TRAFALGAR, 21-10

To the memory of:

Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson

* Burnam Thorpe, UK, 29th of September 1758

+ Cape Trafalgar, Spain, 21th of October 1805

As a hopeful young lieutenant,
 decades before his demise

England expects every man to do his duty

A Royal Navy task force today smashed the combined French and Spanish fleets, ripping apart

Napoleon’s plans to invade Britain.

But victory has come at a terrible cost.

Amid our triumph is grief, because Admiral Lord Nelson, who masterminded this great

battle, was shot and died at the height of the bloody five-hour combat here in the waters off

Gibraltar.

The 47-year-old hero, crippled by a French sniper’s shot, lived long enough to know that his

typically unorthodox battle plan had been triumphant.

He was fatally wounded doing what he loved most – leading his men into the fog of a ferocious

naval war.

He died below decks in his flagship HMS Victory.

Today survivors of this great battle were too exhausted to celebrate and the death of their

commander eclipsed the enormity of what they had achieved.

The last word was missing in his epic song:

the word that crowns every achievement.

The mourners have done their duty, right or wrong:

they wrote it in blood and bereavement.

It came at 1.15pm. A fizzing musket ball fired from high up in the mizzen mast of the French ship Redoutable.

Thirty feet below, Horatio Nelson was pacing the quarterdeck alongside his old friend Captain Thomas Hardy.

There's a hole next to the left epaulet...

I watched as Nelson turned at the hatchway to face the stern when the lead ball, five-eighths of an inch wide, struck the epaulette on his left shoulder.

We know now that it plunged down into his thorax, fractured two ribs, punctured a lung, severed

his pulmonary artery and lodged in his spine.

Nelson slumped to his knees trying to support himself on his left arm.

Hardy, who had been walking slightly ahead, turned to see his friend and admiral collapse into the

slicks of blood left by those previously killed during the ferocious battle.

Daniel Jones, a 13-year-old, helped ease Nelson from the deck and said he heard him say: 

‘They have done for me at last, Hardy. My backbone is shot through.’

The shot heard around the British Empire.
‘They have done for me at last, Hardy. My backbone is shot through.’ Admiral Horatio Nelson

The commander-in-chief was taken below to the cockpit as his lungs slowly filled with blood. Lieutenant James Barr, who has fought alongside Nelson for the past 20 years, watched as his leader fought for breath.

He said: ‘Nelson was in agonising pain. It was oppressively hot and stuffy and Victory’s heavy guns

rolled and thundered five feet overheard. None of us could believe what we were watching. To

us this man was invincible. He had survived so much, it seemed impossible that he would leave us.’

Jones was ordered to fan Nelson and fetch lemonade, wine and water for the admiral.

‘He kept saying short prayers with Captain Hardy, but we never thought he would die,’ said the young lad with tears welling in his eyes.

Meanwhile, up in the rigging, the French marksmen were jubilant. One was heard to shout:
‘I’ve got him. I’ve hit Nelson. We will win, we will win.’
But within minutes a crack team of marines, furious at what had been done to their admiral and
desperate for revenge, was mustered on the quarterdeck and fired round after round into the
French rigging.
They immediately claimed to have shot and killed the man who shot Nelson. The body of sniper
Jacques D’Aubant was identified later, but in the chaos of war it was not clear if they had got the
right man.

About an hour and 10 minutes after Nelson had been shot, Hardy, who had been directing the
battle above, stooped low and entered the dimly-lit cockpit. Nelson said:
‘Well, Hardy, how goes the battle? How goes the day with us?’
Hardy said: ‘Very well, my lord. We have got 12 or 14 of the enemy’s ships in our possession, but
five of theirs look like they’re bearing down upon Victory. I have called two or three of our
fresh ships round us and have no doubts of giving them a drubbing.’

Hardy greets the suffering commander, as a concerned crew looks on.

About 4.15pm, in the final throes of the battle, Hardy reappeared, grabbed Nelson’s hand and congratulated him on a brilliant victory. By this time he was certain 14 or 15 ships had surrendered.
Through gritted teeth, Nelson replied: ‘That is well, but I bargained for 20.’
Lt. Barr said: ‘At this point I heard the admiral tell Hardy that he expected to live only for a
few more minutes. Then he pleaded with the captain not to throw his body overboard.
‘We knew the end was near and after the emotion of the battle this was almost too much to bear.’

Lt. Barr said he then heard Nelson whisper to Hardy:
‘Take care of poor Lady Hamilton. Kiss me, Hardy.’
The captain knelt and kissed his cheek and Nelson said:
‘Now I am satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty.

Hardy stood for a minute or two in silence before he knelt again and kissed the admiral’s forehead.
Nelson asked: ‘Who is that?’ The captain replied: ‘It is Hardy.’
‘God bless you Hardy.’

But the admiral clung on to life for another 15 minutes. He said to Victory’s chaplain Alexander Scott: ‘Doctor, I have not been a great sinner. Remember that I leave Lady Hamilton and my daughter Horatia as a legacy to my country.’
He was now speaking in half-sentences between bouts of intense pain. He was very thirsty and
called: ‘Drink, drink!’ ‘Fan, fan!’ and ‘Rub, rub!’ with garbled urgency.
The admiral said nothing more for five minutes and Surgeon William Beatty touched Nelson’s hand: it was cold.
There was no pulse.
But when he touched his forehead, Nelson opened his eyes, looked up and shut them again as he
died.
Beatty recorded the time of death as 4.30 pm.

There was no pulse.
It was 16:30.

Half-an-hour later, the battle was over.
But Britain had lost its greatest naval hero.

Inspired by thirst
For glory, on the field of battle quaffed
 Instead Death's bitter draught.

Live forever in our hearts

Inspire us to carry on...

Only the one who dies young and violently,
after a series of exceptional achievements,
can become a legend.

Though you drowned in blood, 

you will live eternally

thanks to sacrifice...