Winds of Folly (14 page)

For all his feigned astonishment, Nathan had anticipated a
measure of resentment. He had detected it in the air the moment he stepped aboard the flagship. Nothing obvious, nothing one might take exception to. He had been piped aboard with all the respect due to his rank, the Marine guard drawn up in the waist, Captain Miller there to take his salute with the first lieutenant, Edward Berry, and James Noble, the officer of the watch, both of whom he knew well. They and all the other officers he encountered were entirely correct in their bearing, polite in their address, but – perhaps a little
too
correct, polite to the point of coolness. Certainly a mite less affable than Nathan had come to expect on his not-infrequent visits to the old
Agamemnon
when she had been Nelson's flagship in the Bay of Genoa. Perhaps one might detect a hint of censure on those tanned, graven faces. If one were looking for it. A note of rebuke in the cold instruction:
‘The Commodore will see you in his cabin, sir.'

So the cabin was still his to command then. He was not o'errun. Nathan made a covert inspection but could detect no sign of the Signora or her delightful companions, not so much as a pair of smalls hanging from the line.

‘I am very sorry, sir, but I find myself at a loss. Whores, do you say?'

‘And what else would you have me call them?'

‘If you are referring to Signora Correglia, sir, I believed her to be a lady of excellent character and a particular friend of yours, sir.'

Nelson observed him for a moment without speaking. The Commodore's gaze was disconcerting at the best of times. There was no obvious damage to the eye that had been injured at Calvi save a slight milkiness, an absence of lustre, but this gave an added intensity to the other, so that Nathan had the impression of being an object fixed in its sight. Like an insect under the cold scrutiny of a magnifying lens.

‘I was not referring to Signora Correglia,' the Commodore said at last. ‘I was referring to the other bitches you had the damned effrontery to send to me. What of them, sir – eh? What of them?'

‘I was under the impression that they were her maids, sir.'

Nelson struggled visibly with his emotions. Then, unexpectedly, the corners of his mouth twitched and to Nathan's astonishment he exploded in undisguised mirth.

‘Her maids, do you say? Oh dear. Oh dear me.' He wiped his eyes with a delicate knuckle, his narrow chest palpitating a little. He raised his voice. ‘Tom Allen there! Do you hear that? He says he thought they were her maids.'

A gargoyle face was thrust through a companionway on the Commodore's starboard quarter which, from previous visits, Nathan knew led to the pantry where his body servant invariably lurked. ‘Well, an' what did he think
she
was, the Queen of Sheba?'

Thomas Allen, like most of the Commodore's personal servants, was from Norfolk and generally held to take liberties. Fremantle said he and the Commodore went at it like a pair of Cromer fishwives at times.

‘Never you mind that, sir, and you may fetch us some of that Madeira you've been drinking, I can smell it on your breath from here. Or better still, fetch us the sack we had from the Doge before he kicked us out of Genoa, and those sugared almonds you are so fond of. You'll take a glass with me, sir?' This to Nathan.

‘Willingly, sir.' Nathan suppressed a relieved sigh.

‘Maids, indeed, but 'twas you who served
them
, from what I hear. Do you hear that, Allen? I said 'twas he who served
them
. Ha, ha!'

An indistinct retort issued from the pantry.

The Commodore, well pleased with his wit, came from
behind the desk and waved Nathan to a chair. ‘Be at ease, Captain, I'll not make you take them back with you. You must have had your fill of the virginal by now. Sit down, man, sit down.'

Nathan wondered that the information had come so swiftly to his ear, but he supposed it was a facility that came with rank. ‘I trust you have accommodated them without too much inconvenience,' he ventured, chancing his luck.

‘I believe some of my officers have been put to considerable inconvenience,' Nelson advised him, ‘for they have been obliged to vacate their cabins. But enough of this nonsense, we have more serious matters to attend to. The Viceroy is coming up from Bastia and we are to have a council of war aboard the flagship. He was particularly anxious that you should be present.'

This time Nathan's surprise was genuine. ‘The Viceroy?' he repeated foolishly.

‘Indeed. I admit I was not aware that you and His Excellency were intimates, so to speak.' Nathan was once more subjected to the cold stare.

‘As far as I am aware, sir, we are not,' Nathan assured him honestly.

Sir Gilbert Elliot had been appointed Viceroy of the island upon its accession to the British Crown two years before, but Nathan knew little more about him than that he was a Scot and from a line of established if not ancient nobility.

‘Then clearly your reputation precedes you,' Nelson observed. ‘We can only hope that the reports were more favourable than not. And yet one can but wonder at his interest,' he added thoughtfully. Given his own reputation, Nelson often appeared to be overly concerned with the good opinion of his superiors, especially those who could boast a title to their name, and it was evident that he considered their regard to be
of finite value: what was given to others must, of necessity, diminish the portion due to himself.

Tom Allen re-emerged from the pantry with two glasses upon a tray and the desired sweetmeats which he delivered with some speech that passed Nathan by. He had been a Norfolk ploughman before entering the service and the clay still stuck to his vowels, though the Commodore seemed to have no difficulty in understanding him.

‘When I want my steward I will call for him,' he rebuked him sharply. ‘And in the meantime I will make do with what poor service is available to me. Now be off with you and leave us in peace. Your very good health, sir,' he addressed himself to Nathan. ‘And I hope it has not been diminished by your recent exertions.' Having delivered of this double broad side he drank with evident enjoyment, Nathan more austerely. ‘Now, I expect you will furnish me with a written report of your activities by and by – I mean those that are the more inclined to the worship of Mars than Venus – but in the meantime a verbal report will suffice, for I am assured that you have secured a number of fat prizes on your most recent cruise.'

Few things were more likely to earn the Commodore's approbation than the procurement of a few fat prizes, for as flag officer he was due one-eighth of their value if, as appeared likely, they were condemned as contraband. So for the next few minutes Nathan regaled his Commander with a precise description of each article and its contents and the circumstances by which he had arrived by them.

‘Excellent,' Nelson enthused, when he had concluded. ‘A fine haul from one cruise. And the jewellery is a particular bonus, upon my word.' Nathan had noted how his eyes had lit up at mention of the hoard that had been discovered in the Captain's cabin of
Bonne Aventure
, for he was, like all of them,
a pirate in his soul. ‘Though we must, of course, be diligent in our pursuit of the legal owner.'

Nathan agreed that must, indeed, be a priority.

‘Well, I am assured the
Bonne Aventure
will be taken into the service,' Nelson continued, ‘for we have need of good sloops that may enter into shallow waters. But you comprehend there is no prize court in Corsica. It is one of the issues of which the Viceroy must be made aware, though if I have my way …'

But the Commodore's way remained unstated for the time being, for there came a scratching upon the door which heralded the entry of a young midshipman with the news that
Inconstant
's barge was approaching.

Fremantle was the first of several Captains to arrive at the flagship. For the next half-hour there was a constant coming and going of barges as Cockburn of
Meleager
, Sawyer of
Blanche
and the two Commanders of the brig sloops
Sardine
and
Petrel
were separately piped aboard. And finally came the Viceroy himself, conveyed from shore in the Commodore's own barge and greeted with all the ceremony the flagship could muster: all hands dressing ship and a company of the 69th Foot drawn up in the waist as the band played ‘Rule Britannia'.

‘Which should inform the French we do not mean to be trifled with,' Fremantle murmured irreverently in Nathan's ear as they waited their turn to be presented.

The King's personal representative was a tall, burly Scot, though with rather more of the Edinburgh courtroom about him than the Highlands. He removed his hat on reaching the deck to reveal a great dome of a forehead and a mane of greying hair blowing back in the breeze: a lion's head with a long patrician nose and a wide, slightly twisted mouth which reinforced a certain haughtiness of expression.

‘A nobleman by birth, a lawyer by profession and a politician
by instinct,' Fremantle offered when petitioned for knowledge of the subject. ‘Entered Parliament as a Whig – one of your Lowland Whigs – but soon cosied up to the Tories when it appeared to be of advantage to him.' Fremantle was well-read and prided himself on his knowledge of national affairs. ‘Generally thought to be a close confidant of Pitt's. A member of the Privy Council till they sent him to Corsica.' And then with a look towards the rugged mountains above the port: ‘I am not sure he would regard it as a promotion, but then he is from Edinburgh so I suppose he is no stranger to savagery.'

They sat at the Commodore's long, gleaming table with the light of the sun, low now in the evening sky, spilling over the stern windows. Motes of dust circled in the still air with the inevitable flies and other insects that had found it profitable to make the journey out from the shore. Above their heads they could hear the sounds of the hands going about their duties, while their betters applied themselves to the more cerebral task of winning the war; or at least not losing it as spectacularly as they appeared to be. The Viceroy sat at the head of the table, his aide-de-camp, Major Logan, on one side and the Commodore on the other, with the Flag Captain and the other officers assembled in no particular order of seniority or rank. And at the far end, the Commodore's secretary, John Castang, taking notes. There was no formal agenda but Nathan gathered that the main topic was to be what they were doing here and where they were to go next.

The Viceroy began with a summary of the current situation. The loss of Leghorn was a serious blow to the fleet. The port had provided shelter, dockyards, supplies and – of considerable import to these gentlemen – a prize court. These facilities now became available to the French, and the port would furnish
them with an ideal base for their own aggressive activities, which might very likely include the invasion of Corsica.

A restless shuffling about the table, a grim rearrangement of expressions. There were some predictable slanders upon the French Army of Italy: ‘a rabble of half-starved levies with the clothes falling off their backs and not a decent pair of boots between them' and the view was expressed that ‘whether they had boots or not they could not walk on water'.

Sir Gilbert was brisk in his rebuttal. In a few short months, he reminded them, this rabble had, under Bonaparte's inspired leadership, crossed the Alps, swept across Piedmont and Savoy and advanced into the heart of Lombardy, driving the Austrians and their Italian allies before them. One strongpoint after another had fallen to them and now they were laying siege to Mantua, within striking distance of the Austrian border.

‘And lest you assume this is of no concern to the Navy, gentlemen, I must remind you that it will be very difficult to operate at sea without secure bases on land, especially in the Mediterranean.'

The Republic of Genoa, though maintaining an official policy of neutrality, had submitted to the imposition of French garrisons and batteries all along the Ligurian coast, which in consequence had become a haven for enemy ships-of-war. Now Tuscany and the Papal States had succumbed without firing a single shot, closing their ports to British shipping and turning the entire Italian peninsula between Genoa and Naples into hostile territory. The Pope had paid the French a vast indemnity to stay out of the Romagna but he had permitted them to occupy the port of Ancona on the Adriatic as a base for their corsairs, from where they could blockade the Austrians in Trieste and attack allied shipping throughout the region.

News of the Papal submission brought further expressions of anger and revulsion. The Navy maintained a healthy
Protestant disrespect for the Church of Rome but this, they agreed, achieved new levels of infamy. Had they no memory of the priests that had been massacred by the French, the Flag Captain demanded heatedly, and the nuns that had been violated? Ralph Willett Miller was an American who had stayed loyal to King George during the Independence War and was known to be as ardent in his opinions as he was in his faith.

‘I believe the priesthood did suffer somewhat disproportionately during the Terror,' Elliot acknowledged mildly, ‘but the French have observed a more tolerant policy towards the Church of late. And there has been no report of violations in Italy so far as I am aware. Bonaparte appears to have behaved remarkably well on that score, at least as far as the nuns are concerned.'

His gaze strayed to Nathan who noted the hint of a smile in his eye and something else that he could not identify, something conspiratorial perhaps, as if they shared a secret or a private joke. He wondered again why the Viceroy had expressed a particular interest in his presence at the meeting. Could he have been informed of Nathan's association with Bonaparte in Paris? It seemed unlikely and yet, if he had been a member of the Privy Council, a confidant of the King's Chief Minister, it could conceivably have come to his ear. If so, Nathan could only hope he would keep it to himself.