The Victory (46 page)

Weston had been having a bad time of it during the hours of
darkness. Thick weather had come down not long after dark,
and he had lost sight of the enemy, and then, more seriously,
of the
Euryalus.
With a hostile shore to leeward and twelve
enemy ships, all more powerful than the
Nemesis, at
large, the
situation was perilous, and he remained on deck all night,
huddled in his greatcoat, straining his eyes into the darkness
and chivvying the lookouts.

It was an enormous relief, at dawn on the 20th, to discover
the twelve enemy ships anchored a few miles to the north of
Cadiz, the rest of the Combined still in harbour, and the
other frigates still on station. Villeneuve had evidently
weighed the shortcomings of his crews and the hazards of a
night sortie in the balance, and decided to wait for daylight.

The squally weather, which the fleet had encountered at
Gibraltar, reached Cadiz at ten in the morning, while the
Combined were still working their way out of harbour. For
the next two hours it was difficult to keep them under observation, for the teeming rain reduced visibility dramatically,
and the enemy ships, once clear of the harbour mouth,
straggled over a wide area. It would be all too easy to stray
amongst them during one of the sudden downpours.

In the early afternoon, the weather cleared, and the
Combined was visible again, a rough mass of ships, barely
under control and in no proper sailing order, heading
westwards. This may have meant that they were going into
the Atlantic, but Weston thought it more likely that their
destination was the Mediterranean, and that they were simply
trying to gain enough sea-room to be able to weather Cape
Trafalgar on a single long tack. To judge by the confusion that
seemed to reign amongst them already, he did not think Ville
neuve would want to risk more manoeuvres than was
absolutely necessary.

Blackwood was signalling to him. 'I am going to the
Admiral, but will return before nightfall'.

Weston acknowledged, and watched
Euryalus
turn to the southwards and shake out her reefs, bending with a lovely,
flexible strength to the wind. If Villeneuve were also watch
ing, he thought, it must almost break his heart to see how
easily the little frigate manoeuvred, how close she lay to the
wind, and how swiftly she dropped out of sight.

*

Nemesis
remained with the enemy fleet, shadowing it effort
lessly, unwelcome witness to all its struggles. The squalls
which were an annoyance to the frigate were a serious hazard
to the French, with their untrained crews. Through his
telescope Weston watched as they attempted to reef down
against the weather, saw how slow and clumsy they were even
with this routine procedure. The most inept of them were
driven down to leeward, scattering the fleet still further, and
Weston calculated that they would need to stand at least
twenty-five miles out to the westward before they could fetch
the Straits in one tack.

But then in the middle of the afternoon the wind veered
westerly, a favourable wind for the Straits, and it was not
hard to guess that the signal the
Bucentaure
quickly hoisted was the order for the enemy fleet to tack. The leading ships
did so, but others were slower to comply. Some had been
taken aback by the change of wind, and were wallowing in the
troughs without steerage way, while others were still far down
to leeward, having only just managed to comply with the
earlier order to reef. The crew of the
Nemesis
watched with
sad shakings of the head the hopeless confusion which ensued.
It was dusk before the whole fleet was on its new heading,
sailing very slowly towards Gibraltar.

All through the night of the 20th the English fleet
shadowed the Combined, remaining far enough out of sight
not to frighten them into changing course, while the frigates
kept them informed of the enemy's progress. It was a dark
night, with occasional squalls, and with the necessity of
keeping the Combined's light in view and reporting on them
to Nelson, Weston and Blackwood had no chance of rest.

In the early hours of the morning both fleets were in sight,
heading on converging courses which would bring them
together at dawn, and the frigate captains were able to go
below and snatch some sleep, their task now completed.

*

When the first greyness was beginning to seep into the sky,
Haworth went on deck, and found Africa already there,
standing by the taffrail staring in fascination at the lights of
the enemy fleet sparkling like distant candles in the murk.

‘Look, Papa!' she said softly.

He came to stand beside her, resting his hand on her shoul
der. Gradually the shapes of the ships began to appear, their spars like bare trees populating the horizon. And there were
the
Euryalus
and the
Nemesis,
small and snug and black,
sailing serenely between the two rows of lights, 'Like a couple
of jarvies trotting down Piccadilly,' Haworth murmured.

The Combined was trapped between the fleet and the
shore; there was nothing it could do now to avoid battle. The squalls had cleared away, and a fine dawn was breaking, and
the sun was coming up, burnishing the water and gleaming on
the white cliffs of Cape Trafalgar beyond the enemy fleet. It
was to be today, then, the battle for which they had all been
waiting these two-and-a-half long, weary years. Every man in the fleet must be glad that the end of tedium was come; every
man must be quite sure that the battle would end in victory for
Nelson's fleet; and every man must also wonder whether this
would be the last dawn he ever saw.

Africa looked up into her father's face searchingly, and he
smiled and touched her dark curls. 'Let's go and have breakfast,
my love, before we have to dismantle the whole cabin.’

*

Everything had been taken care of, every detail that Nelson
could think of. He had ordered all the English ships to fly
the white ensign, because it was easier to distinguish from the
French flag, even though Collingwood's division ought by
rights to have flown his blue ensign. He had noticed that all
the English ships had their mast-hoops painted yellow, except
for the
Belleisle,
which had them painted black like the
French ships. He ordered the
Belleisle
to repaint them, and
pointed out to his fleet that this made a useful means of ident
ification, when all but the masts were obscured by smoke.

At ten past six he ordered the ships to take up their pre
arranged stations, although this was only a confirmation of
what was already the case, for despite the long night of
manoeuvres, the fleet had remained in its correct order, all
but the
Africa.
She had, presumably, missed the order to wear
ship during the night, for she had stood on alone to
northwards, and was now hurrying back with all the sail she could cram on. Haworth heard this story repeated from hand
to hand through his ship, and gave a small, private smile at
the indignation of many of his men that their old ship might
not be in time to join the action.

‘
Wouldn't have happened if we was still in her!' they
grumbled. 'Suppose she misses the whole battle?’

It seemed unlikely that she would, for the winds were so light it was taking a very long time to sail into reach of the
enemy. Nelson gave the change of course at a quarter to
seven, turning the fleet from one line almost parallel with the
enemy, into the two divisions, parallel with each other and
heading for the enemy line almost at right-angles to it.

Cetus's
position was fifth in line in Collingwood's division,
with the flagship, and the
Belleisle,
the
Mars
and the
Tonnant
in front of her, and the
Billy Ruffian
immediately behind.
The
Prince,
steering like a haystack, as Grindall had
predicted, was already far out of line to port, and at half-past
seven Nelson signalled to her, and to
Dreadnought
and
Britannia,
to take whatever station was convenient without
regard to the established order of sailing.

Ten minutes later he called the captains of the frigates on
board the
Victory
to give them their orders, which were to
stay out of gunshot and render such assistance as might be
required. Their usefulness would lie in rescuing men from the
water, taking crippled ships in tow and receiving surrender
from enemy ships already overpowered. Their frail scantlings
would not withstand enemy fire: that was not what they were
built for.

Weston returned to the
Nemesis,
and as everything neces
sary had been done, he occupied himself for a while with
writing to Lucy, to tell her of the events leading up to this
morning.

‘
A few nights ago, I dreamt all night of taking despatches
to London,' he wrote, 'and now I can see why. It was an
omen, I believe, that I shall soon be bringing home news of
our great victory over the Combined. No other result is possi
ble. No doubt they will fight bravely, but they are no match for us, as they must know as well as we; and that very know
ledge will fight for us and against them.’

*

The morning passed. By ten o'clock the enemy was about six
miles away, clearly visible, some flying the French tricolor,
others the red-and-yellow ensign of Spain. They had gone
about on the other tack, heading northwards, back towards
Cadiz, and had found the manoeuvre so difficult in the light
wind that it had taken three hours for all the ships to wear.
Their line of battle was not straight, but a long crescent with
its concave side towards the English fleet, doubled in places
where some ships had fallen off further to leeward than
others.

Captain Haworth made a round of the ship, not so much to
see if everything was in readiness, for clearing for action was
a routine drill, but to observe the morale of the men. Most of
them had stripped to the waist, and the old hands, who had
been in battle before, had advised the gun-crews to tie a
handkerchief round their heads over their ears, to deaden the
percussion of the guns, otherwise a man might be deaf for
days afterwards.