"Nelson Did"
By JOHN LULLS (Headmaster of Bradfield)
HE came into my study one afternoon just ten years ago, a young Sub-Lieutenant in the Wavy Navy. His ship had put into Harwich and he had been given a few days' leave, and he was visiting his old school on his way to his home in the south. So I answered his questions about the masters whom he used to know, I told him what I could about his contemporaries who were fighting in the other services, and we discussed the prospects of the school football- side. Then, with a little prompting, he told me something of his life in the North Sea, of mines and submarines and air cover, of the ' Schamhorst's ' eleven-inch guns as she slipped up the Channel from Brest. Did he like his ship ? Yes, he did. She was neither very large nor very fast, she was not very comfortable, but she was a ship that all sailors liked. And his captain ? No. He had little use for his captain. He was . . . well . . . the sort of man . . . well, he wouldn't stop when a man fell overboard.
This seemed too easy. Prompted no doubt by that trade- union spirit which brings one commanding officer hurrying to the defence of another. I made all the obvious excuses.- The safety of the ship, the lives of the ship's company, perhaps even the success of some important enterprise—surely all these must be of more importance than the life of a single sailor who falls overboard. As I warmed to the subject I became positively eloquent, at least in my own eyes. The young man heard me, patiently enough. and then demolished all my fine arguments with two words, "Nelson did." I thought that I knew all the Nelson stories, but this was strange to me. " When ? " I asked, " and where did this happen ? " He thought that it was in the Straits of Gibraltar, but he had no idea when. So the North Sea and the football- side were forgotten, and we were soon searching the pages of Southey and Callender.
Here it is. 1797, the 11th February. Nelson, in the frigate ' Minerve; was carrying out his orders to evacuate Corsica. With the, late Viceroy, Sir Gilbert Elliot, a future Governor- General of India, as his guest and passenger, he was hurrying to join Sir John Jervis. And we may assume that his spirits, damped by the evacuation, were steadily rising. For with Sir John he would get a first-rate ship, probably the " Captain " again. And Sir John would certainly bring the Spaniards to battle. It is true that there were two of them after him at the moment, and that he might well find the whole of their fleet barring his way somewhere west of the Straits. But these were everyday risks, not worth a moment's anxiety, certainly not to be compared with the twin rewards, a ship of the line and a first-class battle against the Dons. So with a light heart he and his staff and Sir Gilbert sat down to dinner.
And then it happened. " Man overboard." At once Nelson was on deck. In a few" minutes a boat was over the side, with Lieutenant Hardy in her looking for the drowning man. He could not be found, nor could the boat, rowing furiously against the racing current, hope to rejoin Minerve.' In fact she must fall a prey to the leading Spaniard, as Nelson must have known would happen. Without a moment's hesitation he shortened sail and dropped back to pick up Hardy. To Sir Gilbert it looked like suicide; destruction seemed inevitable. To Nelson, if he gave it a thought, it must have meant the end of all his high hopes of joining Sir John. He could not know that the Spaniards would assume that he had sighted the British fleet, and that they would incontinently turn tail and put back into port. But so they did. And Minerve,' passing that night through the Spanish fleet, duly joined the Admiral on the 13th. The next day Nelson, once more in the ' Captain,' played a leading part in the victory off Cape St. Vincent.
" England," said Jervis that day, " badly needs a victory." Today she has, fortunately, no need of naval victories, but she will'always need young men, like my Sub-Lieutenant, brought up on the stories and trained in the traditions of her great captains; young men who can answer, "Nelson did."
So here's a tribute to the memory of the man who inspired every Englishman of his day and has inspired thousands of Englishmen ever since. And here's a thought for next Tuesday, when Londoners, passing through his Square in daylight or floodlight, can see the greatest of all sea-captains, " Who looketh o'er London as if 'twere his own, As he standeth in stone, aloft and alone, Sailing the sky with one arm and one eye."
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