21 October 2003

They are doing something very peculiar at the Metro Stations these days. They have people in safety vests handing out a broadsheet of some thirty-odd pages of newsprint. It is stapled together at the spine, and I thought it was advertising or a polemic the first time someone handed it to me. I glanced at the banner and discovered it is a thing called the Post Express, and it is apparently the product of the Washington Post publishing corporation. It consists of the lead stories of the day distilled into no more than three paragraphs in simple English.

I read my copy on the Metro, heading from Ballston to Clarendon, and discovered it was quite convenient, exactly two metro stops long to read. It could be stretched longer, I think, since it has a crossword puzzle but only one cartoon. I think it is intended to attract readership, since our attention span is so short these days. I know the print media is pretty concerned about becoming irrelevant and passing off into the dustbin of history. This attempt is almost exactly like the Weekly Reader that we used to get in elementary school, and just about that hard-hitting. It is not as intellectually challenging as the Pacific Stars and Stripes, the newspaper for the troops.

In fact, it makes USA Today look like the London Times. But maybe we need something to read on the Metro, and I confess that I was not the only one swaying and reading. It is certainly smaller than a real newspaper, and it does not require unfolding, nor does it fall into its constituent parts and blow away. It might be the future, or one of them, anyway. I imagine they will even charge us for it someday, though I can't think what they might charge. I have never forgiven the Post for going to 35 cents for the daily.

I do not think my copy of the Express this morning will mention that on this day in 1797, The U.S. Navy frigate Constitution, also known as Old Ironsides, was launched in Boston's harbor. She is a proud ship. Two years later, fitted out and ready for battle she set sail from Boston, loaded with 475 officers and men, 48,600 gallons of water, 74,000 cannon shot, 11,500 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum. Her mission was to destroy and harass English shipping.

She headed for Jamaica, arriving there in October, where she took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Three weeks later, she reached the Azores after an uneventful passage east and provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 2,300 gallons of Portuguese wine. On 18 November, she set sail for England where her crew captured and scuttled 12 English merchant vessels and took aboard their rum.

Due to heavy action, Constitution had run out of shot and in a bold unarmed night raid up the Firth of Clyde her landing party captured a whiskey distillery. The crew transferred 13,000 gallons on board and headed for home. She arrived at Boston in February 1780 with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, and no whiskey. She did, however, still carry her crew of 475 officers and men and 18,600 gallons of stale water.

She is still in Boston, best I can determine, or at least I saw her there last summer. I mention that because it is another anniversary today. Of course you knew it is Trafalgar Day, the celebration of the greatest feat of nautical supremacy in hisotyr. But you knew that.

Constitution is not the oldest warship in the world, and despite our pride in her, she may not be the most valiant one. Her Majesty's Ship Victory lies in her basin at Portsmouth Naval base. She is the oldest Naval ship in the world, and was nearly forty years old when Constitution was laid down. Victory's keel was laid down in the old single dock at Chatham dockyard in the summer of 1759. According to a report it was a "bright and sunny day". Timber for constructing a first rate ship had been purchased by the Admiralty and placed in store to season some 14 years before. It was the 18th century version of long lead-time acquisition. It is likely that the long seasoning time greatly contributed to the ship's eventual longevity. After being floated, she was laid up in ordinary for thirteen years before being fitted out. She had an honorably career thereafter, sharing the world ocean with the upstart Constitution.

But the major conflict of the day, the preoccupation that permitted the establishment of a Republic in North America, was the war between the Continent and Britain. Napoleon always considered the invasion and subjugation of the British Isles the ultimate arbiter of the fate of Europe. To that end he directed the construction of a great Fleet to challenge the White Ensign of the Royal Navy.

In 1805 came the climacteric battle, approximately six leagues from the Spanish port of Cadiz, outside the Pillars of Hercules, the great Strait of Gibraltar. The ships of the Fleets were strung out over nearly nine miles near Cape Trafalgar. Admiral Horatio Nelson commanded, and he made preparations to engaged a major force of the French Navy at Trafalgar. Admiral Lord Nelson was on the quarterdeck, commanding Victory and the combined Fleet. The forces moved together, signals flying from yardarms as the British drove down the line of warships. The action commenced shortly before noon, when HMS Royal Sovereign commenced Firing on the French. Nelson sent the following instructions to the fleet via flag: "I intend to Pass through the Enemy's Line to Prevent Them getting into Cadiz. Make all Sail Possible with Safety to the Masts."

A few minutes later he sent the low-key signal that echoes down the centuries: "England Expects That Every Man Will Do His Duty." The flags were run up the mizzen mast and required 12 successive hoists to complete. The signal was echoed throughout the formation, so amidst the fury imagine the flags going up and down. During this period Victory's wheel was shot way, and below decks the after steering position, hauling on ropes, kept the ship on course. Just after noon Victory's port guns opened fire at the enemy's lead formation. The first gun to fire was Victory's 68lb Carronade, filled up to the rim with 500 musket balls and one 68-pound ball, directed into the rear of the French Ship Bucentaure.

The Admiral strode his deck, directing the action. It would have been a slow motion cacophony by today's video game standards, but the roar of the guns and pirouette of the ships lent a ponderous dignity to the affray. At 1:15 in the afternoon the Admiral was struck by a musket ball fired by a sailor or Marine from the French warship Redoutable. It is an ugly lump of lead, and it was recovered from the Admiral's body. Nelson lingered for three hours and fifteen minutes and passed into history at 4:30pm. I have seen his jacket and small clothes, which are on display at the Nautical Museum in Greenwich, just a short walk from the Prime Meridian marker at the Observatory.

The Brits understand their history. The saga of Victory's passage down the centuries, in danger of being broken up, rammed by runaway ironclad while at anchor, nearly sinking, her mighty oaken hull keeping the cold dark water out for over two hundred years. In 1941 a 500-pound Nazi bomb fell into the Number 2 Drydock at the Portsmouth Naval Yard, her permanent resting place. The bomb went off just under her port bow and blew a hole 8ft x 15ft in her side. She would have sunk, that night, but there was no water beneath her, only concrete and a cradle to bring her bulwark up above the edge of the dock.

Today they are raising the laural garlands of Victory to the mast-tops and the famous flag signal to duty is displayed all together from the yards. The Trafalgar Night Dinner, the original ritual from which my own Navy has derived so much, will be held onboard Victory and the ghosts will hover over the beef and the port and the brass and gold will glitter against the somber blue of the mess-dress uniforms. They remember Trafalgar Day.

Wish I could hoist a glass with them and toast the shades of those who fought these wooden ships. But perhaps I will just join them in spirit, remote, from here.

Copyright Vic Socotra.