Ричард Вудмен - 1805

'There, sir!'

'I have them.' He counted the topsails: 'Four line-of-battle ships, five frigates and two brigs!'

Had Gravina remembered his obligation to Villeneuve, Drinkwater wondered? But there were more pressing considerations.

'Get forrard, Mr Spear, and signal Conqueror that the enemy is in sight!'

Drinkwater spent the next two hours in considerable anxiety. The strange ships were coming up fast, all apparently undamaged in the battle. He recognised the French Neptune and the Spanish Rayo .

Spear came scrambling aft with the news that Pellew had seen the approaching enemy and intended casting loose the tow. There was nothing Drinkwater could do except watch Conqueror make sail and stand to windward, to join the nine other British warships able to manoeuvre and work themselves between the enemy and the majority of the prizes.

Bucentaure began to roll and wallow to leeward, continuing to ship water. On deck Drinkwater watched the approach of the enemy, the leading ship with a commodore's broad pendant at her masthead. It was not Gravina but one of the more enterprising of the escaped French captains who was leading this bold sortie. The leading ship was a French eighty, and she bore down on Bucentaure as the stricken vessel drifted away from the protection of the ten British line-of-battle ships. As she luffed to windward of them they read her name: Indomptable .

The appearance of the Franco-Spanish squadron revived the crew of the Bucentaure . One of her lieutenants requested that Drinkwater released them from their parole and he had little alternative but to agree. A few moments later, boats from Indomptable were alongside and the Bucentaure 's lieutenant was representing the impossibility of saving the former French flagship. ' Elle est finie ,' Drinkwater heard him say, and they began to take out of the Bucentaure all her crew, including the wounded. For an hour and a half the boats of the Indomptable ferried men from the Bucentaure with great difficulty. The sea was still running high and damage was done to the boats and to their human cargo. Drinkwater summoned Atcherley and Spear.

'Gentlemen,' he said, 'I believe the French to be abandoning the ship. If we remain we have still an anchor and cable. We might yet keep her a prize. It is only a slender chance, but I do not wish to be retaken prisoner just yet.'

The two officers nodded agreement. 'Volunteers only, then,' added Drinkwater as the French lieutenant approached.

'It is now you come to boats, Capitaine .'

' Non, mon ami . We stay, perhaps we save the ship.'

The lieutenant appeared to consider this for some moments and then shrugged.

'Ver' well. I too will stay.'

So a handful of men remained aboard the Bucentaure as the Allied squadron made sail, refusing battle with the ten British ships. Drinkwater watched them hauling off their retaken ships, the Spanish Neptuno and the great black bulk of the Santa Ana , the latter towed by a brig, scraps of sails and the Spanish ensign rehoisted on what remained of her masts. Hardly had Indomptable taken in her boats than the wind backed suddenly and increased with tremendous strength from the west-southwest. Immediately Bucentaure 's leeway increased and as the afternoon wore on the pale smudge of Cadiz grew swiftly larger and more distinct. They could see details: the towers of the partly rebuilt cathedral, the belfry of the Carmelite convent, the lighthouse at San Sebastian and, along the great bight of Cadiz Bay from beyond Rota in the north to the Castle of St Peter to the southward, the wrecked hulks of the Combined Fleet being pounded to matchwood in the breakers.

As they drove ashore, Drinkwater had soundings taken, and at about three in the afternoon he had the anchor let go in a last attempt to save the ship. The fluke bit and Bucentaure snubbed round at the extremity of the cable to pitch head to sea as the wind blew again with storm force. They could see the British ships in the offing and around them some of the vessels that had sailed from Cadiz that morning. They had run for the shelter of the harbour as the wind began to blow, but several had not made it and had been forced to anchor like themselves.

Bucentaure 's anchor held for an hour before the cable parted. Drinkwater called all her people on deck and they stood helplessly in the waist as the great ship drove again to leeward, beam on to the sea, rolling heavily as ton after ton of water poured on board. The rocks of Cape San Sebastian loomed towards them.

'Call all your men together, Mr Spear,' Drinkwater said quietly as the Bucentaure rose on the back of a huge wave. The heavy swell, enlarged by the violence of the storm, increased its height as its forward momentum was sapped by the rising sea-bed. Its lower layers were slowed and its upper surface tore onwards, rolling and toppling with its own instability, bearing the huge bulk of the Bucentaure upon its collapsing back.

In a roar of white water, as the spray whipped across her canting deck, the ship struck, her whole hull juddering with the impact. Water foamed all about her, thundering and tearing over the reef beyond the Bucentaure . Then it was receding, pouring off the exposed rocks as the trough sucked out and the stricken battleship lolled over. Suddenly she began to lift again as the next breaker took her, a white-flecked avalanche of water that rose above her splintered rail.

'Hold on!' shouted Drinkwater, and the urgency of the cry communicated itself to British and French alike. Then it broke over them, intensely cold, driving the breath from their bodies and tearing them from their handholds. Drinkwater felt the pain in his shoulder muscles as the cold and the strain attacked them. He clung to an eyebolt, holding his breath as the red lights danced before his eyes and his lungs forced him to inhale. He gasped, swallowing water, and then he was in air again and, unbelievably, Bucentaure was moving beneath them. He struggled upright and stared about him. Not fifty yards away the little bluff of Cap San Sebastian rushed past. Beneath its lighthouse crowds of people watched the death throes of the ship. Bucentaure had torn free, carried over the reef at a tangent to the little peninsula of the cape. He looked about the deck. There were less men than there had been. God alone knew how many had been swept into the sea by that monstrous wave.

For twenty minutes the ship drifted to leeward, into slightly calmer water. But every moment she sank lower and, half an hour later, had stuck fast upon the Puercas Reef. Drinkwater looked around him, knowing the long travail was over at last. In the dusk, boats were approaching from a French frigate anchored in the Grande Rade with the remnants of Gravina's escaped detachment. He turned to Spear and Atcherley. They were both shivering from cold and wet.

'Well, gentlemen, it seems we are not to perish, although we have lost your prize.'

Atcherley nodded. 'In the circumstances, sir, it is enough.' The marine officer looked at the closing boats with resignation.

'I suppose we must be made prisoners now,' said Spear dejectedly.

'Yes, I suppose so,' replied Drinkwater shortly, aware of the dreadful ache in his right shoulder and that beneath his feet Bucentaure was going to pieces.

'Were you received by the Governor-General at Cadiz, Captain?' asked Vice-Admiral Collingwood, leaning from his chair to pat the head of a small terrier by his side.