After a legendary race of eight thousand miles across the entire breadth of the Atlantic Ocean and back, and coming from thirty-one days behind to within a day’s grasp, they had returned to where they had started from, and with the same result.
Villeneuve and his fleet had eluded them yet again.
Chapter 11
‘Do sit, sir!’ The first secretary to the Admiralty, William Marsden, shocked by the shambling gait of the prime minister as he came into the board room, hurried to assist him.
‘Where’s Barham?’ Pitt wheezed, then coughed into his handkerchief as he found a chair.
‘He’s been advised of your visit, sir, and will be with us shortly.’ The new first lord of the Admiralty to replace the impeached Melville was the eighty-year-old Lord Barham, hastily recalled from ten years of retirement to assume the post that had been declared by the home secretary as second only in importance to that of the prime minister himself.
Marsden was well aware that others had declined it for the frightful responsibilities at this time but Lord Barham, despite his advanced years, was a safe pair of hands. With none of the political involvements that had bedevilled St Vincent and Melville, he could devote all his attention to the monumental task. And he was a sailor who could look back to starting service as an officer at sea in the 1740s, to that inconceivably distant age before the Seven Years’ War, before empire, before the American war. He was already a post-captain when Nelson was born and had served in every war since. He had the coolness of a fighting sea officer plus a well-honed appreciation of higher matters.
‘Refreshment, sir? We can offer—’
‘No.’ Pitt slumped forward in his chair, clearly in a state of exhaustion.
Marsden indeed hoped that Barham would arrive soon – his calm and ordered mind would set the prime minister’s anxieties to rest, for the fragile Third Coalition could take no more reverses.
Footsteps echoed in the hallway. ‘Ah – he’s here now, Prime Minister.’
Pitt raised his head with an expression of hope – or was it supplication? ‘My lord Barham,’ he said, in a voice little above a whisper. ‘You have news of Nelson, I’ve been told.’ The whole nation had been breathless with apprehension this last month, craving news of the wild chase across the Atlantic. With the drama came the highest possible stakes, all reported in the newspapers to become the stuff of public horror and fascination.
‘Sir. And this very morning. Admiral Nelson sent on ahead from Antigua the Curieux, a fast captured brig, to tell me all I need to know. The dispatches came after midnight but, in course, my wretched valet would not suffer me to be disturbed until the morning. I’d have the villain flogged if I still had a quarterdeck!’ he added querulously.
‘Have you had time to read the dispatches then, my lord?’ Pitt asked heavily.
‘Yes,’ Barham said, but in quite a different tone, confident, energised. ‘And I have decided what must be done and already made the necessary deployments.’
Pitt’s weariness lifted a little. ‘You’ve . . . Pray tell me what is now the situation, sir.’
Barham stumped over to the map rollers above the fireplace and pulled down the largest: the Atlantic Ocean and approaches to Britain. ‘Bonaparte means to overwhelm our fleets and seize control of the Channel for his invasion. You’ll allow he has as many tricks as a monkey and this is one – Nelson was correct that his biggest squadron was headed for the Caribbean and he was right to abandon his station in pursuit. He had devilish luck and failed to catch them, and now the French are cracking on sail for Europe ahead of him and may be expected to appear very soon.’
‘Do we have knowledge of what they’ll do then?’ Pitt murmured.
‘Sir, they have but to raise the siege of our blockade on Brest and Ferrol, and in the Channel we’ll be faced with forty, fifty battleships and necessarily be overwhelmed.’
Barham let the point sink in but then added, ‘If we are supposing they are headed for the north. Nelson’s dispatches state that the Mediterranean is the more likely destination, and that is where he is bound at this moment.’
‘What is your view, my lord?’ Pitt asked carefully.
‘My view is not of consequence, sir. Unknown to Admiral Nelson, Curieux on its run here came upon the enemy fleet and stayed with it long enough to establish that it was undeniably bound to the north of the Azores and therefore the Channel.
‘Sir, I do truly believe the climax is near. Villeneuve’s twenty of-the-line are now free to join with Ganteaume’s twenty-one in Brest and the Dons’ fourteen in Ferrol to make an unchallengeable battle-fleet in Biscay somewhere. This must not happen.’
‘How?’ Pitt asked, in a low voice.
‘Thanks to Curieux, we know what to do. The central issue is to stop the forces combining in the first place. Therefore I’ve taken what steps I can to prevent it – by intercepting Villeneuve before he has a chance to make a conjunction.’
‘With what forces, sir?’
‘I’m extracting our vessels from before Ferrol and reinforcing them with those taken from Rochefort. These will cruise out in the Atlantic between Cape Finisterre and Ushant to challenge Villeneuve when he comes, while the Channel Fleet interposes to prevent Ganteaume reaching him.’
‘Abandoning the blockade at two chief ports – this seems a risk.’
‘Far worse, sir, to allow the French to combine.’
‘Very well. When will this intercepting come to pass, do you think?’
‘Within the week, sir.’
‘And who is the admiral you’ve chosen to stand before the French at this crucial juncture?’
‘Calder.’
The rock fortress of Gibraltar shimmered in the heat, the ships of the Mediterranean squadron at anchor in torpid tranquillity. A sultry night closed in, still without word of Villeneuve. Nelson remained ashore but no one begrudged him that: for some two years he had never stepped on to dry land and he was said to be nearing exhaustion with the nervous strain of the chase.
Another day – two, three. No word. The French did not materialise out of the bright westward haze; neither did coastal traders pass word of a great fleet somewhere in the Mediterranean. On the fourth day Victory’s Blue Peter was hoisted. Orders came: as a last forlorn move, the squadron would sail north on a vague rumour as well as to seek out the Channel Fleet for any intelligence – and perhaps a final desperate engagement with the enemy.
In full battle array the fleet sailed up the coast of Spain, then across Biscay, and a dozen leagues off Brest Nelson’s ships fell in with the Channel Fleet of Admiral Cornwallis and all was revealed.
The new first lord of the Admiralty was Lord Barham, who apparently had a strong and decisive hand on the tiller. The invasion had not yet eventuated: England still remained staunch and ready.
And Villeneuve? Yes, the French were found. Admiral Calder and a picked fleet from the blockading squadrons had intercepted him inward-bound from the West Indies out at sea off Cape Finisterre before he was able to link up with the waiting ships-of-the-line in their harbours. An indecisive engagement had followed in near impossible conditions of fog and night.
Unnerved by the encounter, Villeneuve had run for safety to Vigo and now the situation was precisely as before: the French were still in scattered groups in ports and once more safely under British blockade. Napoleon’s plan had failed.
In profound relief and fatigued beyond measure by the years of blockade and pursuit, Nelson begged the Admiralty for release and orders quickly came out granting the request. Victory, accompanied by the worn-out Superb, was to sail immediately for Portsmouth. There, Admiral Lord Nelson would haul down his flag as commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Squadron and at last take rest. All other vessels of Nelson’s command, however, would remain on station save the lightest of his frigates as escort.