A Midshipman

"Every schoolboy knows", as the saying goes, that Admiral Nelson was shot by a French shooter in the mizxen top of the French ship Redoubtable at the Battle of of Trafalgar. Okay, maybe schoolboys (and girls) in China and India and Nigeria, etc. probably never heard of Nelson or the Battle of Trafalgar.

And I once read that a midshipman on HMS Victory shot the French shooter after he shot Nelson. Midshipman John Pollard, 18 at the time, is most often credited with shooting Nelson's shooter. I don't know whether that is true or just a story the British told to make themselves feel a little better about Nelson's death.

And you may remember that during the Napoleonic Wars, and for a long time before and after, British midshipmen were mostly officers in training, and thus they were teenagers, and they began their careers as boys about 12 years old.

In this movie, after Nelson is shot, a small blonde midshipman, seen earlier in Nelson's cabin, grabs a musket and shoots the Frenchman out of the rigging, who splashes into the water. I note that the boy is small enough that a real loaded musket would have given him quite a recoil.

So far I only saw the battle scene from this movie. There is one boy character listed in the IMDB credits for this movie, George Matcham, a possibly fictional nephew of Admiral Nelson. Not having seen the whole movie, I don't know if Matcham joins the navy and shoots Nelson's shooter at Trafalgar.

The filming date of this film is given as july 31, 1972, though of course it should have taken a few weeks to film.

George Matcham was played by Dominic Guard, who was born 18 June 1956 and so would have been 16 on July 31, 1972. And as near as I can remember he was a bit bigger than the midshipman in his previous role in The Go between 1971, as well as having darker hair.

If Dominic Guard did not portray the young midshipman, who did?