‘If the Prince requires any advice on beating Napoleon I will be happy to oblige him,’ said Nelson.
He didn’t like the man, and had said so publicly, convinced that the heir to the throne had designs on Emma. And that thought affected the whole course of the discussion, in which Nelson seemed unable to concentrate. When he left, it was on a far from satisfactory note.
‘I fear you are over-sanguine, Troubridge,’ said St Vincent, as he resumed his seat. ‘You think activity will cure him but he has been parted more than once from the arms of his trollop and run back to her.’
Troubridge was caught on the horns of a dilemma and it showed on his face. Regardless of what had transpired he could not forget that he liked and admired Emma Hamilton, something which would not trouble a First Lord who corresponded with but had never actually met the woman. But he loved Nelson, and could see that for him the liaison could lead only to disaster. Nothing on God’s earth would make him air his suspicion of the birth of a love-child for the harm it would do his friend, but he suspected that it would not be long before the connection would be made by the newspaper-reading public. To these people, forty-shilling freeholders, provincial and metropolitan professionals, retired members of the armed services, the merchants of the city and the shires, and their wives, Nelson was Galahad, Lancelot and Arthur rolled into one. They clamoured for his presence at every point of danger, sure that their shining knight would vanquish whichever foe dared raise a threat to their peace and prosperity. Would these solid Christian folk still do so if they discovered that he had cast aside his wife for the charms of a married woman?
‘And,’ the First Lord added, ‘the coast of Kent is a damn sight closer than the Skagerrak. What happens, with the eyes of the country upon him, when he comes home from there and within hours is closeted alone with her?’
He wanted to say, too, that Sir William was an old fool to have let such a situation come to pass, but feared because of the similarity of their ages that he might damn himself by association. John Jervis, Earl St Vincent had never married, indeed he was dead against such a thing for a naval officer, holding him lost to the service from the minute he tied the knot. Nelson had been doubly stupid, first in marrying a vapid creature like Lady Nelson, then by bedding the Hamilton woman. St Vincent corrected himself, the sin was in triplicate, given that the man had gone on from bedding her to damn near living with her. Troubridge interrupted a train of thought that had made his old wizened face look thunderous.
‘That is true, sir, but idleness is certain to be fatal to his reputation. Employment at least has the virtue of distracting him.’
‘He’s a damn fool to be led by the breech,’ spat St Vincent, ‘and so is any man so smitten. Women are nought but fool’s gold.’
St Vincent was confronted with his own dilemma. His position as First Lord being political he could not act as he otherwise would, and leave Nelson on the beach to teach him to behave. Addington’s coalition government was as fragile as that which had preceded it, and Members of Parliament heard nothing but the Nelson name when they talked to those who had voted them in. To leave him unemployed in a time of crisis might affect the standing of the administration. He had to address the house this very day and reassure them. The name of Nelson, who had accepted the appointment to the Channel, would help.
‘Have you decided what to say, sir?’ asked Troubridge.
‘I have.’ Now the old man had a twinkle in his eye. ‘I shall tell my fellow noble Lords that the Bonaparte threat is a serious one. But I shall also tell them that though the French can come, they cannot come by sea.’
21
Nelson, with Edward Parker and a new flag lieutenant, Frederick Langford, in tow, came to his new task by way of the Medway ports and Sheerness, coaching down the coast he was taxed to defend through Margate and Ramsgate to Deal. It was an odd command, gathered round a particular service, an aggressive posture in the Channel to face the threat of invasion that cut across the lines of responsibility of four other senior officers: the admirals of two fleets, the North Sea and the Channel, and two important shore stations, the Nore and the Downs. Thus the potential for irritation due to professional rivalry was high.
Much of the travelling time he used to recount his memories of sailing from these places as a boy and as a man, of his months spent taking soundings in the Thames estuary as a midshipman, so that to this day he knew and understood the currents. Then as captain of HMS Boreas, he had seen his frigate beached by a drunken pilot, so high and dry that the Sheppey islanders were able to walk round it and exchange caustic comments with an embarrassed crew and jeer at the blushing senior officer.
Both Langford and Parker knew that Nelson should have used the time to rest, but his temperament debarred him from that. When he was not reminiscing, he was planning and making his dispositions, studying reports of ships and their preparedness, the men who commanded them and their reputations, before calling them to meetings to expose them to his thinking. Then he had to face the volunteer soldiers raised to augment the too few regulars he had for coastal defence, to tell them not to fear the enemy should they land, and to fight the rascals wherever they found them.
It was Parker who informed him that the volunteers had never taken seriously the threat of a French invasion, but that when they heard of his appointment, it had become clear to them that the danger was real.
‘Then let us hope, Edward, that that scoundrel over the water learns that I am here, and thus supposes our response will be sincere.’
‘Amen to that,’ said Langford, who counted himself fortunate to be with Nelson in the position of flag lieutenant. If there were any plums going, then he would be first in line.
Nelson had been in Deal, where he would set up his headquarters, many times before, and he told his companions that it was the coldest place on earth. However, with France some thirty miles distant and the coast at Cap Gris Nez visible on a clear day, it was the anchorage he had to use if he was to confound Bonaparte. Pleasant enough now, on a warm July evening, he could recall it in winter, the biting winds that came from the east, scudding across the North Sea and the great barrier of the Goodwin Sands to chill a man to the marrow. He could see the sea now from the Sandwich road, azure blue where it reflected the evening sun, black where the shadow of a cloud fell.
To the north lay the stunning white cliffs of Ramsgate, then the great bight of Pegwell Bay, the mouth of the Stour, a place of shifting mud that had seen many a ship stuck fast until it became part of the landscape. Further south stood the first of the three castles built by Henry VIII, shaped like Tudor roses, but armed with cannon that could control the largest, safest anchorage in the country. It was here that the convoys were formed, ships from London and the eastern ports going deep in their hundreds, gathered inside the Goodwins to await their consorts and escorts. It was the landfall for vessels coming in from the Mediterranean and the East, the place where men were paid off and rehired by captains who did not need a full set of hands to get them into or out of the Pool of London.
And as always it was a crowded forest of masts. Nelson had come here as a boy, the last landfall before he departed on his first voyage to the West Indies. Would some of those he had sailed with on that journey, men who had come aboard at Deal, still be here, having just been paid off from a ship? Past Sandown Castle they came to the edge of the town, a strip of houses, a pair of streets that stood against the elements on the strip of rock that cut off the sea from the low-lying country behind.
Nelson knew Deal to be a den of iniquity. Most seaports, especially those favoured by the Navy, were places where the devil took precedence over the saints. But Deal was exceptional in its depravity; a hotbed of smugglers so deadly that the Preventative Men of the Customs Service went in fear of their lives. A place where Billy Pitt had ordered every boat on the beach, several hundred in number, to be burned to try to cap their activities. It was also home to half-built barracks for a coastal defence force, soldiers who broug
ht with them a tally of female camp-followers who, with their men, fought for precedence over the locals in the drinking dens and places of entertainment that prosperity supported.
The streets and narrow alleys of Deal were crowded yet still dangerous. It was a place of taverns and bawdy-houses, noisy, grasping whores, voracious ship’s chandlers and greedy fisher-folk. Everything untaxed, from contraband silk to coffee, tea, brandy and fine wine, was readily available. Given that it was the first port of call to returning sailors with money to spend it had more than its fair share of crimps, false speculators, pickpockets and thieves.
And it was home to men who knew the French coast as well as their own back courtyard, who, in their specially designed swift-oared boats, could cross to the port of Gravelines, a place set aside by France as a haven for English smugglers, in less than three hours. They carried with them the gold that Britannia’s enemies needed to fund their wars. It was plentiful in a nation engaged in vast international trade, but scarce for a blockaded continental power, and bought twice as much abroad as it purchased at home.
Past tall houses that backed on to the shingle beach Nelson could see the anchored vessels straining at their cables, one a frigate quite far out near the sands, which brought forth an unpleasant memory. He had been stuck out there aboard one ship for a fortnight, unable to get ashore because of the surf.
‘Have I ever told you about the old Albemarle, Edward?’ Nelson pointed down a slightly wider alley.
‘No sir,’ replied Parker eagerly. It was not true, he knew that Nelson had been anchored here with her for a whole month, but he could never hear enough tales from his hero and mentor. Langford, who knew him less well, seemed indifferent to his tale-telling.
‘I would not have said it at the time but she was a dog of a ship, useless on a bowline, head forever falling off, only good for running away from the enemy not fighting, since her best point of sailing was right before the wind.’
When he had her Nelson had loved her, as he had every ship he had commanded. Only time could lead to disenchantment; and then only with a ship that had no saving graces whatsoever.
‘Albemarle was converted from a merchantman and a French one at that. Captain Locker, whom you will have heard me name as my sea daddy, advised me to refuse her as a command.’
He recalled William Locker’s face, ruddy, smiling, stomping back and forth on his gammy leg, the man who had taught him everything he knew about the art of sailing ships and commanding men.
‘I take it you ignored him, sir,’ said Parker, fearful that Nelson might stop.
‘The arrogance of youth Mr Parker! Take heed and guard against it. You, too, Mr Langford. It was in the year ’82, which was a winter of storms, especially on this coast. This safe anchorage is hell in a north east wind, which drives through the northern shipping channel and lays a surf on the shore that is deadly. It is no friend to an anchor either. I was driven from one end of the Downs to the other more than once and kept the Deal hovellers in ale and smuggled brandy for the number of my best bower anchors they recovered from deep water. I had finally and gratefully been ordered to Portsmouth, and had come ashore on what I admit was a heavy swell to make my farewells to the senior officer here. Well, by the time we had shared a glass or two of wine and he had regaled me with the history of his life the wind had got up alarming again. I could see from the shore that Albemarle was far from sound, but it was another ship that dragged her anchor, a damned East Indiaman for all love, twice my draught, who went right athwart my hawse. Every captain spends time out of his ship, but God help him with the Admiralty if anything goes amiss when he is absent. So there I was watching my career being smashed with the same force as my bulwarks.’
‘They would have regretted your loss, sir.’
Nelson looked at both Parker and Langford. ‘They would not have known, and if by some miracle they had been gifted a sight of what I have done since they would not have apologised. The Admiralty, outside the serving sailors, is a home to placemen. And they, gentlemen, never admit to being wrong.’
‘But you saved her, did you not?’
‘Only by providence and bribery. Not a single boatman was willing to risk the sea and I had to empty my pockets of everything I possessed to persuade them.’
The coach had stopped before the Three Kings Hotel, which overlooked the beach and the calm blue waters beyond. But Nelson’s mind was still on that grey, storm-filled day. ‘Fifteen guineas, I calculated, when I had time to do so, and that is another piece of advice I will give you. When it comes to robbery in daylight, Edward, few can match the good folk of Deal.’
He stopped between carriage and doorway to add a valediction. ‘Mind you, neither will you find better boatmen in a deadly rough sea.’
Then he entered the hotel, passing through the dark panelled hallway to ascend the stairs to a room where Tom Allen was already unpacking his sea chest. Giddings had found the kitchens, where food and warm company could always be guaranteed. Nelson sat down to write to Emma, and when his letter was finished and sent off, he returned to the making of plans. That evening he dined with Admiral Lutwidge, the man with whom he first went to sea as a King’s sailor. He was no longer the tall, bright eyed officer he had been, but old, stooped and lined, yet still with a fine sense of humour.
They reminisced about the voyage to the North Pole in search of a clear water passage, of old shipmates and vessels, not forgetting the damage the crushing ice had done to their hulls. And Lutwidge joshed Nelson about that affair with the bear, when he and another boy had gone out trophy hunting only to find that the beast they intended to kill and skin was three times their size and deadly ferocious.
‘I fear,’ said Nelson, ‘that some chronicler has spun that into a tale of heroism instead of foolishness.’
‘The price of fame,’ said Lutwidge, ‘and of our expanding press. The editors see you as selling copy to a public eager for heroes, so I cannot see that will diminish.’
‘And neither should it,’ asserted the admiral’s wife, a substantial motherly lady who was an avid reader of the news. ‘Dark times, like those in which we live, require champions to shed light, and you, my dear Lord Nelson, do just that.’
There was a moment of silence, while both sailors let the discomfiture of such praise subside. Then they went back to their days in the ice-bound north or in tropical seas, to talk of glaciers, great whales, battles entered into and those missed, and of friends long dead.
Nelson hoisted his flag in HMS Leyden, a 64-gunner, the following morning, though he had no intention of using her for what he had to do first, which was reconnoitre the French coast. That was frigate work.
For Nelson the military problem was quite straightforward. An invasion force was gathering across the Channel from Flushing in the Netherlands to the Normandy coast: soldiers in encampments, naval personnel in gunboats reputed to be two hundred in number to protect the flat boats that would carry the army. To the south, a squadron of British warships blocked Brest and La Rochelle to prevent any French capital ships breaking out and entering the Channel.
An evening alarm had him at sea in HMS Medusa that night and the following day, the Nile anniversary, setting a course for the French coast. Behind him the captains of four bomb vessels struggled to get their ships to sea, then to find and keep up with their impassioned admiral. It was all in vain: the supposed French invasion fleet was nowhere to be seen.
Not one to pass up an opportunity Nelson made for Boulogne, the fishing fleet of that town fleeing ahead of him. It was supposedly the place Bonaparte had chosen as his headquarters. Its castle, as imposing as that at Dover, stood high on the hill behind the flat landscape of the tent-filled shoreline. The coast was lined with more than canvas: several batteries of guns and mortars had been mounted to protect the flank of the twenty or so gunboats strung out across the access to a harbour full of flat-bottomed barges designed for troop carrying.
‘Well Merry Ed,’ Nelson called to Parker, as he s
urveyed his enemy through a long telescope, ‘shall we give them a bit of metal to chew on?’
Parker laughed. ‘I think that would be very fitting, sir.’
With no plan laid, and the signalling system too poor for the task, Nelson called for a boat and personally went to each bomb ketch to appoint them their targets. Two were to play on the gunboats before the harbour, the others, supported by Medusa, to lay about the shore positions.
‘And if you overshoot,’ he told the captains, ‘never fear, for your ball will land among the soldiery.’
It was a hot day’s work, this improvised attack, with Nelson mostly in his boat being hauled back and forth, Giddings cursing and blaspheming under his breath as the enemy expended great effort to sink the man in command. At the same time he had to quell a trait in the boat crew from men who did not know of Nelson’s dislike of swearing.
Balls came close, showering them with great founts of seawater, and the sea round them was peppered with case shot if they came too close. In the thwarts, often standing, the men saw a fellow with one bright eye, who wore his hat across his head not fore and aft so that the enemy could observe his rank from the thickness of the braid. He seemed to delight in the danger to a crew, under the command of a coxswain who reassured them that their admiral had luck in abundance. As the day wore on they came to believe him, because given what had been aimed at them, it was a miracle that nothing had struck a single man.
The water boiled around not only Nelson’s boat, but the bomb ketches too. Occasionally something struck a hull, to send splinters flying across the decks. Aboard Medusa Parker could look aloft to see shot holes in the rigging, a spar blown out of its chains, and duck his head as blocks and the like showered the deck. The French, as was their custom, were firing high in the hope of striking the masts and rendering the ship unmanoeuvrable.
For all that Nelson was busy giving orders and altering targets, he was also storing in his mind the dispositions of the various batteries and other defences. This was an ad hoc attack, but it would precede a more planned one, because Nelson knew that the best way to prevent an invasion was to engage in endless disruption. The aim of this was twofold: to ensure no peace for a potential invading army, and to remind them that when they went on to the water, a powerful force was waiting to sink them.
Breaking the Line Page 28