about noon
` Yes , mate , ' said I ; ` and a pretty spectacle they will make at Spithead when we carry them there . ' '' ` Ay , that they will , ' cried all who heard me , and I believe every man in the fleet felt as we did . `` We were watching all this time the magnificent way in which the brave and good Admiral Collingwood stood into action and opened his fire . That was about noon . There was a general cheer on board our ship and all the ships of the fleet . At our masthead flew a signal . We soon knew what it meant .