Tom Pocock

The life and death of Nelson grip the imagination, not just because of the bicentenary of Trafalgar but because more is known about him than any other major figure in British history. He was a tireless correspondent, writing for hours with his left hand letters that would be kept in their hundreds because he was famous in his lifetime. These illuminate the complicated, contra- dictory character that continues to entice biographers, whether revisionists, hagio- graphers, bodice-rippers, amateur psychoanalysts, spinners of rattling good yarns, or serious historians, amongst the last being Roger Knight.

The proposal that the English have a long tradition of violence is the opening of Adam Nicolson’s book and he supports his belief by invoking the Book of Revelations, Virgil, Homer, Joanna Southcott, the Methodists, Jane Austen and William Blake to bring this together at Trafalgar. That occasion cannot, of course, be without Nelson, and he writes, ‘The apocalyptic tradition required a conjuring, wise, intuitive, violent and triumphant leader.’ That this is an original and discursive bicentennial contribution is apparent. But, before a peace-loving Englishman can protest, invoking similar, even more violent tendencies among at least a dozen other nationalities, Nicolson has him on the quarterdeck of the Victory at dawn on 21 October 1805, and is making his point.

It goes without saying that the second world war was decided as much on the western ocean as in the sky over England. Indeed the Battle of the Atlantic could be seen as the Battle of Britain in slow motion, its critical period lasting for the first three and a half years of the war. There was little dash about the battle, however, which has only occasionally been illuminated by a book or film, like The Cruel Sea, which gives this book its rather unworthily derivative title. First glancing through the 700 pages, it seems taxingly repetitive.

The first word of Edgar Vincent's biography of Nelson is not encouraging. It is 'Jump!', which is what a sailor is supposed to have shouted to young Horatio as he boarded the boat that was to take him out to his first ship. How does Mr Vincent know that the sailor shouted that? He might have said, 'Mind the gap.' Happily this is the only invented dialogue and only occasionally does the author let his imagination loose in describing how somebody walked, or seabirds wheeled, or what a gun-deck looked like after receiving a broadside. He uses colloquialisms, too: spin, networking and icon, but, in the context, these are appropriate.

Those who prefer their history straight may look askance at the historical novel, particularly if it is military. Accuracy is all. Surely it was the 31st Foot rather than the 38th and was the rifle yet in service and when did the Iron Duke say that it had been a really, really close-run thing? But Alan Mallinson's reputation rests on authenticity, for he is a serving soldier who has commanded a cavalry regiment. It is cavalry of the four-legged, rather than the tracked, sort that he has made his own in fiction and soon one has settled into regimental life, albeit in the early 19th century and, in this case, on the muddy river banks of Burma and the dusty plains of Hindoostan.