Breaking the Line

by David Donachie

  ‘Therefore,’ Nelson continued, ‘to send a squadron of ships to that place would, under normal circumstances, be seen as an addition to my strength.’

  ‘It would, but the circumstances were not normal.’

  ‘In what way?

  ‘Well, Sir John Orde is too senior to be put under your command.’

  ‘When I heard he had sailed I anticipated replacement.’

  ‘Then the money he has from his Spanish captures would have gone to him anyway.’

  ‘And to his fleet, Lord Barham,’ said Nelson testily. ‘You may feel that I am here remonstrating on my own behalf but I am not.’

  Barham’s blue eyes were hard, as was his jaw. ‘I trust you are not so unwise as to remonstrate? I would remind you that I am your superior officer and the person to whom the government has entrusted the good of the service.’

  Nelson had argued with senior officers before, and the prospect held no terrors for him. ‘We can argue about words, sir. What we cannot dispute is that Sir John Orde was given a squadron of ships, and was expressly gifted an independent command to the station on which huge amounts of prize money were there for the taking. We cannot dispute that the area in question was and should have been my responsibility, nor that the officers and men of the Mediterranean Fleet have been cheated out of a substantial sum of prize money.’

  Barham agreed with Nelson, but his position debarred him from saying so. How could he tell the man that the affair was wrapped up in politics; that with Pitt and Addington jockeying to form a stable government Sir John Orde, who was not, as a sailor, much entitled to distinction, had been gifted that station because of his connections? In effect, a small party of wavering Members of Parliament had extracted his appointment as a price for their support of the Pitt ministry.

  Sir John Orde stood to make half a million pounds out of his capture, while Nelson, who should have had half of that, would get nothing. He might claim that he was angry on behalf of his inferior officers and seamen, all of whom would have stood to gain, but he had every right to be furious on his own account.

  ‘Has the prize money been paid out, sir?

  ‘No, it has not.’

  ‘Then I demand that the Board look at the matter again.’

  Barham the sailor would have said no, because there was no point. The Board would not budge to oblige Nelson unless extreme pressure was applied. Where would that come from? Not the King, who was now mad and disliked Nelson anyway; not the Prince Regent, who had taken the now wealthy Orde into his bosom as a companion, not Pitt, who needed the wavering vote to hold his government together.

  But Barham the politician said, ‘I think that is as it should be. Now I suggest we move on to other matters.’

  Discussing naval tactics, the two men got on a lot better. Barham had a shrewd brain and agreed with Nelson that no good would come of pure blockade. It ruined the British Fleet to keep ships and men at sea all year round, and it was impossible to guarantee that the enemy would never get out, because at some time the wind must favour them by blowing their gaolers off station.

  What Barham wanted was the same as Nelson: to draw the enemy to a place where they could be beaten and the spectre of invasion, so deleterious to the nation, lifted for good. He had spun a cunning web based on his own certainty that the only place where the French could safely combine was outside the sphere where Britain had control, namely the West Indies. He had it on good authority that Villeneuve had gone there in the expectation of meeting his fellow admirals from Brest and Rochefort. They had, however, failed to get to sea and make the rendezvous.

  ‘Villeneuve, with the Dons, outnumbers any squadron we can put against them. Calder had a chance to scupper that but did not.’

  If Barham was asking him to comment on the fighting competence of another officer, Nelson was not going to oblige, but when Barham asked who should take command of his squadron, he said, ‘Admiral Collingwood, without a doubt.’ ‘Coll’ Collingwood was an old West Indian friend, a man with whom he had shared a house as a lieutenant. He might not be the gayest of men, but he was a fighter and he had taken over from Calder when he had come home to demand a court martial. ‘If Collingwood gets a crack at the enemy, you’ll have your victory for certain.’

  Barham lifted a silver eyebrow at that, and Nelson said, ‘I have been sixteen months at sea, sir, and I would not be lying to you if I said that I am worried about the sight of my one good eye. My doctors have been invited to operate but I fear that there is no margin for error, no other good eye to take its place, so they hesitate.’

  ‘That is wise of them, Lord Nelson, and I will take on board what you say about Collingwood. I think we should meet again in a day or two, when I am sure I will have more information regarding enemy dispositions.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Nelson, standing up. ‘And you will put your mind to the matter of Orde’s prize money?’

  ‘Most assiduously.’

  Barham stood to see his visitor out, certain that there was only one man to command the fleet of Cadiz, one man who would soothe the fearful voters of the cities and the shires, and that was Nelson himself.

  When they met Pitt said the same thing. The Prime Minister was not so sure that Nelson’s tactics were correct: he inclined to the notion of close blockade, ‘For if they get together, Lord Nelson, they might amass a fleet we cannot contend with.’

  ‘There is no such fleet, sir,’ said Nelson, with utter conviction.

  Two days later, while waiting to see Mulgrave, the Secretary of State for War, Nelson found himself sharing the anteroom with a hook-nosed army officer of quite staggering arrogance. The man, a general, sat ramrod stiff, and gave Nelson no more than a nod on entry, which got under his skin. After all, he was not hard to place with one eye, one arm and wearing his now famous Chelenk. Nelson was not prepared to be condescended to and initiated a conversation designed to rile the man.

  ‘I think, don’t you, sir, that the Navy stands in well with the country?’

  ‘I’m sure it does.’

  Nelson had met a few good soldiers in his time, but many more that to him were a disgrace to the uniform they wore. It was all about purchase, of course: with bought commissions the Army got the officers it could afford while the Navy had men it had trained from near childhood.

  ‘With good reason, sir. The Glorious First, Camperdown, my own humble contributions at St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen.’

  ‘Algeciras Bay, let us not forget that,’ said the soldier quickly.

  ‘The Army, however?’ Nelson shrugged.

  The general, who had been staring straight ahead, turned to look directly at Nelson, his eyes steady and penetrating. There was a faint glimmer of recognition in Nelson’s mind, the feeling that he had seen that face somewhere before, yet he knew that the man had never served close to him.

  ‘Perhaps, sir, if we were to flog our men more. I will not refer to the other practices for which the King’s Navy is so rightly famous.’

  Nelson flushed angrily, but instead of replying he stood up and left the room, enquiring of the clerk outside, ‘Who is that officer in there?’

  ‘General Sir Arthur Wellesley, milord.’

  ‘Is he, by damn?’ said Nelson, grinning. ‘The victor of Assaye. I think I have just been put it in my place, and deservedly so.’

  With that he re-entered the anteroom and, still standing, said, ‘I fear I owe you an apology Sir Arthur.’ Those unblinking eyes were upon him again. ‘I must tell you that in my career I have met a lot of Army officers who leave a great deal to be desired in the article of application.’

  There was just a trace of a smile at the edge of the mouth. ‘I doubt Lord Nelson, that you have met as many as I.’

  ‘Does that mean my apology is accepted?’

  ‘Without reservation, sir.’

  Nelson sat down again, facing Wellesley. ‘I would be obliged to hear an account of your battle against Tipoo Sultan.’

  Wellesley relaxed
visibly. ‘And I would appreciate a telling of how you fought at Copenhagen.’

  ‘Not the Nile?’ said Nelson, since that was the one usually requested.

  ‘Copenhagen was a much more complex affair, and as a success, if you will permit me to say so, much more interesting to a military mind.’

  Wellesley could not have said anything to please Nelson more. He, too, thought it a more complex battle. He also knew that it had gone unappreciated, a battle in which the Royal Navy had displayed qualities of raw courage and seamanship unparalleled in the annals of the nation.

  ‘I do agree, Lord Nelson, for I see it, if you will forgive me, like a land battle. The outflanking manoeuvre, the taking of the enemy where their defence was weakest, the isolation to the point of futility of their main force.’

  Nelson loved to talk of all naval battles, not just his own, and he was proud of Copenhagen. He employed the table and all the furbelows in the room to describe it, and Sir Arthur Wellesley asked some pretty pertinent questions, not least why the Danes had not done anything to respond to his movements.

  ‘The command was too rigid. We found out afterwards that the Crown Prince had control over the orders all the way down to the rank of lieutenant.’

  ‘With no military experience?’ asked Wellesley.

  ‘None.’

  For the first time Sir Arthur grinned. ‘Perhaps we should offer him a commission in the British Army.’

  ‘Assaye,’ said Nelson.

  The clerk who came to fetch him to Lord Mulgrave found the two still at the table, Nelson wrapped up in the problem of fighting native armies on the Indian sub-continent, mentally astride an elephant riding into battle as the men of Hannibal had done two thousand years before. Now he had to stand: it was not possible to keep the Minister for War waiting.

  ‘Sir Arthur, it has been a pleasure to meet you. Should I ever have to ask for a military officer to assist the Navy rest assured it will be you.’

  ‘Hah!’, exclaimed Wellesley. ‘And wait till I tell my nephews and nieces that I spent time with Viscount Nelson. I shall be a hero to them for that alone. Assaye be damned!’

  ‘You say that you love me, Nelson, but as soon as an offer comes to go, you cannot fly from my side quick enough.’ Emma said this gaily, her arm hooked through his as he walked in his garden, taking the last of the evening sun, but there was just a hint of anxiety behind it. How could he explain that Lord Barham had insisted, that with Villeneuve and the combined Spanish/French fleet now moved to Cadiz, tailed by Collingwood, the best chance of a battle lay there and the Admiralty wanted Nelson present? How could he say that he had accepted because he had formulated ideas that no other admiral would employ, not even those for whom he had the greatest regard?

  The only way to stop French hopes was to destroy French ambition, and that meant the destruction of their fleet – not a ship or two taken and a withdrawal, but another Nile, this time in open sea. If he could do it he would have fulfilled the dream he had all those years ago, while suffering from malaria on the way back from Calcutta. He would be the greatest man in the nation, able to rise above the pettiness of those who refused to receive the woman he loved.

  There was something else too: naked ambition and the residue of that daredevil boy who had gone to sea at thirteen. He craved success, and now he would have the means and the methods to achieve it. Like all good leaders he was prone to ask himself if he had the right to risk men’s lives as a commanding officer. His answer was simple, better that he risk them than someone without his ability.

  ‘Vanity,’ he said, speaking without thinking.

  ‘Vanity takes you to sea? Emma asked.

  ‘No, I was thinking of something else.’

  She stopped and pinched his ear. ‘How dare you, Nelson, think of anything else when I am here?’

  He smiled and kissed her cheek. ‘It is a rare thing indeed when I do.’

  It wasn’t the first time Emma had teased him about his love of the sea, and he had long since tired of trying to manoeuvre for an acceptable answer. The truth was simple: he was a sailor, and lived in a strange half-world that was never complete. A few days at sea, and a sailor longed for the land: on shore too long and nothing could suppress the hankering to be away.

  He was happy here at Merton, but not unreservedly so. Like any man, there were things that disturbed and perplexed him. He loved Emma deeply yet could not comprehend so many things about her. Why did she not share his deep need for the company of Horatia? He was wise enough to know that the child tended to take all his attention, which Emma disliked, and had long ago decided that the mother was as much a child in her way as their daughter. She had taken to gambling again, and he had also noticed since being home that she was drinking too much. Her extravagance had forced him to put Horatia’s money beyond her control because he suspected that if she had it she would spend it. The recent loss of the child must have affected her, of course, and Sir William was not here to advise her.

  But it was more than that he knew. Emma lived in a limbo of being neither wife nor lover, the latter because he was away at sea. The undertone of her correspondence these last eighteen months had hinted at an underlying unhappiness about her position, one that could not be regularised unless Fanny died, and Nelson had to admit that that was unlikely.

  He had come home this time with half a mind to retire, but even that did not provide a solution, because Emma would still be subjected to malice. Some people would never accept her for what she was, would only see her past. Nelson reckoned that to be happy, to be a family in the sense that he desired, they could no longer live in an England where the association was frowned upon.

  It was a problem that would only get worse as Horatia grew older. Emma was fecund; perhaps there would be another child. He wanted his daughter, and any other child, to have his name, to be acknowledged openly as his offspring, and to end this constant hiding away that had them living in separate lodgings when in London.

  He had his estates still in Brontë, and though that gift from Ferdinand had been a drain on his finances rather than an asset, it was there to be exploited. The only barrier to that was that he had employed an agent to run it, and all the money it earned had gone on improvements. Perhaps with him there, and a new man of business to run the place, he could make it pay.

  At least it would be warm, for Nelson had reached an age were he dreaded the English winter. The damp ate into him and he had to admit that his prospects for service at sea were rapidly diminishing. His eye worried him: he was not going blind yet, but he was approaching the point where for him to command a fleet would put his ships in more danger than any Frenchman could.

  ‘This will be my last command, Emma.’

  That stopped her. They were under a tree, out of the sunlight, and it was cold enough here to make him shiver. Emma was looking at him with those entrancing green eyes. He started to talk about his concerns, articulating things he had only up till then thought about.

  ‘There will be a battle and, God willing I will be there, be it in a month or a year. But if not, I must come ashore. Another year at sea will be the death of me.’

  Emma was not stupid – extravagant yes, flamboyant and mercurial, but underneath that ran a grain of sense. She knew that Nelson kept things from her, just as she knew that her behaviour sometimes annoyed him. He did not understand how insecure she felt. Sometimes at night, when he was at sea, especially after a letter that contained a modicum of criticism, she imagined him returning to his wife. If she had said that to him he would have laughed and called her foolish; but in the dark, alone, it frightened her.

  Nelson had taken both her hands in his one. ‘I wish to watch my child grow, and to be by your side, my love. You are, to me, my two beautiful girls, the most precious things on this earth.’

  ‘How long do we have?’

  ‘A day or two.’

  25

  It was a strange interlude, those remaining fourteen days, mostly spent in conference.
Barham obliged him by letting him choose his own officers despite Nelson’s assertion that any of the available captains would serve, that ‘they were all of a one’. He sent a short note to Admiral Collingwood, telling him of his commission, with the hope that his old friend would stay as second in command.

  In between, he was near to being hounded. It seemed once the news was out, everyone wanted to see him – the leader of the opposition Addington, now Lord Sidmouth, William Beckford, who came to Merton because Nelson had no time to accept a request to come Fonthill, among others. Invitations to dinner poured in, as well as appeals from various ministers to brief them on the situation. To all he said the same thing; that he hoped to be home by Christmas, with the combined fleets of the enemy well and truly trounced.

  Emma was in limbo, keen to bolster Nelson’s confidence, worried that his health might fail before he had had his battle, or that there would be no such thing, which would be an ignominious end to his career. Did he really mean to retire? Was she the cause of that or his health? Nelson was summoned to meet the Prince Regent at Carlton House, leaving Emma waiting for him in her London lodgings while he was called into the royal presence.

  Prinny was fat, flabby and over-pomaded, sending out clouds of odour every time he moved. He tried to look regal and attempted to sound martial, but failed on both counts. He managed to imply that all good ideas flowed from him, perhaps even those of successful naval officers, which did nothing at all to endear him to the best of them. He caused even greater offence when he mentioned Emma, and asserted that she was still a damned handsome woman who had quite struck his fancy.

  ‘Odd fellow, Nelson,’ he said to his equerry, after the Admiral had left. ‘I can quite see why my papa found him so tiresome. He has such vanity.’

  His second meeting with the Prime Minister was of far more importance to Nelson, who was thankful that Pitt had come round to his way of thinking: Let us get the French out, then let us fight them. But he had another request to make, though when he spoke of his health he had to acknowledge that Pitt looked worse than he did.