Part 19 (1/2)

A whole half-year pa.s.sed away without any events transpiring that much concern our narrative. Jack Mackenzie was still on the war-path, playing havoc with the commerce of France and Spain. Indeed he had const.i.tuted himself a kind of terror of the seas. His adventures were not only most daring, but carried out with a coolness that proved they were guided by a master mind. Indeed Jack Mackenzie and all his officers knew now to a very nicety what might be done with the swift _Tonneraire_, and what could not. Her bold young captain did not mean to be either captured or sunk, and he was wise enough to run away whenever he found himself overmatched. But this was not very often.

One surprise, during this time, Jack and his officers had received, and it was a very happy one. While lying at anchor with Lord St. Vincent's s.h.i.+ps, one day a boat pulled off from the flags.h.i.+p, and there leaped therefrom and came swiftly up the ladder--who but young Murray himself.

He saluted the quarter-deck, and he saluted Jack as he reported himself, smiling all over like the happy boy he was.

”I've come on board to join, sir. Isn't it jolly, just? And I'm promoted to a lieutenancy.”

M'Hearty, Simmons, and every soul in the mess were most pleased to see him, and that evening Murray was the hero of the hour; and a very long and strange story he had to tell of his imprisonment, his harsh treatment, and his making love to the prison-governor's daughter, through whose cleverness he at last managed to escape, dressed as a _grisette_.

He kept his messmates laughing till long after seven bells in the first watch; and it must be said that not this night only, but every other night, Murray infused into the mess a joy and jollity to which it had been all winter a stranger.

Meanwhile a greater hero than Jack Mackenzie must hold the stage for a brief spell--namely, Nelson himself. Napoleon Bonaparte, after lying awake for a night or two, gave birth to a grand idea. Hyder Ali, in the south of India, hated the British as one hates a viper, and gladly would have crushed our power under his heel. But he needed help. It occurred to Bonaparte to aid him, and so oust us from our Indian Empire, which was then being quickly built up. It was a pretty idea, and well carried out at the commencement; for Bonny, as our sailors called him, managed to sail from France with thirty thousand veteran, well-tried troops; and having the good luck to elude our fleet, he called at Malta, which he quickly brought to terms, then made straight for Egypt. Here he landed from his fleet, which I believe had orders to return, but did not.

With such men as those old troops of Napoleon's the conquest of Egypt and the Mamelukes was but a picnic, and all very pleasant for Bonny and his merry men, though sad enough for the country on which these human locusts had alighted. Cairo fell, and the great warrior now set himself to rebuild the const.i.tution of the country and create a native army.

Lord St. Vincent sent the brave one-eyed, one-armed Nelson with a fleet to destroy the French expedition. That he quickly would have done. He speedily would have cooked his hare, but he had to catch it first. Where ever was the French fleet? No one could tell him, and his adventures in search of it would fill a goodly volume. It reads like one long entrancing romance.

Jack Mackenzie, in his _Tonneraire_--the real name of the s.h.i.+p I am bound not to mention--joined this fleet, and thus was present at the great battle of the Nile.

Poor Nelson was almost worn out with anxiety and watching; but when he arrived at Aboukir Bay and found the foe, all his courage and all his calmness returned, and although the sun was slowly sinking in the west, our Nelson resolved not to wait an hour even, but attack the enemy there and then.

CHAPTER XXI.

WILLIE DIED A HERO'S DEATH.

”Then, traveller, one kind drop bestow, 'Twere graceful pity, n.o.bly brave; Nought ever taught the heart to glow Like the tear that bedews a soldier's grave.”

DIBDIN.

I cannot help thinking that if glory is to be measured by pluck and skill combined, the battle of the Nile was even a more glorious fight than that of Trafalgar. The former battle required more physical exertion from the men individually, and therefore was a greater strain upon their courage. How? you may ask. I will tell you; and although my view of the matter may savour of the reasoning of the medico, still I think you will admit I have common-sense on my side. Besides, I am a sailor-surgeon; I have seen our brave blue-jackets working, and fighting too, under various conditions, so it cannot be said I speak altogether without experience. Well, the battle of Aboukir Bay or the Nile began in the evening, when the men were more or less jaded or tired. They had, moreover, just come off a weary voyage or cruise, and a night's good quiet sleep would have made a wonderful difference to them both in physique and _morale_. Trafalgar was fought by day, beginning in the forenoon. Aboukir was contested in the hottest season of the year; Trafalgar in the cool--namely, toward the end of October. Therefore, I say, all the more honour and glory to our brave fellows; and may we fight as well and as fortunately during the next great naval war, which cannot now be far away.

I never can read or even think about that long hide-and-seek cruise of Nelson's in the Mediterranean, in search of the French expedition, without a feeling of disappointment. Why, oh why was it ordained that he should not catch Napoleon with his fleet and his army at sea? Could he have but sent the firebrand to the bottom of the salt ocean, what conflagrations Europe would have been spared, what shedding of blood, what hopeless sorrow and bitter tears!

But there! I am keeping the fleets waiting. For his part, Brueys, the French admiral, would have preferred to wait. ”He means to attack,” he said to one of his captains, referring to Nelson, ”but he cannot be mad enough to attack to-night.”

But Nelson _was_ mad enough. He was burning to give it to the French, and give it to them hot, for all the trouble and anxiety they had cost him. He was as eager as a wild cat to spring at the throat of his foe.

Another night of waiting might have killed him. No, no, he cannot, will not wait. ”Make the signal for general action, and trust to Heaven and the justice of our cause!”

Along the bay lay the great French fleet, with shoal water behind them, supported by gunboats and bomb-vessels, the s.h.i.+ps moored one hundred and sixty yards from each other, and with stream cables so that they could spring their broadsides on their enemy.

And their line extended for a mile and a half.

Had Brueys thought that Nelson would attack that night, he would have got under way, and thus been free either to manoeuvre or show his heels. He did not know our Nelson. Nor could he have believed that the great British admiral would have done so doughty and daring a deed as to get round behind him, so to speak, betwixt the sh.o.r.e and his fleet, despite the sands and shoals. But Nelson did with a portion of his fleet, and each war-s.h.i.+p took up position with all the precision of couples in a contra-dance. Oh, it was beautiful! but when the battle fairly began, and tongues of fire and clouds of rolling smoke leaped and curled from the great guns, lighting up the dusk and gloom of gathering night, while echoes reverberated from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e, oh, then this thunderstorm of war was very grand and terrible!

To describe the battle in detail, and all the heroic actions that took place that night, would take a volume in itself. But it is all history, and probably the reader knows every bit of it as well as, if not better than, I myself do. We must honour the French, though, for this fight.

They fought well and bravely, and you know the gallant Brueys died on his own quarter-deck, refusing to be carried below. He was a hero. So we might say was the captain of the _Serieuse_ frigate, who had the cheek to fire into the great _Orion_ (Sir James Saumerez) as she was sweeping past. It was like a collie dog attacking a mastiff. Saumerez couldn't stand it. He stayed long enough literally to blow the frigate out of the water or on to a shoal, where she was wrecked. The _Orion_ then went quietly on and engaged a foeman worthy of her steel. It was plucky of the _Bellerophon_--the old Billy Ruffian, as sailors called her--of seventy-four guns, to attack the great _Orient_ of one hundred and twenty, and of the _Majestic_ to range alongside the mighty _Tonnant_ and coolly say, ”It's you and I, isn't it?” Then one can't help feeling sorry for poor Trowbridge in the _Culloden_, because he ran ash.o.r.e, and had to remain a mere spectator while burning to have a finger in the fearful pie.