'Well, thanks!' replied the agent. 'Got into the soup a bit when I lost that cameraman at Pompeü. Wanted an extra close-up or something.'

'Hard cheese, old man, hard cheese. Golf after work?'

'Right-o!' replied Malcolm, returning to his charges.

'It's nice being back at work, actually,' confessed my father, turning back to me. 'Sure you won't have a gobstopper?'

'No, thanks.'

There was a flash and a burst of smoke from the closest French warship. A second later two cannon shots plopped harmlessly in the water. The balls didn't move as fast as I had supposed they would – I could actually see them in flight.

'Now what?' I asked. 'Take out the snipers so they can't shoot Nelson?'

'We'd never get them all. No, we must cheat a little. But not yet. Time is of the essence at moments like this.'

So we waited patiently on the main deck while the battle heated up. Within minutes, seven or eight warships were firing at the Victory, the cannon balls tearing into the sails and rigging. One even cut a man in half on the quarterdeck, and another dispatched a small gang of what I took to be mannes, who dispersed rapidly. All through this the diminutive admiral, his captain and a small retinue paced the quarterdeck as the smoke from the guns billowed around, the heat of the muzzle flashes hot on our faces, the concussion almost deafening. The ship's wheel disintegrated as a shot went through it, and as the battle progressed we moved about the deck, following the safest path in the light of my father's superior and infinitely precise knowledge of the battle. We moved to one side as a cannon ball flew past, moved to another area of the deck as a heavy piece of wood fell from the rigging, then to a third place when some musket balls whizzed past where we had been crouching.

'You know the battle very well!' I shouted above the noise.

'I should do,' he shouted back, 'I've been here over sixty times.'

The French and British warships drew nearer and nearer until the Victory was so close to the Bucentaure that I could see the faces of the staff in the staterooms as we passed. There was a deafening broadside from the guns and the stern of the French ship was torn apart as the British cannon balls ripped through it and down the length of the gun deck. In the lull, as the cannon crews reloaded, I could hear the multilingual cries of injured men. I had seen warfare in the Crimea but nothing like this. Such close fighting with such devastating weapons reduced men to nothing more than tatters in an instant, the plight of the survivors made worse by the almost certain knowledge that the medical attention they would receive was of the most rudimentary and brutal kind.