Opening paragraphs......................

"Jump!" shouted the boatman and on a chilly March morning in 1771 little Horatio Nelson leaped from the boat which had brought him out into the Medway, clutched at the gangway's hanging side ropes, so think that his childish hands could not close around them, and began an agile and eager assault on the towering side of the Raisonnable.  Up he scrambled, past the lower deck gun ports and an instant stink of stale humanity and bilge waters, past the main deck ports, until at last he hauled  himself on to the upper deck which suddenly appeared, smooth and shining white under its great banded masts and filigree rigging, the air heavy with the mingled aromas of wood, rope, tar, paint, and metal.  At twelve and a half years old he had entered the theatre of his life.
-Edgar Vincent,  Nelson:  Love & Fame