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The Mirror of the Sea-Part27_JOSEPH CONRAD (1857-1924)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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Admiral's slight and passion-worn figure stands at the parting of

the ways. He had the audacity of genius, and a prophetic



inspiration.

The modern naval man must feel that the time has come for the



tactical practice of the great sea officers of the past to be laid

by in the temple of august memories. The fleet tactics of the



sailing days have been governed by two points: the deadly nature

of a raking fire, and the dread, natural to a commander dependent



upon the winds, to find at some crucial moment part of his fleet

thrown hopelessly to leeward. These two points were of the very



essence of sailing tactics, and these two points have been

eliminated from the modern tactical problem by the changes of



propulsion and armament. Lord Nelson was the first to disregard

them with conviction and audacity sustained by an unbounded trust



in the men he led. This conviction, this audacity and this trust

stand out from amongst the lines of the celebratedmemorandum,



which is but a declaration of his faith in a crushing superiority

of fire as the only means of victory and the only aim of sound



tactics. Under the difficulties of the then existing conditions he

strove for that, and for that alone, putting his faith into



practice against every risk. And in that exclusive faith Lord

Nelson appears to us as the first of the moderns.



Against every risk, I have said; and the men of to-day, born and

bred to the use of steam, can hardly realize how much of that risk



was in the weather. Except at the Nile, where the conditions were

ideal for engaging a fleet moored in shallow water, Lord Nelson was



not lucky in his weather. Practically it was nothing but a quite

unusual failure of the wind which cost him his arm during the



Teneriffe expedition. On Trafalgar Day the weather was not so much

unfavourable as extremely dangerous.



It was one of these covered days of fitful sunshine, of light,

unsteady winds, with a swell from the westward, and hazy in



general, but with the land about the Cape at times distinctly

visible. It has been my lot to look with reverence upon the very



spot more than once, and for many hours together. All but thirty

years ago, certain exceptional circumstances made me very familiar



for a time with that bight in the Spanish coast which would be

enclosed within a straight line drawn from Faro to Spartel. My



well-remembered experience has convinced me that, in that corner of

the ocean, once the wind has got to the northward of west (as it



did on the 20th, taking the British fleet aback), appearances of

westerly weather go for nothing, and that it is infinitely more



likely to veer right round to the east than to shift back again.

It was in those conditions that, at seven on the morning of the



21st, the signal for the fleet to bear up and steer east was made.

Holding a clear recollection of these languid easterly sighs



rippling unexpectedly against the run of the smooth swell, with no

other warning than a ten-minutes' calm and a queer darkening of the



coast-line, I cannot think, without a gasp of professional awe, of

that fateful moment. Perhaps personal experience, at a time of



life when responsibility had a special freshness and importance,

has induced me to exaggerate to myself the danger of the weather.



The great Admiral and good seaman could read aright the signs of

sea and sky, as his order to prepare to anchor at the end of the



day sufficiently proves; but, all the same, the mere idea of these

baffling easterly airs, coming on at any time within half an hour



or so, after the firing of the first shot, is enough to take one's

breath away, with the image of the rearmost ships of both divisions



falling off, unmanageable, broadside on to the westerly swell, and

of two British Admirals in desperate jeopardy. To this day I






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