The Victory (45 page)

Just after six bells the first of the enemy topsails filled and
then narrowed as it was braced out to the wind, and Weston
signalled to
Euryalus,
the code-group 370: 'Enemy ships are
coming out of port.' It was the message everyone had been
waiting for these three weeks, and which many of them had
not thought ever to see.
Euryalus
acknowledged, and then signalled to
Sirius,
'Repeat signals to look-out ships west,'
followed by the group 370. Weston saw
Sirius-'s
pennant dip
and rise, and moments later the first flurry of flags went
soaring up her halliards. The all-important message was on
its way to the fleet.

 
Fifty miles away to the west, Captain Haworth had seen the
same sun rise over the same sea, and had gone below to have
his breakfast in his cabin, with Africa seated opposite him,
presiding over the coffee-pot like a very small version of her
mother, and chattering to Dipton as he brought in dishes and
handed bread.

Midshipman Morpurgo came down while they were still
eating.

‘
Flagship signalling, sir,' he reported. "Admiral to
captain, will you dine with me?" and then several ships'
numbers, sir, and ours is amongst them.'

‘
Very well, Mr Morpurgo. Signal the assent, if you please. I
am coming on deck.’

Africa looked disappointed. 'Aren't you going to finish
breakfast, Papa?'

‘
Perhaps later,' Haworth said, throwing down his napkin,
'but I have to go now and lay in a new course so that we'll be
close enough to
Victory
by dinner-time. An admiral's invit
ation has to be acted on at once, you see.’

When he reached the quarterdeck, the signals rating was
hauling the assent flag up, but Webb, the signals lieutenant,
was not looking at the
Victory any
more. He was staring in
the other direction, towards the east, where the topgallant
mastheads of the
Mars
were just visible on the smudged grey-
blue line of the horizon.

‘
Captain, sir,' said Webb, and then hesitated. He was
evidently not sure of what he saw.

‘Yes, Mr Webb?'

‘
Mars
is signalling, sir. I think it's 370.’

There could hardly have been an officer in the fleet who
did not know the signal code for that longed-for message. 'Let
me look.' Haworth took the glass from him and trained it on the distant speck. The mastheads appeared in the circle, tiny
as a wren's foot-prints against the curve of the world's rim,
and as the image steadied, Haworth could see the flags strung out, but they were simply dark, indistinguishable shapes. She
was too distant for him to be able to make out the colours. His eye ached as he strained to see more than was possible, and he
lowered the glass, disappointed.

‘She's too far away. I can't read them.'

‘
I'm sure it is 370, sir,' Webb said eagerly, his gaze fixed
imploringly on his captain.

‘
I'm sure you are, Mr Webb,' Haworth said. 'It's the signal
we'd all like to see.'

‘
But, sir, begging your pardon, sir, I've always had very
good eyesight, and I'm sure I've read it correctly. Won't you
pass it on to the flagship, sir?' He shifted from foot to foot
with the urgency of the matter. 'It would be such an honour,
sir, to be the first to report it,' he added persuasively.

‘
I can't risk passing on a false message, Webb. I'm sorry.’

 
‘
If someone else could make out the flags, sir, would you
then?' Webb pleaded. Haworth consented, and every glass in
the ship was trained on the eastern horizon. Morpurgo even
climbed partway up the ratlines and hung there perilously with
a telescope, but no-one was confident enough to confirm
Webb's sighting.

‘
She's hauling it down, sir,' Angevin reported. 'Must have
realised no-one can read it.'

‘
Now she'll make the distant signal,' Webb said eagerly.
‘You'll see. It'll be 370 all right.’

The distant signal, a combination of ball, pendant and flag
hoisted at different mastheads, for use in just such a circum
stance as this, went up a few minutes later, and now they
could all see that it was indeed 370. Cheers broke out, and
several of the younger officers thumped Webb heartily
between the shoulder-blades in congratulation.

‘
Well done, Mr Webb,' Haworth said, conscious of a quick
ening of his own pulse. 'Signal to the flagship, if you please.'
But before the flags could be hoisted,
Victory
was already
signalling acknowledgement of the message to the Mars. The
flagship's next signal cancelled the invitations to dinner, and
then followed the order 'General chase south-east'.

Haworth gave the orders for changing course and resuming
their place in the line, and the whole fleet set sail towards the
Straits of Gibraltar and the hoped-for interception point with
the enemy fleet.

*

At half-past seven,
Euryalus
signalled for the
Weazle
and the
Pickle
to come alongside.

‘
Sending them off with the news, I dare say,' Osborne
remarked to no-one in particular. 'Gibraltar, probably.’

Bates came on deck, closely followed by Jeffrey, who picked
his way across the deck to a sheltered and sunlit spot under
the starboard bulwarks.

‘Your breakfast is ready, sir.’

Jeffrey began a meticulous cleaning of his whiskers which
suggested he had already had his, and Weston realised that he
was enormously hungry; but he could not leave the deck at a
time like this.

‘Bring me something up here.’

Bates sighed and went away, returning later with a tray of
coffee, bread, and fried fat pork. A hand set up a canvas
chair, and Weston sat to consume his breakfast and watch as
first the
Pickle
and then the
Weazle
hoisted their courses,
shook out their reefs, and sprang away over the bright water
to the southward.

‘
Sun's sucking up the wind, sir,' Osborne observed disap
pointedly. Weston saw that it was true. On a shore like this, at
this time of the year, calm days and light, fluky winds were
only to be expected; but the enemy fleet shewed a surprising
determination to come out. The Spanish ships had been the first to get under way, and when the wind failed them, they
hoisted out rowing boats, and began the painfully slow business
of towing the great, unwieldy ships towards the harbour mouth.

By noon the wind had died away altogether, and the
English frigates lay becalmed in the sunshine, their sails limp,
drifting a little on the tide. There was nothing for anyone to
do. The watch on duty leaned against the bulwarks and
stared at the lovely white city framed with the dark-blue
autumn sky, and some of the idlers brought their work on
deck and sat like Jeffrey in sunny spots and basked.

The only enemy ships that were moving were those under
tow, and Weston could imagine the scene in the boats: the
men leaning against the oars in the gruelling heat, sweating and labouring under the curses of their petty officers, their muscles cracking and their hands raw with friction, as they
tried to haul the huge, unwilling ships another foot forward.

Ships of the line were never designed for towing, and the
men who struggled to drag them out into the open water must
have been doubly miserable, knowing that any chance of
slipping away unseen was gone, and that if it came to battle,
they had little chance of winning.

In the afternoon a light breeze got up again, and the first of
the enemy ships began to emerge from the harbour mouth.
Euryalus
and
Nemesis
drew off to about three miles distant,
and tacked back and forth just out of gun-range, keeping the enemy under observation and reporting everything along the
chain to the fleet. After their rest during the midday calm, the
hands now had unceasing labour making and shortening sail
and tacking, to keep the frigates on station in the light and
variable breezes.

By nightfall twelve of the enemy were out, and heading
slowly northward in an untidy group. The beacon light of
Cadiz blazed up as darkness fell, and the frigates crept a little
closer to the enemy. It was important not to lose them during
the hours of darkness.

*

All day the fleet sailed south-west, painfully slowly in the light
breeze. The slow sailers,
Britannia, Dreadnought
and
Prince,
sagged off to leeward, barely making one knot. Nelson
signalled to them to take whatever station was convenient,
and they soon fell behind. The rest of the fleet sailed in line-
ahead, and keeping station and maintaining an exact distance from the ship in front was all that anyone had to do that long,
still day.

At dusk Nelson ordered
Cetus
and five other fast sailers to
go out ahead, carrying lights. The line of communication with
the frigates had been maintained all day, and they knew that
twelve of the enemy were out. The weather conditions
prevailing at Cadiz meant that there was a sea-breeze by day,
and a light breeze off the land all night, which the enemy
might use to get out of harbour under cover of darkness. It
was worrying, therefore, that no further messages came from
the frigates after dark.

When dawn broke, a grey, wet and squally one,
Cetus
was
in the mouth of the Straits, six miles ahead of the flagship,
and there was no sign of the Combined. The direction of the
wind was such that the enemy could not have reached Gibraltar before them, so the Admiral ordered the fleet to wear and
retrace their course, hoping to hear soon from the frigates
exactly where the Combined was.

*