The Immortal Sea Man

“Thank God I have done my duty,” gasped the most famous seaman as he was dying amid the din and racket of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805.

Horatio Nelson was barely 14 years old when he volunteered to serve aboard one of the two ships setting sail on an Arctic expedition. The two ships, Racehorse and Carcass, penetrated the ice to within ten degrees of the Pole.

Promotion came quickly for the young sailor who was seasick at the start of every voyage. Yet no matter how ill he felt, he always strove his utmost to do his duty.

At the siege of Calvi, a French fortification on the island of Corsica, Nelson lost the sight of his right eye. Then, when leading a land attack on the Spanish port of Santa Cruz, a grapeshot shattered his right elbow. To save his life, the surgeons removed his arm.

Nelson’s greatest victories were the battles of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, when outnumbered and outgunned, Nelson sailed his own fleet in double line to cut the crescent formation of the enemy in two.

India, like other countries, has had its great men and women, who have unflinchingly shouldered tremendous burdens in their unselfish duty to the country. No words will ever describe the principles of duty more clearly, nor more beautifully, than those of the Bhagavad Gita, when Krishna addressed Arjuna on the doctrine that for every man, no matter to what caste he may belong, the zealous performance of his duty and the discharge of his obligations is his most important work.