On Thursday, February 2nd, I woke up and a deep sadness was weighing on my heart. I started to weep thinking about the loss, including the sudden end of my own life. There is only an engraving from that time where the state of my destroyed ship after the battle can be seen, but what I was seeing in my mind was more real than that.
I tried to go back to sleep, but then in my mind appeared an image in which I seemed to be contemplating the ship from above. I knew what that vision could mean, but I tried to ignore it, attributing it to my imagination. I thought, “This was a great life, one that I will never be able to live again.” And I started to weep again...
I finally got up. I went to the kitchen for breakfast and when I took the bread knife (large, long and serrated) I had a sudden flash of a similar instrument, only this had an older appearance and it was inside a case made of black leather on the external side and red velvet on the inner side: it was a medical saw used for limb amputations. I did a search in Google and it wasn’t long before I found what I was looking for. I would say the most similar is the one in the center, which coincidentally is the closest one to my time. But above all, I remember the clarity of the saw teeth, which sent a shiver through my body. Probably I saw more than one during my military career, in the hands of a surgeon while he was using it on some of my coworkers, and I can tell for sure I didn’t want to feel one of them on my legs.
Capital amputation saws, so-called due to the fact that a person's life was at stake when they were used, have an ancient lineage. Here is a selection of bow-framed saws that span 250 years of the history of surgery.
The first saw to the left dates to c. 1600, and it most likely was made in France. It is 22 inches long. Note the wide blade which is common to early saws and compensates for the relatively low state of then current metallurgy. The center saw dates to c. 1760 and is probably French make. The quality of the materials is high and the workmanship is exquisite. The pistol grip ebony handle is typical for the third quarter of the eighteenth century. On the far right is a saw made at the time of the American Civil War (1860s) by Gemrig of Philadelphia. It is a very sturdy saw and the handle is steel with checked-ebony scales attached.
http://www.antiquescientifica.com/web.surgical_antiques_saws.htm
Seeing I was in past life mood I decided to meditate right away. What I saw seems to correspond to the time between lives. I am always very cautious with this kind of memories and I tend to doubt them. In fact, years ago I wouldn’t have shared them in public. But I also think that if I doubt, I block myself, so I try not to judge and just accept what I am seeing. At this point, I think giving a convincing explanation to this type of experiences is a task that corresponds to others (because I remember past lives, so certain people think I have lost all credibility). The bad news is those others turn a blind eye and I bet they will keep doing this for decades. So, without wasting any more time with my ramblings, I will just describe what I saw.
I was floating in the middle of the sky again, just above the ship. I assumed I was already dead. I wrote in my past life journal that I was a bit above the crow’s nest (I found out the Spanish word for this, "cofa", when I looked it up in the dictionary the other day, curiously I have always used the English word without caring how it is said in my current mother tongue). I talk about the crow's nest but only as a reference of how high I was. In reality I didn’t get to see it, and I could not say for certain if we had already lost the mainmast at that point or we still had it, though if someone asked me, I would say there was only one mast. I died quite early, so it is possible the mainmast was still standing.
If I looked in front of me, I could see the blue sky, the sea, the smoke coming up from the ship, and far away in the distance a line with the rest of the fleet. I saw some kind of small luminous trails above the other ships, in the sky. I assumed these were souls of people who, like me, had died. I felt the sadness in my heart. There were no regrets, no feelings of guilt, only sadness. I looked down again and felt I didn’t want to go yet.
Suddenly I was inside the ship. I saw men running in all directions, up and down the wooden stairs. I heard shouts, officers giving orders, men crying for help, the surgeon overtaken by so many wounded, with his hands full of blood. I went into what seemed to be an artillery room: I saw a row of cannons on my right and a man walking determinedly towards me, though he didn’t see me. I thought he could be my cousin, who took command after my death, but I could be wrong, possibly this is a contamination from my readings. He was shouting “Fire!” and I thought, all disheartened, “Stop it. What’s the point?”, even when I knew I would do the same in his place, as we had to fight until the very end. This reminded me how I had become emotional when I read that shots from our ship were gradually getting fewer and more spaced as we were being destroyed. My men were dying. The room was gloomy. The day was bright outside, but here the light only came from the small openings for the cannons.
Then I saw myself in another room that looked like a store, smaller than the artillery room and with fewer windows. The light mainly came from a hole that was in the far right corner of the room. I knew this was the breach the chain-shot had left when it went through the ship’s hull. Around I saw some casks, wooden boxes... it looked so much like that picture I posted when I talked about the Naval Museum. On the left there was a man reclining in an odd position, unmoving. I knew it was me. This is all very curious, as what I saw is totally coherent with my first memory from this life. The difference is that I have the impression I see clearer now that I am dead, while the images I got when I was dying were more blurred. Also, the perspective is different. I have always wondered what I was doing in a storage room when we were in the middle of the battle and most likely I should have been on deck. I have even doubted this memory. However, it keeps repeating itself again and again, and now this life-between-lives memory seems to confirm it. I didn’t get to see many details of my body, though I tried to see my legs, as always. I only know I was lying on a pool of blood. I also have blood on the left side of my face from the splinters that I know reached me in the explosion. The men were still so busy that they hadn’t found the time yet to dispose of my corpse. Here I didn’t feel an excessive sadness, I was calm, just contemplating what was left of me. The feeling was very similar to the one I had in this life when I saw myself from the outside in an out-of-body experience. There was a certain feeling of detachment.
Then I was outside again, floating. I felt there was some kind of glare, a bright light that surged above my head. Someone told me that it was enough, but I didn’t want to leave yet. However, as the minutes went by, the battle scene gradually faded and I found myself in another place. At the beginning I maintained James’ appearance, and I carried his emotions. What saddened me the most was the loss of so many lives. Little by little I felt I was becoming a translucent being. I didn’t know where I was exactly, but everything had a translucent appearance too. It seemed to me that I saw a group of souls that had just arrived as well. My thoughts went to those who were going to miss me the most, like my cousin or an elegant young man I was very fond of.
In my mind, I heard someone asking me what I had learned from this life. Without any hesitation, I answered: “The value of team work”. I was (and am) so very proud of that. Now I know it is perfectly possible to be in command and have men obeying and doing their job right, so that we can move an enormous engineering artwork as an 18th century warship was. I know it is possible to give orders and be respected, even appreciated, by your men. Amidst the rage and despair, I thought I had been left alone in the battle, but no, now I know I never was alone. Those coward captains who fled at the slightest chance didn’t matter. What mattered was my own crew, my own men: those were the invaluable force that made possible my sailing dream. It is true I couldn’t have known all of them personally (the crew of that kind of ships was made up of around 800 men), but I knew and loved the closest ones. And all of them were present in my mind while they were doing their job, following my orders, repairing the damages, firing the cannons. That was so, so amazing. Beyond the sadness and the rage, pride is all that remains. Not pride for me or what I achieved, but a real, heart-felt pride for all of my men, especially those who didn’t hesitate to fight and gave their lives defending our country.
I also feel I was so passionate in regards to my profession, I loved so much what I did... It is logical I miss this past life as no other. I did everything a man could wish for, travelling around the world and doing what I most loved. I didn’t regret a thing (except the slavery involvement). It was such a great life.
Finally, after resting a bit from so much emotions and doing my yoga session, I felt I was going back to past life mood. I took a sheet of paper and wrote the first things that came to mind. I don’t know if this is only my impression, but I would say it sounds as if I really were a member of the British Parliament:
Now that I'm out of the regression, I feel as if I survived the battle and I'm back in my living room, drinking whiskey to forget, wondering how we could do so wrong, feeling shame, feeling dishonoured, feeling responsible for the death of so many young sailors. How can I look at their relatives' faces and feign indifference? I've felt like this before in this life, this seems to be only the last nail in the coffin, the reassertion that we gain nothing spilling the blood of our youths at sea, defending our trade in wars that never end.
I feel the burden on my own shoulders. I seem not to forget the sorrow on those mothers' faces when I gave them back their beloved sons, now deceased, fallen in vain for an absurd purpose.
And now... I still have a third the book to read. I don’t know if I should go on or leave it for another four years.