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ships to engage from leeward, thereby conveying to his captains the tactical concept of overhauling the enemy and interposing themselves between the Spanish and safety.
    It had become a race.
    As the British ships tore forward dead before the wind, puffs of smoke appeared from their fo’c’s’les as gunners tried ranging shots. At first the plumes of water, difficult to see among breaking wave crests, were a long way astern of the Spaniards. But slowly, as the minutes ran into an hour, they got nearer.
    Aboard
Cyclops
Devaux stood poised on the fo’c’s’le glass to eye as the frigate’s long nine-pounders barked at the enemy as she lifted her bow. Almost directly above Drinkwater watched eagerly. His inexperienced eyes missed the fall of shot but the excitement of the scene rivetted his attention.
Cyclops
trembled with the thrill of the chase and giving expression to the corporate feeling of the ship, O’Malley, the mad Irish cook, sat cross-legged on the capstan top scraping his fiddle. The insane jig was mixed with the hiss and splash of the sea around them and the moan of the gale as it strummed the hempen rigging.
    Captain Hope had taken
Cyclops
across the slower
Bedford
’s bows and was heading for the northernmost Spaniard, a frigate of almost equal size. To the south of their quarry the high stern of the Spanish line of battleships stretched in a ragged line, the second frigate hidden behind them to the east.
    A sudden column of white rose close to the
Cyclops
’s plunging bowsprit. Drinkwater looked up. Held under the galleries of a Spanish two-decker by the following wind a puff of white smoke lingered.
    Tregembo swore. ‘That’s good shooting for Dagoes,’ he said. It was only then that Drinkwater realised he was under fire.
    As
Cyclops
crossed the stern of the two decker in chase of the frigate the battleships had tried a ranging shot. Suddenly there was a rush of air and the sound of two corks being drawn from bottles. Looking up Drinkwater saw a hole in the fore-topsail and another in the main. It was uncomfortably close. As their sterns rose to the following seas the Spaniards were firing at the oncoming British silhouetted against the setting sun.
    Drinkwater shivered. The brief winter warmth was gone and the fresh breeze had become a gale. He looked again at the Spanish fleet. They were appreciably nearer. Then he saw two plumes of white rise under the Spaniard’s quarter. Their own guns were silent. He looked interrogatively at Tregembo.
    â€˜What the . . . ?’ Then the seaman pointed.
    To starboard, hidden from the huddling midshipman by the mast,
Resolution
, a newly coppered seventy-four, was passing the frigate. Conditions now favoured the heavier ships.
Resolution
, was overhauling the Spaniards rapidly and beyond her
Edgar
and
Defence
were bearing down on the enemy. Beforethe sun set behind a bank of cloud its final rays picked out the
Resolution
.
    The almost horizontal light accentuated every detail of the scene. The sea, piling up from the west, its shadowed surfaces a deep indigo, constantly moving and flashing golden where it caught the sun, seemed to render the warship on it a thing of stillness. The
Resolution
’s hull was dark with the menace of her larboard batteries as she passed scarcely two cables from
Cyclops
. Her sails drew out, pulling the great vessel along, transmitting their power down through the masts and rigging until the giant oak hull with its weight of artillery and 750 men made ten knots through the water.
    Drinkwater could see the heads of her upper-deck gunners and a line of red and silver marines on the poop. At her stern and peak battle ensigns stood out, pointing accusingly at the enemy ahead. Her bow chasers barked again. This time there was no white column. Devaux’s glass swung round. ‘She’s hit ’em, by God!’ he shouted.
    Somebody on the fo’c’s’le