How to Survive in the Georgian Navy by Bruno Pappalardo

Author:Bruno Pappalardo [Pappalardo, Bruno ]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

The fury of fire

The risk of accidental fire was also a perennial concern on board ships made of wood and bearing large quantities of combustible materials, such as gunpowder. Once a fire took hold it was very difficult to stop owing to the cramped conditions and, to make matters worse, guns that were often left loaded would be set off, resulting in them firing shots unpredictably and hampering any rescue attempts. The horrifying loss of HMS Ajax on 14 February 1807 – a ship that had previously taken part in the Battle of Trafalgar – with the loss of nearly 250 men, including many Trafalgar veterans, serves to highlights the ravages of fire, as recounted by an officer who witnessed her destruction:

‘At half past nine [in] the evening, the Ajax took fire in the bread room, and in ten minutes she was in a general blaze from stern to stern; the wind blew fresh from the N.E. which prevented the boats of the ships to leeward from rendering any assistance; but from those to windward, and near her, she was well enough supplied to save upwards of 400 of her people and those may consider themselves as most providentially preserved; as it had blown a gale all the day, and for two or three days before, and fell moderate towards the evening – a continuance of the gale would probably have rendered all assistance impossible. The fire, it appears, had been for some time (comparatively speaking), alight in the bread room before the alarm was given; for when the first Lieutenant, and many others, broke open the door of the Surgeon’s cabin, the after bulk head was burst down by the accumulated flames and smoke abaft it, and so rapidly made its progress through the cockpit, that it was with difficulty he could regain the ladder, and most of those who accompanied him were suffocated in the attempt. On reaching the quarterdeck he found the fire had out-run him, and Captain Blackwood agreeing with that she was past all remedy, they both ran forward where the majority of the people were assembled, calling most piteously on their God for that help they despaired of getting, although many boats were approaching them, so rapidly did the fire work its way forward, and leapt from the sprit-sail-yard, when the Canopus’s boat fortunately picked them up. At this time the boats were assembling under the ship’s bows, and saved most who still clung to them, though many, naked, benumbed with cold, and pressed on by others, let go their hold and perished, as did everyone who imprudently on the first alarm jumped overboard. The boats, however, cleared her bows, though many of them were in imminent danger of swamping, from the number of the poor creatures who were clinging to the gunwales, and who were obliged to be forced off, and left to perish, for the safety of the rest. The ship burnt all night, and drifted on the Island of Tenedos, where

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