Nelson: The Essential Hero (30 page)

Victory
in the Bay of Naples
Drawing by Pocock

Emma Hamilton
Pastel by Schmidt

The Orders on Nelson's Uniform:
top
Order of the Bath
left
Order of St Ferdinand and Merit
right
Turkish Order of the Crescent
bottom
Order of St Joachim

Nelson in his cabin on board
Victory

Print by Lucy-Shcirpe

signal guns could be distinctly heard aboard the French. (As early as 1558 a British naval instruction had laid down that in fog, or if a ship was seen to be standing into danger, contact should be made by ‘ringing bells, blowing horns, beating drums and firing guns’.)

‘The devil’s children’, as Nelson wrote, ‘have the devil’s own luck.’ But it was not entirely luck. Napoleon’s alteration to the north of his original course meant that throughout the night the two fleets gradually diverged. Some hours after dawn, when the sun had burned the mist away, they were no longer within touch of one another. But once again, if the British had had frigates scouting to port and starboard of their van, they would almost certainly have found the French.

It was not to be. Napoleon could enjoy his dreams and his books, among them a copy of the Koran and an account of the voyages of Captain Cook, as well as envisage a future infinitely more grandiose than anything even Alexander the Great had contemplated. The Directory, certainly, had agreed with his stated plans. These, as has been seen, included the foundation of a French colony in Egypt, a threat in concert with Tippoo Sahib to British Indian interests, and a triumphal return to Paris prior to the great invasion of the arrogant island. ‘Turkey’, as he had said, ‘will welcome the expulsion of the Mameluke. . . .’ The Mamelukes, an elite corps which had originated as a bodyguard of Turkish slaves first formed in the days of Saladin’s successors, had long been the effective rulers of the country. They, like the Knights of St John in Malta, were a medieval anachronism. Napoleon did not think that with his superb soldiers of revolutionary France he had much to fear on their score. His dreams went much further than the establishment of a French Empire of the East. As he was to write in his journals many years later - when exile which made everything impossible seemed on the contrary to make everything possible - he had greater ambitions. Although Turkey was at the moment an ally of France, and had long entertained good relations with the French (ever since the ‘infamous alliance’ of the sixteenth century when the Ottomans were the enemies of the rest of Christian Europe), Napoleon saw her as a threat to his plans. Leaving Egypt, the Near East, and India secure and friendly behind him, he would sweep up north through Turkey, calling on the thousands of Christians in the Ottoman Empire to rise against their masters. A revived Roman Empire which looked to France as its head would include not only all the Mediterranean territories that had once belonged to Rome, but also the eastern empire of Alexander the Great, and beyond that all the wealth of India and the Orient. ‘Only in the East can one do great things,’ he said. On 15 August Napoleon would be twenty-nine years old.

Nelson would be forty in the September of that year. He was a badly damaged man - not only the physical damage to his arm and his eye. Far more than that, he was strained to the utmost of his ability, and he did not enjoy the confidence of a nation that sat so easily on Napoleon’s shoulders. His captains and ships’ companies admired and trusted him, but he was well aware that in this new command he had acquired considerable unpopularity with some of his senior officers. It was true that Lord Spencer had suggested him for the post, and that St Vincent had complete confidence in him. He had seen that in Nelson he had the commander with the dash and enterprise which might bring Napoleon’s plans to ruin. But even St Vincent himself had come up against the opposition of Nelson’s seniors. Vice-Admirals Sir William Parker and Sir John Orde had voiced their complaints at being passed over for this special independent command by a junior. The latter had even gone to the length of writing direct to the First Sea Lord complaining about the appointment of ‘a junior officer, and just arrived from England’ over and above his head. He had subsequently had a furious argument with St Vincent, and been ordered home. Quite apart from all this (and the row between St Vincent and Orde was of epoch-making proportions) Nelson was well aware that already people would be saying that he had failed in the main part of his mission. Malta was lost to the French and he had let the enemy get to the east of him. Tongues would be wagging back in London.

Admiral Goodall, a supporter and friend of Nelson ever since the action under Hotham against the French in March 1796, was to write that he was being asked : ‘What is your favourite hero about ? The French fleet has passed under his nose. . . .’ Nelson had additional worries for, whatever he might say to the contrary, he needed both money and renown. The latter he had deservedly gained at the Battle of St Vincent, but it had been somewhat diminished by his failure at Tenerife, and money, in any real form, was something which had always eluded him. To come up with the French armada, to destroy their battle fleet, and to capture a vast quantity of prizes - these were comparatively simple dreams compared with Napoleon’s, which drove him so anxiously across the Mediterranean. But over and above all this was his intense patriotism and his loathing of everything that revolutionary France represented.

The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,

The furrow followed free. . . .

The fleet made a sparkling run, but the empty horizon taunted them. Saumarez, his misgivings yielding to admiration, confessed that the responsibility would have been more than he could endure : ‘Some days must now elapse before we can be relieved of our cruel suspense, and if at the end of our journey we find that we are upon a wrong scent, our embarrassment will be great indeed. Fortunately, I only act here
en second
; but did the chief responsibility rest with me, I fear it would be more than my too irritable nerves would bear.’ No one saw them pass. They were in those sun-varnished waters of the mideastern sea where, before the opening of the Suez Canal, little shipping ever moved. The main routes lay to the north of them, and the sleepy North African trade well to the south. In six days they covered the 700 miles that separate Cape Passero from Alexandria.

Even assuming that the fleet was consistently able to steer the direct course - approximately east-south-east, or 120° true - this gave them an average speed of five knots. Since it is more than likely that at this time of the year the wind varied between west and northwest and it is improbable that the ships maintained the direct ‘chart’ course all the time, they may well have covered nearer 800 miles in their pursuit, giving them a speed of over five and a half knots. Under ideal conditions of wind and weather, and with a ship straight from the dockyard and perfectly clean underwater, seven knots was considered good for a ship-of-the-line. It is clear then that the British fleet was consistently maintaining not far from maximum speed in its rate of advance. The French, even with their great convoy of merchantmen, also made good progress as they headed up to come under the lee of Crete. Brueys well knew that as he neared the mouth of the Aegean - to which Crete acts as something like a cork in a bottle - he would find that towards the end of June the
Meltemi
had set in to blow. These northerly winds which persist throughout the summer over the Aegean, as well as the sea south of Crete, would give him a fine boost on his second leg down towards Alexandria. It is the
Meltemi
which, funnelling over the ancient harbour and through the narrow streets of that city, make life supportable during the summer heats that turn most of Egypt into a trance-laden siesta-land.

The city towards which both fleets were headed was a far call from the Alexandria which had been one of the glories of the ancient world, second only to Rome in its wealth and power. The Alexandria where Antony and Cleopatra had ruled in Ptolemaic splendour, and which young Octavian had entered in triumph, had long been no more than a dream on the far limits of man’s memory. The centuries of Arab rule, followed by the even more desiccating centuries of Turkish indifference, had reduced the proud former capital to little more than an obscure trading port. A recent English visitor had been Mrs Eliza Fay who had landed here in 1779 and had found nothing to commend it; being a Christian she was not allowed to disembark in the Western Harbour, nor to ride anything nobler than a donkey. ‘I certainly deem myself very fortunate in quitting this place so soon/ she wrote to her sister. Over a century before another English traveller, John Sandys, had lamented over the decay that surrounded him: ‘Such was this Queen of Cities and Metropolis of Africa : who now hath nothing left but her ruins. . . .’

There were, however, still a number of foreign communities in the city for, although the wealth of the East now largely flowed round the Cape of Good Hope, Alexandria still held the reins of a great deal of Near Eastern trade. Among the foreign residents was a Mr George Baldwin, who, in addition to his own business activities, held the office of British Consul. It was to call on him that Hardy was despatched by Nelson, the brig
Mutine
steering ahead and leaving the fleet on 26 June.