The Victory (51 page)

A dozen people were waiting to gain his attention, and the
dreamlike feeling was returning. He fought against it, aware that it was largely fatigue, forcing himself to concentrate on
what they were asking.

‘
Boat pulling off from the
Victory,
sir,' Webb reported.
‘I'm not certain, sir, but I think it's Captain Hardy in the
sternsheets, sir.'

‘
Hardy?' said Haworth vaguely. Where could Hardy be
going in a boat? The thought slid effortlessly out of his mind
as he tried to concentrate on writing his brief report and
request for orders to the Admiral, and sent it off with Webb
to the
Royal Sovereign.

‘
All firing seems to have ceased, sir,' Tyler said. 'May I tell
the men to stand down?'

‘
Very well, Mr Tyler. And if Mr Parry can spare the cook,
as soon as everything is secure, he can start cooking some
thing for the men's dinner.’

As Tyler turned away to implement the orders, the
Achille
blew up. She had burnt almost down to the water amidships, and the fire had reached her magazine at last. The huge gout
of flame was followed by the dull, flat-sounding explosion,
and a mushroom-shaped cloud of black smoke rose into the
pale evening sky, while all around her there was a rain of
debris.

Nemesis
and
Pickle
were still on the scene, and the
Revenge
also sent a boat to pick up the last survivors. The boat sent by
Styles from the
Furieux
to bring Bittles back, diverted at once
and picked up two men from the water, one badly burned,
and brought them to the
Cetus
to add to Parry's problems.
The story was soon running round the ship that the
Pickle's
boat had picked up a completely naked young woman who
had been clinging to a spar, and another boat had picked up a
fat black pig.

‘
Just our luck,' muttered Robins. 'All we get is a couple of
Froggie sailors! Can't eat 'em and can't —'

‘
Boat's coming back from the flagship, sir,' said Morpurgo.
His face was white with fatigue under his tan. Webb came up
the companion, his eye fixed on Haworth's, and an odd look
about his mouth, as if he were a young child trying not to cry.
A strange sort of sensation rippled across the men in his
wake, as some message was passed instantly from mouth to
mouth.

He came to a halt in front of Haworth and saluted, and his
mouth worked silently. Haworth saw with amazement that
his eyes were full of tears.

‘
Make your report, Mr Webb,' he said briskly, hoping to
brace him.

‘
Sir —' He swallowed. 'Sir, I gave your letter to the
Admiral, sir. He's moved his flag to the
Euryalus.
Cap'n
Hardy was there, sir. He came in person to tell the
Admiral ...’

Webb's lip was trembling, and he caught it between his teeth, and his adam's apple moved up and down his throat
several times. 'Admiral Collingwood, he was crying sir, and
Cap'n Blackwood, quite dreadfully. Admiral Nelson's dead,
sir.’

*

Now the Commander-in-Chiefs pendant flew from the
Eury
alus.
Collingwood had inherited an unenviable command: a
fleet of forty-four ships, of which only a dozen were fit to sail
and fight, with insufficient crews, on a dangerous lee shore.
The wind was light and westerly, there was a heavy swell
running, darkness was coming on, and there was an ominous
gathering of coppery clouds on the horizon.

It was no difficult decision to head westwards, towards
open sea and away from the menacing shore. Orders went up
the
Euryalus's
halliards, for the able ships to take in tow
those without masts or rudders. The frigates
Sirius
and
Naiad
took on the
Victory
and
Belleisle,
and
Nemesis
threw a line to
Haworth's prize, the
Furieux.
Though physically and spiritu
ally exhausted by the battle, the victorious fleet was to have
little rest.

On board the
Cetus,
the shot hole below the waterline had
been roughly plugged, the debris cleared from the decks, the
dead committed to the deep. The bulkheads had been
replaced, and such furniture as had survived brought out and
set up. Some of the wounded had been moved into the
wardroom and the captain's day cabin was being used to
house the French officers, while Dipton took care of Africa in
the night cabin. He reported to his captain that he had fed
her and tucked her into her cot, and that though she was
naturally exhausted, she did not seem unduly distressed by
what she had witnessed that day.

‘
I think she's glad to have been able to help, sir,' Dipton
said. 'The only thing that's upsetting her is that we can't find
Cleopatra, sir, and she thinks it might have gone overboard
when we were clearing for action. You know what jacks are,
sir — any excuse to chuck stuff overboard.'

‘Cleopatra?' Haworth asked vaguely.

‘
The camel, sir,' Dipton prompted. 'Not but what she loves
her lamb, sir, but Cleopatra's very close to her heart. But
Colley's promised to make her another one, if it don't turn
up.’

When these things had been done, Haworth saw to it that
the men were fed, and normal watches were resumed, which
meant that the watch below could sleep. Most of them simply
folded up on the deck where they stood, too weary to sling
their hammocks, even where their hammocks had survived
the shot and splinters of the battle.

But for the officers and the prize crews there was no rest.
There was simply too much to do. A third-rate's normal
complement of men was five hundred and ninety, but after so
long at sea,
Cetus's
company had numbered only five
hundred and fifty before the battle. Of these thirty-seven had
been killed, and seventy-three were wounded. Of the six
lieutenants, Angevin and Beaton, the fifth, were dead, while
Styles was in the prize with midshipman Bittles and thirty
hands. This meant that
Cetus
was short of a hundred and
eighty men, or a third of her normal complement, at a time
when she needed every hand to sail her, what with two of her
topmasts gone and a mizzen-mast which was only fished to its
stump.

But if Haworth had a hard task ahead in sailing
Cetus
to
safety, that of Styles in the
Furieux
was even less enviable.
With her main and mizzen masts gone, and no rudder, she
was almost helpless; besides that, she was riddled with shot-
holes, and the unnumbered French wounded filled the orlop
and lower deck. Styles and his small party had managed to rig
a jury mizzen-mast, and to perform hasty repairs on the
foremast rigging, so that they could carry some sail and help the
Nemesis
which took them in tow. All the same, towing a
ship of the line in swell conditions with only a light wind was
a hazardous task, and both the prize crew and the crew of the
Nemesis
had an exhausting ordeal before them.

By nine in the evening, the swell had worsened, and the
wind was backing south-westerly, which meant it was blowing
straight towards Cape Trafalgar with its hidden shoals.
Haworth ordered a inan into the leads to take soundings, for
in the dark it would be hard to see how close they were to the
shore.

‘
Keep it going all the time,' he told Pitcairn, the junior
lieutenant, who was taking the watch, 'and see that the leads
man is relieved every two hours.' Taking soundings was
gruelling work, and the men were already tired. 'And double
the lookouts. They can keep each other awake.'

‘Aye aye, sir.'

‘Flagship signalling, sir,' said the midshipman of the watch. ‘General order: prepare to anchor.'

‘
Acknowledge.' Collingwood, too, was wary of that hidden
lee shore.

‘
Sir,' Pitcairn's face was white and black like a Greek mask
in the light from the binnacle, his mouth bowed downwards
for tragedy. 'We can't anchor. That broadside from the
Neptune,
sir, it severed the anchor cables.’

They would not be the only ship in that predicament,
Haworth thought. Probably the present signal was Colling
wood's means of discovering how many ships were capable of
anchoring. 'Signal to the flag, if you please, Mr Pitcairn: have
no anchor cables.’

In the next few minutes other ships were seen to be making
the same signal, and it was enough to decide the Admiral that
there was no point in making the executive signal. The
damaged fleet continued to struggle away from the hidden
shore, while the wind grew more squally, and backed another
point.

Dipton appeared at Haworth's shoulder.

‘
I've screened off a bit of the night-cabin for you, sir, and
rigged a cot, and I've got a bite of supper all ready for you, if
you'd like to come now, sir.’

Haworth looked at him in dull amazement, hardly able, through his fatigue, to understood what was being said to
him.

‘
You're worn out, sir, begging your pardon. Everyone else
has had a bit of a rest, sir, bar you,' Dipton went on. 'The
French gentlemen is sleeping like babies.'

‘Nonsense. How can I go to sleep at a time like this?'

‘
Well, sir, p'raps you could just come below for a minute
and take a bite of supper, and change your coat,' said the wily
Dipton. 'That one's wet through, besides having a terrible
great tear in it. I'd like to get it mended, sir, before we get to
Gibraltar, in case you need it for going ashore.’

It was his best dress coat, which he had put on that
morning for the battle. Could it really only be that morning?

‘
Very well,' he said. 'Mr Pitcairn, I am going below for a few
minutes. Keep your eye on that mizzen-mast.'

‘Aye aye, sir.’

Below in his night-cabin, Haworth put his head through
the screen to look at Africa, who was soundly asleep, her head
and that of the brown velvet lamb side-by-side on the pillow.