Trafalgar & Saragossa. Benito Pérez Galdós

Le Fougueux, Fr. Monarca, Sp. Le Pluton, Fr. Bahama, Sp. Reserve. —— L’Aigle, Fr. Montañes, Sp. Algeciras, Sp. Argonauta, Sp. Swiftsure, Fr. —— L’Argonaute, Fr. Ildefonso, Sp. —— L’Achille, Fr. Príncipe de Astúrias, Sp. Le Berwick, Fr. Nepomuceno, Sp.

      In watching the working of our vessel I could see that a great many of the crew had not that nimble ease which is usually characteristic of sailors who, like Marcial, are familiar with war and tempests. Among the soldiers several were suffering from sea-sickness and were clinging to the ropes to save themselves from falling. There were among them many brave souls, especially among the volunteers, but for the most part they were impressed men, obeying orders with an ill-will and not feeling, I am very sure, the smallest impulse of patriotism. As I afterwards learnt, nothing but the battle itself made them worthy to fight. In spite of the wide differences in the moral stamp of all these men, I believe that during the solemn moments that immediately preceded the first shot a thought of God came to every mortal there.

      So far as I am concerned, in all my life my soul has never gone through any experiences, to compare with those of that hour. In spite of my youth, I was quite capable of understanding the gravity of the occasion, and for the first time in my life, my mind was filled with grand ideas, lofty aspirations and heroic thoughts. A conviction that we must conquer was so firmly rooted in my mind that I felt quite pitiful towards the English, and wondered to see them so eagerly advancing to certain destruction. For the first time too I fully understood the ideal of patriotism, and my heart responded to the thought with a glow of feeling such as I had never experienced before. Until now my mother-country had been embodied in my mind in the persons of its rulers—such as the King and his famous minister, for whom I felt different degrees of respect. As I knew no more of history than I had picked up in the streets, it was to me a matter of course that everybody’s enthusiasm must be fired by knowing that the Spaniards had, once upon a time, killed a great number of Moors, and, since then, swarms of French and of English. I considered my countrymen as models of valor; but valor, as I conceived of it, was as like barbarity as one egg is like another; and with such ideas as these, patriotism had been to me nothing more than boastful pride in belonging to a race of exterminators of Moors.

      But in the pause that preceded the battle I understood the full significance of that divine word; the conception of nationality, of devotion to a mother-country, was suddenly born in my soul, lighting it up, as it were, and revealing a thousand wonderful possibilities—as the rising sun dissipates the darkness that has hidden a beautiful landscape. I thought of my native land as a vast place full of people all united in brotherly regard—of society as divided into families, married couples to be held together, and children to be educated—of honor, to be cherished and defended; I imagined an unspoken agreement among all these human beings to help and protect each other against any attack from without, and I understood that these vessels had been constructed by them all for the defence of their native land; that is to say, for the soil on which they lived, the fields watered by their sweat, the homes where their ancestors had dwelt, the gardens where their children played, the colonies discovered and conquered by their forefathers, the harbors where their ships found shelter after long voyages—the magazines where they stored their wealth—the Church which was the mausoleum of those they had loved, the dwelling-place of their saints, and the ark of their belief—the public places where they might take their pleasure, the private homes where the venerable household gods, handed down from generation to generation, seemed to symbolize the perpetuity of the nation—their family hearth round which the smoke-dyed walls seem still to re-echo with the time-honored legends with which the grand dame soothes the flightiness or the naughtiness of the little ones, the street where friendly faces meet and smile—the field, the sea, the sky—everything which from the moment of birth makes up the sum of existence, from the crib of a pet animal to the time-honored throne of the king; every object into which the soul seems to go forth to live, as if the body that clothes it were too narrow a shell.

      I believed too that the disputes between Spain and France or England were always about something that those countries ought to give up to us, and in which Spain could not, on the whole, be wrong. Her self-defence seemed to me as legitimate as the aggression was brutal; and as I had always heard that justice must triumph, I never doubted of victory. Looking up at our red and yellow flag—the colors nearest to that of fire—I felt my bosom swell, and could not restrain a few tears of enthusiasm and excitement; I thought of Cadiz, of Vejer, of the whole Spanish nation assembled, as it were, on a vast platform and looking on with eager anxiety; and all this tide of emotion lifted up my heart to God to whom I put up a prayer, which was neither a Paternoster nor an Ave, but a gush of inspiration that came to me at the moment.

      A sudden shock startled me from my ecstasy, terrifying me with its violent vibration. The first broadside had been fired.