Seize the Fire
Heroism, Duty, and the Battle of Trafalgar
Chapter OneZeal
October 21st 1805
5.50 am to 8.30 am
Distance between fleets: 10 miles–6.5 miles
Victory's heading and speed: 067°–078° at 3 knots
Zeal: passionate ardour for any cause
Samuel Johnson, A Dictionary of the English Language, 1755
At 5.50 on the morning of 21 October 1805, just as dawn
was coming up, the look-outs high on the mainmasts of
the British fleet spied the enemy, about twelve miles away
downwind. They had been tracking them for a day and
a night, the body of their force kept carefully over the
horizon, not only to prevent the French and Spanish taking
fright and running from battle, but to remain upwind,
'keeping the weather gage', holding the trump card with
which they would control and direct the battle to come.
All night long, British frigates, stationed between the two
fleets, had been burning pairs of blue lights, every hour on
the hour, as pre-arranged. It was the agreed si ... read full excerpt from Seize the Fire ebook
