“Why are they sailing south?” Sharpe asked. He was shaking. He had forgotten just how the cold could bite.
“The good Lord alone knows,” Peel said cheerfully, “and He ain’t telling me. They aren’t going to cover an invasion force in the Channel, that’s for certain. They’re probably heading for the Mediterranean which means they’ll keep on south until they’re clear of the shallows off Cape Trafalgar, then they can run east toward the Straits. Does your chess improve?”
“No,” Sharpe said, “too many rules.” He wondered whether Lady Grace would risk coming to his cabin, but he doubted it, for the night-shrouded ship was unnaturally busy as men readied themselves for the morning. A seaman brought him a cup of Scotch coffee and he drank the bitter liquid, then chewed on the sweetened bread crumbs that gave the coffee its flavor.
“This will be my first battle,” Peel admitted suddenly.
“My first at sea,” Sharpe said.
“It makes you think,” Peel said wistfully.
“It’s better once it starts,” Sharpe suggested. “It’s the waiting that’s hard.”
Peel laughed softly. “Some clever bugger once remarked that nothing concentrates the mind so much as the prospect of being hanged in the morning.”
“I doubt he knew,” Sharpe said. “And besides, we’re the hangmen tomorrow.”
“So we are, so we are,” Peel said, though he could not hide the fears that gnawed at him. “Of course nothing might happen,” he said. “The buggers might give us the slip.” He went to look at the compass, leaving Sharpe to stare into the darkness. Sharpe stayed on deck until he could abide the cold no longer, then went and shivered in his confining cot that felt so horribly like a coffin.
He woke just before dawn. The sails were flapping and he put his head out of his cabin door and asked Chase’s steward what was happening. “We’re wearing ship, sir. Going north again, sir. There’s coffee coming, sir. Proper coffee. I saved a handful of beans because the captain does like his coffee. I’ll bring you shaving water, sir.”
Once he had shaved, Sharpe pulled on his clothes, draped his borrowed cloak about his shoulders and went on deck to find that the fleet had indeed turned back to the north. Lieutenant Haskell now had the watch and he reckoned that Nelson had been running southward to keep out of the enemy’s sight so that they would not use the excuse of his presence to return to Cadiz, but as the first gray light seeped along the eastern horizon the admiral had turned his fleet in an attempt to get between the enemy and the Spanish port.
The wind was still light so that the line of great ships lumbered northward at less than a man’s walking pace. The sky brightened, burnishing the long swells with shifting bands of silver and scarlet. Euryalus, the frigate which had dogged the enemy fleet ever since it had left harbor, was now back with the fleet, while to the east, almost in line with the burning sky where the sun rose, was a streak of dirty cloud showing against the horizon. That streak was the topsails of the enemy, blurred by distance.
“Good God.” Captain Chase had emerged on deck and spotted the far sails. He looked tired, as though he had slept badly, but he was dressed for battle, doing honor to the enemy by wearing his finest uniform which was normally stored deep in a sea chest. The gold on the twin epaulettes gleamed. His tasseled hat had been brushed till it shone. His white stockings were of silk, his coat was neither faded by the sun nor whitened by salt, while his sword scabbard had been polished, as had the silver buckles on his clean shoes. “Good God,” he said again, “those poor men.”
The decks of the British ships were thick with men, all staring eastward. The Pucelle had seen the French and Spanish fleet on the previous day, but this was the first glimpse for the other crews of Nelson’s ships. They had crossed the Atlantic in search of this enemy, then sailed back from the West Indies and, in the last few days, they had tacked and worn ship, sailed east and west, north and south, and some had wondered if the enemy was at sea at all, yet now, as if summoned by a demon of the sea, thirty-four enemy ships of the line showed on the horizon.