Breaking the Line (24 page)

Nelson had the satisfaction of observing that all his capital ships had remained in place. Even the bomb ketches, which had finally anchored mid-channel kept firing despite the order. His instructions outweighed those of his superior, the men of his part of the fleet looked to him not Parker, and Nelson was sure he could detect a diminution in the Danish fire. It was hard to pin down in the mêlée of shot shell and noise, but it was there.

The messengers were flooding aboard in droves, midshipmen and lieutenants, to tell him a ship had struck, boarded and was now in British possession: that another was on fire and a hulk, that yet another’s cable had been cut and she was drifting ashore not a gun left firing, that the Danish Commodore’s pennant was no longer flying above a ship in the defence line but was on a flagstaff over the Trekroner fort, which could mean that his place on his vessel had become untenable. There were flags and more than enough prisoners to crowd out Nelson’s great cabin, and in his own lee were four vessels that had surrendered.

The Trekroner fort, as well as the Quintus and Sixtus batteries – no doubt under the orders of Olfert Fischer, and denied the target of British frigates – decided to open up on the main line, particularly HMS
Elephant.
Most of the shots fell short, landing on a group of surrendered Danish ships inshore of Nelson’s flagship, where men were gathered on the decks. The death toll was terrible and the effect on Nelson electric. He knew that only one thing would slacken that fire, and that there was only one way that the men who, having surrendered had become his responsibility, could be kept alive.

The battle was over, Nelson knew that, not fooled by the continuing fire. He also knew that his victory was complete. The Danish defence line had been destroyed, and Copenhagen was wide open to bombardment. To continue the battle would only see good men on both sides killed to no purpose. The task now was to persuade the Crown Prince and his advisors to accept that they had been beaten.

‘Mr Frears, to my cabin for paper and pen. Captain Foley, I will need a messenger to carry for me a proposal of a truce to the Trekroner fort.’

The invitation to propose a truce was written on the casing that housed the head of the rudder, Foley’s purser making a fair copy from Nelson’s scrawl. Sealed at Nelson’s insistence with wax carrying the impression of his own coat of arms, it was sent off with Captain Thesiger, a British officer who spoke Danish, the wording really a plea that humanity take over from what could only be carnage.

The Danes were still firing, but the three 74s well out ahead of Parker’s division had come close enough to oblige the ships ahead of
Elephant
to strike, which left only the land batteries firing. A Danish ship, the
Danneborg
was on fire and looked likely to blow so Nelson, mindful of Aboukir Bay and
L’Orient,
decided to move his ships out of the north end of the King’s Deep to anchor with those of Sir Hyde Parker.

That this turned into a farce showed Parker how right he had been to worry. None of the ships, given the damage they had sustained to sails and spars, could sail efficiently. The
Monarch,
with her captain, Mosse dead, ran aground, then
Ganges
quickly ran her bowsprit amidships aboard the stranded ship. It took an age to separate them, with the Danes still peppering the withdrawing vessels.

The
Danneborg,
grounded on the Amager sandbank, blew up at three thirty, the boom reverberating across the city. Nelson’s messenger must have found someone with authority close to that time for a Danish emissary came aboard to be passed on to Sir Hyde Parker and the Danish guns fell silent at around four. In eight hours, Nelson had destroyed the armed might of a whole nation, and as he went over the side of HMS
Elephant,
intent on returning to Hardy’s ship, he said to young Frears,

‘Well, young fellow, I have fought contrary to orders and I may well be hanged for it.’ Then he laughed out loud. ‘Never mind, let them.’

19

Emma Hamilton had a great many thoughts to occupy her mind, not least the fact that the man she loved was at war. It was only by roundabout means that she could find any news of his well-being. If he were killed or wounded, at least a week would go by before the news filtered through, and Emma would probably have it with the public rather than from any private message, the like of which would go to Lady Nelson.

She was not, like Nelson’s wife, in the charmed social circle that received news immediately from the Admiralty. Earl St Vincent, though he made polite and encouraging noises, thoroughly disapproved of her association with Nelson. Thomas Troubridge, very much the First Lord’s protégé, felt that it was nothing short of disastrous to a man he considered a lifelong friend. So while Fanny Nelson was kept abreast of affairs in the Baltic, Emma was not. Rumours abounded of everything from defeat through victory to stalemate, but from exposure to the damage done by gossip she gave them little credence.

Emma had come to rely on James Perry. As the editor of the
Morning
Chronicle,
even if he, too, was denied solid information, Perry was in a good position to ferret out news, so Emma knew that no battle had yet taken place, that Sir Hyde Parker had sent a despatch and that he had received a sharp reply, that her lover had, in his usual fashion, advised an aggressive course of action. What no one knew was what had resulted from all of that.

She also had Horatia to worry about. The child had fallen ill, probably due to an infection picked up from her wet nurse and, though she knew Nelson would worry, it was her duty to write and tell him so. What she did not tell him was that, having replaced the
wet nurse, she had brought the baby into her own house rather than leaving it in the care of Mrs Gibson.

Emma was far from idle: as Sir William Hamilton’s wife, she had to keep up the social engagements that position entailed. With his treasures sold, his government pension secured and a resumption of revenues from his estates, he was once more in funds. There were visits to the theatre, to the opera, to salons and houses where those people the court considered disreputable could gather to make jokes about their more pious brethren. They entertained at number twenty-three Piccadilly, and if occasionally a guest heard the cry of a small child, they were too polite to remark on it.

Sir William was determined to see nothing. He could enter his reception rooms when he had no guests and evince no surprise at seeing either Emma or her mother cradling a baby. He adhered to the fiction that the infant was a foundling, and while he knew that some ridiculed him as a booby and cuckold he was of an age and mode of behaviour that could ignore such jibes.

As host and hostess no visitor would see them as anything other than a contented pair. Privately they were mutually considerate and companions enough to laugh or shed tears at their shared memories: Naples in the good times and bad, friends and acquaintances from those happy days, an increasing number of whom, especially those of Sir William’s generation, were dying off.

Not that Sir William spent much time at home. He had all his old friends to fill his days, the members of the Dilettante Club and the collectors of classical statuary and artefacts who saw him as one of their foremost experts. He was welcome in the superior coffee-houses of St James’s and the auction rooms and galleries of London, either as a seller, a buyer, or an adviser. Sir William was welcomed in less salubrious establishments too, for he was genial company and a ribald storyteller.

He occasionally dined at home with Emma and her mother, although not if Nelson’s relatives were there. Emma was determined to woo the family, but his sisters kept their distance and his father wrote but would not visit – he a partisan of Lady Nelson – for which Sir William was grateful. As a strict non-believer he found clerical company tiresome.

Emma’s one success so far was a bore. William Nelson, Rector of Hilborough, was a black-clad leech with a silly, giggling, pudding of a wife. When it came to taking money off his brother, the man had no shame. He used the connection shamelessly in his pursuit of ecclesiastical preferment, for which Sir William thought him entirely unsuited.

They fed Emma’s increasing loathing of Fanny Nelson, who had become, ‘that woman,’ and for reasons Sir William never fathomed, had been accorded the nickname, ‘Tom tit’, this despite the fact that they had received, in the past, many kindnesses from a person they now took every opportunity to revile.

Sir William recognised the type; they would eat at his board and that of Horatio Nelson and heap praise. But if anything caused them to feel that the grass was greener elsewhere, the Reverend William Nelson and his shrew of a wife would turn on the Hamiltons in the same way they had turned on Fanny Nelson. In the meantime, he would, as far as possible, avoid them.

Emma swung between feeling secure and the fear that separation would diminish Nelson’s passion. She spent time in her Nelson Room, looking at his image and touching his trophies. She ached to have him close so that she could still her anxiety that he would come home from the Baltic to Fanny, having realised that for them to continue was impossible.

Her mother scoffed at this. Mary Cadogan had no worries about Horatio Nelson, she had seen the depth of his regard for Emma, although she still worried about their security. They were safe in Piccadilly for as long as Sir William kept his health. After that they would be prey to the whims of Charles Greville and he had such a tight fist with money that they would likely be out on their ear.

‘Just as long as your papa don’t do nothing daft and get his head carried away by a cannon ball.’ The bright green eyes of Horatia Nelson were fixed on her grandmother’s lips. ‘For he be like that, always in the thick I’m told. If he goes we will be in a right pickle.’

Mary Cadogan was not one to see a problem without looking for a solution. She would have words with Emma’s hero when he came home. Matters needed to be settled so that the comfort of his dependants was assured, the only other way being that he gave up fighting.

Mary Cadogan chucked the infant under the chin. ‘We don’t want to be traipsing around hunting for a place to lay our head, now do we? You wants a house you can call your own, that’s what you want. And happen you want lots of family to come and visit.’

When Mary Cadogan thought of Nelson’s family her actual opinion was only expressed in private. Brother William and his wife she saw as bloodsuckers and pious hypocrites, while Nelson’s father was a pulpit groaner by the look of him. Maurice, the eldest, was said to be at death’s door, having toiled away for thirty years in the Navy Office. He sounded like a decent cove, having lived for years with another
man’s wife, now blind, and he had shown kindness to his uncle’s old black butler.

Mary Cadogan did not look forward to the happy family picture that Emma talked about, all the Nelson relatives reconciled to her and constant visitors. But if their presence was the price of peace of mind, then she would pay it.

Fanny Nelson knew she was being isolated from her in-laws, but was at a loss to know what to do about it. London held no charm for her so she moved to take rooms in Bath, where she could care for her husband’s father.

The behaviour of the William Nelsons was particularly wounding, given what she had done for them. Fanny and Sarah Nelson had been close, while the schooling of both their children was paid for thanks to Fanny’s gift for reminding her husband of his family responsibilities. Susanna and she had never got on. Sukey, as Nelson called her, had been a surrogate mother and no woman would ever be good enough for her little brother. Recently Susanna had written to remind her sister-in-law that her brother’s happiness was her sole concern, almost a coded message that if Fanny Nelson was estranged, then she should look to herself for the cause.

Sitting over her embroidery, Fanny could not believe that her separation from Nelson would last. Despite the birth of a love-child this was still to her an infatuation, which must run its course before her husband came to his senses. The Hamilton woman could only open up the carnal side of him, whereas she had what ‘the whore’ lacked; refinement and respectability. In her mind she composed endless letters to him, and she imagined him reading them. One day something she wrote would act like thunderbolts to remind him of where his best interests lay.

Admiral Sir Hyde Parker was once more alone in the great cabin of HMS
London,
the masts of the Swedish fleet in their base at Carlscrona visible from his quarterdeck. The despatch that relieved him of his command was in his hand, and he was reflecting on the events of the previous weeks: the aftermath of the recent battle and the British fleet, now masters of the sea approaches to Copenhagen; the amount of work necessary to repair the damage to their ships; the number of dead and wounded on both sides, a heavy butcher’s bill in which the Danes had paid the highest price in blood. And the way Nelson had behaved.

It was Nelson’s truce that the Danes accepted. Had he been right
to insist on staying aloof, leaving the bargaining to his junior admiral, even in the face of Nelson’s protests that he was no negotiator? What had prompted it? The certainty that with his name and reputation, Nelson would do better than him, or the possibility that the Danes might not accept the terms, which would leave the victor of the battle with the opprobrium of failure?

Whatever, Nelson had succeeded. There had been a threat of course, because Nelson was no fool: he had warned the Crown Prince of Denmark that he would burn the Arsenal and reduce the Trekroner fort to rubble, leaving Copenhagen defenceless if his terms were not accepted. While negotiating he reminded his hosts that the very rooms they sat in, working on the protocols of a permanent peace, were within range of his mortars.

Parker had stayed in his ship, reassuring himself that in doing so he could repudiate anything that was agreed of which he did not approve, yet knowing, deep down, that matters were out of his hands. He had become a puppet, dancing to Nelson’s tune, at the mercy of the man’s luck, which even extended to the timely murder of the Tsar of Russia and his replacement by a ruler more disposed to make peace with England.

After this, Nelson was sure he was going home, and had even had his heavy luggage packed and stored in HMS
Blanche.
Not any more!

Not Baron Nelson anymore, but Viscount Nelson, and this in a letter pointedly addressed to Admiral SIR Hyde Parker. There would be nothing for him, no title, no fame, no commemorative swords or money grants from the City of London merchants. He was ordered home and would have to skulk into a London full of praise for a man he should despise but could not. A man who, at this moment, was on his way from his own ship to what, by the nature of things, must be a painful interview.

Sir Hyde Parker looked around his cabin, at the fine furnishings, thick carpets and valuable paintings with which it was adorned, all of the best, evidence of his great wealth. There was a fine portrait of his young wife: would it soon be replaced by that of the woman Nelson chose to call his Santa Emma?

They had celebrated her birthday just eight days before, with several glasses of champagne, all the old companions and members of the Crocodile Club and he, drinking toasts to the fair lady. This was done while each looked to see how the others reacted to Nelson’s
bright-eyed enthusiasm for the lady. Hardy’s blank face, as usual, gave nothing away, nor did Tom Foley’s enigmatic smile. Had Parker seen Freemantle shake his head? What did Dommet think of such a blatant affair? Parker would never know, because not one of the officers present would confide in him.

Did they talk to Nelson about him? Was he a butt of their jokes, seen as irrelevant? Faintly he heard the boatswain’s whistles piping Nelson aboard. Did they have a more jaunty note, or was that imagination? Was the crash of that marine salute, the thud of their footwear on the planking and the clatter of the at-arms muskets more snappy than that which had been afforded to him?

‘Sir Hyde,’ said Nelson, as he was shown into the great cabin.

‘Viscount Nelson,’ replied Parker. Having been sitting silently his throat was full of phlegm, which made his voice sound croaked and weak. Hastily he cleared it, knowing as he did so that such coughing did nothing for the impression he was creating. ‘I doubt I am the first to congratulate you on your elevation, but I do so sincerely nonetheless.’

‘You are most kind, sir.’

There was a moment then, when each tried surreptitiously to read in the other’s expression what was going on in the opposing mind. Nelson was uncomfortable, in a situation he would have preferred to avoid. There was little doubt that before the Copenhagen battle, his former commanding officer had tried to avoid him, to ensure that anything in the way of glory remained his province.