1805

than believe 'em.'

Rogers shrugged. 'Well, it's not my problem, sir, whereas these casks of rotten pork are.'

'Damn it!' Drinkwater rose, his chair squeaking backwards with the violence of his movement. 'Damn it! D'you know Sam,' he said, unlocking the spirit case and pouring two glasses of rum, 'I've never felt so uncomfortable before. That business the other day was shameful. We should never have let the French get away unmolested. God knows what'll come of it… we don't know where the devil they are now. The only ray of hope is that Calder has joined forces with Gardner or Cornwallis if he's back on station, and that Nelson's rejoined 'em from the West Indies. With that concentration off Ushant, at least the Channel will be secure, but it is the uncertainty of matters that unsettles me.'

Rogers nodded his agreement. 'Worse than a damned fog.'

'But you want to know about the pork,' Drinkwater sighed. 'How many weeks can we last out at the present rate?'

Rogers shrugged, considered for a moment and said, 'Ten, possibly eleven.'

'Very well. I'll see what I can do about securing some from another ship in due course.'

'Beg pardon, sir, but what are our orders?'

'Well, we are to sit tight here on Calder's rendezvous for a week. Aeolus and Phoenix are within a hundred miles of us, with the seventy-four Dragon not so far. We are intended to observe Ferrol.' Drinkwater opened one of the charts that lay, almost permanently now, upon his table top. He laid his finger on a spot a hundred miles north-north-west of Cape Finisterre, 'The four of us are holding Calder's old post between us while he retires on the Channel Fleet in case Villeneuve makes his expected push for the Channel.'

'And if Villeneuve obliges and the Channel Fleet does no better than Calder did t'other day, then I'd say Boney had a better than even chance of getting his own way in the Dover Strait.'

'I doubt if Cornwallis would let him…'

'But you said yourself, sir, that Cornwallis might not yet be back at sea. What's Gardner's fighting temper?'

'We'll have little enough to worry about if Nelson's back…'

'But maybe he isn't. And even Nelson could be fooled by a fog. 'Tis high summer, just what the bloody French want. I reckon they'd be across in a week.'

Drinkwater fell silent. He was not of sufficiently different an opinion to contradict Rogers. He poured them each another glass.

'To be candid, Sam, things look pretty black.'

'Like the Earl of Hell's riding boots.'

No such strategic considerations preoccupied James Quilhampton as, for the duration of his watch and in the absence of the captain, he paced the weather side of the quarterdeck. His mind was far from the cares of the ship, daydreaming away his four hours on deck as Antigone rode the blue waters of the Atlantic under easy sail. He was wholly given to considering his circumstances in so far as they were affected by Miss Catriona MacEwan. From time to time, as he walked up and down, his right hand would clasp the stump of his left arm and he would curse the iron hook that he wore in place of a left hand. Although he possessed several alternatives, including one made for him on the bomb-vessel Virago that had been painted and was a tolerable likeness to the real thing, he felt that such a disfigurement was unlikely to enable him to secure the young woman as his wife. He cursed his luck. The wound that had seemed such an honourable mark in his boyhood now struck him for what it really was, a part of him that was gone for ever, its absence making him abnormal, abominable. How foolish it now seemed to consider it in any other way. The pride with which he had borne home his iron hook now appeared ridiculous. He had seen the pity in Catriona's eyes together with the disgust. As he recollected the circumstances it seemed that her revulsion had over-ridden her pity. He was maimed; there was no other way to look at the matter. Certainly that harridan of an aunt would point out James Quilhampton had no prospects, no expectations, no fortune and no left hand!

But she had been undeniably pleasant to him, surely. He pondered the matter, turning over the events of their brief acquaintanceship, recollecting the substance of her half-dozen letters that led him to suppose she, at least, viewed his friendship if not his suit with some favour. Reasoning thus he raised himself out of his despondency only to slump back into it when he considered the uncertainty of his fate. He was in such a brown study that the quartermaster of the watch had to call his attention to the masthead's hail.

'Deck! Deck there!'

'Eh? What? What is it?'

'Eight sail to the norrard, sir!'

'What d'you make of 'em?'

'Clean torps'ls, sir, Frenchmen!'

'Pass word for the captain!' Quilhampton shouted, scrambling up on the rail with the watch glass and jamming himself against the mizen shrouds. Within minutes Drinkwater was beside him.

'Where away, Mr Q?'

'I can't see them from the deck, sir… wait! One, two… six… eight, sir. Eight sail and they are French!'

Drinkwater levelled his own glass and studied the newcomers as they sailed south, tier after tier of sails lifting over the horizon until he could see the bulk of their hulls and the white water foaming under their bows as they manoeuvred into line abreast.

'Casting a net to catch us,' he said, adding, 'six of the line and two frigates to match or better us.' In the prevailing westerly breeze escape to the north was impossible. But the enemy squadron was sailing south, for the Spanish coast, the Straits of Gibraltar or the Mediterranean itself. Which? And why south if the main strength of the Combined Fleet had gone north? Perhaps it had not; perhaps Villeneuve had got past the cordon of British frigates and into Ferrol or Corunna, or back into the Mediterranean. Perhaps this detachment of ships was part of Villeneuve's fleet, an advance division sent out to capture the British frigates that were Barham's eyes and ears. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. God only knew what the truth was.

Drinkwater suddenly knew one thing for certain: he had seen at least one of the approaching ships before. The scarlet strake that swept aft from her figurehead was uncommon. She was Allemand's Magnanime, and there too was the big Majestueux. It was the Rochefort Squadron, back from the West Indies and now heading south!

'Mr Rogers!'

'Sir?'

'Make sail!' Drinkwater closed his glass with a snap. 'Starboard tack, stuns'ls aloft and alow, course sou' by east!'

'Aye, aye, sir!'

'Mr Quilhampton!'

'Sir?'

'A good man aloft with a glass. I want to know the exact progress of this chase and I don't want to lose M'sieur Allemand a second time.'

He fell to pacing the deck, occasionally turning and looking astern at the enemy whose approach had been slowed by Antigone's increase in sail. The British frigate would run south ahead of the French squadron. It was not Drinkwater's business to engage a superior enemy, nor to risk capture. It was his task to determine whither M. Allemand was bound and for what reason. It was also necessary to let Collingwood, off Cadiz, know that a powerful enemy division was at sea and cruising on his lines of communication.

Drinkwater could not be expected to have more than the sketchiest notion of the true state of affairs during the last week of July and the first fortnight in August. But his professional observations and deductions were vital in guiding his mind to its decisions and, like half a dozen fellow cruiser captains, he played his part in those eventful weeks. Unknown to Drinkwater and after the action with Calder's fleet, Villeneuve had gone to Vigo Bay to land his wounded and refit his damaged ships. From Vigo he had coasted to Ferrol where the fast British seventy- four Dragon had spotted his ships at anchor. More French and Spanish ships had joined his fleet and he sailed from Ferrol on 13 August, being sighted by the Iris whose captain concluded from the Combined Fleet's westerly course that it was attempting a junction with the Rochefort Squadron before turning north. However, events turned out otherwise, for the wind was foul for the Channel. Villeneuve