1805

followed the direction of their telescopes.

Under a sky of blue and over an almost calm sea furrowed by a ponderous swell from the westward, the British fleet came down on the Combined Fleet in two loose groups, prevented from getting into any regular formation by the lightness of the westerly breeze. Drinkwater looked briefly round him to see the Franco-Spanish ships in almost as much disorder. The decision to wear, though two hours old, had thrown them into a confusion from which it would take them some time to recover. Instead of a single line with the frigates to leeward and Gravina's crucial detachment slightly to weather, the whole armada was a loose crescent, bowed away from the advancing British towards the distant blue outline of Cape Trafalgar on the horizon. The line had vast gaps in it, astern of the Bucentaure for instance, and in places the ships had bunched two and three abreast.

He turned his attention to the British again at the same time as Villeneuve lowered his glass and noticed his arrival. 'Ah, Captain Drinkwater. I desire your opinion as to the leading ships…' He handed Drinkwater his glass.

Drinkwater focused the telescope and the image leapt into the lenses with unbelievable clarity. The two groups of British ships were led by three-deckers. These ships were going to receive the brunt of the fire of several broadsides before they could retaliate and Drinkwater sensed a certain elation amongst the officers on Bucentaure's quarterdeck. They came on like a row of skittles, one behind the other. Knock the end one over and it would take them all down.

As he watched, flags soared up the mastheads and out to the yardarms of the leading British ships. Between the two groups he could see the frigates Naiad, Euryalus, Siruis and Phoebe, a cutter and schooner, standing by to repeat signals or tow a wounded battleship out of the line.

'Well, Captain?' Villeneuve was reminding him he was a prisoner and had been asked a question. He looked again at the leading ships. They had every stitch of sail set, their studding sails winged out on the booms, their slack sheets trailing in the water. The swell made the great ships pitch gently as they came on, their hulls black and yellow barred, their decorated figureheads bright with paintwork. The southern group was further advanced than the northern column. He closed the telescope with a snap.

'The southern column is led by Royal Sovereign, Your Excellency, flagship of Vice- Admiral Collingwood…'

'And Nelson?' Villeneuve's eagerness betrayed his anxiety.

'There, sir,' Drinkwater pointed with Villeneuve's telescope, the brass instrument gleaming in the sunshine, 'there is Victory, leading the northern column and bearing the flag of Lord Nelson.'

Villeneuve's hand was extended for his glass, but his eyes never left the black and yellow hull of Victory. As Drinkwater watched, the ship astern of Victory seemed to edge out of line, as if making to overtake. Then he saw her sails shake and she disappeared from view behind the flagship again. 'She seems to be supported by the Temeraire,' he added, 'of ninety-eight guns.'

Bucentaure's officers studied the menacing approach of the silent British ships. All along her own decks animated chatter had broken out. He noticed there was no check put to this and the men seemed in high spirits now that action was inevitable. Aware that at any moment he would be ordered below, he again looked round. The gap astern was a yawning invitation to the British, and Drinkwater's practised eye soon reckoned that Victory was heading for that gap. Collingwood, he judged, would strike the allied line well astern of the Bucentaure, somewhere about the position of the funereal black hull of the Spanish 112-gun Santa Ana with her scarlet figurehead of the saint. Ahead of the Bucentaure the mighty Santissima Trinidad, with her hull of red and white ribbands, seemed to wait placidly for the onslaught of the heretic fleet, a great wooden cross hanging over her stern beneath the red and gold ensign of Spain.

'Nelson attacks as I said he would, Captain,' Villeneuve remarked in English. And added, as his glass raked the following ships crowding down astern of their leaders, 'It is not that Nelson leads, but that every captain thinks he is Nelson…' Then, in his own tongue and in a tone of anguish he said, 'Où est Gravinar?'

Drinkwater realised the import of the remark, forgotten in the excitement of watching the British fleet approach. By wearing to the northward, Villeneuve had reversed his order of sailing. The van was led by Dumanoir now. Instead of commanding a detached squadron to windward, Gravina was tailing on the end of the immense line. Villeneuve's counterstroke was destroyed!

Drinkwater's eyes met those of the French Commander-in-Chief, then Villeneuve looked away; Magendie was speaking impatiently to him and at that moment smoke belched from a ship well astern of Bucentaure. The rolling concussion of a broadside came over the water towards them as white plumes rose around the Royal Sovereign. Collingwood had shifted his flag from the sluggishDreadnought to the swift and newly coppered Royal Sovereign as soon as she had come out from England. Now that speed carried her into battle ahead of her consorts and her chief. Soon other ships were trying the range along with the Fougeuex, smoke and flame belched from the side of the Santa Ana, and still the Royal Sovereign came on, her guns silent, her defiance expressed by the hoisting of additional colours in her rigging.

Drinkwater turned his attention to the other column. Much nearer now, Victory could be seen clearly, her lower fore-sheets trailing in the water as the lightness of the breeze wafted her down on the waiting Bucentaure.

Magendie barked something and Guillet tugged at Drinkwater's sleeve. He followed Guillet to the companionway. As he left the deck he heard the bells of several ships strike the quadruple double ring of noon.

'Tirez!'

As Drinkwater passed over the gun-deck, Lieutenant Fournier gave the order to one of Bucentaure's 24-pounder cannon. It rumbled inboard with the recoil after the explosion of discharge, snatching at its breeching while its crew ministered to it, stuffing sponge, cartridge wad and ball into its smoking muzzle. The lieutenant leaned forward, peering through the gun-port to see where the ranging shot had fallen, and Drinkwater knew he was aiming at Victory. The first coils of white powder smoke drifted innocently around the beams of the deck above and its acrid smell was pungent.

Drinkwater descended into the orlop and made his way back, where he was greeted by a ring of expectant faces. Masson and his staff as well as Gillespy awaited news from the upper world.

'M'sieur Masson, the allied fleets of France and Spain are being attacked by a British fleet under Lord Nelson…'

He heard the name 'Nelson' repeated as men looked at one another, and then all hell broke loose above them.

For the next hours the world was an immensity of noise. The stygian darkness of the orlop, pitifully lit with its faint lanterns whose flames struggled in the foul air, became in its own way an extension of hell. But it was the aural senses that suffered the worst assault. Despite twenty-six years in the Royal Navy, Nathaniel Drinkwater had never before experienced the ear-splitting horror of a sustained action in a ship larger than a frigate; never been subjected to the rolling waves of blasting concussion that reverberated in the confined space of a gun-deck and down into the orlop below. The guns belching their lethal projectiles leapt back on their carriages with an increasing eagerness as they heated up. They became like things with a life of their own. The shouts of their captains and the aspirants and officers who controlled them became nothing more than howls of servitude as the iron monsters spat smoke, fire and iron into the enemy. The stench of powder permeated the orlop, itself full of shuddering air, its shadows atremble from the vibrating lantern hooks as the Bucentaure flexed and quivered in response to her own violence. This was the moment for which she had been called into being, to resist force with force and pit iron against iron in a ruthless carnage of cacophonous death.

Initially the men stationed in the orlop had nothing to do. The surgeon and his mates waited for the first of the wounded to come down, the gunner and his staff peered from their shot and powder rooms, waiting for the first of the boys requiring more cartridges and shot. So far Bucentaure had shivered only from