Reporting for Duty: A New Life of the Man Who Saved Britain

By Andrew Roberts

The publication of Nelson: The Sword of Albion, the second and final volume of John Sugden’s monumental life of Horatio Nelson, is a perfect time to reflect on what the admiral’s memory still means to Britons today.The book itself takes Lord Nelson from September 1797, when he was at a low ebb having lost his arm in battle and subsisting on opium and half-pay, to his glorious death at the moment of victory at the Battle of Trafalgar eight years later.

[2] That victory assured Britain’s security from Napoleonic France in the short term, and British naval supremacy over the oceans for the next century in the long. Small wonder, therefore, that he is unquestionably one of Britain’s greatest heroes, with a reputation that today stands alongside those of Elizabeth I, the Duke of Wellington, and Winston Churchill. The Royal Navy still toasts his “Immortal Memory” every October 21, on the anniversary of his last and greatest victory. This book,though by no means uncritical of Nelson’s personal vanity, certainly does nothing to dislodge him from a metaphorical height equal to the actual 169-foot pedestal on which his statue stands in Trafalgar Square in central London.

约翰·萨格登记录霍雷肖·纳尔逊辉煌一生的第二部也是最后一部著作《纳尔逊：阿尔比恩之刃》出版了。读者从该书中完全可以感受到这位海军上校对当今英国人的意义。作品开篇于1797年9月，当时的纳尔逊正值人生低谷：他在战争中失去手臂，终日吸食鸦片，靠一半薪水过活。8年后，他指挥的特拉法尔加海战大获全胜，而他却壮烈牺牲。

[2]从短期的影响看，特拉法尔加海战的胜利确保了英国的国家安全，使其免受拿破仑治下法国的威胁。就长远来看，这场战争奠定了以后一个世纪英国的海上霸主地位。因此，毫无疑问，他是英国最伟大的英雄之一，其声誉今日可与伊丽莎白一世、威灵顿公爵和温斯顿·丘吉尔比肩。为了纪念纳尔逊取得的最后也是最伟大的一次胜利，每年10月21日，皇家海军都会向他留下的这段“不朽记忆”致敬。伦敦市中心的特拉法尔加广场竖立着他的雕像，仅底座就高达169英尺，这是一种具有象征性的高度。尽管这本书对纳尔逊的虚荣心颇有微词，但这绝不会影响他在人们心中的形象。

[3] Born in Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk, England, on September 29, 1758,the fifth surviving son of its rector Edmund Nelson, Horatio Nelson went to sea at only age 12 on the 64-gun warship Raisonnable, under the command of his maternal uncle Capt. Maurice Suckling, and was violently seasick.Nonetheless, Suckling ensured the boy became expert at navigation and sailing,and his training in practical seamanship could not have been better. At just age 14 he was chosen for an Arctic voyage as coxswain of the captain’s gig. On his return, he was sent to the East Indies on board the 20-gun Seahorse, but—traveling to every station “from Bengal to Bassorah”—his health completely broke down and he was invalided home.

[4] It was a depressing period for him, but also one that fired the young Nelson with a powerful sense of personal destiny. “I almost wished myself overboard,” he later said of this period of his life. “But a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me. Well then, I exclaimed, I will be a hero, and confiding in Providence I will brave every danger.” By April 1777, Nelson was serving aboard the 32-gun frigate Lowestoft, under the command of his great friend Capt. William Locker,whose military philosophy was simple:“Lay a Frenchman close and you will beat him.” It was a lesson that Nelson was to take to heart. He rose by dint of his charm, intelligence, application, and great maritime ability.

[3] 1758年9月29日，纳尔逊生于英格兰诺福克郡伯纳姆索普，其父是当地教区牧师埃德蒙·纳尔逊。他是家里存活下来的第五个儿子。纳尔逊12岁就参加了海军，在战舰“合理”号上服役。这艘战舰配备了64门大炮，由纳尔逊的舅舅莫里斯·萨克林舰长指挥。纳尔逊当时严重晕船，尽管如此，萨克林还是给了他最好的航海技术实训，确保他成为一名航海专家。纳尔逊年仅14岁就被选为舰艇舵手参加北极探险队。返航时，他乘坐装配20门大炮的“海马”号军舰被派往东印度群岛，但是，“从孟加拉到巴士拉”站站走来，他的身体完全垮了，只好因病归国。

[4]那段时间他情绪低落，但也正是在那段时间，年轻的纳尔逊对自己的命运有了清楚的认识。他后来这样说起那一时期：“当时我真希望自己溺水身亡，但突如其来的爱国情怀点燃了我的内心。于是，我发誓，我要成为一个英雄，我向上帝保证要勇敢面对一切危险。”1777年4月，纳尔逊前往“洛斯托夫特”号护卫舰服役。这艘军舰配备了32门大炮，由其好友威廉·洛克上校担任指挥。洛克的军事理念很简单：让法国人靠近，靠近了再打。这让纳尔逊铭记于心。纳尔逊凭借自己的魅力、智慧、勤奋和杰出的航海能力得以晋升。

[5] On July 12, 1794, while Nelson was besieging the Corsican town of Calvi, a cannonball struck the ground near where he was standing and splinters flew up, blinding him in his right eye. Three years later he lost his arm to grapeshot. “A left-handed admiral will never again be considered,” he lamented. “I am becoming a burden to my friends and useless to my country.”

[6] Events the following year, minutely covered by Sugden in perhaps the best biography of Nelson to emerge in the past two centuries, soon proved him spectacularly wrong.

[5] 1794年 7月 12日，纳尔逊围攻卡尔维的科西嘉镇，一枚炮弹落在他附近，碎片飞溅，造成他右眼失明。三年后，他又在炮火中失去了一条手臂。“军队不会考虑任用一个只有左手的海军将领。”他悲叹道，“对友人来说我成了负担，对国家来说我毫无用处。”

[6]第二年发生的事件很快证明纳尔逊对自己的评价是极其错误的。萨格登在书中详细记录了这些事件。也许这本传记是近两个世纪以来最令人称道的纳尔逊传记。

[7] It was Nelson’s inspired guess that Napoleon Bonaparte’s fleet, which had slipped past the British blockade of Toulon, France, was making for Egypt,and on the evening of August 1, 1798,he finally caught up with it at anchor in Aboukir Bay at the mouth of the Nile. By sailing round the head of the French line to attack from the landward side, Nelson won one of the most decisive victories in naval history. Only four out of 17 French ships escaped, and Napoleon’s army was left utterly stranded in Asia. Nelson was elevated to the peerage.

[8] At the end of Britain’s short-lived Peace of Amiens with France, Nelson was appointed to command the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, where he blockaded Toulon, not stepping off his flagship HMS Victory for more than 10 days over the next two years. Yet what a vital two years they were. With a vast army at Boulogne ready to cross the Channel at any moment that the Royal Navy could be decoyed away, Napoleon posed by far the greatest invasion threat to the United Kingdom between the Spanish Armada in 1588 and the Battle of Britain in 1940.

[9] Finally, after two exhausting transatlantic journeys chasing the combined French and Spanish fleets, on October 21, 1805, Nelson managed to close with the enemy and put his mentor Captain Locker’s theory to the ultimate test. As Sugden expertly explains,Nelson’s battle plan at Trafalgar was to sail through the enemy’s line in two columns, cutting it roughly into equal thirds, and then to concentrate the British firepower on the rear two thirds,thus equaling up the numbers between the combined fleets’ 33 ships and the British’s 27. It was imaginative and daring and was nicknamed by his captains“the Nelson Touch.”

[7]纳尔逊大胆猜测拿破仑的舰队绕过英国设在法国土伦的封锁线是为了攻打埃及。1798年8月1日晚，他最终在尼罗河口追上了停泊在阿布吉尔湾的法国舰队。纳尔逊绕过法国舰队前端，从靠陆的一侧进攻，从而赢得了英国海军史上最具决定意义的一场胜利。17艘法国军舰只有4艘逃脱，拿破仑的军队被完全困在了亚洲。纳尔逊被授予爵位。

[8]短命的英法《亚眠和约》终结之时，纳尔逊被任命为英国皇家海军地中海舰队司令，封锁了土伦。此后两年，他离开旗舰皇家海军“胜利”号的时间总共不到10天。然而这是多么至关重要的两年。大批法国军队集结在布洛涅，一旦英国皇家海军因假目标被诱离，法军就随时准备横穿英吉利海峡。拿破仑的这次行动，是从1588年西班牙无敌舰队进攻英国到1940年不列颠战役这段时间内对英国最大的一次入侵威胁。

[9]为了追逐法西联合舰队，纳尔逊两次横渡大西洋，精疲力竭，终于1805年10月21日成功接近敌军，并将其导师洛克上校的作战理论发挥得淋漓尽致。对此，萨格登进行了专业的解释：纳尔逊在特拉法尔加的作战计划是让英国舰队分成两列截断敌军舰队，将其大致切割为三等分，然后把英军火力集中在后三分之二部分，这样就拉平了英法双方的战斗力——当时联合舰队共有33艘军舰，而英国有27艘。这个计划大胆而富有新意，被军官们称为“纳尔逊战法”。

[10] The plan was totally successful, although it required great skill and nerve to implement it since the enemy was able to fire broadsides into the British ships for an agonizingly long time before they were able to respond. Nelson led one column in HMS Victory,and just before battle was joined he ordered the hoisting of his famous and stirring signal to the fleet: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”

[11] The plan went precisely according to Nelson’s specifications,but during the battle a sniper from the rigging of the French 74-gun Redoubtable shot him, the musket ball striking his left shoulder and mortally wounding him. “They have done for me at last,” he told Victory’s Captain Hardy.“My backbone is shot through.” Before he died, however, Hardy was able to inform Nelson that 14 enemy vessels had surrendered without the loss of a single British ship. “Thank God I have done my duty,” answered Nelson, as he slipped into that immortal glory for which he is still toasted by Britons every year.

[10]这个计划十分成功，但实施过程中需要高超的技术和足够的胆识，因为在舰队有能力反击前，敌军能够长时间舷边排炮齐射猛攻英国舰队。纳尔逊带领一列舰队在“胜利”号上作战。就在开战前，他给舰队下达了他著名的、令人激情澎湃的指示：“英格兰要求每个人恪尽职守。”

[11]一切都根据计划丝毫不差地进行，然而在战斗中，74炮法舰“敬畏”号索具上的一个狙击手击中了他。火枪子弹打中了他的左肩，给了他致命一击。“他们终于还是干掉了我。”他告诉“胜利”号舰长哈迪，“我的脊柱被射穿了。”然而，在纳尔逊去世前，哈迪还有机会告诉他，14艘敌舰已经投降，而英国军舰毫发无损。“感谢上帝，我完成了使命。”纳尔逊回答道，接着便溘然长逝，长眠于不朽的荣耀中——这份荣耀至今仍被英国人铭记。

[12] It is hard for an Englishman to read this superbly researched and very well-written book without feeling a powerful sense of atavism, yearning,and sorrow about the way it italicizes the contrast between Britain’s former naval greatness and her present unprecedented maritime weakness. Today,for the first time in history, the French Navy is actually larger and stronger than the Royal Navy.

[13] What a bittersweet experience reading this fine book is for any Briton with a sense of history and maritime pride.

[12]这本传记内容详实，文笔优美，阅读过此书的英国人都满怀念旧之情，渴望回到强大的过去。作者特意将英国海军实力过往的辉煌和目前的空前弱势进行对比，让英国读者感到痛心。事实上，现在的法国海军远比英国强大，在历史上首次超越英国。

[13]对任何一个怀有历史自豪感并以海军为荣的英国人来说，阅读本书都是一种喜忧参半的体验。