Navigation was perilous in these shallow seas, which allowed entire blockading fleets to anchor offshore with impunity but at the same time hid a chain of sprawling reefs as much as three or four miles out to sea.
In the days that followed there was no sparing the ships, for missing the enemy putting to sea would be a catastrophe beyond imagination. Each morning, as the fragrance of the sun-kissed land came out to them, one or other of the frigates would close with the entrance at the fort of San Sebastian and look in. Oared gunboats once issued out to exchange shots but otherwise there was no disputing their presence.
This close, the tall, square Tavira Tower was in plain sight, the mirador that gave the Spaniards a sweeping vista some twenty miles out to sea.
Day by day the watch continued.
A blustery autumnal north-westerly forced the frigates seaward for a time, but also made it dead foul for leaving Cadiz. As the weather moderated they quickly closed again with the white-fringed shore.
A Swedish merchantman put to sea and was intercepted by L’Aurore. The affable master made no bones about what he had seen: deep within the harbour in the inner roads he had noted soldiers embarking in the Combined Fleet and talk alongshore had it that they were merely waiting for an easterly and would be putting to sea.
Kydd lost no time in setting in motion the communications line. They were equipped with monster signal flags fourteen feet across to be perceived a full ten miles distant. The new telegraph code proved its worth in detailing his intelligence but it took skill to handle the huge flags among the entangling lines of rigging.
It was becoming clear that a move was imminent: sharp eyes had spotted that sails had been bent to the yards and signal towers up and down the coast were unusually busy. Had they succeeded in deceiving Villeneuve that he faced only the handful of ships of the Inshore Squadron instead of Nelson, with his fleet being quietly reinforced out of sight? Were they misled by reports from Spanish watchers of Gibraltar that the five detached to store and water had, in fact, seriously weakened the British Fleet?
With thirty-five ships-of-the-line available to him, Villeneuve must have realised that if he was going to break out then it must be now – and when the north-westerly died and was replaced by the whisper of a variable easterly towards evening, even the humblest landman aboard L’Aurore knew what to expect the following day.
With the first delicate light of morning came the electrifying sight of the ships deep in the harbour rigged for sea. Sail to topgallants, fighting topsails, all were bent to the yards ready to set in a trice. And the dense pattern of masts was changing: they were opening up, separating. The ships were warping – the Combined Fleet was coming out.
Kydd’s signal flags – the longed for number 370, ‘Enemy’s ships are leaving port’ – soared up. Five miles away Euryalus acknowledged and relayed it on to the Inshore Squadron. Soon, fifty miles away, Lord Nelson would at long last be receiving the dramatic news he craved.
The winds were light but still in the east. It was taking a long time for Villeneuve’s fleet to reach open water and tension grew. Everything now depended on the frigates: if the French disappeared into the vastness of the ocean once again, it would be a calamity beyond bearing.
Blackwood sent the sloop Weazle flying for Gibraltar to alert the storing battleships while the little schooner Pickle went north to spread the word. The first French frigates were emerging, their mission only too obvious – to destroy the impudent English watchers and allow the battle-fleet to slip away.
L’Aurore was long cleared for action; now she went to quarters, her men standing resolutely by her guns. Blackwood had divided his forces in the light winds, two luring the frigates away while the rest stood out ready to shadow the rest of the enemy.
L’Aurore was given new orders. It was vital that the commander-in-chief received negative intelligence – that the seas north and south did not contain an enemy squadron summoned by shore telegraph on its way to reinforce Villeneuve. Thus one of the precious frigates was dispatched north while L’Aurore hauled to the wind for the run south.
It would be the harshest of luck to miss the coming contest, but Kydd’s mission was to go no further than the entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar and then return by the shortest possible route, assuming any reinforcements sent for from Cartagena would not delay.
They hugged the land up to the one promontory and turning point between Cadiz and the strait, a fearful journey with the scattered reefs. L’Aurore showed true breeding, though, and they raised the bleak sand-spit within a few hours; further inland there was a bluff cliff with a tower. This was marked on the chart as Torre de Meca and the turning point – Cabo Taraf-al-Gar, Trafalgar on Kydd’s chart.
He was struck with a sense of poignancy that reached out to him from the lonely place, in the light airs the sinister gurgling of a roiling counter-current adding to the sense of desolation. The chart had a neat entry noting the current, adding that this was known locally as the ‘Risa de Cabo’, the laughter of the cape.
There were no reinforcements; Kydd sighted Cape Spartel on the African side of the strait and his mission was accomplished. He lost no time in wearing round for the return, dreading what he might find.
The unpredictable weather had turned squally and wet; towards the end of the day he had made it back to Cadiz through the curtains of rain and ragged bluster – and the port was empty. The enemy had left, taking with it the shadowing British frigates.
Kydd was in a desperate quandary as to what to do next but then, to his vast relief, there was a hail from a lookout. To the westward, out of sight from the deck, a fleet had been sighted.
Whether it was Nelson or the French didn’t matter: his duty was clear. As they bore down on the mass of ships an outlying frigate saw them, its challenge showing bright and clear against the dark grey of the clouds. It was the English Sirius.
Kydd closed with the vessel and, in a terse hail, was told developments. The enemy had been hampered in leaving by fluky winds and once to sea had suffered even further from the adverse winds. In all they were thirty-three of-the-line and five frigates and were heading south, towards the Strait of Gibraltar.
Lord Nelson, still in communication, was racing to intercept. Their immediate duty was to stay with the enemy fleet at all costs through the coming night, for it was now fast becoming a certainty that it would be the next day when that fateful clash would come.
Bowden had slept little during the dark hours of the middle watch – the irregular bass creaking at the rudder stock and endless shrill working of the steering tackle sheaves seemed more than usually intrusive. But he knew the real reason: as the day dawned it would unveil either an innocent, empty horizon or the dread sight of an enemy battle-fleet.
Unlike the majority aboard he had served under Lord Nelson in a major fleet action, the Nile, and knew at first hand of the chaos and injury, terror and fatigue – and the callous working of Fate that decreed this one go on to fame and glory and another be struck down.
He was not in a state of mortal fear of the new day for he had long ago concluded that his profession would always require he stand resolute in the face of personal danger, and if he was to aspire to higher things, an unreasoning terror would for ever be a millstone around the neck.
His problem was a sensitive and active imagination that had to be crushed in times of crisis, but now, lying in his hammock in the reeking blackness, it was galloping at full stretch, his restless mind reaching for certainties and assurance for the coming day.