Trafalgar

It was on one of the early days of October in that fatal year, 1805, that my worthy master called me into his room and looked at me with the severity that was habitual to him⁠—a severity that was only on the surface for his nature was gentleness itself⁠—he said:

“Gabriel, are you a brave man?”

I did not know what to answer, for, to tell the truth, in my fourteen years of life no opportunity had ever presented itself for me to astonish the world with any deed of valor; still, it filled me with pride to hear myself called a man, and thinking it ill-judged to deny myself the credit of courage before anyone who held it in such high estimation, I answered, with boyish boldness:

“Yes, sir, I am a brave man.”

At this the noble gentleman, who had shed his blood in a hundred glorious fights and who nevertheless did not disdain to treat a faithful servant with frank confidence, smiled at me kindly, signed to me to take a seat, and seemed on the point of informing me of some business of importance, when his wife, my mistress, Doña Francisca entered the study, and, to give further interest to the discussion, began to declaim with vehemence.

“You are not to go,” she said, “I declare you shall not join the fleet. What next will you be wanting to do?⁠—at your age and when you have long retired as superannuated! No, no, Alonso my dear. You are past sixty and your dancing days are over.”

“She is coming!” cried Marcial in an agony of alarm, and they folded up the maps and began to talk of indifferent matters. I, however, not being able to cool down my juvenile blood so rapidly or else not noticing my mistress’s approach soon enough, went on, down the middle of the room in my mad career, ejaculating with the utmost incoherence, such phrases as I had picked up: “Tack to starboard! Now Port! Broadside to the leeward! Fire! Bang! bom! boom!⁠ ⁠…” She came up to me in a fury and without any warning delivered a broadside on my figurehead with her right hand, and with such effect that for a few moments I saw nothing but stars.

“What! you too?” she cried, battering me unmercifully. “You see,” she added, turning on her husband with flashing eyes, “you have taught him to feel no respect for you!⁠—You thought you were still in the caleta did you, you little ne’er do weel?”

The commotion ended by my running off to the kitchen crying and disgraced, after striking my colors in an ignominious manner, before the superior force of the enemy; Doña Francisca giving chase and belaboring my neck and shoulders with heavy slaps. In the kitchen I cast anchor and sat down to cry over the fatal termination of my sea-fight.

I was standing lost in the contemplation of all these wonders when I felt a heavy hand on the nape of my neck; I thought the mainmast had fallen on the top of me. I turned round in alarm and gave a cry of horror at seeing a man who was now holding me by the ears as if he were going to lift me up by them. It was my uncle.

“What are you doing here, vermin!” he asked, in the amiable tone that was habitual with him. “Do you want to learn the service? Hark ye Juan,” he added, turning to a sailor of most sinister aspect, “send this landlubber up to the main-yard to take a walk there.”

I excused myself as best I might from the pleasure of taking a walk on the main-yard, explaining that I was body-servant to Don Alonso Gutierrez de Cisniega and had come on board with him. Three or four sailors, my affectionate uncle’s particular friends, wanted to torment me so I decided on quitting their distinguished society and went off to the cabin in search of my master. An officer’s toilet is no less elaborate on board than on shore, and when I saw the valets busied in powdering the heads of the heroes they waited on, I could not help asking myself whether this was not, of all occupations, the least appropriate in a man-of-war, when every minute was precious and where everything that was not directly serviceable to the working of the ship was a hindrance.

I forgot to mention one preliminary in which I myself had borne a hand. Early in the morning the decks were cleared for action, and when all was ready for serving the guns and working the ship, I heard someone say: “The sand⁠—bring the sand.” Marcial pulled me by the ear, and taking me to one of the hatchways set me in a line with some of the pressed men, ship’s boys, and other supernumeraries. A number of sailors were posted on the ladders from the hatchway to the hold and between decks, and in this way were hauling up sacks of sand. Each man handed one to the man next to him and so it was passed on without much labor. A great quantity of sacks were thus brought up from hand to hand, and to my great astonishment they were emptied out on the upper deck, the poop, and the forecastle, the sand being spread about so as to cover all the planking; and the same thing was done between decks. My curiosity prompted me to ask the boy who stood next to me what this was for.

“For the blood,” he said very coolly.

“For the blood!” I exclaimed unable to repress a shudder. I looked at the sand⁠—I looked at the men who were busily employed at this task⁠—and for a moment I felt I was a coward. However, my imagination reverted to the ideas which had previously filled it, and relieved my mind of its alarms; I thought no more of anything but victory and a happy issue.