Ричард Вудмен - 1805

'Stand still, God damn you!' he roared. 'I'm a British officer!'

'Good God!'

Recognition came to the two men at the same time.

'Captain Drinkwater, sir… I, er, I beg your pardon…'

'Mr Walmsley… you and your men can put up your weapons. Bucentaure is finished.'

'So I see…' Walmsley looked round him, his face draining of colour as his eyes fell on an entire gun crew who had lost their heads. Alongside them lay Lieutenant Guillet. He had been cut in half.

'Oh Christ!' Lord Walmsley put his hand to his mouth and the vomit spurted between his fingers.

'I was a prisoner of the French admiral, gentlemen. I am obliged to you for my liberty,' Drinkwater said, affecting not to notice Walmsley's confusion.

'Midshipman William Hicks, sir, of the Conqueror , Captain Israel Pellew.' The second midshipman introduced himself, then turned as more men came aboard led by a marine officer. 'This is Captain James Atcherley, sir, of the same ship.'

The ridiculous little ceremony was performed and the scarlet-coated Atcherley was acquainted with the fact that Captain Drinkwater, despite his coatless appearance and blood-stained shirt, was a British officer.

'Come, sir, I will take you to the admiral.' They clambered onto the upper deck and Drinkwater stood aside to allow Atcherley to precede him onto the poop.

'No, no, it is your task, Captain,' Drinkwater said as Atcherley demurred. 'He speaks good English.'

He followed the marine officer. Villeneuve lowered the glass through which he had been studying some distant event and turned towards the knot of British officers.

'To whom have I the honour of surrendering?' Villeneuve asked.

Atcherley stepped forward: 'To Captain Pellew of the Conqueror .'

'I am glad to have struck to the fortunate Sir Edward Pellew.'

'It is his brother, sir,' said Atcherley.

'His brother! What! Are there two of them? Hélas !'

Atcherley refused the proffered sword. Captain Magendie shrugged. ' Fortune de la guerre . I am now three times a prisoner of you British.'

'I shall secure the ship's magazines, sir,' Atcherley said. 'You shall retain your swords until able to surrender them to someone of sufficient rank—' he turned—'unless Captain Drinkwater would receive them?'

Drinkwater shook his head. 'No Captain Atcherley. I have in no way contributed to today's work and am bound by my word to Admiral Villeneuve. Do you do as you suggest.' He acknowledged the tiny bow made in his direction by Villeneuve.

'In that case, sir,' said Atcherley, addressing the French officers, 'I should be obliged if you would descend to the boat.' He looked round. The Conqueror had disappeared in the smoke, joining in the mêlée round the huge Santissima Trinidad that had not yet struck to her many enemies.

'I shall convey you to Mars , sir,' he nodded at the next British ship looming up on the quarter. Atcherley turned to Drinkwater. 'Will you come, sir?'

Drinkwater shook his head. 'Not yet, Captain Atcherley. I have some effects to gather up.' He had no desire to witness Villeneuve's final humiliation.

'Very well, sir… come, gentlemen…'

Villeneuve turned to Drinkwater. 'Captain, we fought well. I hope you will not forget that.'

'Never, sir.' Drinkwater was moved by the nobility of the defeated admiral.

Villeneuve stared at the north. 'Dumanoir wore but then turned away,' he said with quiet resignation. 'See, there, the van is deserting me.' Without another word Villeneuve followed Magendie from the deck.

Drinkwater found himself almost alone upon Bucentaure 's poop. A few seamen and petty officers sat or squatted, resting their heads upon their crossed arms in attitudes of dejection.

Exhausted, concussed and hungry, they had given up. Drinkwater watched Villeneuve, Magendie and Prigny pulled away to the Mars in Conqueror 's cutter. Lord Walmsley sat in the stern, his hand on the tiller. Drinkwater leaned on the rail. Despite Bucentaure 's surrender the battle still raged about her. He watched Dumanoir's unscathed ships standing away to the north, feeling an immense and traitorous sympathy for the unfortunate Villeneuve. It occurred to him to seek the other part of Villeneuve's miscarried strategy and he looked southward to identify Gravina. But astern the battle continued, a vast milling mêlée of ships, their flanks belching fire and destruction, their masts and yards continuing to fall amid clouds of grey powder smoke. Ahead too, the hounds were closing round the Santissima Trinidad , and one of Dumanoir's squadron, the Spanish Neptuno , had been cut off and taken. Away to the north a dense column of black smoke billowed up from an unidentifiable ship on fire.

He looked for the British frigates. Astern he could see the schooner Pickle and the trim little cutter Entreprenante . Then he caught sight of Euryalus , obeying the conventions of formal war, her guns unemployed as she towed what Drinkwater thought at first was a prize but then realised was the Royal Sovereign , Collingwood's dismasted flagship.

'God's bones,' he muttered to himself, aware that this was a day the like of which he hoped he would never see again. The shattered hulls of ships lay all around, British, French and Spanish. Some still bore their own colours; none that he could see bore the British colours underneath the Spanish or French, although he could distinguish several British prizes. Masts and yards, sails and great heaps of rigging lay over their sides and trailed in the oily water while the whole mass rolled and ground together on the swell that rolled impassively from the west.

'Wind,' he muttered, 'there will be a wind soon,' and the thought sent him below, in search of his few belongings among the shambles.

He found he could retrieve only his journal, coat, hat and glass. He and one of Atcherley's marines brought up the body of Gillespy. Drinkwater wrapped the body in his own cloak and found a couple of shot left in the upper deck garlands. They bound the boy about with loose line and lifted the sad little bundle onto the rail. Had Drinkwater not agreed to Gillespy accompanying him on the Bucentaure he would be alive now, listening in Cadiz to the distant thunder of the guns in company with Frey and Quilhampton. The marine took off his shako and Drinkwater recited the familiar words of the Anglican prayer of committal. Then they rolled Gillespy into the water.

'He is in good company,' he murmured to himself, but his voice was drowned in a vast explosion. To the north the ship that had taken fire, the French Achille , blew apart as the fire reached her magazine. The blast rolled over the sea and hammered their already wounded ear-drums, bringing with it the first hint of a freshening breeze.

Captain Atcherley's prize crew consisted of less than half a dozen men, besides himself. They had locked the private cabins of Villeneuve and his senior officers, asked for and obtained the parole of those remaining officers capable of posing a threat, and locked the magazines and spirit rooms. Following Drinkwater's advice, some food was found and served out to all, irrespective of nationality. As the battle began to die out around them, Masson came on deck. His clothes were completely soaked in blood, his pale face smudged with gore and drawn with exhaustion.

'Did you notice,' he said to Drinkwater, 'how the raking fire mostly took off men's heads? It is curious, is it not, Captain?'

Drinkwater looked at him, seeing the results of terrible strain. Masson sniffed and said, 'Thank you for your assistance.'

'It was nothing. I could not stand idle.' Drinkwater paused, not wishing to seem to patronise defeated men. 'They were brave men,' he said simply.