Nicholas Best > Quotes

“Nelson was due for a rest. He was forty-six years old, blind in one eye, going blind in the other. He had lost an arm in battle and endured recurring pain in his side from an old stomach wound. His hernia produced a lump the size of his fist every time he coughed. He suffered headaches from a head wound and was prone to regular bouts of fever, toothache and depression. For a man who had been in action 120 times by the age of thirty-nine, Nelson was bearing up well, but he was long overdue for an honourable retirement. It was only the war that kept him at sea. But there was no rest for Nelson, or anyone else, for that matter. They had all been at sea far too long. Officers and men alike were dreadfully”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Nelson’s fleet had been spotted off the Spanish coast, barring the way to the Atlantic.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“God gave it to me. Woe to him who touches it.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“In reply, Ganteaume telegraphed Paris on 24 March,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“commander-in-chief of the British army,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Nobody worked harder than Napoleon himself. Fifteen hours a day was quite normal for him.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The enemy hauled our colours down and the slaughter ceased entirely after a while.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“He was the grand old Duke of York of the nursery rhyme”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“He had been in the navy since he was twelve and was Spain’s most highly respected sailor.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Napoleon dictated the letter on 2 January 1805.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“On one occasion two of the stewards fell out over some technical point and began to take a swipe at each other. Delighted onlookers called for the third steward - Harry Penton, owner of the Blue Posts hotel at Thika - who had gone missing. He was sitting stark naked on the roof of the Norfolk, wearing a tin bath over his head and insisting: "I am a mushroom. I AM a mushroom!”
― Nicholas Best, Happy Valley: The Story of the English in Kenya

“He then ordered bread and cheese and butter and beer for every man at the guns.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The Spanish were naturally outraged. The British were no better than pirates.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“and more than thirty generals.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Down at Cadiz, it sometimes took three days to reach the open sea,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“pointing out that fifteen British warships were lying in wait for him outside Brest harbour. Was he supposed to fight them on his way out?”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The towers were to be built along the seafront at 600-yard intervals,”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“all the way down to Corunna, and from Cadiz to the Italian border.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Ganteaume had twenty-one fighting ships under his command, but trained crews for only seven.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“There was nothing to be gained from fighting the British off Brest.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“It would take the fleets all day just to catch sight of each other, let alone come to quarters”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“His hours of sleep were no more fixed than those of his meals.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“grand that he had the right to keep his hat on in the presence chamber of the king.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Captain Harvey held his fire until the Fougueux’s yardarms were almost touching the Téméraire’s”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“But everyone on the British side knew Nelson had arrived.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“His ships might arrive in time to save the day, or they might arrive in time to be destroyed in their turn.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“16 August 1804 was going to be a day they would remember for the rest of their lives.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The meeting gave the green light for construction of eighty-one Martello towers”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“Thirteen very unhappy officers filed into Villeneuve’s cabin and sat around the table.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar

“The Victory was still about 1,000 yards from the enemy, not yet in proper range.”
― Nicholas Best, Trafalgar