Some of the men invited Sharpe to go to the head of the queue, but he waited his turn as the nearby gunners teased him. “Come to see a proper battle, sir?”
“You’d never win a scrap without a real soldier, lads.”
“These’ll win it for us, sir,” a man said, slapping the breech of his twenty-four-pounder on which someone had chalked the message “a pill for Boney.” The mess tables, on which the gunners ate, were being struck down into the hold. As much wooden furniture as possible was removed from the decks above water so that they could not be reduced to splinters that whirled lethally from every strike of enemy shot. Sharpe’s cot and chest were already gone, as was all the elegant furniture from Chase’s quarters. The precious chronometers and the barometer had been packed in straw and taken down to the hold. Some ships hoisted their more valuable furniture high into the rigging in hopes that it would be safe, while others had entrusted it to the ships’ boats that were being launched and towed astern to keep them from enemy gunnery.
A gunner’s mate sharpened the cutlass on the wheel, tested its edge against his thumb, then gave Sharpe a toothless grin. “That’ll give the buggers a shave they’ll never forget, sir.”
Sharpe tipped the man sixpence, then walked back down the deck just in time to see the paneled walls of Chase’s quarters being maneuvered down the quarterdeck stairs on their way to the hold. The simpler wooden bulkheads from the officers’ cabins and the wardroom at the stern of the weather deck had already been struck down so that now, for the first time, Sharpe could see the whole length of the ship, from its wide stern windows all the way to where men swept up the last straw of the manger in the bows of the ship. The Pucelle was being stripped of her frills and turned into a fighting machine. He climbed to the quarterdeck and saw that was similarly empty. The wide space beneath the long poop, instead of holding cabins, was now an open sweep of deck from the wheel to the windows of Chase’s day cabin. The dining cabin had vanished, Sharpe’s quarters were gone, the pictures had been taken below and the only remaining luxury was the black-and-white checkered canvas carpet on which the two eighteen-pounder guns stood.
Connors, stationed on the poop to watch for the flagship’s signals which were being repeated by the frigate Euryalus, called down to Chase. “We’re to bear up in succession on the flagship’s course, sir.” Chase just nodded and watched as the Victory, leading the line, swung to starboard so that she was now heading straight for the enemy. The wind, such as it was, came from directly behind her and Captain Hardy, doubtless on Nelson’s orders, already had men up on his yards to extend the slender poles from which he would hang his studdingsails.
Nine ships behind the Pucelle another three-decker swung to starboard. This was the Royal Sovereign, the flagship of Admiral Collingwood, Nelson’s second-in-command. Her bright copper gleamed in the morning light as the ships behind followed her eastward. Chase looked from the Victory to the Royal Sovereign, then back to the Victory again. “Two columns,” he said aloud, “that’s what he’s doing. Making two columns.”
Even Sharpe could understand that. The enemy fleet formed a ragged line that stretched for about four miles along the eastern horizon and now the British fleet was turning directly toward that line. The ships turned in succession, those at the front of the fleet curling around to make a line behind the Victory and those at the back following in the Royal Sovereign’s wake, so that the two short lines of ships were sailing straight for the enemy like a pair of horns thrusting at a shield.
“We’ll set studdingsails when we’ve turned, Mister Haskell,” Chase said.
“Aye aye, sir.”
The Conqueror, the fifth ship in Nelson’s column and the one immediately ahead of the Pucelle, turned toward the enemy, showing Sharpe her long flank which was painted in stripes of black and yellow. The Conqueror’s gunports, all on the yellow bands, were painted black to give her a half-checkered appearance.