Julian Stockwin - Victory

Why were they missing the French? The trade-wind route with its ocean-sized circulation of winds was the only practical means of crossing the Atlantic; to sail against the prevailing pattern was madness and very slow. Had they passed them in their eagerness to engage? It had occurred before, in the long pursuit before the Nile. Quite conceivably they had crossed wakes in the night, as had happened once to Nelson himself, actually sailing through the middle of the unsuspecting Spanish fleet.

And not a single clue had they on the vital question of whether Villeneuve was returning to Toulon past Gibraltar or to the feared link-up with the fleet lying at Brest and then on to an invasion.

Nelson made up his mind: it was Toulon, as it had been before.

The misty blue islands of the Azores were left to the north, those gaunt rocks where Kydd had suffered a hellish shipwreck in a frigate long years ago as a common seaman – he gave an involuntary shudder at the memory.

Gibraltar was days away only now, and the talk was all of what they would find. A galling report that Villeneuve had passed through the strait on his way to Toulon? Nothing could get past without being seen from the heights of the Rock. That he had entered Cadiz to join with the Spaniards? Or even that he lay in ambush with his great numbers in the restricted waters around Gibraltar?

All was speculation until they raised the giant fortress. Then the thousand-foot peaks of Cape Spartel resolved out of the luminous morning haze, the African outer sentinel at the entrance to the strait. They passed the thirty-odd miles through it at a tense readiness until the crouching-lion form of Gibraltar took shape ahead.

Into Algeciras Bay, and every telescope was up and feverishly scanning until one or two ships under English colours were seen peacefully at anchor in Rosia Bay. In light and fluky winds Nelson’s fleet came to anchor, one by one. The glasses came up again, this time trained on the flagship.

And almost immediately a barge put off from Victory , its passenger conspicuous and unmistakable. It pulled quickly for Ragged Staff steps and then the figure was lost in the walls and bastions. In a fever of anticipation every ship waited for word in the close heat.

One hour passed – then two. Only when the barge slowly returned to Victory in another hour without Nelson aboard did it become all so painfully clear. He would not have stayed ashore if the hunt was still on.

After a legendary race of eight thousand miles across the entire breadth of the Atlantic Ocean and back, and coming from thirty-one days behind to within a day’s grasp, they had returned to where they had started from, and with the same result.

Villeneuve and his fleet had eluded them yet again.

Chapter 11

‘Do sit, sir!’ The first secretary to the Admiralty, William Marsden, shocked by the shambling gait of the prime minister as he came into the board room, hurried to assist him.

‘Where’s Barham?’ Pitt wheezed, then coughed into his handkerchief as he found a chair.

‘He’s been advised of your visit, sir, and will be with us shortly.’ The new first lord of the Admiralty to replace the impeached Melville was the eighty-year-old Lord Barham, hastily recalled from ten years of retirement to assume the post that had been declared by the home secretary as second only in importance to that of the prime minister himself.

Marsden was well aware that others had declined it for the frightful responsibilities at this time but Lord Barham, despite his advanced years, was a safe pair of hands. With none of the political involvements that had bedevilled St Vincent and Melville, he could devote all his attention to the monumental task. And he was a sailor who could look back to starting service as an officer at sea in the 1740s, to that inconceivably distant age before the Seven Years’ War, before empire, before the American war. He was already a post-captain when Nelson was born and had served in every war since. He had the coolness of a fighting sea officer plus a well-honed appreciation of higher matters.

‘Refreshment, sir? We can offer—’

‘No.’ Pitt slumped forward in his chair, clearly in a state of exhaustion.

Marsden indeed hoped that Barham would arrive soon – his calm and ordered mind would set the prime minister’s anxieties to rest, for the fragile Third Coalition could take no more reverses.

Footsteps echoed in the hallway. ‘Ah – he’s here now, Prime Minister.’

Pitt raised his head with an expression of hope – or was it supplication? ‘My lord Barham,’ he said, in a voice little above a whisper. ‘You have news of Nelson, I’ve been told.’ The whole nation had been breathless with apprehension this last month, craving news of the wild chase across the Atlantic. With the drama came the highest possible stakes, all reported in the newspapers to become the stuff of public horror and fascination.

‘Sir. And this very morning. Admiral Nelson sent on ahead from Antigua the Curieux , a fast captured brig, to tell me all I need to know. The dispatches came after midnight but, in course, my wretched valet would not suffer me to be disturbed until the morning. I’d have the villain flogged if I still had a quarterdeck!’ he added querulously.

‘Have you had time to read the dispatches then, my lord?’ Pitt asked heavily.

‘Yes,’ Barham said, but in quite a different tone, confident, energised. ‘And I have decided what must be done and already made the necessary deployments.’

Pitt’s weariness lifted a little. ‘You’ve . . . Pray tell me what is now the situation, sir.’

Barham stumped over to the map rollers above the fireplace and pulled down the largest: the Atlantic Ocean and approaches to Britain. ‘Bonaparte means to overwhelm our fleets and seize control of the Channel for his invasion. You’ll allow he has as many tricks as a monkey and this is one – Nelson was correct that his biggest squadron was headed for the Caribbean and he was right to abandon his station in pursuit. He had devilish luck and failed to catch them, and now the French are cracking on sail for Europe ahead of him and may be expected to appear very soon.’

‘Do we have knowledge of what they’ll do then?’ Pitt murmured.

‘Sir, they have but to raise the siege of our blockade on Brest and Ferrol, and in the Channel we’ll be faced with forty, fifty battleships and necessarily be overwhelmed.’

Barham let the point sink in but then added, ‘ If we are supposing they are headed for the north. Nelson’s dispatches state that the Mediterranean is the more likely destination, and that is where he is bound at this moment.’

‘What is your view, my lord?’ Pitt asked carefully.

‘My view is not of consequence, sir. Unknown to Admiral Nelson, Curieux on its run here came upon the enemy fleet and stayed with it long enough to establish that it was undeniably bound to the north of the Azores and therefore the Channel.

‘Sir, I do truly believe the climax is near. Villeneuve’s twenty of-the-line are now free to join with Ganteaume’s twenty-one in Brest and the Dons’ fourteen in Ferrol to make an unchallengeable battle-fleet in Biscay somewhere. This must not happen.’

‘How?’ Pitt asked, in a low voice.

‘Thanks to Curieux , we know what to do. The central issue is to stop the forces combining in the first place. Therefore I’ve taken what steps I can to prevent it – by intercepting Villeneuve before he has a chance to make a conjunction.’

‘With what forces, sir?’

‘I’m extracting our vessels from before Ferrol and reinforcing them with those taken from Rochefort. These will cruise out in the Atlantic between Cape Finisterre and Ushant to challenge Villeneuve when he comes, while the Channel Fleet interposes to prevent Ganteaume reaching him.’