Katie Daysh's Blog - Posts Tagged "battleofthenile"

Nightingale was still screaming as the Orient's seams convulsed like a failing heart. A bright orange aura consumed the bay.

And the sun erupted.

The explosion kicked Nightingale in the chest. He fell to his back, instinctively rolled over, and clasped his hands over his head. The scream of one hundred and eighteen guns blowing to pieces tore at him, made every timber in the Lion bounce and shake. Angry waves, ploughing from the ripped hull of the Orient, lifted the ship's bows, slammed her down. The rest of the mizzen lanterns shattered around Nightingale, igniting into pockets of fire –

– and then came the debris of the Orient. Nightingale raised his head in time to see her main top-mast pitch over in the air and impale the ocean, yards away from the Lion's hull. Scraps of metal pinwheeled, slicing through the mizzen stays. Red-hot steel ripped holes in the ship's frame, tearing up rails and ladders and chunks of the helm. Nightingale ducked, but not in time to stop a raining hail of splinters gouging into his forehead.

1st August marks the anniversary of the Battle of the Nile, which took place in 1798. For those of you who've read Leeward, you'll know this is the event that kickstarts the book, where Captain Nightingale receives his physical and psychological scars. Reading about this battle really inspired Leeward because I wanted to capture what it must have sounded and looked like. I reference the above painting a lot in the first chapter, with that spar pinwheeling through the air in the top left-hand corner and the cathedral-like glow of the exploding Orient.

The Battle of the Nile was fought between the British Royal Navy and the French Republican Navy off the coast of Egypt. It finalised a campaign that had been battling Napoleon across the Mediterranean, culminating in his invasion of Egypt as a stepping-stone to conquering British India. Under Horatio Nelson, the British fleet located the French anchored at Aboukir Bay. In the formation of two lines, the British ships attacked the French. During the climax of the battle, the French flagship, the huge Orient, erupted. Only a handful of French ships managed to escape, meaning a strategic victory for the British both during this battle and eventually across the entire Mediterranean.

It was the battle which made Nelson into a hero, and he had medals cast for the officers who served on the ships which took part. This is referenced in Leeward, with Nightingale despising his Nile medal as a marker of a very (for him) pyrrhic victory. He has one made for his lieutenant, Leroy Sawyer, the man he had secretly been in love with and who dies at the Nile.

Hope you enjoyed this short history lesson and how it inspired Leeward!