Ramage At Trafalgar (24 page)

Already the
Calypso
was turning north-westwards, sheets eased and yards trimmed to a wind on the larboard quarter.
Le Brave
was quickly being left on the starboard quarter, and through his glass Ramage could see French seamen (looking in the distance like a swarm of ants) cutting away the rigging and sails, obviously to get at the boats stowed on the booms. Well,
Le Brave
was sitting firmly on the shoal and there was no urgency because the ship could not sink.

The only urgency, Ramage thought grimly, concerns the
Calypso
herself: she has to pass ahead of the Combined Fleet which is at last getting out to sea: she has to pass ahead and get a safe distance to the north of them.

Orsini reported: “The
Euryalus
is making a signal to the
Phoebe
to move westwards to repeat signals to the
Defence
.” A couple of minutes later he was reporting another of Blackwood’s signals, this time to Captain Peter Parker in the
Weazle
cutter, telling him to sail south immediately to warn Rear-Admiral Louis that the Combined Fleet had sailed.

Southwick shook his head sadly. “Poor Admiral Louis. He’s a fine man. He must have been upset when Admiral Nelson sent him off with those other ships to water at Gibraltar and get bullocks from Tetuan. There’s no chance that the
Weazle
can warn him in time to get here for the battle.”

“When is the battle?” Aitken inquired sarcastically. “Do you have the programme? If you have, you might give me a sight of it!”

“Tomorrow or the next day,” Southwick said flatly. “Admiral Nelson will give ’em time enough to get well clear of Cadiz (he won’t want to risk frightening them back in again or give them a bolt-hole once the fighting starts), so you can work it out yourself.”

He took off his hat and scratched his head in a familiar gesture. “They don’t get up very early, these French and Spaniards. So they’ll spend most of the rest of the day manoeuvring. With a mixed fleet he’s never taken to sea before, this Admiral Villeneuve will (if he’s got any sense) spend a few hours making ’em back and fill and get into position. I can’t see ’em doing much else than jogging along like sheep during the night – plenty of flares and a few collisions, I expect. Tomorrow – well, by then he’ll be clear of here with them steering in the right direction, and I can’t see Lord Nelson being far away.”

Aitken slapped Southwick on the back, “Like to put a guinea on it being one day or the other, the 21st or the 22nd? I’ll take whichever day you don’t.”

“No,” Southwick said stubbornly. “Why should I bet against myself? I’ve already told you it’ll be tomorrow or the next day, and that’s all there is to it.”

“That’s the trouble with prize money,” Aitken said, knowing that Southwick, like most of the men on board the
Calypso
, had grown rich from the money won under Captain Ramage’s command, “it takes away the gambling instinct.”

“Bet on the number of French and Spanish ships of the line captured or destroyed and you have a wager,” Southwick growled.

“Very well. Twenty-one, and the 21st – tomorrow – will be the day of the battle.”

“We’re betting on the number of ships, not the date,” Southwick said. “All right, my guinea says it’ll be twenty-five. At least two more than twenty-one, anyway. How does that suit you?”

Aitken nodded, but added soberly: “Try and stay alive so you can pay up.”

By now the
Calypso
was sailing fast to the north-west, passing three miles ahead of the leading enemy ships. More to the point, Ramage thought to himself, the
Euryalus
had not hoisted the
Calypso
’s pendant numbers and ordered him to patrol to the south. The
Euryalus
herself, he noticed, was working her way out to the westward, along with the
Sirius
, the
Pickle
schooner and
Entreprenante
cutter.

The British frigates and the two smaller vessels would be like a small swarm of flies round the slow-moving ox of the Combined Fleet: always out of range of a lashing tail, but always watching – and signalling to Lord Nelson over the horizon.

It would be an interesting challenge to be commanding some thirty-four ships of the line – thirty-three now
Le Brave
has gone – Ramage decided, but he did not envy Admiral Villeneuve. If Señor Perez was to be believed, then most of the Spanish captains wanted nothing to do with the Combined Fleet: they preferred to stay at anchor, not go to sea to fight someone else’s battle and ensure Bonaparte’s schemes succeeded. Yet they were the captains in whom Villeneuve had put his trust. However, “better one volunteer than three pressed men”: the old adage crossed Ramage’s mind.

Yet, ship for ship (and in several cases size for size and gun for gun), Villeneuve had thirty-three ships against Lord Nelson’s twenty-seven. French and Spanish ships were very well designed and always well built – the best ships in the Royal Navy, Ramage was ashamed to admit, were those captured from the enemy (the
Calypso
herself being a fine example). So it was going to be a question of men: of the skill and bravery of individual captains and their ships’ companies. The British spirit was going to have to make up for Nelson’s fleet being six ships weaker than the Combined Fleet…

Ramage noted to himself that
Le Brave
had stranded herself in the last of the good weather and the last of the south wind – which by noon had veered to the south-west. Rain squalls were whipping across to close down visibility for half an hour at a time and the seas were becoming heavy.

A south-west wind still meant it was foul for Villeneuve to get down to the Gut. And Ramage saw through his glass that Villeneuve had plenty of trouble. He had, according to Ramage’s count, thirty-three ships of the line, five frigates and a couple of brigs. In the distance the ships of the line seemed great grey barns and their masts and yards looked like bare trees in winter because the wet sails blended with the low clouds hanging down to the horizon.

Many of the ships, it was obvious even at this distance, were being handled in a lubberly fashion. The most weatherly of them, Ramage estimated, were steering no closer to the wind than west-north-west and several (they looked like Spaniards) were sagging off to leeward as though in despair. All the ships had reefed at the same time, obviously on orders from Admiral Villeneuve. Some had tied in the reefs and hoisted the yards again while the rest were still struggling – Ramage pictured untrained and frightened, raw sailors up the yards, fighting stiff and flogging canvas, hands being torn, fingers getting caught in reef points, many of the men seasick and probably clutching yards and rigging, rigid with fear, misery and illness.

By noon it was obvious that Villeneuve was trying to form his fleet into three columns. It was an absurd formation, Ramage reckoned, given that the French admiral must know that Lord Nelson was waiting over the horizon, because only one column (the outermost on the engaged side) could fire on the enemy.

“They’re like a lot o’ wet hens with their legs tied together,” Southwick commented, after studying them with his glass.

“Sheep,” Aitken corrected him. “Like frightened sheep being chased by different dogs. Why they’re not colliding I don’t know. I think Villeneuve’s got three French ships out ahead so the rest can form up on ’em, but just look – at least half a dozen are just sagging off to leeward as tho’ they’re embarrassed at the rest of them!”

Aitken had been right: thirty-three great sheep were milling round, all trying to head out to the west, as though yapping dogs to the east were nipping their ankles.

An hour later the confusion was even worse as the ships still tried to get into position, hidden from time to time in rain squalls and buffeted by gusts of near gale-force winds. After two hours, when the beginning of three columns was discernible, Aitken suddenly pointed to the wind-vane and the luffs of the
Calypso
’s reefed topsails (the topgallants had long ago been handed), which were beginning to flutter.

The wind was going further round to the west: if Villeneuve stayed on this tack he would be forced up to the north and, from the look of it, some of the ships would be lucky to weather Rota; more likely they would end up on the Bajo de las Cabezuellas, looking like their unfortunate former shipmate,
Le Brave
.

Ramage felt almost sorry for Villeneuve – until he remembered that every French and Spanish ship disabled by collision or driven ashore by the gale would be one less to fight Nelson’s ships: every casualty would lessen the odds.

“What are they going to do now?” Southwick asked incredulously.

“Getting a wind shift like that with the fleet not formed up – that’s just bad luck,” Aitken said.

“Bad for them, good for us,” Southwick said grimly. Fifteen minutes later Orsini, who had been watching the Combined Fleet closely with his telescope as well as keeping an eye on the
Euryalus
when she appeared briefly between rain squalls, shouted excitedly: “The French flagship has hoisted another signal!”

“I wish we had a French signal book,” Ramage grumbled. “Not that we can read the flags at this distance. Still, it’s not too hard to guess.”

“You think he is heaving-to the fleet, sir?”Aitken asked.

“No, with this west wind and Rota under his lee I think he is getting in a panic. I’m sure he wants to go south and he finds himself steering north. So he’s ordering the fleet to tack.”

“Tack!” exclaimed Aitken. “But half of them are just milling around, dodging each other. There aren’t half a dozen of them formed up into columns.”

“He’s an unlucky admiral,” Ramage said wryly. “There aren’t many signals he
can
make at the moment. If he doesn’t signal the fleet to tack and steer south, he’s going to wave goodbye to several that won’t weather the shoals off Rota…”

Within a few minutes they could see four or five ships emerging from the confusion and rain squalls to head south, forming into three columns.

“You were right, sir,” Aitken said, “He did signal the fleet to tack. He’s a braver man than I.”

“Like most brave men, he has no choice,” Ramage said

“You speak from experience, sir?” Southwick said teasingly.

“Very deep experience,” Ramage said. “And I’d like a sight of the British fleet at this moment.”

Southwick chuckled. “They won’t be in this mess, I’ll be bound. Snugly reefed, and probably in line of battle. Two lines, rather – His Lordship leading one and Admiral Collingwood the other, just as His Lordship describes in his memorandum.”

“Give the masthead lookouts a hail,” Ramage told Aitken. “Watch to the westward for a sight of our fleet.”

It took Aitken several minutes, shouting at the top of his voice, to pass the order above the wind. “They’ve got their sou’westers pulled down over their ears,” he grumbled to Ramage, who was becoming tired of wearing his thick oilskin coat: the smell of the tar that made it waterproof was giving him a headache; every move made the coat creak and crackle as the stiff material had to bend. It was easier to turn one’s whole body than glance round – a movement of the head chafed the skin and also displaced the towel round the neck so that spray and rain soon trickled in and, slowly and coldly, snaked its way down the back.

By six o’clock the mass of ships of the Combined Fleet were at last steering south, but only a dozen leading them were in the three columns that Villeneuve had ordered hours earlier. From the
Calypso
they had, from time to time, sighted the
Euryalus
,
Pickle
and
Entreprenante
, as well as being reasonably certain that the
Naiad
and
Phoebe
were also hovering round the enemy fleet. Presumably the
Sirius
(well out to the west) was in sight of one of the ships of the line which formed the link with Nelson.

Although the
Calypso
was still at general quarters, Ramage continued the system of having every other gun’s crew off watch, eating a meal or snatching some sleep. Every man could be back at his station for battle in less than five minutes, and a wet and windy night was in prospect.

A few minutes before seven, after a slashing rain squall and while the officers on the quarterdeck had taken off their sou’westers, they heard a hail from the mainmasthead lookout: he could see many masts to the westward.

“Ask him how many,” Ramage told Aitken. “It’s probably Lord Nelson, but it could be ships from Brest…”

The lookout soon reported again. Eighteen ships, in good order and on the same course as the
Calypso
.

“Very well,” Ramage said, “we’re steering south-east, and His Lordship intended sailing south-east once he had word that the Combined Fleet had sailed. No Brest ships bound for Cadiz would be that far out – and ‘in good order’!”

Ramage burrowed into his pocket to get out his watch. There was very little daylight left, and the only way of keeping in touch with the enemy in the darkness was by getting much closer. There would be little risk: he was satisfied that, with the French and Spanish (the Spanish, anyway) in their present disorder, the
Calypso
could, if she wanted to, range up alongside a threedecker in the darkness and shower them with abuse without any risk.

“Pass the word to the gunner,” he told Aitken. “Make sure he has a good supply of rockets and portfires ready: enough for one of each to be set off every ten minutes until dawn…”

The
Euryalus
and the other frigates would also be closing the circle as darkness fell, and if each of them lit a portfire or sent up a rocket from time to time Blackwood would know immediately if the enemy altered course. But unless Villeneuve was suicidal, Ramage knew he would not order any change while it was dark: instead, he would be praying that none of his ships collided and that (by chance if not by design) they managed to get into columns.