Seeing the retrograde movement Rodney signalled his 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 riveted 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.