Breaking the Line (31 page)

‘Has the prize money been paid out, sir?

‘No, it has not.’

‘Then I demand that the Board look at the matter again.’

Barham the sailor would have said no, because there was no point. The Board would not budge to oblige Nelson unless extreme pressure was applied. Where would that come from? Not the King, who was now mad and disliked Nelson anyway; not the Prince Regent, who had taken the now wealthy Orde into his bosom as a companion, not Pitt, who needed the wavering vote to hold his government together.

But Barham the politician said, ‘I think that is as it should be. Now I suggest we move on to other matters.’

Discussing naval tactics, the two men got on a lot better. Barham had a shrewd brain and agreed with Nelson that no good would come of pure blockade. It ruined the British Fleet to keep ships and men at sea all year round, and it was impossible to guarantee that the enemy would never get out, because at some time the wind must favour them by blowing their gaolers off station.

What Barham wanted was the same as Nelson: to draw the enemy to a place where they could be beaten and the spectre of invasion, so
deleterious to the nation, lifted for good. He had spun a cunning web based on his own certainty that the only place where the French could safely combine was outside the sphere where Britain had control, namely the West Indies. He had it on good authority that Villeneuve had gone there in the expectation of meeting his fellow admirals from Brest and Rochefort. They had, however, failed to get to sea and make the rendezvous.

‘Villeneuve, with the Dons, outnumbers any squadron we can put against them. Calder had a chance to scupper that but did not.’

If Barham was asking him to comment on the fighting competence of another officer, Nelson was not going to oblige, but when Barham asked who should take command of his squadron, he said, ‘Admiral Collingwood, without a doubt.’ ‘Coll’ Collingwood was an old West Indian friend, a man with whom he had shared a house as a
lieutenant
. He might not be the gayest of men, but he was a fighter and he had taken over from Calder when he had come home to demand a court martial. ‘If Collingwood gets a crack at the enemy, you’ll have your victory for certain.’

Barham lifted a silver eyebrow at that, and Nelson said, ‘I have been sixteen months at sea, sir, and I would not be lying to you if I said that I am worried about the sight of my one good eye. My doctors have been invited to operate but I fear that there is no margin for error, no other good eye to take its place, so they hesitate.’

‘That is wise of them, Lord Nelson, and I will take on board what you say about Collingwood. I think we should meet again in a day or two, when I am sure I will have more information regarding enemy dispositions.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ said Nelson, standing up. ‘And you will put your mind to the matter of Orde’s prize money?’

‘Most assiduously.’

Barham stood to see his visitor out, certain that there was only one man to command the fleet of Cadiz, one man who would soothe the fearful voters of the cities and the shires, and that was Nelson himself.

When they met Pitt said the same thing. The Prime Minister was not so sure that Nelson’s tactics were correct: he inclined to the notion of close blockade, ‘For if they get together, Lord Nelson, they might amass a fleet we cannot contend with.’

‘There is no such fleet, sir,’ said Nelson, with utter conviction.

Two days later, while waiting to see Mulgrave, the Secretary of State for War, Nelson found himself sharing the anteroom with a
hook-nosed army officer of quite staggering arrogance. The man, a general, sat ramrod stiff, and gave Nelson no more than a nod on entry, which got under his skin. After all, he was not hard to place with one eye, one arm and wearing his now famous
Chelenk.
Nelson was not prepared to be condescended to and initiated a conversation designed to rile the man.

‘I think, don’t you, sir, that the Navy stands in well with the country?’

‘I’m sure it does.’

Nelson had met a few good soldiers in his time, but many more that to him were a disgrace to the uniform they wore. It was all about purchase, of course: with bought commissions the Army got the officers it could afford while the Navy had men it had trained from near childhood.

‘With good reason, sir. The Glorious First, Camperdown, my own humble contributions at St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen.’

‘Algeciras Bay, let us not forget that,’ said the soldier quickly.

‘The Army, however?’ Nelson shrugged.

The general, who had been staring straight ahead, turned to look directly at Nelson, his eyes steady and penetrating. There was a faint glimmer of recognition in Nelson’s mind, the feeling that he had seen that face somewhere before, yet he knew that the man had never served close to him.

‘Perhaps, sir, if we were to flog our men more. I will not refer to the other practices for which the King’s Navy is so rightly famous.’

Nelson flushed angrily, but instead of replying he stood up and left the room, enquiring of the clerk outside, ‘Who is that officer in there?’

‘General Sir Arthur Wellesley, milord.’

‘Is he, by damn?’ said Nelson, grinning. ‘The victor of Assaye. I think I have just been put it in my place, and deservedly so.’

With that he re-entered the anteroom and, still standing, said, ‘I fear I owe you an apology Sir Arthur.’ Those unblinking eyes were upon him again. ‘I must tell you that in my career I have met a lot of Army officers who leave a great deal to be desired in the article of application.’

There was just a trace of a smile at the edge of the mouth. ‘I doubt Lord Nelson, that you have met as many as I.’

‘Does that mean my apology is accepted?’

‘Without reservation, sir.’

Nelson sat down again, facing Wellesley. ‘I would be obliged to hear an account of your battle against Tipoo Sultan.’

Wellesley relaxed visibly. ‘And I would appreciate a telling of how you fought at Copenhagen.’

‘Not the Nile?’ said Nelson, since that was the one usually requested.

‘Copenhagen was a much more complex affair, and as a success, if you will permit me to say so, much more interesting to a military mind.’

Wellesley could not have said anything to please Nelson more. He, too, thought it a more complex battle. He also knew that it had gone unappreciated, a battle in which the Royal Navy had displayed
qualities
of raw courage and seamanship unparalleled in the annals of the nation.

‘I do agree, Lord Nelson, for I see it, if you will forgive me, like a land battle. The outflanking manoeuvre, the taking of the enemy where their defence was weakest, the isolation to the point of futility of their main force.’

Nelson loved to talk of all naval battles, not just his own, and he was proud of Copenhagen. He employed the table and all the
furbelows
in the room to describe it, and Sir Arthur Wellesley asked some pretty pertinent questions, not least why the Danes had not done anything to respond to his movements.

‘The command was too rigid. We found out afterwards that the Crown Prince had control over the orders all the way down to the rank of lieutenant.’

‘With no military experience?’ asked Wellesley.

‘None.’

For the first time Sir Arthur grinned. ‘Perhaps we should offer him a commission in the British Army.’

‘Assaye,’ said Nelson.

The clerk who came to fetch him to Lord Mulgrave found the two still at the table, Nelson wrapped up in the problem of fighting native armies on the Indian sub-continent, mentally astride an elephant riding into battle as the men of Hannibal had done two thousand years before. Now he had to stand: it was not possible to keep the Minister for War waiting.

‘Sir Arthur, it has been a pleasure to meet you. Should I ever have to ask for a military officer to assist the Navy rest assured it will be you.’

‘Hah!’, exclaimed Wellesley. ‘And wait till I tell my nephews and nieces that I spent time with Viscount Nelson. I shall be a hero to them for that alone. Assaye be damned!’

‘You say that you love me, Nelson, but as soon as an offer comes to go, you cannot fly from my side quick enough.’ Emma said this gaily, her arm hooked through his as he walked in his garden, taking the last of the evening sun, but there was just a hint of anxiety behind it. How could he explain that Lord Barham had insisted, that with Villeneuve and the combined Spanish/French fleet now moved to Cadiz, tailed by Collingwood, the best chance of a battle lay there and the Admiralty wanted Nelson present? How could he say that he had accepted because he had formulated ideas that no other admiral would employ, not even those for whom he had the greatest regard?

The only way to stop French hopes was to destroy French ambition, and that meant the destruction of their fleet – not a ship or two taken and a withdrawal, but another Nile, this time in open sea. If he could do it he would have fulfilled the dream he had all those years ago, while suffering from malaria on the way back from Calcutta. He would be the greatest man in the nation, able to rise above the pettiness of those who refused to receive the woman he loved.

There was something else too: naked ambition and the residue of that daredevil boy who had gone to sea at thirteen. He craved
success
, and now he would have the means and the methods to achieve it. Like all good leaders he was prone to ask himself if he had the right to risk men’s lives as a commanding officer. His answer was simple, better that he risk them than someone without his ability.

‘Vanity,’ he said, speaking without thinking.

‘Vanity takes you to sea? Emma asked.

‘No, I was thinking of something else.’

She stopped and pinched his ear. ‘How dare you, Nelson, think of anything else when I am here?’

He smiled and kissed her cheek. ‘It is a rare thing indeed when I do.’

It wasn’t the first time Emma had teased him about his love of the sea, and he had long since tired of trying to manoeuvre for an acceptable answer. The truth was simple: he was a sailor, and lived in a strange half-world that was never complete. A few days at sea, and a sailor longed for the land: on shore too long and nothing could suppress the hankering to be away.

He was happy here at Merton, but not unreservedly so. Like any man, there were things that disturbed and perplexed him. He loved Emma deeply yet could not comprehend so many things about her. Why did she not share his deep need for the company of Horatia? He was wise enough to know that the child tended to take all his
attention, which Emma disliked, and had long ago decided that the mother was as much a child in her way as their daughter. She had taken to gambling again, and he had also noticed since being home that she was drinking too much. Her extravagance had forced him to put Horatia’s money beyond her control because he suspected that if she had it she would spend it. The recent loss of the child must have affected her, of course, and Sir William was not here to advise her.

But it was more than that he knew. Emma lived in a limbo of being neither wife nor lover, the latter because he was away at sea. The undertone of her correspondence these last eighteen months had hinted at an underlying unhappiness about her position, one that could not be regularised unless Fanny died, and Nelson had to admit that that was unlikely.

He had come home this time with half a mind to retire, but even that did not provide a solution, because Emma would still be
subjected
to malice. Some people would never accept her for what she was, would only see her past. Nelson reckoned that to be happy, to be a family in the sense that he desired, they could no longer live in an England where the association was frowned upon.

It was a problem that would only get worse as Horatia grew older. Emma was fecund; perhaps there would be another child. He wanted his daughter, and any other child, to have his name, to be
acknowledged
openly as his offspring, and to end this constant hiding away that had them living in separate lodgings when in London.

He had his estates still in Brontë, and though that gift from Ferdinand had been a drain on his finances rather than an asset, it was there to be exploited. The only barrier to that was that he had employed an agent to run it, and all the money it earned had gone on improvements. Perhaps with him there, and a new man of business to run the place, he could make it pay.

At least it would be warm, for Nelson had reached an age were he dreaded the English winter. The damp ate into him and he had to admit that his prospects for service at sea were rapidly diminishing. His eye worried him: he was not going blind yet, but he was
approaching
the point where for him to command a fleet would put his ships in more danger than any Frenchman could.

‘This will be my last command, Emma.’

That stopped her. They were under a tree, out of the sunlight, and it was cold enough here to make him shiver. Emma was looking at him with those entrancing green eyes. He started to talk about his concerns, articulating things he had only up till then thought about.

‘There will be a battle and, God willing I will be there, be it in a
month or a year. But if not, I must come ashore. Another year at sea will be the death of me.’

Emma was not stupid – extravagant yes, flamboyant and mercurial, but underneath that ran a grain of sense. She knew that Nelson kept things from her, just as she knew that her behaviour sometimes annoyed him. He did not understand how insecure she felt. Sometimes at night, when he was at sea, especially after a letter that
contained
a modicum of criticism, she imagined him returning to his wife. If she had said that to him he would have laughed and called her foolish; but in the dark, alone, it frightened her.

Nelson had taken both her hands in his one. ‘I wish to watch my child grow, and to be by your side, my love. You are, to me, my two beautiful girls, the most precious things on this earth.’

‘How long do we have?’

‘A day or two.’

25

It was a strange interlude, those remaining fourteen days, mostly spent in conference. Barham obliged him by letting him choose his own officers despite Nelson’s assertion that any of the available captains would serve, that ‘they were all of a one’. He sent a short note to Admiral Collingwood, telling him of his commission, with the hope that his old friend would stay as second in command.

In between, he was near to being hounded. It seemed once the news was out, everyone wanted to see him – the leader of the opposition Addington, now Lord Sidmouth, William Beckford, who came to Merton because Nelson had no time to accept a request to come Fonthill, among others. Invitations to dinner poured in, as well as appeals from various ministers to brief them on the situation. To all he said the same thing; that he hoped to be home by Christmas, with the combined fleets of the enemy well and truly trounced.

Emma was in limbo, keen to bolster Nelson’s confidence, worried that his health might fail before he had had his battle, or that there would be no such thing, which would be an ignominious end to his career. Did he really mean to retire? Was she the cause of that or his health? Nelson was summoned to meet the Prince Regent at Carlton House, leaving Emma waiting for him in her London lodgings while he was called into the royal presence.

Prinny was fat, flabby and over-pomaded, sending out clouds of odour every time he moved. He tried to look regal and attempted to sound martial, but failed on both counts. He managed to imply that all good ideas flowed from him, perhaps even those of successful naval officers, which did nothing at all to endear him to the best of them. He caused even greater offence when he mentioned Emma,
and asserted that she was still a damned handsome woman who had quite struck his fancy.

‘Odd fellow, Nelson,’ he said to his equerry, after the Admiral had left. ‘I can quite see why my papa found him so tiresome. He has such vanity.’

His second meeting with the Prime Minister was of far more importance to Nelson, who was thankful that Pitt had come round to his way of thinking: Let us get the French out, then let us fight them. But he had another request to make, though when he spoke of his health he had to acknowledge that Pitt looked worse than he did.

‘I will do everything in my power to bring our enemies to battle but the means I will employ will expose every commanding officer to a great danger.’

‘I have heard a battle described Lord Nelson, and it sounded bloody enough, although I suspect words cannot do it justice.’

‘You will have been told that in a fight the quarterdeck is the most dangerous place to be.’

Pitt looked grave. ‘Which is where you will be, I take it.’

Nelson managed a smile, but in his mind he was thinking of how lucky he had been. Always he had imposed on the enemy, and it had been their commanders struck down, not him. But enough of his own companions had died in battle, and that piece of flying langridge that had hit him at the Nile, a bit lower, would have decapitated him. He was not worried for himself: the risk of death or injury was ever present to a serving officer in war, and did not signify because no one could be effective in a fight and worry about such things.

‘You will be aware sir, that I am a partisan of Lady Emma Hamilton.’

The word partisan was odd to Pitt, who nodded. He would have called it something else.

‘Then you may be aware that since the death of her husband she has become dependent on me.’ Another nod. ‘I also have responsibility for a child we have close to adopted, a sweet girl who, I hope, one day, might marry one of my nephews.’

Pitt was well versed in listening without responding, and it bothered him not at all that Nelson was being less than wholly
truthful
. He understood the need for discretion.

‘I would venture to say that this child, should anything happen to me, would be too heavy a burden for Lady Hamilton to bear. It will not have escaped your attention that I have submitted on more than one occasion a memorandum detailing why she of all the people I
know should be looked on favourably by the government for a pension.’

Pitt had read one, though he struggled to remember what Emma Hamilton had done.

‘I believe she was in many ways the equal of her late husband in the execution of his office. Since the government over which you presided saw fit to grant Sir William a pension, it is my request that Lady Hamilton should have the continuation of that.’

‘For services in Naples.’

‘And Palermo.’

Pitt was good at silence too and he employed that now, this while Nelson recalled that the year before he had also petitioned Maria Carolina of Naples to do something for Emma. The reply, in which ‘Dear Emma’ was not mentioned, proved that royalty, both at home and abroad, had short memories.

Pitt knew what Nelson was saying. Should anything happen to him, he wanted Lady Hamilton and his daughter looked after. ‘It is a matter to which I will give my most earnest consideration, Lord Nelson.’

The look in Pitt’s eyes, plus the knowledge that he was a man who had a care about making commitments, was confirmation to Nelson that he was speaking the truth. ‘Then I am content, sir.’

Pitt stood up, the interview over. ‘Please be assured Admiral that I wish you all the speed and luck that God can muster. It is no exaggeration to say that you go forth with the fate of the nation upon your shoulders.’

‘I merely carry that to the fleet, sir,’ Nelson replied, standing also. ‘There, what feels like a heavy weight now becomes tolerable by being shared amongst the best men in the kingdom.’

‘Will you permit me to walk with you to your carriage?’

‘I would be honoured,’ replied Nelson, who doubted even the King was afforded that kind of courtesy from his First Lord of the Treasury.

No amount of partings can make them easier. He had left Emma a dozen or more times now, and always with feelings that had knotted his stomach. Emma was the same, anxious but working to hide it. There was little flaming passion, a slow and sweet love-making followed by a long night of talking about the future with the moon shining through the open curtains; his notion that they could not stay at Merton, that Brontë might be better for them. The possibility of death was not mentioned, and no decisions were made, but they
speculated on alternatives. Perhaps he could have that eye operation, perhaps something would change to make their life together better. Nelson killed in his mind the blasphemous thought that Fanny might expire; Emma did not.

‘I love the life we have now, my dear, but I wish to see you acknowledged beside me. I want everyone to know how much you inspire me. How many times have I said that if there were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons?’

‘Too many times, I fear. It makes people yawn with repetition.’

‘Then they are fools who do not see sense when it stares at them. Do you remember the day we met, at the Palazzo Sessa?’

‘How can I forget it, Nelson? My stomach still churns at the memory.’

‘And that day when I fled from Naples?’ He could see it now, the sunshine, the blue water, the shade under the awning, him close to Emma a little way off from everybody else, his blood racing. ‘And to think I slung the King and Queen off dear
Agamemnon
.’

‘Sir William was horrified at first,’ said Emma, with the deep chuckle that Nelson loved to hear. ‘But I recall he said to me how much you had impressed him by your zealous behaviour.’

‘That makes me blush to the roots. If he had known the real reason.’

‘Are you sure it was me?’

‘It was not the French. I fled from you, and what I might do, not towards them. I wonder if anyone aboard suspected?’

‘What about your servant, Lepée?’

‘Too drunk to notice. He was four sheets to the wind before you ever came on to my deck.’

The conversation had been like this before when he was going to sea, a remembrance of the things that they had shared, the memories that Nelson insisted would bind them together into old age.

‘There we will be, Nelson, you and I, doddering.’

‘We shall never fail to make our bed.’

‘Dowager me.’

‘And I the country squire.’

‘Having your wicked way with the milkmaid.’

‘Emma!’

‘You will have to do it by feel, of course,’ Emma laughed, fondling him, ‘you being blind, happen you’ll end up milking instead of …’

‘Emma.’

‘Prude, Nelson.’

‘I am, I admit it.’

‘But still a man,’ said Emma, her voice low and throaty. ‘Every inch.’

‘You should sleep, my love.’

‘That I can do tomorrow.’

Nelson left in the cold dawn light with his servant, well wrapped up against the autumn morning chill. He had already visited Horatia’s room to look at her and bestow a gentle kiss on her brow, to touch her small open hand and look into the sweet innocence of a sleeping child. Now he and Emma stood under the porch, he in his boat cloak, she in a dressing gown, trying and failing not to shiver.

‘Come back to me soon.’

‘Weeks, not months, I swear it.’ He kissed her hand. ‘To my most noble lady.’

There was mist over the river Nile, spilling on to the lawns, and the trees looked damp and forlorn in the grey light. Emma stood and waved until the sound of wheels on gravel was no more, then went back to bed to cry the tears she never let Nelson know of when he went to sea.

There was such a crowd at Portsmouth that he considered taking a boat from Southsea Beach to avoid them. But their faith in him obliged Nelson to leave by the sally-port, a way cleared for him by marines. The talk of the crowd, as he descended the steps to his waiting barge, was a mixture of ‘Good lucks’ and ‘God Bless’, and ‘if you see my Arthur, your honour, tell him to stay sound.’

It was always a matter of pride to Nelson that he could look these people in the eye, the wives, sweethearts, brothers, sisters and sons of his sailors. On taking up his present command, he had found in the Mediterranean a fleet in some distress, not least in a band of sailors hankering for home, and suffering scurvy as well as all the ailments brought on by despondency. He had cured their bodies and their minds, and could boast how few of his men died on his commission. They had sailed to the West Indies in forty-six days, lopping a good ten off Admiral Villeneuve. And they had come home even quicker, in twenty-eight, showing what British tars could do in the article of ship-handling. And in six thousand round miles, not one man had been lost. Admiral Lord Nelson cared for their menfolk as much as they did themselves

He stood in his boat so that they could see him, not from vanity, but because there was fear in those breasts, not surprising in a naval town that mourned after every battle.
Victory
was out on the mother
shoal of Spithead, securely anchored, having had few of the repairs he had hoped for after eighteen months at sea. He thought of the fleet he was about to take over, and that, allied to the sight of his flagship, yards crossed and ready in all respects for sea, lifted his heart.

They manned the yards when they saw him coming, the whole fleet cheering. Every ship saluted with thirteen guns, as was his right, the seascape full of puffs of smoke as all the vessels vied with each other to complete the honour first. Even stone-faced Hardy was amazed enough to comment. ‘See how they love you, milord. They know with you here there will be a fight.’

‘Damn it Hardy, I love them more than they love me. If Villeneuve could see this now he would scuttle.’

‘I reckon you to be right there, sir.’

‘Coll, you will not believe this but Hardy actually smiled,’ Nelson said, to his old friend and second in command. Then he realised that Cuthbert Collingwood was no smiler either, and changed the subject. In fact, he was about to change a great many of his friend’s orders. Collingwood took as his example men like St Vincent, who believed, when on blockade, in iron discipline: no inter-ship visiting, no buying of goods from the boats that carried fresh produce from the North African coast. And he of all people had to be persuaded to accept Nelson’s plan.

‘Do you agree, Coll, that no day is long enough to arrange a couple of fleets to fight a battle, certainly not according to the old system?’

‘When, Nelson, have you ever paid heed to the old system?’

Collingwood had been behind him when he pulled out of the line at St Vincent, a total breach of the Fighting Instructions, an act that might have seen him shot after a court martial if things had gone wrong.

‘Not often, I grant you. But it is even more pressing here, where dawn comes late and darkness early. We have no time for dispositions.’

He used the same words to his captains over two nights as they joined him for dinner. ‘The fleet will sail in two divisions gentlemen, one under my command and one under Admiral Collingwood in
Royal
Sovereign.
The order of sailing is the order of attack.

It was pleasant to pause then, to let it sink in just how much Nelson planned to deviate from the previous method of engaging an enemy. ‘There will be no time to form a line of battle, and if we did so you
must all realise we would be outnumbered. Our enemies have a third more ships than we do, and if we lay our ships in line to windward, as our still extant instructions tell us we should, we will never get close. That is what happened to Admiral Calder, and it will not happen to me. I want to go at them about a third from the head of their line, with the second division taking its point of attack ahead of the enemy’s rear admiral. Thus we cut off the executive head and isolate what must be Villeneuve’s best ships in such numbers that we can double up on them. I want no formality, gentlemen, but a pell-mell battle where our seamanship and gunnery will win the day.