Breaking the Line (8 page)

‘Damn the First Lord,’ said a damp-eyed Nelson.

‘Amen to that, your honour,’ said Giddings.

6

The sight of the thin strip of land lit by the low eastern sun produced mixed feelings in Nelson’s breast. It was the coast of Norfolk, and wherever he had gone in the world it was a place for which he hankered: nothing had ever stood comparison to his home county. The people were honest, the women fair and faithful, the men bred to the sea, slow to anger, but terriers in a battle. The landscape, be it the flat, dyke-cut marshland or the low hills to the north, entranced him and, like the local food and ales, had a flavour the mere sense of which opened a whole treasure chest of memories. But most of all it was the light, that translucent glow from the setting sun that created mile long shadows across open fields, the light with which he had grown up.

That he was arriving here in the
King
George
mail packet still rankled. The Admiralty, despite repeated requests, had failed to despatch a frigate to Hamburg to fetch him and the party of the returning Ambassador. It was a slight both to Sir William Hamilton and himself.

Four months was a long time to be unavailable for service, but he had told his superiors that he needed to restore his health, and he had done something beneficial as well in the political sphere. The diplomatic effect of the victor of the Nile turning up in person at the central European courts while Bonaparte was rampant had been of immeasurable importance, but this seemed not to have registered with the Admiralty.

From the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the Emperor of Austria, the aristocracy of Bohemia, to a raft of German dukes, margraves and electors, he had set out to charm his hosts and encourage them to see that France was not invincible. His visits had been well received, and
he looked forward to stressing this to his political masters when he met them. Sir William and Emma, both accomplished in the diplomatic
milieu,
had aided that cause admirably. And at no time had it seemed to Nelson that their hosts suspected he and Emma were lovers.

Sir William, with a sharper eye and more experience knew differently. The attentions paid by Nelson to Emma were more evident than the Admiral supposed, not least the open admiration in his look whenever Emma spoke, sang or moved around the room at some distance from him. She would sit with him at the Faro table, playing cards with his money, gifting him her winnings or burdening him with her losses, all the time in such close physical proximity that a blind man would have suspected an association.

Yet even Sir William had to admit that Emma had handled her pregnancy, which she had never admitted to him, with discretion. She was visiting places where she was known only by reputation as a beauty and a performer of classical attitudes, and in the earlier stages of their travels the bloom of her condition had added to that. In northern Italy and Vienna she had scored no end of triumphs: the elderly genius Joseph Haydn, who had insisted she sing for him, had made it plain that he was prepared to be more than just a distant admirer.

The only one who seemed oblivious to the true nature of affairs was Cornelia Knight. Emma’s close companion seemed unaware of the affair and its burgeoning consequences. Perhaps it was enough for her to bask in the fame of the man with whom she was travelling: perhaps it was a desire to see nothing but good or simply that Cornelia Knight was unworldy. No great beauty, she was not particularly attractive to the opposite sex and her tendency to gabble and her very strident voice were off-putting too. Sir William had often seen male companions frown when she brayed some remark. When she laughed, which she did frequently, Cornelia could be heard across a crowded room.

But she clearly loved Emma and admired Nelson, forever penning songs and odes to the hero that she recited at every opportunity, her favourite being the new words she had put to the tune of Rule Britannia. On the road, in the discomfort of a swaying carriage, her enthusiasm for any sight, sound or event that took her eye lifted rather than diminished the spirit. As a travelling companion, Emma claimed she was without peer, given the ease with which she could make her laugh.

As the journey progressed Emma began to put on weight, but that
mattered little; she was amongst strangers or people who had not seen her for years. Nelson watched her closely for any sign of ill health, Sir William with the jaundiced eye of a man who had at one time contemplated fatherhood by the same woman. Emma had the excuse that the endless feasts and balls were ruining her figure, and by constant alteration to her wardrobe she was able to disguise each increase in her waistline.

From every point of the journey, letters flew back to Naples and on to London, impressions of Nelson and of Sir William and his wife. Most, even couched diplomatically, could not avoid reference to the way the Hero of the Nile fawned over Emma Hamilton. Hosts heard from their servants of nocturnal traversing and morning retching in Emma’s apartments, and while never precise, hints were dropped that the recipients would fully understand.

Approaching England, Emma was beginning to show the full bloom of her pregnancy. In private it was the start of a bulge that Nelson loved to caress, taut skin to which he put his ear hoping for a heartbeat or a kick. In public it would be hidden under a newly extended set of garments. Nelson hoped that the Hamiltons, while people would be aware of them, would not excite as much attention as he himself would, and thus Emma would escape scrutiny.

He knew that he was in bad odour in certain quarters, and not only for the extended mode of his travel. There were his relations with Lord Keith to account for, the fact that he had ignored his instructions. The more he thought about it, the more he had concluded that Keith’s orders had been designed for one purpose only: to get him under his personal, close command and curb his independence. In short, Keith had been motivated by jealousy, not sound tactical thinking. So he was not minded to turn up in London and apologise, though that did not prevent him worrying.

The Board of Admiralty must have concurred with Lord Spencer before he had sent the admonitory despatch. There were members of that body, and yet more who had the ear of one, who were less than fond of him, officers and officials whom he had offended long before his own exploits had made him a substantial person in the public eye. While proud of his natural inclination to speak the truth, he knew it tended to create enemies. The envy of service superiors, who felt he had been over-indulged and given commands above his rightful station, would be added to that, which left Nelson to conclude that despite his successes, nothing in his future was certain.

If the Board of Admiralty backed Lord Keith to the hilt it could be
very difficult. Suddenly that strip of coastline conjured up a sense of impending danger rather than welcome.

It was known to all sailors that news, both good and bad, travels faster than the ship carrying it, and the town of Yarmouth had been alerted to the arrival of the nation’s hero well before his merchantman cleared the harbour entrance. The bells of every church rang out, while every window that faced the sea contained a waving flag. The quay and the harbour wall were lined with people, obliging Nelson to move on to the poop to accept the accolade. Sir William, who had joined him on deck, stayed in the waist, alternately grinning at him and at the cheering crowd. The sun, well above the horizon now, seemed especially ordered to illuminate the hero, sparkling off his jewelled orders and the diamonds of the
Chelenk
that adorned his hat.

Below decks, preparing to land, Emma’s heart swelled at the sound. Fêted in the Mediterranean, courted throughout the whole of his European journey, Nelson feared that what fame he had achieved might have faded. With what sounded like the whole of Yarmouth yelling his name, how could he feel that now?

Sent ashore in a boat while the ship edged in, Tom Allen had hired a carriage to supplement the travelling coach, now lashed to the deck, and had booked rooms at a modest inn called the Wrestler’s Arms. By the time the party landed the hired horses had been removed from the shafts and replaced by a dozen sturdy fellows. The leading burghers of the town, the Mayor and Aldermen, formed a double line from the quay edge to the carriage door, behind which there rose the one-word clamour for ‘Nelson’. It was difficult to hear the voice of the Mayor, who informed Nelson that a meal had been prepared in his honour at the leading hotel in the town, that he was the honoured guest of Yarmouth, and that a resolution to grant him the freedom of the town had already been passed. The younger men, as a signal mark of honour, had volunteered to pull his coach through the streets.

Hats were doffed to Lady Hamilton and her mother, and Sir William received hearty slaps of congratulation, blows that were too powerful for his sparse frame. But there was no complaint, just wonder at a reception the like of which he had never seen. Looking into the eyes of those cheering his friend he could see tears of joy and open rejoicing. Not even the
lazzaroni
of Naples acted with such fervour.

Though the Royal George was close by it took nearly an hour for
the coach to get to it, so thick was the throng. The same dignitaries who had lined the quay, had used the back streets, so were there to greet the Nelson party and to show them to the upstairs room. A table was set, lit by chandeliers and candelabra, sparkling with glasses, crockery and cutlery. A pair of double windows opened on to a balcony, so that Nelson could step out to overlook the main square, full of people, with yet more crowded in to the roads that led to it.

His name greeted him in various forms: ropes spliced and nailed to a garlanded board; flowers encircling a huge N, banners proclaiming both him and the Nile victory, one arranged like an army battle honour, listing in a scroll his greatest battles: St Vincent, Tenerife, Calvi and Bastia, Toulon and the action off Genoa, all dwarfed by the four huge letters spelling Nile. When he lifted his hat to the crowd they lifted their voices to a deafening pitch, banners and victory talismans bobbing in accolade.

‘My dear,’ he said, holding out a hand to Emma. One look from a local worthy caused Nelson to extend the invitation to Sir William, this while he informed the gathering, ‘Gentlemen, rest assured that whatever fame I have garnered for the cause for our nation’s arms, it could not have been achieved without the aid of these, my two closest companions.’

‘Hear him, hear him.’ Sir William felt his back slapped again with excessive force, and as men vied to hand his wife on to the balcony, he whispered to Nelson, ‘If this is to be the state of things, my friend, I fear I must buy a cuirass. My back aches from the pummelling.’

‘They love you, Nelson,’ said Emma, her face radiant, ‘they truly love you.’

He leant close, though over the clamour no one could have heard him. ‘They will come to love you in the same manner, Emma. Love you as I do. I swear it.’

The word ‘Never’ she mouthed, but it was accompanied by a smile.

Giddings was adept in such situations: to be coxswain to a commander like Nelson he had to be. Ignoring the celebrations, he oversaw the unloading of the luggage, chiding a slow-moving Tom Allen to, ‘shift his arse and help him load the handcart.’ Even using back roads that took them in a wide arc, the roars of acclamation carried, as they struggled to pass a stream of people rushing in to the town.

‘What a to do,’ said Tom Allen.

‘You’ll see plenty more of where this came from Tom, boy. Close to, you have forgotten just how famed your master be.’

Tom replied in a cross tone, his breathing heavy. Lugging chests
and the like was a job he was accustomed to delegate to others and he was short of breath. ‘How could I, Giddings, when her ladyship never leaves off reminding him. Hero this, hero that. He has vanity enough of his own, Christ knows, but she is forever stoking it.’

‘With what he’s got in his trumpet, mate, it don’t do no harm to blow.’

‘He’s blown hard from more than one shaft, I can tell you.’

Nothing was secret to Giddings, who had a sharp eye and a close mouth. If the man he had served for so many years wished for silence about his relationship with Lady Hamilton, it was up to those loyal to him to do the same. And that applied in spades to Tom Allen, who was the closest of the lot. He had known Allen a long time, but Giddings could not say he knew him well: their worlds, though they meshed, did not actually mix. Giddings saw to the Admiral’s barge, kept the boat crew smart, and was always by Nelson’s side in a fight. But he messed, like all sailors, before the mast. He was required to be efficient rather than polite and took some pride, in his smart jacket and flat sennit hat, in being a bit of a ruffian.

Tom had been a sailor too, but had never excelled. After years of being a servant he seemed polished, a weak man when it came to fighting. He had grown soft with his pantry and a cubicle to sleep in, officer’s food to eat and as much wine to sip as he liked. The sailor servant kept himself to himself, rarely mixing with the lower deck hands. There was wisdom in that: almost a part of the great-cabin furniture, Tom Allen overheard most of Nelson’s conversations. He served the officers at every conference they held to discuss tactics, heard Hardy, Nelson and the ship’s master plot the course to whatever destination had been decided on. It was his duty to keep what he heard to himself.