ears for the next gun that
was fired, trying to make out their bearings and distance, as we
assembled in little knots upon the booms and weather gangway. It was my
middle watch, and I was signalman at the time, so of course I had no
time to take a caulk if I was inclined. When my watch was over, I could
not go down to my hammock, so I kept the morning watch too, as did most
of the men on board: as for Nelson, he walked the deck the whole night,
quite in a fever. At daylight it was thick and hazy weather, and we
could not make them out; but about five bells, the old _Culloden_, who,
if she had broke her nose, had not lost the use of her eyes, made the
signal for a part of the Spanish fleet in sight. Old Jervis repeated
the signal to prepare for action, but he might have saved the wear and
tear of the bunting, for we were all ready, bulkheads down, screens up,
guns shotted, tackles rove, yards slung, powder filled, shot on deck,
and fire out--and what's more, Mr Simple, I'll be damned if we wer'n't
all willing too. About six bells in the forenoon, the fog and haze all
cleared away at once, just like the rising of the foresail, that they
lower down at the Portsmouth Theatre, and discovered the whole of the
Spanish fleet. I counted them all. `How many, Swinburne?' cries
Nelson. `Twenty-six sail, sir,' answered I. Nelson walked the
quarterdeck backwards and forwards, rubbing his hands, and laughing to
himself, and then he called for his glass, and went to the gangway with
Captain Miller. `Swinburne, keep a good look upon the admiral,' says
he. `Ay, ay, sir,' says I. Now, you see, Mr Simple, twenty-six sail
against fifteen were great odds upon paper; but we didn't think so,
because we know'd the difference between the two fleets. There was our
fifteen sail of the line all in apple-pie order, packed up as close as
dominoes, and every man on board of them longing to come to the scratch;
while there was their twenty-six, all _somehow nohow_, two lines here,
and _no line_ there, with a great gap of water in the middle of them.
For this gap between their ships we all steered, with all the sail we
could carry, because, d'ye see, Mr Simple, by getting them on both
sides of us, we had the advantage of fighting both broadsides, which is
just as easy as fighting one, and makes shorter work of it. Just as it
struck seven bells, Troubridge opened the ball, _setting_ to
half-a-dozen of the Spaniards, and making them _reel_ `T