CHAPTER V.
THE BATTLE OF THE NILE--HORRORS OF THE COCKPIT--NELSON WOUNDED.
"Commanding fires of death to light The darkness of the scenery."
Tom Bure and Raventree, after the burning of their ship, and their wonderful deliverance from what seemed the certainty of death, would, upon their arrival on board the flagship of the Earl of St. Vincent, have dearly liked to have been appointed together to the same ship, but this was not to be. Tom Bure had to join Troubridge, of the _Culloden_, and Raventree was sent on board the _Zealous_, under Captain Samuel Hood.
On the very morning that the French fleet was discovered, not altogether satisfied with the outlook, Raventree had himself run aloft, and had not been there three minutes before he was able to raise the topgallant masts of the Frenchmen. He immediately hailed the deck, and the glad signal was at once hoisted.
It may be to the advantage of the reader to scan the following lists of the ships, guns, and men of the two fleets that were engaged in
THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.
I. _British Line of Battle at the Nile_.*
SHIPS. CAPTAINS. GUNS. MEN.
14 Culloden . . . Troubridge . 74 ... 590 4 Theseus . . . . Miller . . . 74 ... 590 7 Alexander . . . Ball . . . . 74 ... 590 8 Vanguard . . . _Nelson_ . . 74 ... 525 9 Minotaur . . . Luis . . . . 74 ... 640 6 Leander . . . . Thompson . . 50 ... 343 11 Swiftsure . . Hallowell . . 74 ... 590 1 Audacious . . . Gould . . . . 74 ... 590 10 Defence . . . Peyton . . . 74 ... 590 2 Zealous . . . . Hood . . . . 74 ... 590 5 Orion . . . . . Saumarez . . 74 ... 590 3 Goliath . . . . Foley . . . . 74 ... 590 13 Majestic . . . Westcott . . 74 ... 590 12 Bellerophon . Darby . . . . 74 ... 590 15 _La Mutine_ . Hardy
II. _French Line of Battle_.*
A Le Guerrier . . ....... . 74 ... 600 Taken B Le Conquérant . ....... . 74 ... 700 Taken C Le Spartiate . ....... . 74 ... 700 Taken
* The figures and letters prefixed to each vessel marks on the plan its position in the battle.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF THE NILE.]
SHIPS. CAPTAINS. GUNS. MEN.
D L'Aquilon ........ 74 ... 700 Taken
E Le Peuple Souverain ........ 74 ... 700 Taken
F Le Franklin } Blanquet, 1st { 80 ... 700 Taken } Contra-Adm. {
} Brueys, V.A., { G L'Orient } and { 120 ... 1010 Burnt } Com.-in-Chief {
H Le Tonnant ....... 180 ... 800 Taken
I L'Heureux ....... 74 ... 700 Taken
K Le Timoléon ....... 75 ... 700 Burnt
M Le Mercure ....... 74 ... 700 Taken
L Le Guillaume } Villeneuve, { 80 ... 800 Escaped Tell } 2nd Con-Ad. {
N Le Genéreux ....... 74 ... 700 Escaped
French Frigates.
Q La Diane . . . . 48 ... 300 Escaped
E La Justice . . . . 44 ... 300 Escaped
P L'Artemise . . . . 36 ... 250 Burnt
O La Sérieuse . . . . 36 ... 250 Sunk
It is difficult at this date to determine with any degree of exactness what were the orders given to the commander-in-chief of the French fleet by Napoleon Bonaparte. It seems strange that a great soldier and conqueror like him should not have sent away his ships after he had effected his landing, and he accused Brueys, after that unfortunate admiral was killed in the battle of the Nile, of having lingered in Egypt without his orders. The French fleet was sorely enough needed in other directions. It might even have succeeded in raising the blockade of Cadiz.
Be this as it may, here were Brueys and his fleet safely--as the Frenchmen thought--moored in Aboukir Bay; in a line of battle of such strength that one would have thought no three navies in the world could have broken it up.
Brueys would gladly have entered the port of Alexandria, but his ships were too heavy, so he did the next best thing.
A glance at the plan will show how the Frenchmen were positioned in this great fight. But besides the advantage of location, it will be noticed that the enemy had also more ships, more guns, and more men than the British. Brueys might well have felt certain that victory would be his.
Perhaps it was the apparent impregnability of his situation that caused him to wait here for Nelson. He must have known that our hero was headstrong enough to attack him wherever he found him, and that in Aboukir Bay he had a reasonable chance of victory, while in the open sea he would have had none.
I have not the slightest doubt in my own mind that Nelson took into calculation, even before he fell in with the French here, the possibility of their being moored in battle array, just as he found them. Nor do I doubt that an attack, even by Nelson, from the front or in the ordinary way would have been unsuccessful. But Nelson was no ordinary man, and never did attack in any ordinary way. So when he found out how the enemy was moored, it instantly flashed upon him that if the water of the bay between their fleet and the shore was deep enough for such great ships as _L'Orient_ and _Le Tonnant_ to swing, there was room enough for one line of our ships to sail up behind them, as a landsman would call it, and thus attack them on their least prepared side, while another attacked on the outside. These were tactics that Brueys was entirely unprepared for, and never could have even dreamt of. But as it was getting towards evening when our ships hove in sight, Brueys must have also flattered himself that Nelson would not be headstrong enough to attack that night. No, he would assuredly let go anchor, and commence the battle at the earliest dawn of day.
Our hero was never a man to wait, however. "Go at the enemy pell-mell whenever you meet them," was one of his few mottoes, and now he meant to act upon it.
He ordered his ships to form in line-of-battle ahead and astern of the flagship, then signalled to Hood, of the _Zealous_, to know if there was depth enough of water between the French line of battle and the sandbank. "I do not know," was the reply, "but I shall stand in and see."
The _Zealous_ started at once on her dangerous mission, taking soundings as she went leisurely on.
She cleared the shoal.
With her went the _Goliath_.
Nelson's signal was, "that the headmost ship should bear down, and engage as she reached the enemy's van, the next ship to pass by and engage the second, the third to pass by and engage the third, and so on."
And one by one our ships took up their positions. The battle began in earnest at half-past six, and in half an hour's time it was pitchy dark.
As long as daylight lasted the streaming flags on our ships could be seen above the white and curling smoke. As soon as night fell each British ship hoisted four horizontal lights at her peak. "The third ship," says Southey, "that doubled the enemy's van was the _Orion_, Sir F. Saumarez. She passed to windward of the _Zealous_, and opened her larboard guns as long as they bore on the _Guerrier_; then, passing inside the _Goliath_ (_i.e._, 'twixt that ship and the land), sank a frigate that annoyed her, hauled round towards the French line, and anchoring inside, between the fifth and sixth ships from the _Guerrier_, took her station on the larboard side of _Le Franklin_ (Blanquet's 80-gun ship) and the quarter of the _Le Peuple Souverain_, receiving and returning the fire of both."
The sun had now nearly sunk.
The _Audacious_, Captain Gould, pouring a heavy fire into the _Guerrier_ and _Conquérant_, fixed herself on the larboard side of the latter, and when she struck passed on to _Le Peuple Souverain_. The _Theseus_ followed, brought down the _Guerrier's_ remaining masts, the main and mizen, then anchored inside the _Spartiate_, the third in the French line.
So much for the inner or land side of the enemy's fleet. What about the outer?
"While," continues Southey, "these advanced ships doubled the French line, the _Vanguard_ was the first that anchored on the outer side of the enemy within half a pistol shot of the _Spartiate_. He veered half a cable, and instantly opened a tremendous fire, under cover of which the other four ships of his division, the _Minotaur_, _Bellerophon_, _Defence_, and _Majestic_, sailed on ahead of the admiral."
Captain Louis, in the _Minotaur_, anchored next ahead, and took off the fire of the _Aquilon_, the fourth in the enemy's line. So terrible had the fire of this ship been that fifty of the _Vanguard's_ men were killed or wounded in a few minutes. But bold Louis quickly quieted her.
The _Bellerophon_, Captain Darby, passed ahead and dropped her stern anchor on the starboard bow of the _Orient_, seventh in the line.
Captain Peyton, in the _Defence_, took his station ahead of the _Minotaur_, and engaged the _Franklin_, the sixth in the line; by which judicious arrangement the British line remained unbroken.
The _Majestic_, Captain Westcott, got entangled in the main rigging of one of the enemy's ships astern of the _Orient_, and suffered dreadfully from that three-decker's fire; but she swung clear, and closely engaging the _Heureux_, the ninth ship on the starboard bow, received also the fire of the _Tonnant_, which was the eighth in the line.
The other four ships of the squadron, having been detached previous to the discovery of the French, were at a considerable distance when the action began.
Troubridge, in the _Culloden_, was nearest, however, though some five miles away. He was very unfortunate, and ran fast aground. The _Leander_ and _Mutine_ came to his assistance, but were unable to get him off. The _Alexander_ and _Swiftsure_, however, kept off the reef, entered the bay, and commenced the battle in a most masterly and seaman-like fashion.
Of all our ships perhaps the _Bellerophon_ suffered the worst. The _Swiftsure_ met her staggering out of the line, and at first took her for a strange sail, for she carried not the four horizontal lights. In fact these had been shot away, with all her masts and cables, while nearly 200 of her brave crew were either killed or wounded.
The _Swiftsure_ took her place against the _Orient_, which had done the mischief.
The last to come into action was the _Leander_, which she did as soon as she found she could be of no service to poor Troubridge. She took up a position boldly, so that she could rake both the _Orient_ and the _Franklin_.
So speedy, determined, and terrible upon the whole was the attack of the British upon the French line of battle, and so completely were Nelson's instructions carried out on both the inner and outside of the lint that victory was a matter of certainty in a very short time.
In less than fifteen minutes the two ships first in the French line were dismasted, and at half-past eight the third, fourth, and fifth were taken.
When we remember that in a very few minutes after the _Vanguard_, Nelson's ship, took up her position every man at the six guns in the fore part of the vessel was either killed or wounded, and that these guns were several times cleared we can easily believe that down in the ghastly cockpit the surgeons were busy enough at their terrible work.
Do not forget, reader, that there was no chloroform in those days, no way of producing insensibility or of conquering pain, and the brave men who fell on deck were dragged or carried below bleeding and sick, often to endure such agonies of pain as only medical men who have seen gunshot wounds can realise.
At best the cockpit of an old-fashioned man-of-war ship is but a stuffy place, and during a battle it would be stifling as well as stuffy. As soon as the orders were given to clear for action, or go to quarters, all was bustle and stir with the surgeons as with others. They had their attendants, and "the idlers"--so called--of the ship were all requisitioned to assist them--spare clerks, &c.
Although the space between decks was so low that an ordinary sized man had to stoop as he walked along, to save his head from being knocked against the beams or bolts, there was usually plenty of length and breadth of beam also, in the cockpit or orlop deck.
Lanterns too were hung here and there in abundance, and there were carrying lanterns as well, sometimes even naked lights.
The operating table was placed pretty near to the foot of the main hatch ladder well aft, and close to it the tool table. On this last was laid out in order every instrument that was likely to be of service, with plenty of bandages, splints, lint, and tow, with ointment for dressings, &c. On the deck near to this table were placed buckets of water and bottles of wine, brandy, or rum, so positioned that they would neither be in the way nor liable to fall over with any sudden motion of the ship.
When all was ready the doctors had only to wait as coolly as they could. The waiting for the first shot was the worst of it. When the battle was once begun it was not long before the shuffling of feet overhead, and the unsteady steps of bearers at the top of the stairs told of a coming case. As often as not blood came pattering down first, but blood is nothing to a surgeon in working dress. So the wound, ghastly though it might be, was soon seen to, and temporarily dressed, and the moaning patient laid down near the bulkheads. Then cases begin to come down thick and fast. Smoke too, and the suffocating after-damp of the battle fill the cockpit, the lanterns burn dimly, the heat is overpowering almost. The doctors are busy enough now. They throw off their garments, they roll up their sleeves, their hands and arms are encarnadined, their faces and hair bespattered with blood, but quietly and firmly they work, and all as gently as may be. Many a soothing word of kindness helps to rally a fainting heart, and they give hope even in cases they know are dangerous.
But, oh, the heat and the smoke and the stifling odour! The decks all around are slippery with blood, which the sprinkled sawdust is not sufficient to absorb. There are moans and cries and pitying appeals for help and water--water--water--coming from every direction. The very water itself is oftentimes red with blood.
Fainting patients need wine, or even brandy; and but for that wine and brandy very often the surgeons themselves would faint with very fatigue and want of air.
A surgeon's operating tent in the rear of a field of battle may be a sad and fearful sight; but in horrors it could not be compared to the cockpit of an old seventy-four while a fight like that of the Nile was raging overhead.
It was into the midst of just such a scene as I have but too feebly depicted that Nelson, wounded and bleeding, was carried during the night of this glorious but fearful battle.
The loss of blood has a paralysing effect upon the nerves and spirits of a wounded man. It is doubly so if he can feel the blood all about him--feel soaked in it, swamped in it, without being able to see.
That was Nelson's plight. The piece of shot had struck him on the forehead, and the flap of skin and flesh hung over his one remaining eye, entirely blinding him.
Nelson believed himself dying.
But not even the darkness of what seemed approaching death could daunt the heart of the hero.
The chief surgeon would have left his other patients unattended for a time to see to Nelson's wound, but he would not hear of it for a moment.
"No," he cried, "I will take my turn with my brave fellows."
And at last that turn came; and even the wounded and the dying raised a cheer when they heard the wound, despite the amount of blood lost, was only superficial.