Well, here it is. I hope you enjoy it!
Tenerife on my Mind…
We’d seen many of the sights, walked in the hills and enjoyed the warmth of the winter sun from the unearthly-like volcanic crater of Mount Teide. Basking on the sand was not really for us, although we both of course liked the sea and spent some time just watching the Atlantic rollers crashing onto the beaches. Then there had been the delightful little maritime museum in Puerto de la Cruz, near where we had been staying, dusty and intriguingly with its entrance through a shop. The following day we headed eastward to the island’s capital, Santa Cruz – I with a purpose, my wife with some resignation.
“I can’t really see what there’ll be of interest,” she had previously said at home, when we had decided on Tenerife for our winter break – and I had informed her that I would like to visit a certain place. “Of course, I now why you want to go there, but it’s just a beach, there’ll probably be nothing there.”
“There must be,” I rejoined, “but even if there isn’t, it will be the place where it happened. That in itself means something, surely?” I paused, glancing at her hopefully. “There’ll be other things of interest to see too,” I went on, trying not to make the conversation sound too one-sided, “some of the buildings might be worth looking at.”
I have to admit here that I was thinking of the ones I would find of most interest – a church where, so the guide book informed the reader, the flags captured during that attack long ago were kept and where the men of the enterprise took shelter, when it all went wrong. Then there was the Military Museum, which contained ‘the’ gun that reputedly fired the almost fatal shot. My wife glanced at me, as if she knew what I was thinking, then smiled faintly and shook her head at the mad Englishman she had married. “Well, you may be right,” she eventually conceded.
Now, here we were - and my wife appeared to be in the right, as usual. My enthusiasm waned somewhat as the bus wound down the hill into the city, which appeared impersonal and seemingly with nothing to recommend it. However we found the church, Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de la Concepción, with its tower bravely poking up amongst its more modern surroundings – and also came up against our first set back. After peering into the vast darkness of the interior, and the seemingly even darker recesses without result, I enquired of the churchwarden where we might find the English flags. He told us, in faltering English, that they were not there. “The military museum… the Almeida,” he said, was where they were. We thanked him and came away, back out into the glare of the sunlight, but not so disappointed since the museum was on our, or rather at least my, itinerary. We then wandered down to the seafront and came across set back number two… there was appeared to be no beach at all, apart from a short stretch with a somewhat ugly, neglected looking, monument to the historic event. The rest of the seafront was taken up by the modern docks and flanked by a vast, busy and noisy road. Presumably ‘the’ beach had long since disappeared under the concrete and there was nothing to indicate where, in July 1797, almost two hundred and five years ago, a force of British sailors and marines had stormed ashore to seize the town and its fortifications.
At their head had been a man who was to become the most famous admiral of his own and subsequent generations, Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, KB. The rank and the knighthood had been awarded to him following his intuitive action at the battle of Cape St. Vincent some five months earlier where, interpreting Jervis’ intentions to some purpose, he had taken his ship out of the almost sacred line-of-battle to engage single-handedly several Spanish ships, each larger than his own. Later, he was sent by the same Admiral to cut out a supposed treasure ship from Santa Cruz, with a force of three 74-gun ships-of-the-line, one fifty, three frigates, a cutter and some gunboats. However, the good fortune of his earlier victory appeared to have deserted him for although, as you may imagine, the attack was planned with some deliberation, the town was well prepared and defended. The wind and tide were also against the British and strong currents forced the larger ships, with their all-important heavy guns, out to sea. However, with Nelson’s characteristic perseverance, the first assault went ahead using the smaller ships and the boats. The initial attack was repulsed on the 22nd then, with him in personal command, the boats went in again on the 24th…
Eventually we reached the museum, the Almeida battery, its hard outline hidden from seaward by greenery-covered walls, behind which rose the mountainous heights that encroach to the north and which very likely echoed to the sound of the gunfire all those years ago. We reached the barred gate where reality, and problem number three, dawned on us. As well as being a museum the Almeida was also a military barracks. Beside the barrier members of the Spanish army lingered, clad in fatigues, mostly young and perhaps fulfilling their national service, a concept now almost forgotten in the UK. Two of them, girls, were chatting apart from the men and they looked up on our approach.
“We would like to see the museum,” I said.
The nearest girl detached herself from her colleague and led us over to a glass-fronted booth, an American-style baton swinging from her belt.
“You have passport…ID?” she asked.
We looked at her.
“I’m sorry,” I replied, “I’m afraid our passports are back at the hotel.”
Being unused, as we were, to military museums being attached to barracks, we thought they would not be needed.
“Would my credit card be sufficient?” my wife queried, taking it from her bag.
The girl, giving a small frown and perhaps like us wondering what to do next, called to her sergeant. He came over and went through the same formalities. Then, obviously deciding that we weren’t a security threat he allowed us through – even though he didn’t check the small backpack I was carrying.
“Ok,” he said.
We were assigned to one of the male soldiers, who was to conduct us. He beckoned.
“Please…”
As we dutifully followed on behind I noticing that, besides his baton, he had a pair of handcuffs in a small pouch and fastened to his belt. However, we didn’t feel like causing any trouble, especially as we had no passports. He led us past a number of field guns arraigned in the courtyard and we entered the ground floor of the museum.
Being run by the military, everything was spotless, from the polished wood and glass cases to the red-carpeted floor. We noticed the curved interior, obviously following the external wall of the battery itself, and which had been built in the nineteenth century. The ground floor covered the history of the islands, including the first settlers the Guanches, the later Spanish conquest and the Canary Islands Militia. There was also an interesting display about Columbus, who had called at La Gomera before setting out on his second voyage. However, although interesting, this was not what he had principally come to see and our guide, who had courteously moved away whenever we stopped to look at an exhibit, led us up to the next floor.
As we reached the head of the stairs, we unexpectedly came upon a large painting depicting Nelson on the deck of his flagship, the ‘Theseus’. Passing into the gallery, the first exhibit that drew my attention was a case where detailed scale models of Nelson’s squadron were laid out in columns on a dark sea. There was the Theseus with, astern of her, the Culloden and Zealous, all 74’s, the 50 gun Leander, and the frigates Emerald, Seahorse and Terpiscore. Also shown were the smaller gunboats with their howitzers, besides the ship’s boats that bore the men ashore.
Nearby were models of the landing itself, showing the staunch resistance put up by the Spanish and smaller French forces, one of them obviously based on the painting by Westall and depicting the moment when Nelson’s arm was shattered. A short distance away stood ‘El Tigre’, the tiger, the cannon reputed to have fired the grapeshot that did the damage, cleaned and polished, and looking perhaps a little incongruous standing on the red carpet. One wondered how they knew it was ‘the’ one; perhaps it was the only cannon to survive from that time and so a legend grew. Above it was a modern painting showing Troubridge of the Culloden, pen in hand, signing the document of surrender in the church, and being watched by the Island’s heroic Governor, Field Marshall Don Juan Antonio Gutiérrez de Otero y Santayana, and the clerics. In the centre of the display were glass cases containing perhaps the most poignant exhibits of all, the two captured British union flags, one of which bore the faded name ‘Emerald’. They appeared well cared for in their place of honour.
One case had an interesting model of the departure of the surviving British forces, some limping on crutches, others with bandaged wounds. Lining the road each side were the Spanish troops, drawn up in salute to their gallant foes as the British leave and demonstrating, perhaps, a side to warfare perhaps more common then, before the age of mechanisation. This courtesy was nowhere better shown than by the actions of the Island’s Governor who, when the British were defeated, did his utmost to prevent further loss of life. He gave succour to the wounded with the provision of medical aid, food and wine, and even lent boats to transport the men back to their ships. Nelson, always ready to recognise and respond to courtesy, sent the Governor a cask of beer and an English cheese. He also wrote him a letter, written laboriously - and we can imagine somewhat painfully – with his left hand, thanking him for his generosity and humanity.
So we passed once more out into the heat having done our duty and took the bus northward, out of the stifling city, to the mountainous northern coast and the beach at Almacigá, an ‘exciting’ white-knuckle ride where the bus seemingly just made it around numerous hairpin bends beyond which the ground dropped away into vast chasms. On the beach, we again watched the waves driving onto the rocks and up the dark volcanic sand. We ate our packed lunch and drank our bottled water, then fell silent as we took in the scene – my mind moving to that other beach to the south, now that there was the silence to imagine it some 200 years ago…
In front of me a boat, with others, grounded on the sand. Somehow, I knew it was the one that bore the Admiral and suddenly there he was, sword in hand, poised on the gunwale ready to leap into the surf with his customary word of encouragement to those behind him. He landed in the shallows, just as the guns fired again and found their target. He fell into the water and was swiftly supported by a young officer, who could only have been Josiah Nesbit the Admiral’s stepson, still perhaps in awe of him before the Nile and that fateful affair with Emma Hamilton. He and the seamen pulled the stricken Nelson back into the boat where, with some presence of mind, he pulled the neckerchief from around his neck and bound it tightly above his commander’s wound – an action that was to save Nelson’s life, and which was probably the most important thing that Josiah ever did. It was an episode tinged with irony, for had not Nelson initially forbade the young man to come, saying, ‘No, Josiah, for what would become of your poor mother, were we both to fall.’ In the end, the young man’s persistence paid off and Nelson relented. It was as well he did.
The boat was ordered away into the darkness and back to the ship, her precious cargo lying in agony. I pictured that heroic voyage back to the Theseus, and wondered again at Nelson’s presence of mind and the pain he must have been suffering. On his insistence, the boat first stopped to pick up survivors from the cutter Fox, which had been sunk, then the craft pulled for the Seahorse, for Josiah and the others thought Nelson should get to the nearest surgeon or he would die. Nelson remonstrated with them against this decision for her captain, Freemantle, who was then ashore with his own force, had his wife on board. ‘I would rather die,’ he exclaimed, ‘than cause Mrs Freemantle alarm at seeing me in this state, and when I have no news of her husband.’ Then, when finally the more distant flagship was reached, he would allow none to help him on board, brushing them off and saying, ‘let me alone, I have yet my legs left and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and get his instruments; I know I must lose my right arm, so the sooner it is off the better.’ His own haste was in part occasioned by his desire that the boat should return to pick up yet more survivors from the Fox.
The picture faded and he went on to fulfil his destiny, whereas I found myself back on the beach at Almaciga gazing out to sea. What determination and strength of will he had displayed, in a situation where the majority of us would have caused a hullabaloo over a cut finger. The episode also served to illustrate some of his other qualities, his thought for others and the almost blatant disregard for his own safety.
“Do you think we should get the earlier bus?” My wife’s voice broke into my thoughts, as I came back to the real world. “There doesn’t seem much else to do here.”
“Mmm,” I murmured, still not having quite made the transition.
“We have to change buses to get back to Puerto, too,” she added. On the return journey, this time with the chasms on the other side of the bus, I pondered on a question my wife had asked earlier. “Why had he done something which was seems so pointless?”
I felt she had a point. Well, why had you done it? Was it out of pique, because the rumour of the treasure ship turned out to be false and you wanted to vent your frustration? No, I don’t believe it was in your nature to behave in such a manner. I think it was rather perhaps that your maxim was to always take the fight to the enemy, whoever he might be, and also that you didn’t wish to return to the formidable Jervis without some token. Well, you found that, in the nearly one hundred and fifty seamen and marines who died, together with the one hundred and five injured. However, they would willingly have followed you anywhere, such was your charisma.
It’s somewhat strange, but people never say, “Oh yes, Tenerife, that’s where Nelson nearly lost his life.” They might mention the loss of his arm, is if that were nothing, but if he had died from the injury then the whole of subsequent British and European history might well have been different. His later battles, including Trafalgar, may never have been fought; Napoleon might have successfully invaded Britain and been buried in St Paul’s Cathedral; and the population would, very likely, be speaking French. Conceivably, there might also be a sail-training vessel named the STS “Napoleon Bonaparte”.
However, for the British, the name would never have had quite the same appeal…
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Was quite surprised too at how 'out-of-the-way' it is, I was expecting it to be on a main road. I like how they've set him sedately gazing out over the Thames, though.