1805

missed Allemand, encountered what he thought was part of a strong British force but was in fact Dragon and some frigates, swung south and arrived off Cape St Vincent on the 18th. Breaking up a small British convoy and forcing aside Vice-Admiral Collingwood's few ships, Villeneuve's Combined Fleet of thirty- six men-of-war passed into the safety of the anchorage behind the Mole of Cadiz. That evening Collingwood's token force resumed its blockade.

Drinkwater had tenaciously hung on to Allemand's flying squadron, running ahead of his frigates as the French commodore edged eastwards and then, apparently abandoning the half-hearted chasing off of the British cruiser, turning away for Vigo Bay. As soon as Drinkwater ascertained the French commander's intentions he made all sail to the south, arriving off Cadiz twenty-four hours after Villeneuve. He called away his barge and put off to HMS Dreadnought, Collingwood's flagship, to report the presence of the Rochefort ships at Vigo, expecting Collingwood's despatches for the Channel immediately.

Instead the dour Northumbrian looked up from his desk, his serious face apparently unmoved by Drinkwater's news.

'Have you looked into Cadiz, Captain Drinkwater? No? I thought not.' Collingwood sighed, as though weary beyond endurance. 'Villeneuve's whole fleet passed into the Grand Road yesterday…'

'I am too late then, sir.'

'With the chief news, yes.' Collingwood did not smile, but the tone of his tired voice was kindly.

'And my orders?'

'I have four ships of the line here, Captain, to blockade thirty to forty enemy men of war. You will remain with us.'

'Very well, sir.' Drinkwater turned to go.

'Oh, Captain…'

'Sir?'

'From your actions you appear an officer of energy. I should be pleased to see your frigate close inshore.'

Drinkwater acknowledged the vice-admiral's veiled compliment gravely. In the weeks to come he was to learn that this had been praise indeed.

Chapter Fifteen Nelson

August-October 1805 

'The tower of San Sebastian bearing south-a-half-west, sir,' Hill straightened up from the pelorus vanes.

'Very well!' Drinkwater closed his Dolland glass with a snap, pocketed it and jumped down from the carronade slide. He took a look over Gillespy's shoulder as the boy's pencil dotted his final full stop.

'You make a most proficient secretary, Mr Gillespy,' he said, patting the boy's shoulder in a paternal gesture that spoke of his high spirits. He turned to the first lieutenant. 'Wear ship, Sam!'

'Aye, aye, sir. Sail trimmers, stand by!'

Antigone's company were at their quarters, the frigate cleared for action as she took her daily look into Cadiz harbour. The hills of Spain almost surrounded them, green and brown, spreading from the town of Rota to the north, to the extremity of the Mole of Cadiz, that long barrier which separated the anchorage of the Combined Fleets of France and Spain from the watching and waiting British. From Antigone's quarterdeck the long mole had fore-shortened and disappeared behind the white buildings of the town of Cadiz which terminated in the tower of San Sebastian. The tower had fallen abaft their beam and ahead of them the islets of Los Cochinos, Las Puercas, El Diamante and La Galera barred their passage. Beyond the islets, beneath the distant blue-green summit of the Chiclana hill, the black mass of the Combined Fleet lay, safely at anchor.

Drinkwater turned to Midshipman Frey, busy with paint-box and paper at the rail. 'You will have to finish now, Mr Frey.' He looked from the masts of the enemy to the hurried watercolour executed by the midshipman. 'You do justice to the effects of the sunshine on the water.'

'Thank you, sir.' Frey and Gillespy exchanged glances. The captain was very complimentary this morning.

'Ready to wear, sir,' reported Rogers.

Drinkwater, his hands behind his back, drew a lungful of air. 'Very well, Sam. See to it.' He felt unusually expansive this bright morning, deriving an enormous sense of satisfaction from his advanced post almost under the very guns of Cadiz itself. He knew that Antigone had joined the fleet at a fortuitous moment and that Collingwood was desperately short of frigates. As soon as the admiral had seen Villeneuve into Cadiz he had sent off his fastest frigate, the Euryalus, commanded by one of the best cruiser captains in the navy, the Honourable Henry Blackwood. Blackwood was to inform Cornwallis off Ushant, and then Barham at the Admiralty in London. The departure of Euryalus left Collingwood with only one other frigate and the bomb-vessel Hydra until Drinkwater's arrival with Antigone. Their present task, although not so very different from their duties of the last eighteen months, seemed more crucial. There was an inescapable sense of expectancy in the fleet off southern Spain. Among the captains of the line-of-battleships cruising offshore this manifested itself in frustration. Collingwood was not an expansive man. His orders to his fleet were curt. The ship's commanders were forbidden to visit each other, there was to be no dining together, no gossip; just the remorseless business of forming line, wearing, tacking and, from time to time, running for Gibraltar or Tetuan for water, meat and other necessaries.

But close up to the entrance of Cadiz, Drinkwater was blissfully unconcerned. He had no desire to exchange stations, for it was here, opinion held, that an action would soon occur. He was not sure whence came these rumours. There was some extraordinary communication between the ships of a fleet that made even the Admiralty telegraph seem slow. Collingwood had been reinforced by the ships of Admiral Bickerton which Nelson had left in the Mediterranean when he chased the Toulon Fleet to the West Indies. Bickerton, his health in ruins, had gone home, but his ships had brought rumour from east of Gibraltar, while the regular logistical communication with Gibraltar ensured that news from Spain gradually permeated the fleet. It was a curious thing, reflected Drinkwater, as Antigone completed her turn and the after-sail was reset, that what began in a fleet as rumour was often borne out as fact a few days or weeks later.

'Ship's on the starboard tack, sir,' reported Rogers.

'Very well.' Drinkwater crossed the deck and watched the white walls of Cadiz slowly open out on the larboard beam, exposing the long mole to the south as the frigate beat out of Cadiz bay.

'Mr Frey, make ready the signal for 'The enemy has topgallant masts hoisted and yards crossed'.'

'Aye, aye, sir.'

Drinkwater idly watched Lieutenant Mount parading his marines for their daily inspection. He was reluctant to go below and break his mood by a change of scenery. Instead he continued his walk. They knew here, off Cadiz, that Pitt's alienation of Spain had been countered by the acquisition of Austria as an ally, and that there was word of a Russian and Austrian army taking the field. He learned also that the commander of the Rochefort Squadron that had so lately pursued him had been Commodore Allemand, promoted after the departure of Missiessy for Paris. What had become of Allemand now, no one seemed certain.

Drinkwater crossed the deck and began pacing the windward side, deep in thought. There was only one cloud on the horizon and that was their dwindling provisions. They had found more pork rotten, a quantity of flour and dried peas spoiled, and the purser and Rogers were reminding him daily of their increasingly desperate need to revictual. Despite Bickerton's ships, Collingwood was still outnumbered. He had hoped that events would have come to some sort of crux before now, but it seemed that Villeneuve delayed as long as possible in Cadiz. All coastal trade had ceased since Collingwood had detached a couple of small cruisers to halt it in an effort to starve Villeneuve out, and much of the business of supplying Cadiz with food was being carried out in Danish ships. It was known that things inside the town were becoming desperate: there seemed little love lost between the French and