Two hundred years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte dominated Europe and threatened Britain with invasion. Against him stood the Royal Navy and the already legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. On 21 October 1805 a massive naval battle off Cape Trafalgar on the coast of Spain decided mastery of the seas. Then, over the following days and nights, the battleships and their exhausted crews endured a gale of awesome fury. The book takes readers from the claustrophobic turmoil of a gun-deck in battle, to the desperation of men pumping water from sinking hulks adrift in hurricane force winds.