Breaking the Line (15 page)

Nelson sighed. ‘I am caught between the Scylla of elation and the Charybdis of fear for both you and our daughter.’

It all tumbled out verbally then, the same concerns that were in the letters: worries about financial security, the child’s health, Emma’s well-being and reputation, the Prince of Wales and his attentions. As he talked Emma slipped off his unadorned uniform coat and loosened his stock. By the time he was talking of the Baltic, of the plans he had already formed and the difficulties he anticipated in taking orders from Sir Hyde Parker he was lying with his head on Emma’s shoulder. She spoke little, letting him ramble on, until he fell asleep.

They awoke after nightfall, and Emma asked that supper be prepared for them in the Nelson Room. Sir William, increasingly remote since the birth had removed himself to dine elsewhere,
warned by Mrs Cadogan that Nelson’s visit was a secret and must be kept so. Thus only the two dined in the room Emma had set aside as a celebration of her lover and hero. Nelson had entrusted to her all the gifts and trophies that he did not wish to take to sea. A portrait of him executed in Vienna took pride of place above the mantel, surrounded by numerous miniatures and his swords, both gifted and surrendered.

There was a painting of the Nile battle and a copy of a more benign Gillray cartoon showing Nelson thrashing about in seawater clubbing crocodiles. Orders of chivalry, both ribbon and stars, were ensconced in a glass case, as well as copies of his medals, the originals of poems, odes and songs dedicated to his victories. The tattered flags of his defeated enemies hung limply in the light afforded by candles and a roaring winter fire.

The table in the middle of the room was set with the crockery given to him by King Ferdinand, made at his own royal pottery, the silver cutlery and accoutrements, cruets, decanters, even the wine coasters, engraved with his coat of arms. The walls were that sea green that looks blue in certain lights, the fabric of the chairs the naval blue of the service embroidered with a golden N encased in triumphal laurel. In the presence of such display, Nelson felt a tinge of embarrassment, but the décor pleased Emma so much that he could not bring himself to ask for it to be toned down.

So they dined, at peace in each other’s company, cocooned from a cold winter night and a potentially hostile world. Once dinner was over, they retired to bed, like the married couple Nelson longed for them to be.

Next morning, another closed carriage was needed to get them to the nearby house of Mrs Roberts, the wet nurse. A recent widow, with a posthumously born child of her own, she was caring for the little girl who, from now on, was Horatia Thompson. If the woman recognised the one-armed man who billed and cooed over the infant, and made excessive claims for the regularity and beauty of her features, she felt it unwise to say so. Nor did she remark later to anyone on the look that had graced the face of the lady who had brought the child, the mixture of triumph and affection in a mother who has presented her man with a baby.

Dinner that evening was with Sir William, who, his usual urbane self, kept well hidden any resentment that had grown in his breast. Besides, he found it near impossible to be angry with Nelson present. It was only when he was away, and Sir William lost sight of their mutual regard, that irritation surfaced.

Nelson had his own reasons to be annoyed with Sir William, who
had started to auction off his possessions, one of which was Nelson’s favourite portrait of Emma as St Cecilia. Alexander Davidson had had to be roped in to bid on Nelson’s behalf. Yet that too faded with their meeting. Nelson admired the older man too much to be annoyed with him for long. They talked of many things: the King’s health, the likelihood of a Regency, of a new government being formed under Addington, the prospects of peace with France, of Earl St Vincent becoming First Lord in place of Spencer, everything except the matter that filled Nelson’s mind.

Alone again in their shared bedchamber, Nelson talked of death. While he was keen to assure Emma that his demise in battle was unlikely he wanted her to know that all things were possible. He would never describe to her what it was like on the deck of a ship in the midst of a fight. The instrument of his destruction might be a cannon or musket ball, a block, a spar or a deadly splinter of wood. It might come from anywhere, to the left, the right, or from above his head.

As he spoke, Nelson was aware that at one time he had almost sought death in battle, seeing it as the ultimate apotheosis of the hero he so wanted to be. His own was General James Wolfe, who had died on the Plains of Abraham above Quebec in the Seven Years War, winning in that one victory the whole of French Canada for Britain. That was the kind of death he had desired.

He did not want that now. He wanted Emma as his wife, and a place where they could both live with Horatia, free from the constraints of his previous attachments. Divorce was out of the question, requiring an Act of Parliament to become legal. Fanny might try it as the wronged party but he doubted that: the shame would kill her. If
he
tried it he would be laughed out of the chamber of peers.

‘Brontë, perhaps,’ he whispered.

He had never seen the ducal lands that Ferdinand had given him after the rescue from Naples. He knew that they were on the slopes of Mount Etna: that they were in need of investment, that given such they might yield an income on which he could happily exist. But, more than that, they were in a land where he could live openly with Emma and his new-born daughter.

In his heart he knew it to be a pipe dream. He was a serving officer and, though comfortable, he was far from rich. His good friend Alexander Davidson chastised him constantly for his generosity to anyone with even the most distant claim on his purse, his family the greatest beneficiaries. He had an obligation to
support Fanny, and to
secure Emma and Horatia against future troubles required a great fortune, not a middling one: he could only thank his God that, as a fighting sailor and admiral, he was well placed to acquire one.

For a man on the edge of losing office William Pitt seemed remarkably relaxed. He had been Prime Minister for so long that no one could easily recall his predecessor, and had worked hard to make his nation fiscally sound only to see this threatened by endless war. He was a reluctant combatant, who would have had peace with France if only that nation had shown any inclination to consider it. But he hated their Revolution, and as long as the French made war to further it, his government would spend whatever sums necessary to contain it.

Millions of pounds had gone to other countries – Austria, Prussia, Naples, endless German principalities – to put in the field that which Britannia could not: a mass army to beat the French. All had failed abysmally. Pitt had watched his coalitions founder, the latest just over two weeks previously when the First Consul of France, Napoleon Bonaparte, had signed a treaty that virtually dismembered the Holy Roman Empire, a confederation which had stood since the days of Charlemagne. All the while Pitt had juggled the domestic issues of the home nations: unruly Ireland, a noisy Parliament, a tendentious sovereign so wedded to his Protestant faith that he would see the country in turmoil rather than surrender a single one of the Thirty-Nine Articles. And an opposition party that would sweep into power as soon as that fat poltroon the Prince of Wales secured his inheritance.

Nelson listened as Pitt talked on for a good ten minutes about all the areas of war policy: India, the expedition to finish off the French in Egypt, arguments regarding Malta, and support for Naples and stability in the Italian peninsula, the weakness of the Sultan, an expedition to seize the Swedish and Danish islands in the Caribbean, and other minor operations in various far-flung places.

‘The King caught a cold in chapel,’ he said, almost wearily, ‘which I fear has triggered a reaction.’ Then he poured himself another generous glass of claret, although it was well before noon.

Nelson had yet to touch the one he had been given earlier and wondered, given Pitt’s consumption, how he managed his duties. He was known as a man who, though he ate sparsely, drank three to four bottles a day, and often turned up for an evening sitting in the House of Commons in a high state of inebriation with his last bottle still in his hand.

‘So we seem to have a return of his old malady, Lord Nelson, and as a consequence the wolves hover.’

The King’s madness, his talking to trees and uncontrolled behaviour had nearly brought down the government before. Pitt had more trouble than that now, but clearly he had no desire to discuss with this visitor the Union of Ireland Bill.

‘But good governance cannot rely on a King’s health,’ Pitt said, then added with force, ‘or his whims.’

‘The Baltic, sir?’ said Nelson, finally sipping from his glass.

Pitt ruminated for a moment, his curious young-old face in deep study. Not yet forty, he had the smooth skin of youth and the aged cast of long experience. There was a puffiness about the eyes, hardly surprising given his drinking, but Nelson thought him a handsome man, though his thin chest and spindly legs suggested he had somewhat gone to seed.

‘Tsar Paul is mad and the Danish and Swedish royals are not much better – too much inbreeding I shouldn’t wonder. But it is the superior madness that has brought about the need to send a fleet.’

The Russians’ seizure of every British vessel and trader in their waters, then their insistence that the lesser Baltic powers combine against the perceived enemy, had precipitated the crisis.

‘Our sources tell us the tsar is quite besotted with Bonaparte, of course,’ Pitt said dispassionately. ‘Sees him as a modern Alexander. It is an attraction that has cost us dear. But,’ he added, sitting forward and at last showing some spirit, ‘cut off the head and the rest will tumble, Lord Nelson. Catch and destroy the Russian fleet and the others will fold.’

‘I will do my best, sir,’ said Nelson, raising his glass to drain it.

Pitt stood up, to indicate that the interview was over, and Nelson did likewise, but before he was out of the door, Pitt stopped him with a question. ‘Lord Nelson, what are your opinions on the emancipation of the Catholics?’

‘That it should be done, and swiftly, sir. I have served with too many good men of that faith, seen them mutilated and die in the cause of our country, to wish to debar them from any rights.’

Pitt smiled. ‘Odd that. Before he fell ill, the King asked St Vincent for an opinion and your old commander said much the same.’

13

Everyone in Portsmouth had been working double tides to get the fleet ready for Baltic service, not least Nelson’s flag captain, Thomas Hardy. Yet it was a telling indication of the effect of Nelson’s presence that the work rate rose sharply on his return from London. Colonel the Honourable William Stewart, the bored and frustrated commander of the troops in the tented encampment on Southsea Common exhibited the usual soldier’s arrogance when it came to the officers of the Navy. When he was told to get his men aboard their transports at once, he anticipated it would take at least two days. Yet the boats to carry his men arrived half an hour behind the orders, camp was struck and the troops loaded in two hours. He was to say ever after that he had never met the like of Lord Nelson when it came to making things happen.

They were happening aboard the warships as well. Everyone from the ship’s captain to the lowliest caulker was admonished to waste not a moment, because, fully finished or not, Nelson intended to weigh within forty-eight hours. Many scoffed at this – it was the mere bravado of a man playing up vainly to his reputation – but were forced to eat their words as the order came two days later to get their anchors up. Every ship was still a mass of unfinished tasks: ropes hung loose, bales and barrels littered the decks while the animals had not yet been transported to the manger.

Land based contractors employed to speed up the work were not put ashore, instead they risked being carried to sea. Nelson’s response to their complaints was to tell them to be about their tasks, or they would be obliged to practise gunnery and fight alongside him. He was less amazed than some by how much they achieved within twenty-four hours: before the fleet had cleared the Isle of
Wight the work was finished, the contractors in boats, heading for home.

The journey to Yarmouth to join the fleet assembling under Sir Hyde Parker was nine days of mayhem, but first lieutenants tearing their hair out at the disorder were calmed by an admiral who thrived on chaos. Nelson was all smiles, all advice, with never a cross word to anyone of his own ship’s company, or a bellicose flag signal to one of his captains to mind the order of sailing.

He sent a despatch to St Vincent from Harwich congratulating the new First Lord and telling him of his imminent arrival at Yarmouth. He received a gratifying answer as he spied Parker’s fleet, thanking him for ‘using the spur’. Sir Hyde Parker got an express despatch at the same time telling him, with the topsails of his reinforcements barely visible, who was to be his second. He was also told to emulate Nelson and get his fleet to sea forthwith.

Sir Hyde Parker was surprised to learn the identity of his second in command; he had feared he might get Nelson, but had hoped that his own reluctance coupled with the efforts of his friends would prevent it. He was further discomfited by the haste with which Nelson had arrived. The fitting out of his own contingent had been sedate: to Parker matters taken at haste were regretted at leisure – the enemy would not suffer for having to wait a fortnight to be thrashed, but his ships might.

So it was a pair of very different admirals who met at Parker’s shore accommodation. To those watching the pair, Parker’s senior officers and his secretary, it was hard to believe the contrast. Sir Hyde Parker looked like a warrior chieftain, with his imposing height, bulk and features. If his face and body were portly that was as it should be, because he looked successful. One-armed Horatio Nelson, with his slight frame, despite his stars and decorations, seemed like a boy beside a grown man.

Nelson expected Parker to be haughty and he was not disappointed. The vain but noble-looking creature he remembered from his Mediterranean service had gone to seed. The care of dress was still there, and so was the determination to strike a noble pose, but both were a cover for the corpulence that came from excessive good living. Parker was a man who fell into a chair and had to heave himself free, likely to be red-faced just making his way from his cabin to the quarterdeck. He was slow, lumbering, and at sixty-two should never have been marrying an eighteen-year-old girl. None of that would have mattered to Nelson if Parker’s mind had been sharp, but it was like the rest of him, cautious of effort, slow of deduction, fearful of disgrace, either personal or professional.

Each had a memory of the other: Nelson of Parker, third in command to Admiral Hotham, agreeing with his superior that to pursue the French after the action off Genoa was unnecessary, ‘that the fleet had done well enough’. Parker recalled, with equal ease, the tight-lipped Captain Nelson, a man who had stretched what orders he had been given to near destruction, making no secret at all that he disagreed with Hotham’s conclusions.

‘I am glad to see you arrived so soon, Lord Nelson,’ said Parker, ‘and you, Captain Hardy.’ Nelson saw that the smile on his face was not reflected in his eyes.

‘And I am happy, sir, to serve under such a distinguished commander.’

‘Obliged,’ growled Parker, not fooled by that ritual response.

An uncomfortable silence followed, as Nelson waited for Parker to invite him to sit, prior, he hoped, to a discussion of the forthcoming campaign. Parker had no intention of obliging him, well aware that to do so would only open him up to a torrent of unwanted advice.

‘Lady Nelson, is well I trust?’ Parker asked, a remark which was greeted with a tight-lipped nod. ‘Good.’

‘May I ask your intentions, sir?’

Parker was good at mock surprise: He almost looked as if he really believed that no one had told Nelson where they were going. ‘Why, to obey my instructions and take the fleet to the Baltic.’

‘I meant once we get there, sir.’

‘To make the fools see sense, if they have not already done so. It is my opinion that the Danes will come to that as soon as they see our topsails.’

‘And the Russians?’

Parker blinked. ‘Likewise.’

Again there was an uncomfortable silence, with Nelson waiting for Parker to elaborate, and Parker willing himself to remain silent. Fifty years of naval service and birth into a formidable family had gifted him with the kind of social skills his junior admiral entirely lacked. He could look his second-in-command straight in the eye and, if necessary, lie to him without a blush – which he would do if he felt it was required. This was his fleet to command, his reputation to enhance, not Nelson’s. The rewards for success, which he did not doubt would be gifted without a shot being fired, would come to him, not to this over-medalled popinjay before him.

‘I must ask the condition of your ships?’ said Parker.

This request was aired with the manner of a man deliberately
changing the subject. Parker knew that as a matter of routine the information was already in the hands of his executive officer, Dommet, the Captain of the Fleet, who was standing just behind him looking suspicious.

‘Ready for whatever service you require of them, sir,’ Nelson replied.

‘Excellent,’ boomed Parker. ‘Then it gives me pleasure to issue to you the first of my orders, for I know it will please your ears. We weigh at the first opportunity, Lord Nelson, which means much work for both of us. I must get myself aboard the flagship.’

He was smiling broadly, as if the natural end had come to the meeting and all should be happy at the outcome. It was a full twenty seconds before Nelson took the hint and made to depart, tempted to force the issue, but aware that to try to would achieve nothing.

‘Well, Hardy,’ he said as they emerged, ‘I am no further forward now than I was when we came ashore.’

‘We must replenish our wood, sir, being as we are going north.’

Hardy’s mind was, as usual, on practical concerns and Nelson wondered if he had deduced anything from that non-conversation. Parker was going to keep his future intentions close to his chest, which Nelson would find frustrating. He had hoped to establish an outline plan before the fleet got to sea. But that was not going to happen, and he would be obliged to meet for any conferences aboard the flagship, HMS
London,
an uncomfortable prospect for a one-armed man, who required to be lifted from his barge onto the deck, always a risky affair on a heaving sea. Contemplating that, he recalled the reported words of his stepson Josiah, who had apparently said, woundingly, ‘that he hoped his stepfather would fall off and break his neck’.

The boy had no gratitude to the man who had taught him all he needed to know, and done everything he could to advance his career. Would he be a post captain now if he had not had a connection to Nelson? Probably not, and given his bellicosity Josh would probably have been on the beach. Nelson, however, found time to beg from St Vincent a ship on foreign service for his cantankerous stepson, this to oblige Fanny. Thinking of both Josh and his mother made it impossible for him to smile at the crowd that had gathered to cheer him as he made his way to the quayside, where Giddings waited by the steps that led to his barge.

‘All’s a fair old bustle, your honour,’ said Giddings, jerking his head to the outer roads, to the mass of ships surrounded by boats and water hoys.

That earned him the usual frown from Hardy, who hated to see a seaman address an officer unbidden. But Hardy had reconciled himself over the years to the fact that Horatio Nelson was a lamentable failure in the article of proper discipline.

Nelson saw the remark differently and paused at the top of the steps. He had known Giddings for so long and served with him in so many situations that he could almost read his mind. His coxswain, a proper ferret when it came to finding out things that were none of his business, had words to say. In deference to the presence of Captain Hardy, Giddings spoke softly, as usual his words emerging from the side of his mouth, ‘Admiral Hideaway is getting it in the neck from all quarters, your honour, so the word be.’

‘Really,’ remarked Nelson, as Hardy’s eyes rolled in disgust at hearing their commander in chief reduced to a lower-deck tag.

‘That young filly he wed was set to have a ball,’ Giddings continued softly, ‘but an express came from El Vincento tellin’ him it were time to sling his hook. Get to sea, was the gist, or I might be finding someone with a bit more fire. Now you knows as well as I do, your honour, that there be one person you don’t take issue with and that be El Vincento, and with ’im being First Lord that be double strife. So there’s no more of all here sitting on their arses taking a pipe. Ball cancelled, invitations gone out and Lady Parker’s tears notwithstanding, with Hideaway yelling orders like billy-o till you came ashore.’

Nelson did not ask how Giddings knew all this, he just accepted it. When it came to finding out the true state of affairs in a fleet it was better to ask a seaman than an officer. At sea Giddings and his like could overhear a conversation through six inches of solid planking and, for a quid of tobacco, elicit information ashore that would never be vouchsafed to any admiral.

‘So, Giddings, when are we to actually weigh our anchors?’

‘On the morrow, your honour,’ Giddings replied with certainty. ‘Had that from Hideaway’s own barge crew. The neck of the Baltic Sea is where we’re headed, though it’s reckoned that the Danes won’t fight, so it’ll be bang a few guns, then good dinners all round and a barony at least for our valiant leader when we raise home again.’

Giddings’ voice dropped even lower as he confided the next scrap of information. ‘Weren’t expecting you, your honour, nor anyone else for weeks yet, and he is afeart that you’ll be after giving him the old eclipse. Swore fit for the lower deck when he made out your flag.’

Nelson nearly laughed at the expression on Hardy’s face, which was one compounded of disapproval and wonder. He was tempted
to ask Giddings, as he was rowed out to his ship, what Parker’s plans were if the Danes elected to fight, but that would be going too far.

The barge had pulled up alongside the
St
George
and, since his flagship was still rigged for the open sea there was no gangplank for him to ascend. Nelson was hauled aboard in a chair lashed to a whip from the yardarm.

‘All captains, Mr Hardy, if you please.’

There was much to do before the fleet sailed. Nelson wrote to Davidson asking him to add a codicil to his will leaving Emma the sable pelisse and the diamond studded
Chelenk
he had received from the Sultan. Otherwise the arrangements he had made for her welfare and that of the child should remain as of his last will and testament; proper distribution to family etc.; enough to provide for Fanny, bury me at Burnham Thorpe and take good care of Emma and Horatia. There was a letter for Fanny as well to say that Josiah would probably get a frigate.

He wrote to Troubridge to report that he thought Sir Hyde Parker a trifle tardy, and to tell his old friend, now taken by St Vincent on to the Board of Admiralty, that he had only the sketchiest notion of what they were about. He knew there were diplomatic moves in progress but he was sure that diplomacy without an application of force would achieve nothing. Rumour had it that the new government had offered the Danes twenty sail-of-the-line as a force to protect them against the Russians should they decide to break their alliance. Nelson was left to wonder, and ask Troubridge, where ships and men were to come from when Britannia could barely fulfil the commitments she already had.