And fifty odd of seamen and marines.
NELSON
Poor youngsters! Scarred old Nelson joins you soon.
BEATTY
And wounded: Bligh, lieutenant; Pasco, too,
and Reeves, and Peake, lieutenants of marines,
And Rivers, Westphall, Bulkeley, midshipmen,
With, of the crew, a hundred odd just now,
Unreckoning those late fallen not brought below.
BURKE
That fellow in the mizzen-top, my lord,
Who made it his affair to wing you thus,
We took good care to settle; and he fell
Like an old rook, smack from his perch, stone dead.
NELSON
'Twas not worth while!--He was, no doubt, a man
Who in simplicity and sheer good faith
Strove but to serve his country. Rest be to him!
And may his wife, his friends, his little ones,
If such be had, be tided through their loss,
And soothed amid the sorrow brought by me.
[HARDY re-enters.]
Who's that? Ah--here you come! How, Hardy, now?
HARDY
The Spanish Admiral's rumoured to be wounded,
We know not with what truth. But, be as 'twill,
He sheers away with all he could call round,
And some few frigates, straight to Cadiz port.
[A violent explosion is heard above the confused noises on deck.
A midshipman goes above and returns.]
MIDSHIPMAN (in the background)
It is the enemy's first-rate, the "Achille,"
Blown to a thousand atoms!--While on fire,
Before she burst, the captain's woman there,
Desperate for life, climbed from the gunroom port
Upon the rudder-chains; stripped herself stark,
And swam for the Pickle's boat.
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