WILLIE DIED A HERO’S DEATH.

“Then, traveller, one kind drop bestow,
’Twere graceful pity, nobly brave;
Nought ever taught the heart to glow
Like the tear that bedews a soldier’s grave.”
Dibdin.

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 ships 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 shore and his fleet, despite the sands and shoals. But Nelson did with a portion of his fleet, and each war-ship 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 shore to shore, 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 SÉrieuse 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 ashore, and had to remain a mere spectator while burning to have a finger in the fearful pie.

But the two events of this memorable battle which I daresay dwell longest in the minds of the young reader are the wounding of Nelson, who was carried below, his brow gashed so terribly that the skin in a flap hung over his eyes, despite which, you will remember, he bravely refused to have his wound dressed until his turn came; and the blowing up of the great ship Orient with her bold Captain Casabianca and his poor boy, who refused to be taken off or give up his duty without his father’s orders.

There are those who would rob us of this romantic story. I have no patience with such gray-souled sinners. There are people in this world who cannot endure romance and beauty; people who would paint the sky a dingy brown if they could, and smudge the glory of the summer sunsets. I do not love such people, and I hope you don’t, reader. I verily believe their blood is green and sour, and that they do not see this lovely world of ours as you and I do, through rose-tinted glasses, but that to them it must appear an ugly olive green, as it would to us if we gazed upon it through a piece of bottle glass. No; we shall keep the brave boy of the Orient, and still read Mrs. Hemans’ delightful and spirited verses:—

“The boy stood on the burning deck,
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame, that lit the battle’s wreck,
Shone round him—o’er the dead.

“The flames rolled on—he would not go
Without his father’s word;—
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

“There came a burst of thunder sound,—
The boy!—oh, where was he?
Ask of the winds, that far around
With fragments strewed the sea,—

“With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part!
But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young faithful heart!”

The battle is past and gone, a whole month has elapsed since then, and the swift Tonneraire is homeward bound with despatches. Many were killed and wounded, among others good old Simmons, the master, who fell at Jack’s side on the deck of a French man-o’-war. He would never grumble again; his deep bass, honest voice would be heard no more. There was hardly a dry eye in the ship when the kindly old man’s hammock was dropped overboard in Aboukir Bay.

Yes, the Tonneraire was homeward bound at last, after an absence of two busy and eventful years. But the saddest, probably, of all her adventures had yet to come. M?Hearty, Tom Fairlie, and young Murray were in the captain’s cabin one evening towards sunset. Murray was particularly bright and pleasant to-night, and his laughing face and merry, saucy blue eyes did every one good to behold.

Suddenly there is a cry on deck, “Sail ahead!” and next minute the drum is beating to quarters. The Tonneraire has been working against a head wind, and now down upon her, like some monster sea-bird with wings outspread, sweeps a huge French ship of war. The battle will be very one-sided, but Jack will dare it. Already it is getting dusk; he must try to cripple the monster. He manages to rake her, and a broadside of iron hail is poured through her stern. He rakes her a second time, and this time down thunders a mast. Well would it have been for Jack and the Tonneraire if he had now put his ship before the wind. But no, he still fights on and on, and suffers terribly; and just as the shades of night deepen into blackness, he manages to hoist enough sail to stagger away, and the Frenchman is too sorely stricken to follow.

Very early next morning, before the stars had quite faded in the west, or the sun had shot high his rays to gild the herald clouds, M?Hearty, looking careworn, unkempt, and weary—for he had never been to bed—entered Jack’s state-room and touched him lightly on the shoulder.

Jack was awake in a moment.

“Anything wrong, doctor?” he asked quickly.

“Alas, sir!” replied M?Hearty, and there was a strange huskiness in his voice as he spoke—“alas, sir! poor young Murray is dying fast.”

“Murray dying!”

“Too true, sir. His wounds are far more grievous than I was aware of. He cannot last many minutes. He wants to see you.”

The boy—for he was but little more—lay in a cot in the sick-bay. He was dressed in his scarlet coat, and his sword lay beside him, for he had refused to be divested of his uniform. He was in a half-sitting position, propped up with pillows, and smiled faintly as Jack knelt by his side and took his thin white hand in his.

It was a sad scene but a simple one. There was the gray light of early morning struggling in through the open port, and falling on the dying boy’s face; falling, too, on M?Hearty’s rough but kindly countenance, and on the figures of the sick-bay servants standing by the cot-foot tearful and frightened. That was all. But an open Bible lay upon the coverlet, and in his left hand the young soldier clasped a miniature—his little sweetheart’s.

“Bury it with me,” he whispered feebly. “See her, sir—and tell her—Willie died a hero’s death.—Kiss me, Jack—I would sleep now.”

The eyelids closed.

Ah! they had closed for aye.

Not a sound now save Jack’s gentle sobbing, then the slow and solemn tones of M?Hearty’s voice as he took up the little Bible and read from the Twenty-third Psalm: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” Amen!