achille” fought on,
Even while the ship was blazing, knowing well
The fire must reach their powder; which it did.
The spot is covered now with floating men,
Some whole, the main in parts; arms, legs, trunks, heads,
Bobbing with tons of timber on the waves,
And splinter looped with entrails of the crew.
NELSON [rousing]
Our course will be to anchor. Let me know.
HARDY
But let me ask, my lord, as needs I must,
Seeing your state, and that our work’s not done,
Shall I, from you, bid Admiral Collingwood
Take full on him the conduct of affairs?