Did any man serve at both Trafalgar and Waterloo? I know of only one. Don Miguel Ricardo Maria Juan de la Mata Domingo Vincente Ferre Alava de Esquivel, mercifully known as Miguel de Alava, was an officer in the Spanish navy in 1805 and served aboard the Spanish admiral’s flagship, the Principe de Asturias. That ship fought nobly at Trafalgar and, though she was hurt badly, managed to avoid capture and escaped back to Cadiz. Four years later Alava had become an officer in the Spanish army. Spain had changed sides by then, and the Spanish army was allied with the British army under Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, as it fought in the Peninsula, and General de Alava was appointed Wellington’s Spanish liaison officer and the two became extremely close friends, a friendship that endured till their deaths. De Alava stayed with Wellington until the end of the Peninsular War when he was appointed the Spanish ambassador to the Netherlands and so was able to join the allies at the Battle of Waterloo where he remained at Wellington’s side throughout the day. He had no need to be there, yet his presence was undoubtedly a help to Wellington who trusted de Alava’s judgment and valued his advice. Nearly all of Wellington’s aides were killed or wounded, yet he and de Alava survived unhurt. So Miguel de Alava fought against the British at Trafalgar and for them at Waterloo, a strange career indeed. Sharpe joins de Alava in surviving that remarkable double.

I am enormously grateful to Peter Goodwin, the Historical Consultant, Keeper and Curator of HMS Victory, for his notes on the manuscript, and to Katy Ball, Curator at Portsmouth Museums and Records Office. The errors which survive are all my own, or can be blamed on Richard Sharpe, a soldier adrift in a strange nautical world. He will be back on land soon, where he belongs, and will march again.