It helped to serve under an unquestioned hero such as Nelson, whose only worry seemed to be that the enemy was not prepared to stand and fight. Now, there was a leader and an example! How could any fail to be inspired by his clarity of purpose, the single-minded objective of victory – and the warm humanity that underlay them?
And there was Captain Kydd, who had risen from fore-mast hand to frigate captain and was as much a natural seaman as Nelson. Bowden had seen L’Aurore’s name on the Pennant Board; at that very moment Kydd was somewhere out in the night, dogging Villeneuve, and whether or not the foe was there in the morning depended largely on whether he and the other frigate captains had done their job.
Or . . . during the night the French might very well have taken fright and returned to port as they had done so often before. Then all talk of a mighty clash would be so much vapour and dreams.
But then again . . . Villeneuve might have slipped his pursuers and was now ranging swiftly north to trigger the invasion.
Bowden tossed and turned restlessly until eventually a ship’s corporal came with his lanthorn to call the watch. He dressed quickly and made his way up the hatchways through the gun-decks of stirring men.
It was a moonless night with the pale immensity of canvas above and the muffled plash of the wake below. The cosy warmth of his hammock was soon forgotten in the chill night breezes. After the usual muted jocularity of handover, his friend Bulkeley, clearly of a mind for rest as he went through the ritual, hurried below.
Lieutenant Pasco was having an irritable exchange with the quartermaster. The officer appeared disinclined to indulge in trivialities and Bowden had to pace the decks alone in the long hours before an imperceptible lightening hinted at the coming sunrise.
The light increased, wave by wave extending out, the anonymity of early dawn slowly infused with colour until the technical requirement for daybreak was met – that a grey goose could be seen at a mile. Then the lookout’s thrilling hail came nearly simultaneously from a half-dozen throats – the enemy fleet was sighted!
There was now no more speculation, no more questioning: the French had not fled back to port, they had not vanished into the vastness of the ocean. Somewhere, soon, there would be enacted the greatest sea battle the world had ever seen.
In the whisper-quiet morning breeze, it was a long hour before they could be seen from the deck but then, stark against the fast brightening eastern sky, the topgallants and upper rigging of countless men-o’-war stretched from one side of the horizon to the other.
By now Victory’s decks were alive with men gazing out over the placid sea. Some mounted the shrouds to get a better view, but in laughing, devil-may-care high spirits – as if they were at a village fair instead of readying to fight for their lives.
Bowden stood at ease next to the wheel, still on watch. Nelson came on deck, avidly taking in the spectacle he had yearned for over so long a time.
‘A brave sight, my lord,’ Pasco said diffidently, offering his officer-of-the-watch telescope.
Nelson seemed not to hear as he focused on the distant masts.
Captain Hardy appeared and stood next to him. ‘I conceive they cannot escape us now, sir,’ he said gravely. ‘And we shall give them a drubbing such as all the world may notice.’
‘I shall not be satisfied with less than twenty taken, Hardy.’ He lifted his head to sniff at the wind. It was calm – barely enough to kick up more than wavelets that sparkled in the misty sunshine, the picture of peace and serenity. Yet underneath, a long, heavy swell rolled in massively towards the land, token of a great storm out in the Atlantic and certain to be heading for them.
‘A west-sou’-westerly,’ he mused, and threw a light-hearted smile at Hardy. ‘It couldn’t be bettered.’
There were knowing looks about the quarterdeck. For the enemy it was going to be difficult. Heading south as they were they had no choice – the shoals and rocks of Spain to the east, and to the west the British Fleet advancing on them, forcing them into a passive defence, the line-of-battle.
Nelson’s plans, on the other hand, had given his fleet the weather gage; upwind from his opponents he could choose the manner and direction of his strike, and everyone knew now how this was to develop.
‘Let’s be about our business then, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Mr Pasco, I’ll trouble you to close up your signals crew – there’s a mort of work to be done.’
‘I have the ship, then, Mr Pasco,’ said Captain Hardy, releasing the officer-of-the-watch, who wasted no time in nodding to Bowden, transforming him in that instant from lowly midshipman-of-the-watch to a far more important signal midshipman.
Bowden mounted the ladder to his station – the poop-deck. Higher even than the quarterdeck, it afforded a magnificent all-round view of the ship forward to the bowsprit and on either side out to the ships in company. He tried to put away the thought that this was also probably the most exposed position on board.
King, the yeoman of signals, was already at the flag lockers, and the rest of the crew mustered quickly. The mizzen signal halliards were cast off and shaken free, an able seaman sent to verify others on the fore and main. The signals log was initialled and begun – and the first signal order of the day came from the quarterdeck: ‘Form the order of sailing in two columns.’
Robins, the master’s mate, flicked the pages of the Admiralty signal code expertly. ‘Number seventy-two!’ he called to the signals yeoman, who pulled out the two blue and white flags and thrust them at a pair of seamen to toggle on in the right order.
Robins pointed upwards immediately – this was not a difficult ‘lift’ to check. The seamen hauled lustily and the hoist soared up. Checking the expensive fob watch his father had presented to him, Bowden scrawled in the log that the signal had been made at six a.m. Then, glancing out to the fleet, he noted down the acknowledgements as they came.
This signal had essentially been to call the fleet to order after the loose formation of the night. Then, with a chill, Bowden remembered that the order of sailing was also the order of battle and, sure enough, it was closely followed by the order to bear up and sail east. Nelson’s first signals of the day were to lunge at the foe.
The next made it formal – number thirteen, ‘Prepare for battle’, which put into effect a two-pronged charge into the very centre of the massed enemy fleet, the lee column to the right led by Admiral Collingwood in Royal Sovereign and tasked to cut through and envelop the rear. Sailing parallel, the weather column to Collingwood’s left would be led by the commander-in-chief in Victory, seeking in one move to take on the enemy flagship and isolate his van.
It was becoming obvious, however, that unless the breeze picked up it would be many hours before they could hope to grapple and every sail possible was set, including the cumbersome stunsails, temporary extensions to the yardarms.
The sun rose above the horizon, strengthening and lifting a dreamy opalescent mist through which the stately progress of the Combined Fleet seemed a fairy argosy. Nelson ascended to the poop with Hardy to take advantage of its panorama of enemy and friend, the two staying in amiable conversation while the ship was piped to clear for action.
The well-practised evolution turned Victory into bedlam: teams of men stripped mess-decks and cabins of every comfort and piece of furniture that might be splintered by gunfire, struck them down into the hold or cast them overboard.
Next it was necessary to clear away some of the stanchions in the gun-decks with heavy mallets to provide more room to serve the guns, as well as unshipping inessential ladders until each of the three gun-decks was clear from stem to stern.