Breaking the Line

by David Donachie

  Admirals and secretaries had a loyalty to the Navy and the way it was run that transcended politics, and Nelson’s behaviour as a junior admiral to Keith had caused much disquiet. It had also given those who resented his success a grievance to work on. Spencer had letters from high-ranking officers, Sir Richard Hughes among them, who thought Nelson an upstart and a swell-head, and advised that a period of inactivity would remind him of his place.

  Before the convening of the Board, Spencer had a meeting with Sir Hyde Parker to discuss chastising the Danes in a way that would reopen the Baltic to British merchant shipping. For all Parker’s imposing bulk and handsome profile, Spencer had sensed reluctance in the man. He had just returned from the West Indies with a fortune estimated at three hundred thousand pounds. To Spencer, he had seemed more interested in where he was going to locate his country house than in forcing a defended passage.

  Asked who he wanted as his second in command, Parker had demurred, showing some skill in the way he avoided commitment, keen to imply that he would work with whichever officer the Board of Admiralty wished to send to him. Yet Spencer knew from his social informants that Parker was dead set against Nelson and had said so to several influential friends.

  Had Spencer been wholly a Nelson partisan then the conclusion would have been foregone. But his opinion was variable, high when he recalled the relief he had felt at news of the Nile, less so when his wife reminded him of the way the Admiral was treating his noble wife. Then there was the distinct possibility of a scandal becoming public knowledge at any time, which bothered the King nearly as much as the subject of Catholic emancipation.

  As he looked down the long, highly polished table, Spencer knew that in the event of failure in the Baltic he was most at risk and, through him, William Pitt and the government. They were on rocky ground anyway, Pitt trying to force through an Act of Union with Ireland, freeing the papists from the debarring articles of the Protestant faith, with the intransigent King dead set against it. The way things were shaping Spencer was unsure if he would be in his chair for another week.

  That applied to the other appointed Board members though they seemed unaware of it. Nepean would survive, but the rest must know that there were other political problems, not least the clamour for peace. After seven years of war the nation was weary. So, to a political mind, success in the Baltic was of paramount importance.

  Yet it seemed that nobody at this table was going to mention Nelson’s name. He was like Banquo’s ghost, there in everyone’s thoughts but absent from the discussion because merely to mention him would precipitate remembrance of his exceptional abilities. Nepean did not want him because Nelson had been just as high-handed with the Admiralty as he had with Lord Keith, a slap in the face to a man who was sure that, to the Navy, he was more important than any serving officer. The serving officers didn’t want him because they were advancing the interests of others to whom they were attached by blood or years of service.

  This admiral was proposed and that captain, each a paragon in the eyes of the sponsor, each with a fatal flaw in the opinion of another, until Spencer was sure that they would be there all night. With that in mind he pulled a letter from his pocket. ‘I have here, gentlemen, the opinion of Earl St Vincent. You will readily understand why I canvassed it. He is, after all, commanding our most important fleet. He says that, “when appointing an officer to a difficult task it is as well to look for one who fits the bill. If caution is required then root out your diplomat, when zeal is the nub of the duty, then fetch forth your warrior”.’

  ‘We have any number of both,’ said Nepean, sensing where this was heading.

  ‘Yet you will agree with the sentiment expressed?’ asked Spencer. Nepean nodded. ‘Our intelligence tells us the Danes are fortifying Copenhagen. They will not come out to fight us. Rather they will invite our fleet to attack them.’

  ‘Or invite us to talk,’ insisted Nepean.

  ‘Quite,’ said Spencer. ‘Lord St Vincent feels that Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, given suitable envoys who speak Danish, will fulfil whatever need we have for diplomacy. He therefore suggests the second should be a fighter, and tells us what we must already know that the best in that department is Admiral Lord Nelson.’

  The name was out, up there to be damned and discarded. But Spencer noted the reluctance to voice such an opinion: his colleagues were as aware of Nelson’s standing with the public as he was. What St Vincent was saying to them was that if Nelson failed the task would be seen as having been impossible. If another failed the public would want to know why the Board had not sent Nelson.

  ‘I fear gentlemen, the case is made.’

  The boy who entered the Admiral’s day cabin on HMS San Josef and smartly removed his hat had his antecedents stamped on his face, or more precisely in his ears. Young James Frears had his grandfather’s lugs, more prominent on his gaunt young head than they were on the old lieutenant.

  ‘You will have a letter for me young man?’ Nelson asked, and was amused by the panic with which James Frears fetched it out of his pocket. As he handed it over, Nelson pointed to the other side of the table. ‘Thank you. Now you will oblige me by sitting down.’

  Frears obliged, hat held tightly on his lap, and Nelson laid down the letter preparatory to slicing it open. He had become practised at this over the last years, a well placed finger and a sharp knife flicked to break the sealing wax. But the youngster was as stiff as a board, and Nelson hesitated. ‘I have another favour to ask of you, young sir. As you can see I am a one-winged bird. I would ask you to take this knife, break the seal and open your grandfather’s letter for me.’

  The boy’s hands shook as he obliged, more so as he laid the creased paper before the Admiral. Nelson read it, and was pleased to hear that old Frears had given the boy a grounding in matters nautical, a bit of small boat experience, some basic knowledge of the night sky, skill in ropes and knots.

  ‘I see you have some experience of sailing, sir.’

  ‘Only in wherries, milord.’

  Nelson grinned at him. ‘All naval officers start in small boats, Mr Frears, and some who are lucky get to sail ships such as this. Captain Hardy, who will be your captain, was like you once, as was I.’

  ‘Milord,’ Frears replied, as he tried to digest that notion.

  ‘We do hard service, but if you are the type you will come to love it as I have. But a knowledge of ships is not enough if one day you are to be an officer. Manners, too, are important. How are your manners, Mr Frears?’

  ‘Tolerable, sir, though my mother has cause to chastise me.’

  How lucky you were to have a mother, thought Nelson, and immediately buried the thought as unfair on his father. Frears was so like him, so like the boy his grandfather had rescued from the wet misery of a strange naval port.

  ‘Then I require you to be on your mettle, sir, of the kind that would please your mama. I am dining today with the Mayor of Portsmouth and it has always been my habit to take along to such occasions some youngster. Since your dress is new and smart, I shall take you. That is, if you don’t wish to decline.’

  ‘No, sir,’ protested Frears, in clear contravention of the look in his eye.

  ‘Have you met with your messmates yet?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Another flash of memory, of his uncle William telling him on their first interview that the proper response was, ‘aye, aye sir’, which he told Frears now. He also remembered that it had taken him an age to find out why. ‘In a gale of wind Mr Frears, or a battle, it is often hard to hear what is being said. The double positive is for that purpose, working even in the reading of lips.’

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ said Frears cautiously.

  ‘Right. Report to the officer of the watch, tell him you are to accompany me, then ask my coxswain, Giddings, to get the barge ready for one of the clock.’

  The reply was more brisk this time. ‘Aye aye sir.’

  ‘And Mr Frears,’ Nelson added, as the boy stood up, ‘I look
forward very much to serving with you.’

  The 112-gun HMS San Josef was one of the ships Nelson had captured at St Vincent. He sailed her from Portsmouth to Torbay to have another meeting with the earl of that name, temporarily his commanding officer, there to be told that his appointment to the Baltic was a certainty. It was a convivial evening at the family home of the old admiral’s cousins, and over dinner they discussed the problems Nelson might face, a talk that went on long after the cloth had been drawn, leaving Nelson and his barge crew a two-hour pull against the tide and in darkness, to get him back to the ship.

  The letter was waiting for him. It was a coded note from Emma, to inform him that he was a father: she had been delivered of a daughter two days previously. Tom Allen entered to find his master weeping and laughing, pacing the cabin as if there was no position, seated or standing that would provide comfort. Eventually Nelson went to his desk to write a reply, something in which he knew he had to take care.

  He couldn’t use his own name, given that letters taken by post had been known to go astray. Besides, there were the naval censors, who had the power to read even his mail. He and Emma had devised a stratagem whereby he would claim to be acting on behalf of a sailor called Thompson. This poor fellow had, in their fiction, just become the father of an illegitimate child, for the girl he loved and who was the mother had been denied the right to matrimony by a cruel uncle. Both girl and infant, thanks to the intervention of Admiral Lord Nelson, were under the care of kindly Lady Hamilton. Thus he could write as Thompson, and in that guise tell Emma of his joy and his love for her and the child he had yet to see. It was flimsy to be sure, but the censors were not noted for deep erudition, or for much zeal in the performance of their duties, and Nelson was well known to be soft regarding the men who served under him.

  There was much about the way in which he and Emma behaved that Nelson expected people to understand, but he knew the birth of his child to the wife of another man to be beyond acceptance. That would have caused a scandal in Naples, let alone London. Emma’s reputation, already fragile, would never recover from it.

  ‘Get this to the post, Tom,’ he said, as he finished, ‘and then prepare to pack.’

  ‘Your honour?’ demanded Tom, in a shocked voice.

  He had been up to his eyes getting this cabin shipshape and as yet it was still to be painted. The notes that had flown between Lady Nelson and her husband about the state of his stores and possessions were no-one’s business. He could not yet be said to have settled.

  ‘We are bound for the Baltic, Tom, to teach Frederick of Denmark and Paul of Russia a lesson, and this fellow we sail in now has too deep a keel for the kind of work we will be doing.’

  ‘Not a frigate, your honour,’ moaned Tom, who hated the confinement on such a small vessel. ‘Tell me it ain’t going to be a frigate.’

  ‘I’d go in a sloop if I had to,’ said Nelson.

  ‘You would and all,’ said Tom, softly as he left.

  The news was all over the ship in minutes, with men clamouring to transfer with the Admiral in such numbers that the San Josef would have been unable to raise her anchor. The news that he would come back to her after Baltic service stilled some requests, but it was a hefty bunch who looked to pack their ditty bags the next day.

  12

  Fanny Nelson was reading the Morning Chronicle, which told her, with what she thought must be mock alarm, that Lady Hamilton had suddenly and most unfortunately become indisposed, victim of a severe cold that had confined her to bed for several days. On those few occasions that she had seen Emma since that night at the opera, Fanny had kept an eye on that burgeoning figure, and she had come to the conclusion that the pregnancy was nearing its term.

  The same could be said of the Nelsons’ marriage, after the embarrassing scene in the lawyer’s office before Christmas. The mere mention of Lady Hamilton grated on Fanny’s nerves and the way Nelson had praised her on that day, with his lawyer present, had been so indiscreet as to drive her out of her normal self-imposed reticence.

  She had snapped, and protested, ‘I am sick of hearing of DEAR Lady Hamilton, and I am resolved that you give up either her or me.’ She had the right to expect that in his reply Nelson, because of the presence of a stranger, might spare her feelings. This turned out to be foolish. His voice had been cold and unsparing.

  ‘Have a care Fanny. I love you sincerely, but I cannot forget my obligations to Lady Hamilton, or speak of her otherwise than with affection and admiration.’

  It was the word ‘obligation’ that had made her leave the room and she had not seen him since that day. Now the newspaper report made her feel a degree of despair deeper than any that had gone before. Fanny could not understand what had prompted her God-fearing husband to spend the Lord’s birthday with that disgusting fellow, Beckford. She had no doubt that Fonthill Abbey was a magnificent house, just as she had no doubt that it was home to the most vile carnal practices. She would rather be seen dead than accept hospitality from its owner.

  Christmas had been cheerless and cold, the hardest task had been to animate the Reverend Edmund Nelson, who, though he pretended he had no knowledge of the state of affairs, could not have missed what was happening. He loved his son, and could not bring himself to condemn his behaviour to his face. Fanny had enough faith in Nelson’s love for his father to believe that he alone might bring him to his senses. Instead Edmund Nelson tried to avoid the subject, though she had caught him looking sadly at her when he thought her attention elsewhere. And it was galling that he took a certain delight in Emma’s company. For a woman who knew she was competing with a serious foe for the soul of her husband, it was annoying to hear the dour Edmund Nelson laughing at one of Emma’s sallies, only to look guilty if he saw her glaring at him.

  In some ways she would have been happier if Nelson had hated her: that, at least, she would have been able to comprehend. But he did not. He constantly told her that he thought of her kindly and wished her no harm. It was as if she had been relegated to the status of a sister who was supposed to like her brother’s new wife.

  There was no absolute breach. They still wrote to each other, at times angry letters in which she was blamed for some missing article of furniture, clothing or provender. He still paid her household expenses, and before going to join the San Josef he had taken pains to ensure that she had money for continued support. And Fanny wondered if the care she took never openly to criticise or refer to his affair, her way of guarding her position, was replicated in his letters, which, though brief and pointed, were always signed with an affectionate postscript.

  Here was the last straw. He had the child for which he had craved. Perhaps if she had explained to him he might have understood: physical love to her was loathsome, a duty not an inclination; that having had Josiah in excruciating pain, the notion of a second encouchement scared her witless. But Fanny could never have discussed such a thing with her husband. To refer to things so intimate was as beyond her as to take pleasure in them.

  Right to the end Emma had kept to her social calendar, the gown she wore ever looser, her bulk greater. She knew that it had not escaped attention, because Gillray, the cartoonist, had been at his satirical work, and someone was always willing to show her his efforts. To coincide with Nelson going back to sea he had drawn a vast Dido despairing at the departure of the fleet. Another featured a spindly Sir William surrounded by lewd statuary, peering through a lorgnette at a Venus bearing a cuckold’s horns. They annoyed her intensely.

  But care, and the kindness of such as James Perry had kept her condition from becoming too widely known, and it needed some social skill to read between the lines of what the newspapers recorded to discern what was going on in the lives of the Hamiltons. Nelson being absent at sea helped, though both he and Emma had acknowledged that in any case a separation would have been essential.

  Every movement of Emma, her husband and Fanny was reported. Lady Nelson called today on so and so: Sir William and Lady Hamilt
on attended this function or that play or opera: Sir William and Lady Hamilton have moved from Grosvenor Square to a house at number twenty-three Piccadilly. Nelson was reported as being at Portsmouth or Torbay; that he had shifted his flag to the St George, an item that allowed the more military-minded to read between the lines.

  The birth itself had been handled with discretion, Emma’s mother acting as midwife while Sir William had found good reason to be absent for a few days. Emma had sold her jewels so he was solvent once more and the five thousand a year he had from his estates would whittle away at his debts. His claims upon the government had been acknowledged and were being processed, so he was no longer reliant on his wife’s lover for support.

  Outwardly Emma behaved in London as she had in Italy, so that no one observing her and Sir William could be in any doubt that she was attached to her husband. Nelson was careful too, never intimating that anything other than the deepest friendship existed between him and Emma. It was in private that the affair rankled with Sir William: even when the third member of the trio was absent he was a constant topic of conversation, his exploits, his prospects, his wonderful nature. Emma had even installed a Nelson Room in the newly rented house in Piccadilly. Sir William felt himself and his needs being increasingly ignored, and occasionally the annoyance that engendered was allowed to surface.

  Mary Cadogan played her part to perfection, only the twinkle in the brown eyes letting Sir William know that it was a shared joke.

  ‘A foundling child, Sir William, right on our own step scarce three days past. I daresay some poor soul heard what a kind nature my daughter has and thought to entrust to her the future of a bairn that would otherwise starve.’