1805

by Richard Woodman

  ‘Indeed yes, sir. I have specific instructions to that effect,’ Drinkwater replied tactfully. Then he added, ‘You have nothing to fear, sir. I am here to see you safe ashore.’

  Villeneuve made as though to speak, then thought better of it. After a silence he asked, ‘Have you seen your wife, Captain?’

  ‘Yes.’ Drinkwater did not add that he had been prostrated by fever and that Elizabeth had born his delirium with her customary fortitude.

  ‘You are fortunate. I hope that I may soon see my own. If . . .’ he began, then again stopped and changed the subject. ‘I recall’, he said with a firmer tone to his voice, ‘that we spoke of destiny. Do you remember?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘I was present at the funeral of Lord Nelson, Captain. Do you not think that remarkable?’

  ‘No more than the man whose interment you honoured, sir.’

  Villeneuve’s sigh was audible. He said something to himself in French. ‘Do you think we were disgraced, Captain?’

  ‘No, sir. Lord Nelson’s death was proof that you defended your flag to the utmost. I myself was witness to it.’

  ‘It was a terrible responsibility. Not the defeat – I believe victory was earned by you British – but the decision to sail . . . to set honour against safety and to let honour win . . . terrible . . .’

  ‘If it is any consolation, sir, I do not think that Lord Nelson intended leaving you unmolested in Cadiz. I believe it was his intention to attack you in Cadiz itself if necessary.’

  Villeneuve smiled sadly. ‘That is kind of you, Captain. But the decision to send many brave men to their deaths was mine, and mine alone. I must bear that burden.’

  Villeneuve fell silent again and Drinkwater began to pay attention to their appoach to Rye. Then, as the chaise slowed, Villeneuve said suddenly, ‘You played your part, Captain, you and Santhonax and Admiral Rosily who was already coming to replace me . . .’

  ‘I sir? How was that?’

  But the chaise jerked to a stop, the door was flung open and the opportunity to elaborate lost. They descended onto a strip of windswept wooden-piled quay and Drinkwater was occupied with the business of producing his documents and securing his charge aboard the cartel-lugger Union. An hour later, as the lugger crossed Rye bar, he went below to find something to eat and renew his talk with Villeneuve. But the French admiral had rolled himself in a cloak and gone to sleep.

  They enjoyed a swift passage down Channel, being bought-to twice by small and suspicious British cruisers. They crossed the Channel from the Isle of Wight and raised the Channel Islands where a British frigate challenged them. Drinkwater was able to keep the identity of their passenger secret as he had been ordered and, making certain that he had the passport from the French commissioner for prisoners in London, he ordered the lugger off for the Breton coast and the port of Morlaix. During the passage Villeneuve made no attempt to renew their discussion. The presence of other people, the cramped quarters and the approaching coast of France caused him to withdraw inside himself. Drinkwater respected his desire for his own company. It was after they had raised Cap Frehel and were coasting westwards, that Villeneuve called for pen and paper. When he had finished writing he addressed Drinkwater.

  ‘Captain, I know you to be a man of honour. I admired your ability before you had the misfortune to become a prisoner, when I watched your frigate run up into Cadiz Road. Colonel Santhonax only reinforced my opinion of you. You came to me as an example of many . . . a specimen of the esprit of the British fleet . . . everywhere I was surrounded by suspicion, dislike, lack of co-operation. You understand?’

  Drinkwater nodded but remained silent as Villeneuve went on. ‘For many years I have felt myself fated, Captain. They called my escape from Abukir lucky, but,’ he shrugged, ‘for myself it was dishonourable. It was necessary that I expiate for that dishonour. You persuaded me that to fight Nelson, to be beaten by Nelson, would be no dishonour. I would be fighting men of your quality, Captain, and it is to you as one of Nelson’s officers that I entrust this paper. Should anything befall me, Captain, I beg you to make known its contents to your Admiralty.’

  ‘Your Excellency,’ said Drinkwater, much moved by this speech and unconsciously reverting to the form of address he had used when this unfortunate man commanded the Combined Fleet, ‘I assure you that you will be landed in perfect safety . . .’

  ‘Of that I too am certain, Captain. But my Imperial master is unlikely to receive me with the same hospitality shown by my late enemies. You know he has servants willing to express his displeasure.’

  For a moment Drinkwater did not understand, and then he remembered Santhonax, and the allegations of the murder of John Wesley Wright in the Temple. Drinkwater picked up the letter and thrust it into his breast pocket. ‘I am sure, sir, that you will find happiness with your wife.’

  ‘It is a strong condemnation of the Emperor Napoleon and of the impossible demands he has put upon his admirals, captains and seamen,’ said Lord Dungarth as he laid down Villeneuve’s paper and looked at Drinkwater. ‘This is dated the sixth of April. He wrote it on board the cartel?’

  ‘And gave it to me for personal delivery to the Admiralty in the event of anything untoward occurring to him. He seemed intent on making his way south to his estate and joining his wife. I cannot believe he took his own life.’

  Dungarth shook his head and picked up another paper from his desk. It seemed to be in cipher and beneath the queer letters someone had written a decoding. ‘I have received various reports, mainly public announcements after the post-mortem which, I might add, was held with indecent haste. Also some gossip from the usual waterfront sources. He wrote to the Minister of Marine, Decrès, from Morlaix, also to some captains he proposed calling as witnesses at the enquiry he knew would judge his conduct. They were Infernet and Lucas, who had both been lionised by the Emperor at St Cloud. He received no reply, travelled to Rennes and arrived on the seventeenth. Witnesses at the post-morten conveniently said he was depressed. Hardly remarkable, one would have thought. Then, on the morning of the twenty-second of April his body was found with six knife wounds in the heart. The body was undressed, face upwards. One witness said face down, but this conflicting evidence seems to have been ignored. Evidence of suicide was supported by the discovery of a letter to his wife and his telescope and speaking trumpet labelled to Infernet and Lucas. Ah, and the door was locked on the inside . . . that is no very great achievement for a man of Santhonax’s abilities . . .’

  ‘Santhonax?’

  Dungarth nodded. ‘He arrived in town the previous evening, Nathaniel. In view of the fact that he was at the post-mortem, I regard that as a most remarkable coincidence; don’t you? And consider: Villeneuve is alleged to have stabbed himself six times in the heart. Six, Nathaniel, six! Is that consistent with the man you knew, or indeed for any man committing suicide?’

  Drinkwater shook his head. ‘I think not.’

  ‘No, nor I,’ said Dungarth vehemently. ‘I wish to God we could pay Santhonax in like coin, by God I do.’

  The eyes of both men met. Drinkwater recalled Dungarth passing up an opportunity to shoot both Santhonax and his wife Hortense as Camelford had advised. Perhaps if Camelford had succeeded in his mission neither he, nor Villeneuve, nor little Gillespy would be dead. ‘I think Villeneuve anticipated some such end, my Lord,’ Drinkwater said solemnly. ‘I think he felt it his destiny.’

  ‘Poor devil,’ said Dungarth, his hazel eyes glittering intensely. ‘Trafalgar notwithstanding, Nathaniel, this damnable war is not yet over.’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘And that bastard Santhonax has yet to get his just deserts . . .’

  Author’s Note

  In using the Trafalgar campaign as a basis for a novel I have not consciously meddled with history. All the major events actually took place and many of the characters existed. I have used a novelist’s freedom in interpreting the actions of some of these, such as Camelford, who remains an enigma
to this day. As for other figures, I have used their written or recorded words or opinions to preserve historical accuracy.

  There is no doubt that Napoleon’s intention to invade Great Britain some time between 1803 and 1805 was very real indeed. That he swung his army away from the Channel to defeat Austria and Russia does not diminish that intent; it merely illustrates his disillusion with his admirals, an understandable desire to secure his rear after the formation of the Third Coalition, and the strategic adaptability of his genius.

  A great deal has been written about Trafalgar and its consequences. Perhaps the most lamentable of these is an improper appreciation of our opponents. It was this reflection that attracted me to the character of Pierre de Villeneuve, the noble turned republican, whose abilities have been entirely eclipsed by the apotheosis of Nelson. It was Villeneuve’s prescience that made him the ‘coward’ his contemporaries took him for. Ten months before the battle, Villeneuve outlined the precise method by which Nelson would attack. Realising this and the comparative qualities of the two fleets, Villeneuve was astute enough to foresee the likely outcome of action, notwithstanding his plan for a counter-attack. Of his personal courage or that of his fleet, there is no doubt. I hope I have done justice to their shades.

  None of these assertions detract from the British achievement; quite the contrary. The Battle of Trafalgar remains the completest example of the annihilation of a battlefleet until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Nevertheless there were grave misgivings about Nelson’s ideas of how a blockade ought to be conducted, and these were freely expressed at the time. History vindicated Nelson, but contemporary opinion was not always so kind, and French officers like Santhonax wanted to exploit what was held to be a weakness.

  Napoleon always disclaimed any part in the death of John Wesley Wright and profoundly regretted that of D’Enghien. Between denial and admission lie a number of other mysterious deaths, particularly that of Pierre de Villeneuve. Despite the official verdict of suicide, I find it inconceivable that Villeneuve stabbed his own heart six times and I have laid the blame elsewhere. As to Villeneuve’s curious letter of denunciation, one authority states that such a document of unproven origin came to light among the papers of a British diplomat employed at the time. It seemed to me that it might have formed some part of those supplementary revelations of unrecorded history which the adventures of Nathaniel Drinkwater have exposed.