"Aye, we'll follow, Mister Knolles," Lewrie sighed. "Well alee of Excellent, mind. Somebody has to do signals. Old Jarvy to Nelson or vice versa. Clap him in irons…? This gap's too narrow, and closing. They'll merge, if we don't… get past us without a real fight. Haul taut to windward, Mister Knolles, course Nor-Nor'west."

"Aye, sir!"

"And Mister Buchanon? Do you keep those fingers crossed."

"Oh, aye, Cap'um," Buchanon rather soberly assured him. "Now 'til Epiphany, if 'at's what it takes. God help us, we're in for th' most confounded scrape!"

Lewrie shared a quick, quirky, and sardonic smile with his stolid Sailing Master, then turned away to look outward once more. The small batch of Spanish ships to leeward were almost level with them now and level with the tail end of the British line, which was still labouriously wheeling about one after the other… at a point which seemed to Lewrie's fevered imagination to be too damn' far South to be of any comfort.

To the West, Captain Troubridge's Culloden, at the head of that wheeling line, was almost level with the rear of the Spanish main body. Again, too far to windward to be of much immediate use to them. Apart from the fleet and its palls of gunfire, they were in clearer air, in undisturbed, un-roiled winds which cupped the sails taut and full, the two lone ships who'd disobeyed. Now going like Cambridge coaches!

Aft… Was Excellent dithering again, he wondered? Coming off the wind to wear, he hoped most fervently? Was Diadem too…?

Forrud-over Jester's larboard bows. There lay the Spaniards at which they charged, like naive house-terriers at an enraged bull on their first day of a country weekend. A very menacing and formidable pack of Dons they looked too! Though not in any particular order, he also noted. Though it must be said that at that moment Lewrie would have grasped at any straw of encouragement, no matter how frail.