Breaking the Line

by David Donachie

  ‘Well …’ Pasco hesitated.

  ‘You will find, Mr Pasco, that if you want something, it is best to come right out with it.’

  ‘I fear I have been brought up before Captain Hardy, who intends to lay the matter before Lord Nelson.’

  Emma laughed again, which turned quite a few heads. ‘I suspect, Cornelia, that I am about to be asked to intervene.’

  Cornelia Knight pursed her lips. It was well known to her and every other British national in Palermo that Nelson had admonished Emma many times not to intercede in matters of discipline, just as she knew that Emma was forever doing just that. Everyone from a common seaman to a fellow like Pasco felt he could approach her to use her good offices, and it was also well known that Lord Nelson was like melted butter when Lady Hamilton asked for clemency.

  ‘Lord Nelson has stopped leave for six months for all us mids, my lady,’ added Pasco hopefully.

  ‘How barbaric, young man. What will social life ashore be without your presence?’ Emma was being sarcastic, and Pasco knew it. Midshipmen ashore in numbers were a menace: loud, brash and no respecters of local custom. But seeing the effect of her words she added, ‘Leave it with me, Mr Pasco, and I will see what I can do.’

  ‘I have asked you time and again, Emma, not to interfere in these matters. Hardy resents it.’

  The truth that he did too was left unsaid.

  ‘Oh, the Ghost, must I ask him? He will glower at me with those great fish-like eyes of his.’

  ‘No,’ Nelson said, knowing that Hardy would, for his sake, deny her nothing. If the ship’s company ever found out that Hardy was susceptible to Emma’s wiles there would be no discipline at all.

  ‘So you will reject me?’

  ‘I fear I must.’

  Emma went easily into dramatic mode and she did so now, her voice changed to that of a supplicant waif. It was wonderful the way she could use her scarf and straw bonnet to create an effect of downtrodden poverty. ‘Oh, sir, do with me what you will but do not ‘arm them poor lads who don’t know no better than to slash at a local who insults their womenfolk.’

  ‘Emma!’ said Nelson emphatically.

  ‘You can tie me to a gratin’ if you wish,’ Emma continued. ‘I care not if you rips the garments off my back, and goes to it with a whip.’ She was behind him now, her hands over his shoulders. ‘You has got a whip, your honour, I suspect, and I’m sure it be a terror to any young lass exposed to its ways.’

  As her hands slipped down inside his waistcoat and her head rested against his, Nelson could smell her body. Much as he hated the idea that came into his head then, it was unavoidable. Cleopatra had struck again. Pasco would be forgiven, there was little doubt of that, and so, probably, would the other riotous mids. But would he ever forgive himself for being so weak where she was concerned?

  Still, surrender was so pleasant.

  His correspondence with Lord Keith was not going well. Though careful to be diplomatic, the despatches between the two admirals became increasingly terse as Keith sought to impose his authority and Nelson fought to maintain his independence of action. Nelson wrote often to the First Lord in London, well aware that his commander was doing the same, no doubt insisting to Lord Spencer that Nelson be either brought to heel or replaced.

  The inferior officers, the captains of the men o’ war, divided too, and for the first time Nelson sensed a hint of fragmentation in their loyalty. Knowing broadly what orders were coming from Keith at Cadiz and how Nelson was responding, they were conscious of the impact on their own careers. Some thought that his refusal to obey Keith had more to do with his relationship with Emma, and a number of captains, much as they liked her, saw her presence as pernicious. Set against them were officers who observed only the benign effect she had on their over-burdened commander.

  Nelson alternately worried about it and dismissed it as none of their concern. Yet his stepson Josiah nagged at his conscience. Even though he was mostly at sea, his stepfather always knew where he was and that what had been disapproval in Naples was turning to something worse. It was a forlorn hope that Josh had not alerted his mother to the state of affairs in Palermo. The most painful moment came when Thomas Troubridge, fresh from the capture of Rome, felt that he had to tell his friend the error of his ways.

  The interview started badly and what followed made it worse. By his own standards Troubridge was being circumspect, but he was such a direct fellow that what he saw as subtle could be, when spoken, damned rude. He had questioned Nelson’s response to Keith’s latest orders, pointing out that as a subordinate admiral he had little choice but to obey.

  ‘Even if I disagree?’ asked Nelson. He spoke without rancour, still with that well known half-smile, for it was one of the tenets of his method of command that no subordinate should fear to tell a superior what he thought. Nelson reckoned any number of battles that should have been victories had been lost by the silence of inferiors.

  He was fond of telling his midshipmen the tale of the wondrous Admiral Sir Cloudesly Shovell, who had hanged a flagship master who had dared to tell him that the course he was steering was wrong and, worse, that he was not in the chart position he thought. The man was still swinging from the yardarm when Shovell ran his whole fleet into the Scilly Isles, losing dozens of ships, thousands of men, and drowning in his own intransigence.

  ‘Perhaps, sir, it is a case you could put to him in person. Go and see Lord Keith.’

  ‘I would waste my time by sailing for the Straits, and I would also leave matters here in a state of flux. A party around the King is urging him to sue for peace with France. The only thing that keeps him true to his alliance with Britain is our presence and protection. Take that away and …’ Nelson left the rest hanging in the air. ‘Believe me, Tom, I have it on the very best authority. My information comes from the Queen herself.’

  ‘Brought to you by Lady Hamilton?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was an awkward silence. Nelson knew that, much as he liked her personally, Troubridge did not approve of his liaison with Emma. Tom had always been upright to the point of obsession and, having just lost a wife of whom he had been deeply fond, was scandalised by what Nelson and Emma were engaged in.

  ‘Are you sure, sir, that you are not being manipulated?’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Are you being fed what the Queen wants you to hear, being advised of conspiracies that do not in truth exist?’

  ‘To keep me here?’

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Troubridge, who had allowed the idea to raise the level of his ire. ‘It gives me no pleasure, sir, to tell you that among a goodly number of your officers you are perceived to be unduly influenced.’

  ‘The word “unduly” sits ill, Tom.’

  Nelson’s face had stiffened. But Troubridge had crossed a point where telling what he perceived to be the truth outweighed his sensibility to his commander’s feelings. Old friend or not – hero or not – Nelson had to be told.

  ‘You are seen, sir, to care more for our comfort than your duty to your King, more for the charms of Lady Hamilton than the defeat of the enemy. Do you not know that Lord Keith complains about you constantly to London? You are rightly admired, but I fear that you are dissipating that in the arms of a wholly unsuitable woman.’

  ‘You will have a care, Tom,’ said Nelson sharply. ‘Do not assume that the liberties I allow you as an old friend apply to Lady Hamilton.’

  ‘What of her reputation?’

  ‘I will not deny she has one. But I would remind you that I was born the son of a far from wealthy parson. Nothing in my background gives me the right to sit here. I am in this place because of my own efforts to raise myself, that and the outstanding abilities of my officers and sailors.’

  Nelson softened his voice. ‘We all have a past, Tom, even you. Do you not lie awake at night sometimes, remembering an action of yours that brings a feeling of shame? Yet often what you recall was done in ignorance, caused by circumstance not malice. For t
hat reason you can ask God for forgiveness. We do not, any of us, choose the course of our life. All we can pray for is that on Judgement Day the scales will tip away from damnation towards salvation.’

  Troubridge was torn between trotting out a truth that would wound his old friend deeply, that Nelson was becoming a laughing stock, and staying silent. He would have avoided such an entanglement like the plague. Emma Hamilton had an engaging sense of fun, a lively intelligence and a fading beauty. He had even written to her to warn her that she had enemies. But she had manifest flaws, to Troubridge’s mind, that totally outweighed her assets, the greatest that she lacked any notion of what constituted a sense of virtue.

  Nelson could not see this because he was blinded to it, but she flirted with every one of his officers. Some would call it innocent: Troubridge saw it as an insidious attempt to command them as she commanded her lover. She drank too much and then what little self-control she had evaporated. The card games at the Hamilton villa had become notorious: Emma flinging money, usually Nelson’s, around with abandon, losing regularly and laughing as she dragged her exhausted paramour, who had been yawning for hours, off to their shared bedchamber. Troubridge also felt that what happened behind closed doors between her and Nelson did little to aid clear thinking in the man he loved and esteemed.

  And then there was her husband, smiling, telling jokes and anecdotes, ever the superb host, unconcerned that another man was rogering his wife. He could say all of this or nothing. He felt that what he did say was feeble in the extreme. ‘Will you consider what I have said?’

  ‘Yes, Tom, I will,’ Nelson replied.

  Both knew he would not.

  Sir William had settled into a limbo, curious about the way he had taken to observing the two lovers, almost as if he was not involved. That Emma showed him respect in public was gratifying, but he worried that this did not extend too far into the evening. Too much wine made her tease people: it was uncomfortable to realise that he occasionally became the butt of her jokes.

  Sir William’s ambassadorial cares had multiplied since the arrival of Charles Lock, who sought to undermine his authority and gave what he called advice that sounded more like commands. The man’s ineptitude was astounding. Presenting his papers as British Consul, Charles Lock had seen fit to lecture Ferdinand and Maria Carolina on the gratitude and duty they owed to England. That it was true did not make it a proper thing to say to reigning monarchs, who, discovering that he was connected by marriage to the rebellious Irishman, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, thought of him as a dyed-in-the-wool Jacobin before he ever spoke a word.

  Pique at his reception by the royal pair redoubled the venom of his letters home, in which all the supposed failures of policy were attributed to Sir William’s fading powers. And he did not fail to mention Emma and her affair with Nelson, asking how an openly cuckolded near-septuagenarian could possibly represent his country. Nor was he content to leave Nelson free of scandal, accusing him in writing of financial peculations that played well with the Victualling Board in London, always in dispute with far-flung admirals. In Palermo, when these insinuations came to light, Lock was forced to withdraw with a grovelling apology, but at home his letters added to the growing disquiet about Nelson’s actions and activities.

  To this were added the stories that appeared in the French press, fed by those in Palermo who disliked both Nelson and the English alliance. Reports circulated that the Admiral and Ambassadress haunted low-life taverns in the disguise of common seamen, with hints that they sought young male company to share.

  To those who cared about Nelson, and who knew of these things, it was troubling that, as the year slipped to a close and a new century blossomed, their hero seemed unaware of any trouble he might be storing up for himself.

  That Nelson had been proved correct about the French – that the fleet had returned to Brest, that no combination had been possible, that Minorca was safe – cut little ice with Keith. The position into which he had been thrust in taking over from the successful St Vincent and with the nation’s darling as an inferior, exacerbated his irritation. The moment had come for him to look this trouble square in the face, and the opportunity presented itself when he was ordered by the Admiralty to proceed into the Mediterranean. But his dignity demanded that Mohammed come to him – after all, he was the mountain – so he ordered Nelson to join him at Genoa. The rich trading city was held once more by the French and the whole of north Italy stood in peril. Bonaparte had abandoned his army in Egypt and returned to lead the armies of the Revolution on the plains of Lombardy.

  Keith knew he had to be careful: like every other senior officer he had his own troubles with the Admiralty, and he had good cause to be worried about his own standing while he had only limited knowledge of Nelson’s. His greeting, in the great cabin of his flagship Queen Charlotte, though stiff, was polite, and his enquiry as to why his orders had been ignored posed as a query rather than as a demand for an explanation.

  ‘You will be aware, sir,’ said Nelson, ‘of my view of the independence of inferior officers.’

  Keith had to take a deep breath to stop himself choking on his own bile. He was a man who ruled his inferior officers with a rod of iron. No ship in his fleet was permitted to be an inch off station on his flagship, no officer allowed any autonomy in the matter of dress, orders, or of how his ship should be handled. The Beechey portrait that hung in his cabin, which Keith thought excellent, told all who treated with him of his acerbity: a frowning forehead over heavy brows, full cheeks and a ponderous nose over unsmiling lips, the tall, broad shouldered body leaning forward as if to impose.

  He was trying, with a weighty look, to do that to Nelson now, and was aware that it was having little effect. The man before him was half his size, thin, tired looking and pale. He had a light voice, in contrast to Keith’s booming gravel, and was festooned in the most vainglorious way with stars, medals and that Turkish thing in his hat. But just as he knew that Nelson should be intimidated, he was aware that he was not, which smacked of arrogance.

  ‘Our task as fleet commanders is such an onerous one,’ Nelson continued, ‘because we cannot know all that we need. Like you, sir, I have had chimeras rear their head, fleets that turn out to be no threat, an evasive enemy that reports tell me is in three places at once or is not to be found at all. I cannot tell you how often I have heard that Guillaume Tell and Le Généraux are over the horizon, only to find they are snug in harbour. We operate, too often, in a fog.’

  ‘Quite,’ was all Keith could say.

  ‘It has ever been my way, even when, as a captain, sending a lieutenant away in a prize, to ensure that they know they are free to act as they see fit. My instructions are general, in that I would like to see them safe in harbour, but not at the risk of passing up any opportunity that presents itself.’

  That, too, was at odds with Keith’s method: he gave tightly written orders that he expected to be obeyed to the letter.

  ‘Before the Nile …’ Nelson paused, to let Keith acknowledge that the battle had been special, which he did with a nod. ‘… in all my conferences I stressed that any captain sighting the enemy was not to wait for my signal. By covering I hoped, in discussion, all the alternatives, I felt I could trust them to do as I would in the circumstances.’

  ‘You must be lucky in your captains,’ said Keith, with what he thought was unmistakable irony.

  Nelson missed it. ‘That sir, has been my greatest asset. Captain Foley sailed inshore of the French at the Nile without any request to me for permission to do so. I point to the success of that as vindication of my way. Therefore you will readily understand that on receipt of your orders I applied the same principle, adding my judgement to yours.’

  To damned well ignore them, thought Keith.

  ‘I knew you would agree with my dispositions once you had a chance to examine them.’

  The man’s confidence was staggering and, to Keith, impertinent. He was tempted to tear a strip off Nelson, but good sense
made him hesitate. He had already told everyone at the Admiralty that Nelson was a menace. He had seen the depth of Nelson’s insolence now. In future he would word his orders to make sure that they must be obeyed, so that this pipsqueak could never wriggle out of doing as he was told.

  Nelson was still enthusing about his officers: Troubridge who had taken Rome, helped by a division of Russians. Alexander Ball, who had been made governor of Malta, even although Valetta was still in enemy hands, Hardy, Foley and the others, so that Keith reckoned they must fawn on the man. Then it was the turn of the Hamiltons, whom Nelson could not praise enough, Sir William for his long knowledge of Italian politics, Lady Hamilton for her connections to the court, which meant that he, as an admiral, was always abreast of the thinking of Ferdinand’s ministers.

  Keith had heard rumours of the Lady Hamilton business, indeed he had even discussed them with St Vincent before the old rogue went home. Some said she ruled the fleet, that Nelson was putty in her hands. Worse, that the Hamilton woman was so enamoured of the Sicilian Queen that ships that should have been doing what Keith ordered were kept in waters that suited the Neapolitan cause. That he would stop.

  ‘It is my intention to accompany you back to Palermo, Lord Nelson, so that I can form a personal impression of how matters stand there.’

  Nelson’s face stiffened. He had come all the way from Palermo to Genoa only to be told that they were going right back there, which to his mind was coming it pretty high. He was tempted to make some remark to the effect that St Vincent had been better in his manners. But the look on Keith’s face stopped him: it was as if the fellow was hoping he would say something untoward. And Nelson had come to smooth troubled waters, not rough them up.

  Nelson had not liked the sound of Keith from his despatches, and exposure to the reality had only served to confirm that. Even with his well-known habit of looking for the best in everyone, he could find little in this Scotsman’s manner to enthuse him.