Hill grinned, acknowledging that Southwick was entitled to mild revenge. 'Tell me,' he said, 'what's it going to be like as part of the fleet? I've never served with a large fleet.'
'Very hard on lieutenants,' Southwick said. 'Signals, reports, station keeping, sail trimming . . . I've known lieutenants go mad with the strain and leap over the side, screaming.'
Hill, realizing that Southwick could not miss such an opportunity to get his own back, and pretending to ignore it, said: 'You've had a lot of fleet experience?'
'Yes, and I'll warn you right now, His Lordship's problem off Cadiz is going to be keeping the fleet supplied with provisions and water. He won't have enough transports, so we'll probably be used to go through the Gut to Tetuan and pick up bullocks . . . Very smelly, bullocks are.'
'You're joking!' Hill exclaimed, but he sounded nervous.
'Am I? Look at it from the admiral's point of view. He's short of transports and he needs several hundred bullocks a week to feed the fleet, so they don't eat up their provisions, which they'll need in the winter if it's going to be a long blockade. He is trying to lure the Combined Fleet out of Cadiz to fight. Do you think he's going to send away ships of the line to collect bullocks?'
'Well, no, but a frigate can't carry many live bullocks.'
'Who said anything about live ones? Kill 'em and salt 'em down, my lad. So along with the stink there's blood and salt everywhere. And flies: the sky'll be black with flies. Arab flies,' he added darkly.
'I don't believe you,' Hill said in a voice which was intended to be a flat denial but sounded more like a hopeful plea. 'What about water - the fleet'll be just as short of water as meat.'
'That's no problem, with Gibraltar down there. If it's not getting bullocks, it's water. Casks everywhere. Ship laden down, the very devil to handle because there's no way to trim her properly, and back and forth to Gibraltar. It'll be a flip of a coin whether we get water or bullocks. And God help us if we get a Levanter ...'
'Ah, but who's keeping an eye on the enemy? That's where the admiral needs his frigates: his eyes, Southwick, his distant eyes, watching and instantly ready to signal over the horizon that the enemy is out. Using the new telegraphic code!'
'Have you been hoarding your tot?' Southwick inquired. 'You sound to me like a hopeful drunk.'
'But His Lordship does need frigates!'
'Oh yes,' Southwick agreed. 'We know that Captain Blackwood is already at Cadiz, commanding a small squadron of frigates: he told Mr Ramage that.'
'There you are!' Hill said triumphantly.
'Ah,' Southwick took off his hat, ran his hand through his hair and jammed the hat back on his head. 'Ah yes, and do you think that Captain Blackwood, having his own little squadron of frigates who now know the job inside out - apart from the captains being friends of his - is going to send his frigates off, to salt down bullocks or hoist casks of water on board?'
Hill shrugged his shoulders. He admitted to himself that there seemed to be a lot of common sense in what Southwick was saying, and it did not bode well for lieutenants. He just had time to run his eye over all the sails as he saw the captain come up the companion way.
Hill waited for the captain to glance round the horizon before standing close by at the quarterdeck rail. He took a deep breath and ventured: 'Southwick was just telling me about the bullocks, sir.'
Ramage's eyebrows rose. 'Was he, by Jove. And what are his views on bullocks?'
'Very smelly, he says, and salting them down is miserable work. So many flies.'
'I imagine it is,' Ramage said sympathetically. 'Why, are you thinking of going into business as a supplier of salt tack to the Navy?'
'Oh no, sir. Southwick and I were just talking about what sort of work the Calypso will be doing when she joins the fleet.'
Ramage glanced at Southwick and then said: 'Ah, salt tack and fresh water, eh?'
'Yes, sir. Southwick explained the problem of supplying a blockading fleet, and said His Lordship would rely on bullocks from Tetuan and fresh water from Gibraltar.'
Ramage looked at Southwick again and then said to Hill: 'And you expect the Calypso will have to act as a transport - the fleet being very short of transports.'
'Yes, that's what Southwick reckons.'
'Did Mr Southwick give any idea how many bullocks, live or salted, the Calypso could carry, compared with a transport?'
'Well, no sir; he did make the point that His Lordship would not spare the line-of-battle ships to go down to water themselves.'
Ramage gave a dry laugh. 'Come, Mr Hill, in what sort of weather could the Calypso transfer casks of fresh water and salt beef (let alone live bullocks) to a ship of the line?'
'Well, it'd need to be pretty calm,' Hill admitted.
'So His Lordship is going to chance the supplying of his fleet on the vagaries of the weather?'
Hill looked doubtfully at Southwick. 'How else would he supply them, sir?'
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'We're only guessing that he's short of transports, but he's certainly desperately short of frigates. I can assure you, Hill, that there'll be frigates close up to Cadiz even if there are only half a dozen ships of the line waiting in ambush over the horizon. The enemy can see the frigates but they can only guess how many ships of the line are waiting out of sight - but within signalling range of the frigates. With respect to our reverend master, Mr Southwick, I suspect Lord Nelson will detach ships of the line, a few at a time, to make the dash to Gibraltar and Tetuan. He always wants his men to have as much fresh food as possible: they can use the fresh and keep the salt beef and pork in the casks.'
Hill turned accusingly to Southwick, who grinned and said: 'That'll teach you to question my navigation, laddy!'
On the tenth day out from Spithead, Southwick reckoned that they had passed the great rocky promontory of Cape St Vincent (so steep and riddled with caves that the booming of breaking seas could be heard for miles). The Calypso steered east-south-east with a good south-westerly breeze and good visibility. Cadiz was not far off.
'We have to keep a sharp lookout for three mountain ranges,' he said. 'Well, Orsini?'
The young midshipman looked blank and an irritated Ramage, standing within earshot, snapped: 'I gave you a lesson about this coast the last time we were passing, on our way to the Mediterranean.'
'I can remember about the Duke of Medina Sidonia, sir, who commanded the Spanish Armada and owned land nearby, but . . .'
'Tell him, Southwick . . .'
'You know the coast runs north and south, eh?' Southwick asked sarcastically.
A chastened Orsini nodded.
'Well, about forty-five miles north along the coast from Cadiz is a range of mountains called the Sierra de Ronda, with the Cabezo del Moro more than five thousand feet high. We should sight them first on this course, and the Cabezo is rounded.
'Then comes Pico de Aljibe, three and a half thousand feet high and just over thirty miles along the coast from Cadiz. It doesn't have a sign on it but its sides slope up gently.
'The third one, twenty miles along the coast from Cadiz, is the one that belonged to your friend the late Duke of Medina Sidonia. You remember of course that it's shaped like a sugar loaf, has a tower near the top, and the village of Medina Sidonia looks like a white patch on the west side . . .'
'Yes,' Orsini exclaimed triumphantly, 'all the houses in the village are painted white. And I can remember Cadiz and Rota, too, and the river running into the Bay of Cadiz is the San Pedro.'
'Splendid,' Southwick said and, turning to Ramage, commented: 'You see, sir, midshipmen are better than performing bears: they can talk.'
Ramage nodded and told Aitken: 'Hail the lookouts, tell them what to look for, and give them bearings. Incidentally,' he added, 'we'll probably find the fleet some distance from Cadiz: the admiral won't want to frighten the enemy into staying in port...'
'Aye, and young Orsini, you'll know the shoreline of Cadiz well enough soon,' Southwick said. 'His Lordship will have a frigate or two close up to Rota and Cadiz - a mile or two off - and a line of repeating frigates to within sight of the fleet. Tack, tack, wear, wear . . . and where do you go if there's a westerly gale, eh? Not up on the beach, I trust.'
Orsini knew enough not to answer, and he watched as Aitken picked up the speaking trumpet and hailed the foremast and mainmast lookouts.
It has been a long chase, Ramage thought, and we did not catch up with the Victory. Well, Lord Nelson was in a hurry but he could not have made Captain Hardy drive the big three-decker any harder than the Calypso had been sailed. But a bigger ship with a much longer waterline length would always be faster if there was any weight in the wind - and it had been just the right wind for the Victory . . .
Half an hour later the foremast lookout hailed that he could just see clouds that seemed to come off the lee of a mountain; fifteen minutes later he confirmed one mountain and reported more cloud to the south of it.
Ramage looked at Orsini. 'You know what to look for now, so take a bring-'em-near and aloft with you!'
Orsini seized a telescope and made for the ratlines of the mainmast shrouds, climbing at the run.
'I wasn't fair to him,' Southwick commented. 'He's a good lad. And just look at him, he's going up like a topman!'
'So he should,' Ramage said dryly. 'When I was a midshipman his age, my captain expected midshipmen to go aloft faster than topmen.'
The master chuckled. 'Yes, but topmen don't have to remember places with these outlandish foreign names.'
'They're not foreign to Orsini: remember, he speaks fluent Spanish. Cabezo del Moro means 'The Moor's Head' to him - which I'm sure it doesn't to you: and although he doesn't know it, I expect he's distantly related to the Medina Sidonia family anyway - these Spanish and Italian families were always marrying each other.'
'Certainly these place names'd be easier to remember if I knew what they meant,' Southwick admitted. He took off his hat and scratched his head. 'I'm surprised we haven't come across other frigates or 74s joining the fleet.'
'I think most of 'em are already out here,' Ramage said. 'Those two 74s in Chatham won't be ready for sea for another couple of months. We're probably the last to join His Lordship - except perhaps for the two frigates we saw off the Isle of Wight.'
By now Orsini, a tiny figure perched at the masthead, was shouting down to the quarterdeck with his hail being repeated by the lookout. Southwick held the mouthpiece of the speaking trumpet to his ear.
He nodded to himself, gave a satisfied smile and then, turning the trumpet so he could talk into the mouthpiece, shouted back: 'Very well, keep a sharp lookout
