them train engines they got now sound like silence. Gunner, I was, an' a good one. Nobody knows how many broadsides we fired that day. But it was about half past one that the admiral was hit. Pacing the quarterdeck, he was. With the captain - Captain Hardy." He screwed up his face. "There was some idiots as says he was paradin' with a chest full o' medals. They haven't been in a sea battle! Anyway, when he was at sea he never dressed like that. Shabby, he was, wore an ordinary blue jacket, like anyone else. He wore sequin copies of his orders, but if you ever spent time at sea, you'd know they tarnish in a matter o' days." He shook his head in denial again. "And you couldn't hardly see anybody to make 'em out clear during a battle. Smoke everywhere. Could miss your own mother not a dozen feet from you." He stopped for a few minutes to catch his breath.
Hester thought of offering him more tea, fresh and hot, but she could see that memory was more important, so she sat and waited.
He resumed his story, telling her of the knowledge of victory and the crushing grief felt by the entire fleet when they knew Nelson was dead. Then of the other losses, the ships and the men gone, the wounded, the securing of the prizes, and then the storm which had arisen and caused even further devastation. He described it in simple, vivid words, and his emotion was as sharp as if it had all happened weeks before, not fifty-five years.
He told of putting Nelson's body in a cask of brandy to preserve it so it could be buried in England, as he had wished.
"Just a little man, he was. Up to my chin, no more," he said with a fierce sniff. "Funny that. We won the greatest victory at sea ever - saved our country from invasion - an' we came home with flags lowered, like we lost - because he were dead." He fell silent for some time.
She rose and boiled the kettle again, resetting the tray and making a light supper for him with a piece of pie cut into a thin slice, and hot tea.
After he had eaten with some pleasure, he told her of Nelson's funeral and how all London had turned out to wish him a last farewell.
"Buried in a special coffin, he was," he added with pride. "Plain an' simple, like death, or the sea. Made from wood taken from the wreckage of the French flagship at the Battle of the Nile. Pleased as punch when Hallowell gave it to him way back, he was. Kept it all those years. Laid in the Painted Hall in Greenwich Hospital. First mourners come on January fourth." He smiled with supreme satisfaction. "Prince o' Wales hisself."
He took a deep breath and let it out in a rasping cough, but held up his hand to prevent her from interrupting him. "Laid there four days. While all the world went by to pay their respects. Then we took him up the river, on Wednesday morning. The coffin was placed on one of the royal barges made for King Charles II, an' all covered over in black velvet, with black ostrich plumes, and went in a flotilla up to London. Eleven other barges, there were, all the livery companies with their banners flying. Never seen so much gold and color. Stiff wind that day, too. Fired the guns every minute, all the way up to Whitehall Stairs."
He stopped again, blinking hard, but he could not keep the tears from spilling over and running down his cheeks.
"Next day we took him to Saint Paul's. Great procession, but mostly army. Only navy there was us - from the Victory herself." His voice cracked, but it was from pride as well as grief. "I was one of them what carried our battle ensigns. We opened them up now and again so the crowd could see the shot holes in them. They all took their hats off as we passed. It made a sound like the noise of the sea." He rubbed his hand across his cheek. "There isn't anything I'd take this side o' heaven to trade places with any man alive who wasn't there."
"I wouldn't understand it if you did," she answered, smiling at him and unashamed to be weeping, too.
He nodded slowly. "You're a good girl. You know what it means, don't you." That