A Walk to Trafalgar
A Walk to Trafalgar
A short story and essay on the anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar
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Mars, off Cadiz
Monday morning
October 21, 1805
My Dearest Sophia,
I have just time to tell you we are going into action with the combined fleet. I hope and trust in God that we shall all behave as becomes us, and that I may yet have the happiness of taking my beloved wife and children in my arms. Norwich is quite well, and happy. I have however ordered him off the quarter-deck.
Yours ever, and most truly,
George Duff
***
“Can I tell you about the Battle of Trafalgar?”
Jaime Cantling and Kyle Biderbeck had been walking on the path through the woods toward Two Rivers Gorge for about a half hour. The fall air was crisp and clean, tinged with the scent of newly fallen leaves which crunched under foot. Despite the morning sun that lanced down in spots through the emptying boughs, the trees still held most of their leaves and the wood was dim, as was the path through it. It was patchy, bits of grass only here and there and many tree roots sticking out of the ground, but it was a clear path, nonetheless, well marked and maintained in spite of the encroaching forest.
“Dude, why won’t you go out with Lily?” Kyle had said. “You know she likes you.”
Jaime sighed. “Ferguson? I know she likes me. I just don’t really like her.”
They were both of average height, though Kyle was slightly taller and more powerfully built. Kyle had an easy smile and moved lithely, like a tiger as they walked, stepping from tree root to tree root without missing a step or tripping. Jaime, ever the pragmatist, opted for avoiding the tree roots, and carried himself somberly, as if a weight sat on his shoulders, and his low brow gave him a serious countenance to match.
“Why are you being so picky?” Kyle said. “It’s just homecoming.”
“I’m not being picky, I just like someone else.”
“Oh really? Who’s that?”
“Look, I’ll tell you but—”
“Can I tell you about the Battle of Trafalgar?”
The old man had appeared on the path in front of him right where it forked—the left-hand path, they knew, proceeded down to the riverbank a few miles downriver from the confluence while the right-hand path led up to the top of the gorge and the cliffs overlooking the rapids.
He looked like he had been waiting for them, or for someone, to come up the path for he had been looking expectantly in their direction as they approached.
Maybe he heard us talking, Jaime thought.
He was tall, probably over six feet with a manly, open, and benevolent countenance. He wore plain brown shoes, khaki pants, a plaid shirt with a dark green vest over top, and a round fisherman’s hat. His ears were so large that they stuck out from under the hat and his eyes were almost hidden behind thick glasses. His face was clean shaven so that Jaime could see the deep lines reaching up to the large nose and around the small, shrunken mouth. His hands were clasped behind his back.
“What do you think? Do you boys want to hear about the Battle of Trafalgar? Two hundred and nineteen years ago today.”
His voice was a wheezing tenor, like an old out of tune squeeze box, with a distinct Scottish burr.
Jaime looked at Kyle, the flashing smile now fading.
“Uh, no thanks,” Jaime said. “We’re just passing through. Sorry.”
The old man smiled. “Are you sure? Why not stop a while and listen? ‘Tis a good tale, told well.” He made a slight bow. “I do it justice, if I do say so.”
“No, thanks. We’re good,” Jaime said as they walked past the man and took the path to the cliffs.
“Didn’t we learn about Trafalgar in Euro?” Kyle said to Jaime.
The old man’s voice rang out behind them. “You’re going to the cliffs?”
“Yeah,” Jaime said, twisting his head to look back over his shoulder. “Just keep walking,” he said to Kyle,” maybe he’ll leave us alone.”
“Excellent. I’m going that way myself. I’m meeting a couple acquaintances at the cliffs. I’ll walk with you.”
Jaime groaned. “Great.”
“It is great, son,” said the old man. “Edifying and invigorating for me. Informative and entertaining for you. And a good hike to boot. Come on, lads.”
Jaime looked at Kyle. Kyle shrugged and stalked off after the man. Jaime followed.
The old man began speaking in a loud, dramatic voice, almost as if he had an audience on the path in front of him rather than plodding along behind.
“Now, the battle, the glorious victory—but there would have been no victory without endless days and months and years standing on and off, wearing and tacking, tacking and wearing in endless blockades off Brest and Cadiz and Toulon. You must remember that actions such as Trafalgar took place perhaps once every few years. They were not at all common and Trafalgar was to be the last, the last great meeting of sailing ships.
“The day was the twenty-first of October in the year five—that’s eighteen hundred and five. It dawned, bright and terrible, but barely a whisper of wind on the air. The day before, the Combined Fleet of French and Spanish ships under the command of Admiral Villeneuve, had left Cadiz harbor and sailed south east. On the morning of the 21st, Villeneuve spotted the British fleet approaching and ordered the entire Combined Fleet to wear, that means turn around so the wind is on the opposite tack, and head back north up the coast of Spain to Cadiz. They were at that time just off the coast of Cape Trafalgar and turning around put the Combined Fleet much closer to the dangerous shoals off the cape and the wind pushed them to leeward—that’s the direction the wind is going as opposed to windward which is where it’s coming from.”
While talking, the man barely paused to breathe and seemed completely unbothered by the steep terrain, rough path, and protruding tree roots. Jaime and Kyle had to make an effort to keep up with the ancient, albeit lively, old man.
“Vice-Admiral, The Viscount Horatio Nelson, was in command of the British fleet. By this time Nelson was a living legend. He’d won numerous victories, lost his right arm, lost vision in his right eye, and his hair had turned white in service to the flag. He was known as a superb commander who respected his men and treated them well. He was no martinet, was wholly opposed to malicious corporal punishment, instead preferring to earn the trust and respect of his men. Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood, who was Nelson’s second-in-command, shared the same values and was similarly respected if nowhere near as legendary.
“Now, the strength of the British fleet, twenty-seven ships of the line in all, was that Nelson respected and trusted his captains and having established a plan for the battle, trusted them to carry it out to the best of their ability without waiting for orders from him, which would be nearly impossible to communicate during battle as the only way to do so was by flying signal flags from the masts, which were as a rule obscured by smoke or shot away. Nelson told his captains, ‘No captain can do very wrong if he places his ship alongside that of the enemy.’
“In contrast, Villeneuve gave his captains no leeway and required them to wait for instructions. This was not a particular fault of Villeneuve’s, but rather the custom of the French and Spanish.
“When the British spotted the Combined Fleet, all thirty-three ships of the line, arrayed in a line on the morning of the 21st, the fleet split into two groups,” the old man held up two fingers, “as pre-arranged by Nelson. The left-hand, or weather (that means upwind) column was commanded by Nelson. The right-hand, or lee, column was commanded by Collingwood. Nelson’s column was to cut the enemy line between the van and center while Collingwood was to cut through the rear with superior force concentrated at the rear. It took several hours because of the light wind but eventually the British fleet smashed into the line of the Combined Fleet.”
To illustrate the point, he raised his hands above his head and jabbed the index and middle fingers of his left hand into the palm of his right.
“See, instead of lining up parallel to the enemy, Nelson decided to throw out the rules of naval engagement and drive straight through them, creating havoc among the enemy and trusting to the superior gunnery of the British to win close up.”
Jaime and Kyle listened to the man, his voice casting a spell over them as they walked. Here and there the sunlight played among the fallen leaves and tree roots and the wind, stirring the air with only the faintest breeze which oddly mimicked the wind that drove those two fleets together on that day in 1805.
Despite his initial misgivings, Jaime was enjoying the old man’s story. He had known only vaguely the story of Trafalgar. It had been an important battle, a British victory over the French. It had dampened, although not altogether destroyed, Napoleon’s hopes of invading England. But Jaime found himself imagining the scene in his mind as described by the old man. The ships with their billowing sails, every inch of canvas stretched to catch the weak breeze.
“Royal Sovereign, Collingwood’s flag ship, reached the enemy first. It was followed by Belleisle and Mars. Because they were sailing toward the sides of the French and Spanish, the enemy could fire on the British at will and there was nothing Royal Sovereign, or any other ship could do, but take it.”
He fell silent for a while then began singing, quietly at first until Jaime could make out the words:
Come cheer up, my lads! ‘tis to glory we steer,
To add something more to this wonderful year.
To honour we call you, as free men not slaves,
For who are so free as the sons of the waves?
Heart of oak are our ships, heart of oak are our men.
We always are ready. Steady, boys, steady.
We’ll fight and we’ll conquer again and again!
Jaime and Kyle found themselves marching in time to the old man’s tune, their hearts strangely light, buoyed by the song.
“Ah! The cliffs.”
They emerged from the woods into the full light. The deep leafy smell of the forest gave way to the fresh open breeze. Pebbles ground underfoot as the ground underfoot turned from tree roots and dirt to a granite shelf. Fifty feet ahead the cliff dropped into nothingness and beyond, due west, the Meander River flowed through the yellow-orange gorge toward the base of the cliff where it met the Fox River running from the north and the two swirled and churned into a muddy brown mass before continuing south.
Jaime and Kyle advanced to the edge of the cliff as far as they dared.
“Well, here we are. Great story, sir,” Kyle said, turning back to the old man. “We’ll leave you to meet up with your acquaintances.”
The old man looked disappointed. “But I’ve not finished my story. We were just coming to the crucial part. Battle was about to be joined.”
“Maybe another time,” Kyle said. “And we don’t want to keep you from your friends.”
“Oh, that’s alright. They’re already here.”
Jaime and Kyle looked around. There was no one else there and no sound of anyone approaching.
“I don’t think so,” Jaime said. “There’s no one else here. Maybe they’re running late.”
The old man shook his head. “No. Don’t you see? It’s you. Both of you.”
Jaime and Kyle looked at each other. Kyle’s characteristic smile, flashing politely when attempting to excuse them from the old man’s presence, faltered.
Jaime frowned at the old man. “What are you talking about?”
“I came here to meet you both. To tell you about Trafalgar. You mustn’t forget. You must remember.”
“We let you walk with us. We listened to your story. We’re done now. You just go on and leave us alone.”
The old man shook his head.
“Alright, we’re going then,” Jaime said.
“No! I have to tell you.”
The old man advanced toward them.
With their backs to the cliffs, Jaime and Kyle couldn’t retreat very far.
“I don’t want to hurt you but we can take you.”
Jaime and Kyle raised their fists.
The old man, like a fading image, a wavering mirage, seemed to shimmer before them. He stood up straight. The dowdy outfit disappeared and was replaced by a deep blue uniform coat decorated with gold stitching, huge gold buttons, and gold epaulets on either shoulder. Beneath the coat was a white waistcoat with matching gold buttons. The khakis had transformed into white breeches surmounting white stockings and ending in black leather shoes with square golden buckles.
His deeply wrinkled face smoothed and changed, becoming a much younger version of itself, handsome but grizzled, with wavy gray hair swept back from his high forehead.
“What the—” Jaime said.
“If I can’t tell you, then I’ll just have to show you.”
“Stay back!” Kyle said.
“Son, I’ve been in more battles than years you’ve been alive. I can take you both. But I don’t want to. This is important. Your ancestors were at Trafalgar. They died there. Did you know that? You have to know. You have to remember. Here.”
He extended his right hand.
“Died there? Then where did I come from?” Kyle said.
The man laughed. “They had children before they died. They were both able seamen. Your grandfather was William Penhall from Southampton. His was John Truscott from Folkestone. Here.”
He extended his right hand again and tilted his head.
Jaime felt the ground shifting underneath him. The air became utterly still. The trees creaked and groaned. Far off he heard the tramp of bare feet, the shouting of deep voices. Jaime was sure he could taste salt on the air.
He looked at Kyle.
“Don’t,” Kyle said.
Jaime looked back at the old man. “What’s your name?”
The now much younger man smiled. “George Duff, at your service. Captain of Mars, seventy-four, third-rate ship of the line. She’s a poor sailer but she’s got a good crew.”
“Seventy-four?”
“Seventy-four guns, of course.”
This is impossible, Jaime thought.
Jaime reached out and took Captain Duff’s hand.
“Jaime!”
Captain Duff pulled hard. Jaime felt the tug not in his hand or arm or shoulder but deep behind his navel. As the air swirled and warped, Jaime just saw Duff lunge at Kyle and clap a hand on his shoulder.
Everything spun. Sky, ground, trees, cliff. All a swirling mass.
Then it stopped.
Jaime was huddled and bent.
He opened his eyes.
The solid granite ground beneath his feet had been replaced by oak planks. His shoes weren’t tennis shoes but black leather with square golden buckles. White silk stockings extended up his legs to white breeches.
He held his hands out in front of him. A dark blue uniform coat with gold thread reached to his wrists.
Kyle was standing next to him immaculately dressed in a similar blue coat trimmed in gold, though without the captain’s epaulets.
“Kyle, where the hell—”
Jaime stopped short. He took in his surroundings with a gasp.
They stood on the poop deck of a huge wooden ship, a ship of the line. Before them the mizzen mast towered, clad with thousands of feet of rope and draped in brilliant white sails stretched from spars framed by a bluest blue sky. Beyond the mizzen stood the mainmast and the foremast farther forward in the ship with lines and shrouds stretching from the deck hundreds of feet up into the air. Splinter netting extended just above their heads from stem to stern.
The quarter deck, the waist, and the forecastle beyond were full of men. Sailors by the dozen stripped to their waists wearing only their customary wide canvas trousers with pigtails streaming down their bare backs and handkerchiefs wrapped around their ears. Midshipmen here and there in plain blue uniform coats and white breeches. The quartermaster was at the wheel staring straight ahead and the master watching the captain for orders.
The captain.
There on the poop stood Captain George Duff, staring intently straight ahead.
“Captain Duff? Captain, what’s going on?”
Duff either ignored Jaime or didn’t hear him. He wasn’t sure which and, frozen with alarm and overwhelmed by his new surroundings, Jaimed was rooted to the spot.
Kyle was looking around, turning in every direction. They both noticed the guns, large nine-pounders on the quarter deck, the gun crews ready and waiting with powder, racks and racks of roundshot, grapeshot, and buckets of musketballs to pepper the upper decks of enemy ships.
Jaime followed the captain’s gaze straight ahead and saw the sterns of the two ships dead ahead and then to the left and right of them in the distance hundreds of sails on dozens of ships, massive three deck ships, many flying the French tricolor flag, all in line, all heading in the same direction to the left.
It was clear their ship was going to intersect with the enemy.
“Captain, is this Trafalgar? Are we on the Mars?” Jaime said to Duff.
“Steady,” Duff said to the master. “Starboard a little.”
The wheel turned and the ship responded.
An officer ran up to the captain. “Signal from Victory, sir: England expects that every man will do his duty.”
“Acknowledged,” Captain Duff said, his voice swelling, “and so we shall.”
Jaime realized that the captain’s voice was one of the only sounds he heard. In the last minute, nearly all activity on the ship had stopped. There was now no shouting, no tramping of feet. Nothing. Just a tension in the air. A nervous energy of anticipation. It made the hairs on his neck stand up.
Crackling cannon shots rent the air.
“There goes Sovereign. They’ll be in the thick of it ‘til they can cross their line and rake ‘em. Back at your post, sir!” Duff said to Kyle who had run to the railing and tripped over a rack of roundshot.
“So you can see us,” Jaime said.
But Duff was ignoring them again, focusing all his attention on what lay ahead.
Agonizing minutes passed. The thunder of the distant guns got closer, louder. It was accompanied by shouts, shrieks from the wounded, and the splintering of wood. Royal Sovereign was completely vulnerable to enemy fire until she crossed the enemy line and could return fire with broadsides into the stern and bow of the ships between which they ran.
And Mars was following.
“Starboard a little, Mr. Henry.”
“Starboard, Mr. Little,” the master repeated.
“Lie down there, you sir!” Duff roared to one of the men at the starboard guns standing up to look over the hammocks lashed to the railing.
They were steering further south now. To the north on the larboard bow the Royal Sovereign was covered in thick black smoke, the result of the grim work of the guns. Behind her, Belleisle was making for the line and Jaime judged Belleisle and Mars might reach the line at about the same time.
Captain Duff issued new orders to the master and no sooner had he spoken than puffs of smoke issued from the sides of the enemy ships dead ahead. Roundshot, barshot, and chain shot, visible because of their low speed, tore through the sails and rigging. Ropes and blocks swung free. One struck the mainmast and showered splinters onto the deck, some as big as a man’s arm, though most were caught by the netting.
Captain Duff tugged at Jaime’s arm. “Stand up, sir! On your feet. I won’t have an officer lying down on my ship. Officers must set an example. We do not shrink from enemy fire. Besides, the French always aim high and go for the rigging.”
Jaime hadn’t realized he had cowered on the deck. “So you can see me,” Jaime said.
Duff nodded.
“Which one’s my great grandfather?”
Duff indicated a shirtless pigtailed brawny man at the last quarterdeck gun. “Great, great, great, and so on.”
“Where’s mine?” Kyle said.
“Did you see that fellow sticking his head above the rail?”
“That’s him?”
Duff nodded. “Seems foolishness runs in the family.” He looked hard at both of them. “Stay on your feet. Set an example for the men. Nelson said that England expects that every man will do his duty and I expect the same.”
Minutes passed. The enemy would be reloading.
Another broadside. The low howling sound of a cannonball passing close by. One struck a gun on the starboard side, upsetting the cannon from its carriage which crushed one of the gun crew. Blood spattered the sand-covered deck as wounds mounted. A seaman missing his right leg below the knee was helped down the main hatch to the surgeon on the orlop deck.
A headless corpse lay at the base of the mainmast.
Jaime watched in horror as the nearest gun crew swarmed around the body and pitched it over the larboard side leaving a bloody trail in its wake.
Lieutenant Hennah stepped up to Captain Duff. “Captain, hadn’t we better show our broadside to the enemy and fire if only to cover the ship with smoke?”
Duff was emphatic. “No, we are ordered to go through the line, and go through we shall, by God!” Then he shouted to the crew on deck, “Steady, men. We shall soon begin our work and pay them back double and triple!”
A cheer went up.
“Mr. Hennah,” Duff said to the lieutenant, “make sure the starboard guns are triple-shotted. We’ll be engaging that ship,” he pointed off the starboard bow, “the Pluton, if I’m not mistaken, and I want to give them one almighty broadside.”
“Yes, sir, already seen to, sir.”
“Very good, Mr. Hennah. As you were.”
Jaime forced his trembling legs to stiffen at the knees so he didn’t collapse as a shower of tiny splinters cascaded from the netting overhead.
Kyle, by contrast, had walked down the stairs from the poop and was standing by the starboard railing of the quarter deck looking admiringly at a nine-pounder gun trained on the enemy ship and seemingly unconcerned by the screams and shouts, the whistling cannonballs and falling spars.
He looked at Jaime then with a glint in his eye and a mad smile across his face. Racing up the stairs to Jaime, he said with élan, “Isn’t it great?”
“You want to get killed?” Jaime said, but Kyle had already turned away and was standing next to Captain Duff, watching him intently.
“Just a little closer now. Steady, men, steady,” the captain said, loud but calm. “By God, we’ll soon show the god of the dead what the god of war can do!”
The larboard battery of Pluton blazed away, firing at will and covering its deck in thick black smoke. Mars drew nearer, agonizingly slow and, as with every man on board, Jaime felt the anticipation building in the pit of his stomach, a desire to move, to act, to do something rather than sit and passively take the enemy’s fire and, above all, to retaliate and serve back double and triple what they had received.
“Stand to your guns!”
An excited yet grim cheer escaped from the lips of every man on the gun crews as they stood to and, all along the quarterdeck and forecastle, aimed the starboard guns at the enemy ship.
The crews on the upper and lower gun decks below their feet were doing the same, yet not with the same small nine-pounders but with huge twenty-fours and, on the lower gun deck, massive thirty-sixes.
“Starboard battery fire—”
The captain’s order was cut short by a cataclysm of thunder as flaming tongues stabbed from every gun in turn in a rolling broadside from the bow to the stern. The ship was instantly wreathed in acrid black smoke and every man was plunged into his own tiny shrouded world.
The gun crews nearest Jaime focused solely on worming and sponging, ramming the cartridge until the gun captain shouted “home,” ramming the shot, pricking the cartridge and adding powder to the touch hole, aiming the gun with handspikes, and finally firing by a pull of the gunlock lanyard.
Jaime could just see through the smoke the midshipmen and lieutenants running to and fro between the guns under their command, offering encouragement that could not be heard above the din.
All the while, the captain was surveying to the best of his ability the entire ship, the men, and the enemy.
To the northeast, Belleisle had indeed intersected the enemy line and was pounding away at a French ship whose tricolor was still flying proudly from the mizzen. To the east behind the Mars, the British ships were eagerly following them into battle, an agonizingly slow chase in such a light breeze even though they had the weather gauge.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. It was Captain Duff.
“Look!” said the captain, pointing off the starboard quarter. “See how the Tonnant crosses their line in the gap between those two ships. She’ll rake both of them.”
Sure enough, not a minute later Tonnant was obscured by smoke as she poured a broadside off the larboard into the stern of the Spanish ship to the left of her and mere seconds later her starboard battery did the same to the bow of the ship to her right.
No cheers went up from the crew of Mars. The gun crews could neither see nor hear anything beyond the little world of their guns filled with iron and thunder and smoke.
For the better part of an hour Mars and Pluton traded blows, the rate of fire slackening slightly as guns were unhoused or, more commonly, became too hot to fire until they cooled.
Below them on the quarter deck, a midshipman, no more than fourteen years old, clutched his spilled intestines where a ball had ripped across his belly. He was already face down on the deck when Jaime reached him and it was all Jaime could do to feel his way through the smoke back up the stairs.
Thereafter Jaime kept close to Captain Duff, doing what he could to help the gun crews there, but Kyle ranged about, up and down the gangways and into the forecastle, almost raving as he shouted to the crews and gesticulated at the enemy.
Mars was slowly drifting east but, with her head into the wind, the Pluton made no forward movement although she could still fire on Mars. Belleisle off Mars’ starboard bow lost its mizzen which crashed down onto its larboard quarter and Belleisle limped away revealing the French 74, Fougueux, which it had blocked from view.
Mars and Fougueux drifted west to leeward with the inevitable conclusion, suggested by Captain Duff’s grim expression, that Mars’ stern would soon be exposed to the French’s larboard battery and she would rake them.
Spars, sailcloth, rigging, blocks, and shrapnel continued to rain down from what was left of the masts and rigging.
Kyle came up to Jaime who was standing by Captain Duff just as the captain addressed the captain of the marines.
“Do you think our guns would bear on her?” he shouted, indicating Fougueux.
“I think not, but I cannot see for smoke,” replied the marine captain.
“Then we must point our guns at the ships on which they can bear. I shall go and look, but the men below may see better, as there will be less smoke.”
Captain Duff went down the stairs and forward to the end of the quarter deck and looked over the side. He waved to Lieutenant Hennah, who was standing next to Jaime and Kyle. They both followed the lieutenant over.
“Go below and order the guns aft. Aft, Hennah! We must fire before she rakes us.”
Hennah took off and disappeared down the ladder.
Duff’s gaze followed Hennah, then he looked at Jaime, and Kyle who had joined them, with a queer placid look on his face and a small grim smile.
“Goodbye, boys. Don’t forget what we sacrificed to defeat tyranny.”
Jaime, puzzled, looked at Kyle, then back at Duff, who had turned around.
In the distance, beyond the calm waters tinged red and littered with bodies and flotsam, fresh smoke and jets of flame billowed the length of Fougueux.
The round shot, visible because of its low speed, howled as it approached the ship, heading straight for them.
Jaime found himself reaching out toward Duff as the ball struck the captain at the base of the neck and continued on through Jaime’s outstretched hand, through his chest, and through Kyle behind him.
Jaime collapsed.
Duff lay next to him on one side, Kyle on the other.
The world, wreathed in smoke and a cacophony of sound, took on an ethereal quality and began to fade.
There was no pain, just a dull sense that something was missing from his body as he stared up at the torn splinter netting and the sails cut loose from the yards and, beyond, the blue blue sky just visible through the smoke.
He was dimly aware of Kyle screaming next to him. Then there was a rush of color, blue and red and white, as someone, Lieutenant Hennah perhaps, covered Duff’s body with a spare Union Jack, and the colors merged and shifted and his limbs grew cold and distant and his eyes closed.
Jaime screamed as he awoke and clutched his chest.
It was whole and beneath his hand he felt not the thick wool of a lieutenant’s uniform but the thin cotton of a t-shirt and the slick plastic letters of his high school’s name.
Next to him, Kyle was weeping uncontrollably. Jaime crawled over and knelt next to his friend.
After a few minutes Kyle managed to speak. “Goddammit. Goddammit, Jaime. His head, his goddamn head.”
“I know,” Jaime said.
“The cannonball went right through me. I felt it. Right here.” He prodded his belly. “But I didn’t feel it. Not like I thought it would feel. No one’s ever going to believe this.”
“No, I don’t think they would.”
Captain Duff was nowhere to be seen and there was nothing to suggest he had ever been there, just dirt and gravel and granite and the rushing of water far, far below.
They sat in the fading light and listened to the water and wept and when they were done, with the steady earth lurching beneath their new-found sea legs, Jaime and Kyle walked home and while they walked they remembered.
***
Captain George Duff of the Mars, 74, died aged 41 on October 21st, 1805 in action off Cape Trafalgar. He left behind a wife and three children. The Naval Chronicle for 1806, volume 15, includes a brief biography of the late captain and an account of his final moments:
Captain Duff went to the end of the quarter-deck to look over the wide; and then told his Aid-de-camp, Mr. Arbuthnot, to go below, and order the guns to be pointed more aft, meaning against the Fougueux. He had scarcely turned round to go with these orders when the Fougueux raked the Mars. A cannon shot killed Captain Duff, and two seamen who were immediately behind him: the ball struck the Captain on the breast, and carried off his head; his body fell on the gangway, where it was covered with a spare colour, an union jack, until after the action.
When the battle had ceased, and it was generally known in the Mars that their gallant Captain was killed, there was scarcely a dry eye among the crew. Every one felt that he had lost his friend and benefactor; and they all exclaimed, “We never shall again have such a Commander!”
Captain Duff was a man of fine stature, strong and well made, above six feet in height, and had a manly, open, benevolent countenance. During thirty years service he had not been four years unemployed, and that was about twenty months after his return from the West Indies in 1787; and not quite two years after the last war. Although he went early to sea, he lost no opportunity of improving himself in the theory, as well as in the practice of his profession; and acted the part of an instructor, and father, to the numerous young men who were under his command.
The Naval Chronicle also contains selections from personal letters, such as the one included at the beginning of this story written by Captain Duff on the morning of the battle, and including the letter written by First Lieutenant William Hennah to Mrs. Sophia Duff, informing her of her husband’s death, and a letter from Rear-Admiral the Earl of Northesk doing the same.
Another letter, written by none other than Captain Duff’s son reported his father’s death to his mother:
My Dear Mamma,
You cannot possibly imagine how unwilling I am to begin this melancholy letter. However, as you must unavoidably hear of the fate of dear Papa, I write these few lines to request you to bear it as patiently as you can. He died like a Hero, having gallantly led his ship into action, and his memory will ever be dear to his King, his Country, and his Friends. It was about fifteen minutes past twelve in the afternoon of the 21st of October, when the engagement began, and it was not finished till five. Many a brave Hero sacrificed his life upon that occasion to his King and his Country. You will hear that Lord Viscount Nelson was wounded in the commencement of the engagement, and only survived long enough to learn that the victory was ours—”Then,” said that brave Hero, “I die happy, since I die victorious,” and in a few minutes expired.
We are now all on board the Euryalus, with the Hon. Captain Blackwood, and, in compliance with the wish of Admiral Collingwood, are now on our way to England, that we may have an opportunity of more readily knowing your wishes respecting our future conduct. Captain Blackwood has indeed been very polite and kind to me; and has requested Mr. Dalrymple to let my uncle know, that on account of his acquaintance with my Papa, he will feel very happy in keeping me on board his ship.
My dear Mamma, I have again to request you to endeavor to make yourself as happy and as easy as possible. It has been the will of Heaven, and it is our duty to submit.
Believe me your obedient and affectionate Son,
N. Duff.
Norwich Duff, Captain George Duff’s son, was 13 years old and was serving on his father’s ship as a midshipman at Trafalgar. Norwich Duff remained in the Navy after Trafalgar and was made post-captain in 1822, rear admiral in 1852, and vice admiral in 1857. As was the case for so many men who were there, it seems indisputable that Trafalgar was likely the high point, and low point, of his life.
This is in admiration of all who were there, on both sides, and especially in respect for and remembrance of the fallen.
Disclaimer: Except for excerpts from The Naval Chronicle, this is a work of fiction, strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance, perceived resemblance, or similarity to any other fictional works, to actual events or persons, living or dead, and any perceived slights of people, places, or organizations are products of the reader’s imagination. This fiction is the result of a partnership between a human writer and the character(s) he accessed with his creative subconscious as he raced through the story with them. No AI of any kind, generative or otherwise, was used in any way to write this story.