I looked around. High on the quarterdeck stood a group of men, uniformed officers in navy blue, with cream breeches and cockaded hats. Amongst them was a smaller man with one arm of his uniform tucked neatly into a jacket festooned with medals and decorations. He couldn’t have been a better target if he’d tried.

“It would be hard to miss him,” I breathed.

“We keep telling him that, but he’s pretty pigheaded about it and won’t budge—just says they are military orders and he does not fear to show them to the enemy. Would you like a jawbreaker?”

He offered me a small paper bag, which I declined. The vessel healed over again, and we watched in silence as the distance between the two ships steadily closed.

“I never get bored of this. See them?”

I followed his gaze to where three people were huddled the other side of a large coil of rope. One was dressed in the uniform of the ChronoGuard, another was holding a clipboard, and the third had what looked like a TV camera on his shoulder.

“Documentary filmmakers from the twenty-second century,” explained my father, hailing the other ChronoGuard operative. “Hello, Malcolm, how’s it going?”

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

“Hard cheese old man, hard cheese. Golf after work?”

“Righto!” 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 jawbreaker?”

“No, thanks.”

There was a flash and a burst of smoke from the closest French warship. A second later two cannon shots plopped harmlessly into the water. The balls didn’t move as fast as I supposed—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 cannonballs 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 marines, 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 us, 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 cannonball 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 crouched.

“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 behind 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 ship was torn apart as the British cannonballs ripped through it and down the length of the gun deck. In the lull of the cannon fire as the 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.

I nearly fell over as the Victory collided with a French ship just astern of the Bucentaure, and as I recovered my balance, I realized just how close the ships were to one another in these sorts of battles. It wasn’t a cable’s length—they were actually touching. The smoke of the guns made me cough, and the wheeezip of musket shot close by made me realize that the danger here was very real. There was another deafening concussion as the Victory’s guns spoke, and the French ship seemed to tremble in the water. My father leaned back to allow a large metal splinter to pass between us, then handed me a pair of binoculars.

“Dad?”

He was reaching into his pocket and pulling out, of all things—a slingshot. He loaded it with a lead ball that was rolling along the deck and pulled the elastic back tight, aiming through the swirling smoke at Nelson.

“See the sharpshooter on the most for’ard platform in the French rigging?”

“Yes?”

“As soon as he puts his finger on the trigger, count two and then say ‘fire.’ ”

I stared up at the French rigging, found the sharpshooter and kept a close eye on him. He was less than fifty feet from Nelson. It was the easiest shot in the world. I saw his finger touch the trigger and—

The lead ball flew from the slingshot and caught Nelson painfully on the knee; he collapsed on the deck while the shot that would have killed him buried itself harmlessly in the deck behind.

Captain Hardy ordered his men to take Nelson below, where he would be detained for the rest of the battle. Hardy would face his wrath come the morning and for disobeying orders would not serve with him again. My father saluted Captain Hardy, and Captain Hardy saluted him back. Hardy had marred his career but saved his admiral. It was a good trade.

“Well,” said my father, placing the slingshot back in his pocket, “we all know how this turns out—come on!”

He took my hand as we started to accelerate through time. The battle quickly ended, and the ship’s deck was scrubbed clean; day rapidly followed night as we sailed swiftly back to England to a riotous welcome of crowds lining the docks. Then the ship moved again, but this time to Chatham, moldered, lost its rigging, gained it and then moved again—but this time to Portsmouth, whose buildings rose around us as we moved into the twentieth century at breakneck speed.

When we decelerated, we were back in the present time but still in the same position on the deck, by now in dry dock and crowded with schoolchildren holding exercise books and in the process of being led around by a guide.

“And it was at this spot,” said the guide, pointing to a plaque on the deck, “that Admiral Nelson was hit on the leg by a ricochet that probably saved his life.”

“Well, that’s that job taken care of,” said Dad, standing up and dusting off his hands. He looked at his watch.

“I’ve got to go. Thanks for helping out, Sweetpea. Remember: Goliath may try to nobble the Swindon Mallets—especially the team captain—to rig the outcome of the SuperHoop, so be on your toes. Tell Emma—I mean, Lady Hamilton—that I’ll pick her up at 0830 her time tomorrow—and send my love to your mother.”

He smiled, there was another rapid flashing of lights, and I was back in the SpecOps Building, walking down the corridor with Bowden who was just finishing the sentence he had begun when Dad arrived.

“—trating the Montagues?”

“Sorry?”

“I said, ‘Do you want to hear my plans for infiltrating the Montagues?’ ” He wrinkled his nose. “Is that you smelling of cordite?”

“I’m afraid so. Listen, you’ll have to excuse me—I think Goliath may try to nobble Roger Kapok, and without him we have even less chance of winning the SuperHoop.”

He laughed.

“Photocopied bards, Swindon Mallets, eradicated husbands. You like impossible assignments, don’t you?”