‘I will do everything in my power to bring our enemies to battle but the means I will employ will expose every commanding officer to a great danger.’
‘I have heard a battle described Lord Nelson, and it sounded bloody enough, although I suspect words cannot do it justice.’
‘You will have been told that in a fight the quarterdeck is the most dangerous place to be.’
Pitt looked grave. ‘Which is where you will be, I take it.’
Nelson managed a smile, but in his mind he was thinking of how lucky he had been. Always he had imposed on the enemy, and it had been their commanders struck down, not him. But enough of his own companions had died in battle, and that piece of flying langridge that had hit him at the Nile, a bit lower, would have decapitated him. He was not worried for himself: the risk of death or injury was ever present to a serving officer in war, and did not signify because no one could be effective in a fight and worry about such things.
‘You will be aware sir, that I am a partisan of Lady Emma Hamilton.’
The word partisan was odd to Pitt, who nodded. He would have called it something else.
‘Then you may be aware that since the death of her husband she has become dependent on me.’ Another nod. ‘I also have responsibility for a child we have close to adopted, a sweet girl who, I hope, one day, might marry one of my nephews.’
Pitt was well versed in listening without responding, and it bothered him not at all that Nelson was being less than wholly truthful. He understood the need for discretion.
‘I would venture to say that this child, should anything happen to me, would be too heavy a burden for Lady Hamilton to bear. It will not have escaped your attention that I have submitted on more than one occasion a memorandum detailing why she of all the people I know should be looked on favourably by the government for a pension.’
Pitt had read one, though he struggled to remember what Emma Hamilton had done.
‘I believe she was in many ways the equal of her late husband in the execution of his office. Since the government over which you presided saw fit to grant Sir William a pension, it is my request that Lady Hamilton should have the continuation of that.’
‘For services in Naples.’
‘And Palermo.’
Pitt was good at silence too and he employed that now, this while Nelson recalled that the year before he had also petitioned Maria Carolina of Naples to do something for Emma. The reply, in which ‘Dear Emma’ was not mentioned, proved that royalty, both at home and abroad, had short memories.
Pitt knew what Nelson was saying. Should anything happen to him, he wanted Lady Hamilton and his daughter looked after. ‘It is a matter to which I will give my most earnest consideration, Lord Nelson.’
The look in Pitt’s eyes, plus the knowledge that he was a man who had a care about making commitments, was confirmation to Nelson that he was speaking the truth. ‘Then I am content, sir.’
Pitt stood up, the interview over. ‘Please be assured Admiral that I wish you all the speed and luck that God can muster. It is no exaggeration to say that you go forth with the fate of the nation upon your shoulders.’
‘I merely carry that to the fleet, sir,’ Nelson replied, standing also. ‘There, what feels like a heavy weight now becomes tolerable by being shared amongst the best men in the kingdom.’
‘Will you permit me to walk with you to your carriage?’
‘I would be honoured,’ replied Nelson, who doubted even the King was afforded that kind of courtesy from his First Lord of the Treasury.
No amount of partings can make them easier. He had left Emma a dozen or more times now, and always with feelings that had knotted his stomach. Emma was the same, anxious but working to hide it. There was little flaming passion, a slow and sweet love-making followed by a long night of talking about the future with the moon shining through the open curtains; his notion that they could not stay at Merton, that Brontë might be better for them. The possibility of death was not mentioned, and no decisions were made, but they speculated on alternatives. Perhaps he could have that eye operation, perhaps something would change to make their life together better. Nelson killed in his mind the blasphemous thought that Fanny might expire; Emma did not.
‘I love the life we have now, my dear, but I wish to see you acknowledged beside me. I want everyone to know how much you inspire me. How many times have I said that if there were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons?’
‘Too many times, I fear. It makes people yawn with repetition.’
‘Then they are fools who do not see sense when it stares at them. Do you remember the day we met, at the Palazzo Sessa?’
‘How can I forget it, Nelson? My stomach still churns at the memory.’
‘And that day when I fled from Naples?’ He could see it now, the sunshine, the blue water, the shade under the awning, him close to Emma a little way off from everybody else, his blood racing. ‘And to think I slung the King and Queen off dear Agamemnon.’
‘Sir William was horrified at first,’ said Emma, with the deep chuckle that Nelson loved to hear. ‘But I recall he said to me how much you had impressed him by your zealous behaviour.’
‘That makes me blush to the roots. If he had known the real reason.’
‘Are you sure it was me?’
‘It was not the French. I fled from you, and what I might do, not towards them. I wonder if anyone aboard suspected?’
‘What about your servant, Lepée?’
‘Too drunk to notice. He was four sheets to the wind before you ever came on to my deck.’
The conversation had been like this before when he was going to sea, a remembrance of the things that they had shared, the memories that Nelson insisted would bind them together into old age.
‘There we will be, Nelson, you and I, doddering.’
‘We shall never fail to make our bed.’
‘Dowager me.’
‘And I the country squire.’
‘Having your wicked way with the milkmaid.’
‘Emma!’
‘You will have to do it by feel, of course,’ Emma laughed, fondling him, ‘you being blind, happen you’ll end up milking instead of …’
‘Emma.’
‘Prude, Nelson.’
‘I am, I admit it.’
‘But still a man,’ said Emma, her voice low and throaty. ‘Every inch.’
‘You should sleep, my love.’
‘That I can do tomorrow.’
Nelson left in the cold dawn light with his servant, well wrapped up against the autumn morning chill. He had already visited Horatia’s room to look at her and bestow a gentle kiss on her brow, to touch her small open hand and look into the sweet innocence of a sleeping child. Now he and Emma stood under the porch, he in his boat cloak, she in a dressing gown, trying and failing not to shiver.
‘Come back to me soon.’
‘Weeks, not months, I swear it.’ He kissed her hand. ‘To my most noble lady.’
There was mist over the river Nile, spilling on to the lawns, and the trees looked damp and forlorn in the grey light. Emma stood and waved until the sound of wheels on gravel was no more, then went back to bed to cry the tears she never let Nelson know of when he went to sea.
There was such a crowd at Portsmouth that he considered taking a boat from Southsea Beach to avoid them. But their faith in him obliged Nelson to leave by the sally-port, a way cleared for him by marines. The talk of the crowd, as he descended the steps to his waiting barge, was a mixture of ‘Good lucks’ and ‘God Bless’, and ‘if you see my Arthur, your honour, tell him to stay sound.’
It was always a matter of pride to Nelson that he could look these people in the eye, the wives, sweethearts, brothers, sisters and sons of his sailors. On taking up his present command, he had found in the Mediterranean a fleet in some distress, not least in a band of sailors hankering for home, and suffering scurvy as well as all the ailments brought on by despondency. He had cured their bodies an
d their minds, and could boast how few of his men died on his commission. They had sailed to the West Indies in forty-six days, lopping a good ten off Admiral Villeneuve. And they had come home even quicker, in twenty-eight, showing what British tars could do in the article of ship-handling. And in six thousand round miles, not one man had been lost. Admiral Lord Nelson cared for their menfolk as much as they did themselves
He stood in his boat so that they could see him, not from vanity, but because there was fear in those breasts, not surprising in a naval town that mourned after every battle. Victory was out on the mother shoal of Spithead, securely anchored, having had few of the repairs he had hoped for after eighteen months at sea. He thought of the fleet he was about to take over, and that, allied to the sight of his flagship, yards crossed and ready in all respects for sea, lifted his heart.
They manned the yards when they saw him coming, the whole fleet cheering. Every ship saluted with thirteen guns, as was his right, the seascape full of puffs of smoke as all the vessels vied with each other to complete the honour first. Even stone-faced Hardy was amazed enough to comment. ‘See how they love you, milord. They know with you here there will be a fight.’
‘Damn it Hardy, I love them more than they love me. If Villeneuve could see this now he would scuttle.’
‘I reckon you to be right there, sir.’
‘Coll, you will not believe this but Hardy actually smiled,’ Nelson said, to his old friend and second in command. Then he realised that Cuthbert Collingwood was no smiler either, and changed the subject. In fact, he was about to change a great many of his friend’s orders. Collingwood took as his example men like St Vincent, who believed, when on blockade, in iron discipline: no inter-ship visiting, no buying of goods from the boats that carried fresh produce from the North African coast. And he of all people had to be persuaded to accept Nelson’s plan.
‘Do you agree, Coll, that no day is long enough to arrange a couple of fleets to fight a battle, certainly not according to the old system?’
‘When, Nelson, have you ever paid heed to the old system?’
Collingwood had been behind him when he pulled out of the line at St Vincent, a total breach of the Fighting Instructions, an act that might have seen him shot after a court martial if things had gone wrong.
‘Not often, I grant you. But it is even more pressing here, where dawn comes late and darkness early. We have no time for dispositions.’
He used the same words to his captains over two nights as they joined him for dinner. ‘The fleet will sail in two divisions gentlemen, one under my command and one under Admiral Collingwood in Royal Sovereign. The order of sailing is the order of attack.
It was pleasant to pause then, to let it sink in just how much Nelson planned to deviate from the previous method of engaging an enemy. ‘There will be no time to form a line of battle, and if we did so you must all realise we would be outnumbered. Our enemies have a third more ships than we do, and if we lay our ships in line to windward, as our still extant instructions tell us we should, we will never get close. That is what happened to Admiral Calder, and it will not happen to me. I want to go at them about a third from the head of their line, with the second division taking its point of attack ahead of the enemy’s rear admiral. Thus we cut off the executive head and isolate what must be Villeneuve’s best ships in such numbers that we can double up on them. I want no formality, gentlemen, but a pell-mell battle where our seamanship and gunnery will win the day.
Nelson waited, but no one spoke for a whole half minute. Then they started, voices full of excitement and approbation, men who were sure that they were at a point in history that had never before been seen; that the whole nature of naval warfare had just been turned on its head.
‘Once the frigates have told us the enemy is out we will close with them. They will assume they have time to clear but our immediate approach will deny them the luxury. In line ahead we will break theirs. They have to be sailing on a wind, so their lead ships will struggle to come round and effectively be out of the battle. Thus the odds are redressed. The rear division will have to come up under the threat of our attacking ships dropping back from the point we breach the line to engage them.’
His one good eye ranged around the table, to be greeted with open enthusiasm and not a hint of dissent. No one wanted to say to him that he was taking a terrible risk because they wanted to take it with him. Not one captain or junior admiral wanted to point out that this was his first fleet action at sea: the Nile and Copenhagen had been static.
‘Gentlemen, this is war, and no battle will follow some paper plan. If I am gifted the right, I will aim Victory ahead of Villeneuve’s flag, to come down his windward side. What ship takes him on the other quarter is for its captain to decide, for nothing is certain in a sea fight. Shot will carry away masts and spars of friends as well as foes. I place my trust in my God, the arms of my country, and you.’
It was all anxiety from then on, waiting for action, seeing to his fleet, the need, since they were short of wood and water, to send six-of-the-line away under Admiral Louis, a less than happy old Crocodile who was sure he was going to miss the battle. Nelson moved his ships away from Cadiz, his heavier three deckers and the slower ships fifty miles off shore, behind a screen of fast sailing 74s, which were kept out of sight from the land, while inshore Captain Blackwood kept watch with his squadron of frigates, often right inshore.
Nelson was anxious, as always, for more frigates: they were the eyes of the fleet, the one thing that would ensure that Villeneuve could not slip out in a mist or foul weather and get away unobserved. If the combined fleet got into the Mediterranean, then the mischief they could make, with the addition of more ships from Cartagena, would be incalculable, while Viscount Nelson, forced to chase, would be made to look a fool.
Nelson received intelligence that the allies had got their soldiers on board, then that the combined fleet had been warped out of the inner harbour and were now bending on their topgallant yards. He could not know that in sending Louis away to revictual he had left Villeneuve thinking that his strength was diminished, that the opportunity had presented itself to bring overwhelming strength to bear on the British fleet.
On deck, during the day, he was pleased to see many of the ships being painted, trying to copy the buff and black chequer effect that had been achieved on the Victory, which would make them recognisable in a close-quarter fight. The day that rain came was one of deep frustration for them because the paint ran, and for Nelson, who feared that the closed-in weather would give his enemies a chance to do the same.
‘Sail bearing nor, nor west, sir.’
It did not take much to get an anxious admiral on deck and he was up before the vessel, now actually two since she had a frigate in company, was identified as HMS Agamemnon.
‘Berry by God,’ he cried. ‘There’s always a fight where he is. Now we will have our battle.’
Five ships-of-the-line had joined, making up for Louis’s absence. He was not equal to his foe, but Nelson reckoned the odds enough. More days went by, and he dealt as he had to with the problems attendant on being a commander-in-chief. And then it came, the signal he had been waiting for, that the enemy was at sea. Immediately he wrote to Emma and Horatia.
Nelson covered the mouth of the Straits of Gibraltar, that being Villeneuve’s likely route, to break though there and make for Toulon, sailing to the north-west. Being a Sunday he agreed to divine service, but not in a way that interfered with preparations for battle.
With no sight of the enemy they ploughed on, eyes peeled. Blackwood had a line of four frigates repeating signals, through Defence, Colossus and on to Victory, thirty-three enemy capital ships under constant observation. The temptation to close with them was strong, but he wanted them well away from a safe harbour so forced himself to be patient. During the night, thinking he had drawn them far enough from Cadiz, Nelson altered course, preparatory to attack.
The state of the sea was worsening, with a
heavy swell setting in from the west, but there was no excess of wind. As dawn broke they saw the enemy, a forest of masts ten miles to leeward. The signal was made to form two columns, with the Admiral cock a hoop. As soon as he sighted Nelson, Villeneuve bore away, turning back for Cadiz. Superior in ships, and even more in cannon, the Frenchman was running away.
‘You are too late on this wind, my friend,’ Nelson cried. ‘I think I have you.’
His frigate captains came aboard, led by Captain Henry Blackwood, who Nelson recalled as a midshipman so timid on his first voyage that he had had to lead him to the masthead. He was not that now; he was a clear-sighted and fearless warrior. While they were aboard Nelson wrote a final letter, his last testament, just as he had done before every action. Everyone in the fleet who could write would do the same, while the illiterate would make other arrangements. Nelson’s was to the point, naming Sir William and Lady Hamilton and the poor recompense they had had from their country for outstanding services. He had it witnessed by Hardy as the last of his goods were being struck below.
In full dress uniform, garlanded with his orders of chivalry, he went round the ship congratulating, encouraging, arguing about the number of prizes to be taken that day, making jokes, giving advice, wondering secretly how many of these men would be still there to laugh that night. Before departing, Blackwood suggested Nelson come aboard his ship Euryalus, but that invitation was declined for the poor example it would set.
‘Farewell Blackwood, I will not speak with you again except by flags.’
Back on deck it was clear the wind was falling, which did not bode well. Both his divisions would be sailing bowsprit-on to a waiting enemy, which would leave them exposed to a withering fire before they could engage, so Nelson ordered Hardy to get up more sail.
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