"When is the battle?" Aitken inquired sarcastically. "Do you have the programme? If you have, you might give me a sight of it!"
"Tomorrow or the next day," Southwick said flatly. "Admiral Nelson will give 'em time enough to get well clear of Cadiz (he won't want to risk frightening them back in again or give them a bolt-hole once the fighting starts), so you can work it out yourself. "
He took off his hat and scratched his head in a familiar gesture. "They don't get up very early, these French and Spaniards. So they'll spend most of the rest of the day manoeuvring. With a mixed fleet he's never taken to sea before, this Admiral Villeneuve will (if he's got any sense) spend a few hours making 'em back and fill and get into position. I can't see 'em doing much else than jogging along like sheep during the night - plenty of flares and a few collisions, I expect. Tomorrow - well, by then he'll be clear of here with them steering in the right direction, and I can't see Lord Nelson being far away."
Aitken slapped Southwick on the back. "Like to put a guinea on it being one day or the other, the 21st or the 22nd? I'll take whichever day you don't."
"No," Southwick said stubbornly. "Why should I bet against myself? I've already told you it'll be tomorrow or the next day, and that's all there is to it."
"That's the trouble with prize money," Aitken said, knowing that Southwick, like most of the men on board the Calypso, had grown rich from the money won under Captain Ramage's command, "it takes away the gambling instinct."
"Bet on the number of French and Spanish ships of the line captured or destroyed and you have a wager," Southwick growled.
"Very well. Twenty-one, and the 21st - tomorrow - will be the day of the battle."
"We're betting on the number of ships, not the date," Southwick said. "All right, my guinea says it'll be twenty-five. At least two more than twenty-one, anyway. How does that suit you?"
Aitken nodded, but added soberly: "Try and stay alive so you can pay up."
By now the Calypso was sailing fast to the north-west, passing three miles ahead of the leading enemy ships. More to the point, Ramage thought to himself, the Euryalus had not hoisted the Calypso's pendant numbers and ordered him to patrol to the south. The Euryalus herself, he noticed, was working her way out to the westward, along with the Sirius, the Pickle schooner and Entreprenante cutter.
The British frigates and the two smaller vessels would be like a small swarm of flies round the slow-moving ox of the Combined Fleet: always out of range of a lashing tail, but always watching - and signalling to Lord Nelson over the horizon.
It would be an interesting challenge to be commanding some thirty-four ships of the line - thirty-three now Le Brave has gone - Ramage decided, but he did not envy Admiral Villeneuve. If Señor Perez was to be believed, then most of the Spanish captains wanted nothing to do with the Combined Fleet: they preferred to stay at anchor, not go to sea to fight someone else's battle and ensure Bonaparte's schemes succeeded. Yet they were the captains in whom Villeneuve had put his trust. However, "better one volunteer than three pressed men": the old adage crossed Ramage's mind.
Yet, ship for ship (and in several cases size for size and gun for gun), Villeneuve had thirty-three ships against Lord Nelson's twenty-seven. French and Spanish ships were very well designed and always well built - the best ships in the Royal Navy, Ramage was ashamed to admit, were those captured from the enemy (the Calypso herself being a fine example). So it was going to be a question of men: of the skill and bravery of individual captains and their ships' companies. The British spirit was going to have to make up for Nelson's fleet being six ships weaker than the Combined Fleet . . .
Ramage noted to himself that Le Brave had stranded herself in the last of the good weather and the last of the south wind - which by noon had veered to the south-west. Rain squalls were whipping across to close down visibility for half an hour at a time and the seas were becoming heavy.
A south-west wind still meant it was foul for Villeneuve to get down to the Gut. And Ramage saw through his glass that Villeneuve had plenty of trouble. He had, according to Ramage's count, thirty-three ships of the line, five frigates and a couple of brigs. In the distance the ships of the line seemed great grey barns and their masts and yards looked like bare trees in winter because the wet sails blended with the low clouds hanging down to the horizon.
Many of the ships, it was obvious even at this distance, were being handled in a lubberly fashion. The most weatherly of them, Ramage estimated, were steering no closer to the wind than west-north-west and several (they looked like Spaniards) were sagging off to leeward as though in despair. All the ships had reefed at the same time, obviously on orders from Admiral Villeneuve. Some had tied in the reefs and hoisted the yards again while the rest were still struggling - Ramage pictured untrained and frightened, raw sailors up the yards, fighting stiff and flogging canvas, hands being torn, fingers getting caught in reef points, many of the men seasick and probably clutching yards and rigging, rigid with fear, misery and illness.
By noon it was obvious that Villeneuve was trying to form his fleet into three columns. It was an absurd formation, Ramage reckoned, given that the French admiral must know that Lord Nelson was waiting over the horizon, because only one column (the outermost on the engaged side) could fire on the enemy.
"They're like a lot o' wet hens with their legs tied together," Southwick commented, after studying them with his glass.
"Sheep," Aitken corrected him. "Like frightened sheep being chased by different dogs. Why they're not colliding I don't know. I think Villeneuve's got three French ships out ahead so the rest can form up on 'em, but just look - at least half a dozen are just sagging off to leeward as tho' they're embarrassed at the rest of them!"
Aitken had been right: thirty-three great sheep were milling round, all trying to head out to the west, as though yapping dogs to the east were nipping their ankles.
An hour later the confusion was even worse as the ships still tried to get into position, hidden from time to time in rain squalls and buffeted by gusts of near gale-force winds. After two hours, when the beginning of three columns was discernible, Aitken suddenly pointed to the windvane and the luffs of the Calypso's reefed topsails (the topgallants had long ago been handed), which were beginning to flutter.
The wind was going further round to the west: if Villeneuve stayed on this tack he would be forced up to the north and, from the look of it, some of the ships would be lucky to weather Rota; more likely they would end up on the Bajo de las Cabezuellas, looking like their unfortunate former shipmate, Le Brave.
Ramage felt almost sorry for Villeneuve - until he remembered that every French and Spanish ship disabled by collision or driven ashore by the gale would be one less to fight Nelson's ships: every casualty would lessen the odds.
"What are they going to do now?" Southwick asked incredulously.
"Getting a wind shift like that with the fleet not formed up - that's just bad luck," Aitken said.
"Bad for them, good for us," Southwick said grimly.
Fifteen minutes later Orsini, who had been watching the Combined Fleet closely with his telescope as well as keeping an eye on the Euryalus when she appeared briefly between rain squalls, shouted excitedly: "The French flagship has hoisted another signal!"
"I wish we had a French signal book," Ramage grumbled. "Not that we can read the flags at this distance. Still, it's not too hard to guess."
"You think he is heaving-to the fleet, sir?" Aitken asked.
"No, with this west wind and Rota under his lee I think he is getting in a panic. I'm sure he wants to go south and he finds himself steering north. So he's ordering the fleet to tack."