Nelson: The Essential Hero Read Online Free PDF Page B

his next, and so far most important, step forward in his career. Both cutters and long-boats were equipped for sailing as well as rowing, the cutter being the general maid-of-all-work used for carrying stores, provisions and passengers. The long-boat, on the other hand, was the largest boat carried aboard a man-of-war and was often decked, or at least halfdecked, and sometimes used for sending boarding parties aboard enemy merchantmen, for cutting out smugglers, and for landing troops in shore actions. A young man in command of a ship’s boat learned in microcosm, as it were, all the niceties of sailing, of pilotage, and of the ever necessary use of lead and line in shoal waters.
    In 1773, Nelson, who was nearly fifteen, heard the story that was exciting everyone in the naval service — an expedition to the Arctic was being fitted out. Two bomb-vessels, chosen because of the massive strength built into them to allow for the recoil of the heavy guns in their bows, had been selected and were already being provisioned and further strengthened against ice. (Two-masted, with main and mizzen, a bomb-ketch of this type was between 100 and 250 tons, and was designed for engaging fortresses. Falconer in his Marine Dictionary credits them with having been a French invention and first used in the bombardment of Algiers, adding ‘till then it had been judged impracticable to bombard a place from the sea’.) One of the two ketches was the Racehorse , Captain Constantine Phipps, and the other the Carcass , Captain Skeffington Lutwidge. Nelson at no time in his life was one to hang back when there was a chance of preferment. He had already shown his determination in that original letter which he had made William write to their father and now, having chosen his career, he was equally determined that he should get ahead in it. With peace heavy on the waters there was little or no chance of advancement for anyone in the Service, let alone young midshipmen. The only thing on the horizon at that moment was this Arctic expedition, and young Horatio would move hell and high water to make sure that he at any rate was considered, even if not taken. The very fact that the proclaimed order of the day was ‘no boys’ spurred him on even further.
    As always in rules and regulations there was a loophole, for although boys were not required, as being of ‘no use’, the captains themselves might take some personal servants. Captain Lutwidge was accordingly badgered by Horatio Nelson (Maurice Suckling without any doubt lending a private word, not only about his nephew’s enthusiasm but also his ability as a small-boat handler). ‘. . . Nothing could prevent my using every interest to go with Captain Lutwidge in the Carcass ; and, as I fancied I was to fill a man’s place, I begged I might be his cockswain : which, finding my ardent desire for going with him, Captain Lutwidge complied with, and has continued the strictest friendship to this moment.’ Nelson not only knew how to be persuasive but, as events would prove, to show such spirit and evidence of his capabilities that no senior officer from whom he sought preferment regretted his choice.
    The expedition, designed to explore the possibilities of a northeast passage into the South Seas, as well as to promote the interests of science, was not very memorable in itself. The ships penetrated to within ten degrees of the Pole, but were stopped by ice. In scientific terms, the most useful advance was found in an ingenious machine which turned seawater into fresh - something which forestalled the condensers of later days after the Age of Sail had yielded to that of Steam. For Nelson as for his companions, however, the experience must have been vivid and memorable. They moved through waters that few men had known, and saw off the gloomy coast of west Spitsbergen the dazzling sheen of the giant glaciers. From time to time with a horrendous crash huge sections fell away and burst into the sea, while