Tested by Fate (22 page)

The flames hit what rigging was still left standing, shooting up to the tops like a racing squirrel. They could see ships close by, faced with the sailors’ greatest dread, a spreading conflagration, cutting cables and sheet anchors to get clear. Only Ball stayed in position, his pumps working flat out to drench his decks and upperworks with water, this so he could keep his guns firing in the increasing, metal-melting heat. But when the decks were alight even Ball knew that the enemy was doomed and hauled himself clear of danger.

Nelson saw the flames suddenly balloon out, mixed with a mass of timber. A wall of air hit his face followed by an ear-shattering boom that pressed in on his flesh. Looking up he saw
L’Orient
disintegrate, even her guns tossed skywards by the force of the blast that ripped out of her magazine, the hull driven down into the encroaching waters so that the flames, which had illuminated the whole battle scene, were suddenly extinguished, plunging everyone into stygian darkness.

It was minutes later that bits of
L’Orient
came back to earth, wood, metal, tattered fragments of sail, and the limbs of men blown to small pieces by the force of the explosion. By then, aboard the ships of Nelson’s fleet, the cheering had already begun.

T
HE SIGHT
of a British frigate, beating up into the Bay of Naples, flags streaming from the masts, was enough to cause panic in some breasts, anxiety in others, and hope in a few. Sir William,
trusting
the eyes of others, received the news at his dressing table and immediately ordered that a boat should be sent out to greet the new arrivals, with instructions to carry to him at speed whatever message they bore.

Standing by the windows of Emma’s private apartments, her new friend Cornelia Knight observed the way the frigate anchored, saw the speed with which two young officers alighted into Sir William’s boat, and felt a frisson of fear as she contemplated what news they might carry. France had been triumphant everywhere these last five years. The Revolution had humbled all of northern Italy, overrun the Papal States and Rome itself, taken and held the Low Countries and Flanders. Bonaparte, their famous Corsican
general
, was abroad in the Mediterranean, seeking God only knew what lands to conquer.

The whole world knew he was at sea with a strong fleet and transports carrying the army with which he had humbled Austria. The destination of that fleet had been the only subject of
conversation
for a month, since the news had arrived that Bonaparte had captured Malta. Had he gone east to threaten the Adriatic or Egypt? Had he gone west to threaten Gibraltar? Or was he coming here, to burn, destroy, and loot Naples?

“They are close enough to see their faces, Emma.”

Emma left the writing table to take the telescope from her friend. The first image to fill the glass when she had adjusted it was that of William Hoste, whom she named to Cornelia. The other officer, a lieutenant, was a stranger to her. Then she lifted the instrument to look over the ship, sitting on the still waters of the bay, sails now neatly furled, an image of peaceful intent.

Mary Cadogan entered, wearing her customary apron, tied at the waist by the chain that held the heavy keys to the palazzo. “Sir William asks that you join him in his library.”

“He will insist on greeting them formally,” Emma said, for the benefit of Cornelia Knight.

“Will my presence affect that?”

“No Cornelia, it will not.”

The trio stood to greet the two officers as soon as they heard their footsteps echo on the marble staircase. Sir William was wondering, as he had since they’d been spotted, whether what they said would be a prelude to flight or celebration. If the former, what should he take with him and what should he leaver If the latter, what was the state of his larders and cellars? Years of waiting for news had inured him to over-reaction in either direction. How many times had he anticipated a momentous despatch only to be handed a packet of social letters?

The double doors swung open to admit the pair. Naval officers they might be but they looked absurdly young, no more than boys, two faces that were struggling to appear controlled.

“Sir William,” said the one who could barely be said to be the eldest, “I am Lieutenant Capel, and this is Mr Hoste. We bring despatches from Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.”

A second’s pause followed, in which both young faces contorted with effort, before breaking into full grins, their voices rising to near shouts as they imparted the news. “A great victory! The French fleet is utterly destroyed! Admiral de Brueys was brought to battle in Aboukir Bay and …”

Sir William saw Emma begin to go, but could not react quickly enough to catch her. Neither could his two visitors, though they moved with speed in an attempt to break her fall. She hit the stone floor with an audible thump partly covered by cries from her
husband
and her friend to fetch the smelling salts. Capel and Hoste lifted her inert body on to a divan, then stepped back to stand like mourners at a wake.

“Months of worry have caused this.”

“You may worry no more, sir.”

“Admiral Nelson?”

“Bears a wound, sir,” replied Hoste, “but though he suffers from the effects of it the surgeon assured us they would pass.”

“Tell me what happened,” demanded Sir William, standing to allow a servant to administer the salts. “Briefly.”

“We caught them at anchor, sir,” Capel replied, his near black eyes flashing with the memory, “though they were ranged in line of battle. It has been proposed that de Brueys did not consider the possibility of an immediate attack, so had made no preparation.”

“The result?”

“Five ships-of-the-line taken as prizes, two burnt and Admiral de Brueys’ flagship,
L’Orient
, blown to bits. Two 74s, we believe under Rear Admiral Villeneuve, escaped,
Guillaume
Tell
and
Généraux
. They had with them a trio of frigates, but that is all. To all extents the French menace in the Mediterranean is gone.”

“We must tell the King,” said Sir William.

The carriage that had brought them from the mole was still harnessed and it was but a short journey to the Palazzo Reale. Admittance to the royal chamber was immediate, and there sat King Ferdinand and his queen, with all of their children, apparently
breakfasting
quietly as if all was well with the world, as if no frigate had entered the bay that morning. But Sir William knew that this was window dressing, an act designed to demonstrate that they were brave enough to face news good or bad. In truth Their Sicilian Majesties would be in turmoil. Somewhere close by, loaded and ready to flee, would be a line of carriages.

“Your Majesty, I bring you good tidings. Admiral Nelson, on the afternoon of August first, found and engaged the French fleet in Egyptian waters. I am happy to say that he has achieved the most astounding of victories, and that the French menace to your
kingdom
is no more.”

The Queen had a hand to her throat, as though the guillotine blade that had beheaded her sister was on her flesh. Sir William could see that Ferdinand was trying to be regal, trying to play the
role his titles and birthright demanded of him. But the natural child in him could not contain his joy.

Suddenly he rushed to embrace the British Ambassador, yelling, “You have saved my kingdom! You have saved my family!”

The elder children were weeping, the younger ones confused. Their mother was on her feet now, moving around the chamber, swaying as if to swoon and looking to various statues for support. Ferdinand was babbling away to Sir William while the two
messengers
stood confused, not understanding a word. It was ten minutes before the wailing ceased, during which Maria Carolina had sunk to the floor to pray. Evidence that the news was abroad came from the sudden cacophony of church bells that pealed out over the city. Within the hour all of Naples was celebrating its deliverance, an hour during which, with Sir William translating, the two young naval officers described the battle in detail.

“You know, sir,” said Capel, “of the chase we had. I have never seen my admiral so vexed and anxious as the thought plagued him that he had missed Bonaparte.”

“He so much wanted to encounter him at sea,” added Hoste, “to prove that Bonaparte’s success on land counted for nothing.”

“Nelson said so in his letters,” Sir William replied, this while Ferdinand was asking him a question. “His Majesty counts himself a sea officer, gentlemen. Please explain the disposition of the fleet.”

Neither Hoste nor Capel was fazed by that request. In the week it had taken them to make Naples they had had precious little else to talk about. They knew that they were privileged to have been present at the greatest feat of naval arms since the destruction of the Spanish Armada. In the week following the action, before they received their duplicate despatches to carry to Naples, every story of every officer, French as well as British, had been condensed into a narrative account of the battle.

They spoke in turns, using maps when Ferdinand produced them, tracing the route Nelson had taken in his pursuit of
Bonaparte
. East, west, and east again, the information that he had missed them by a whisker twice. They described the disposition of the fleet,
the King nodding sagely at each piece of information as though these were decisions he himself would have made, had he been in command.

“We have it from the French prisoners that, seeing the time of day, de Brueys though it unlikely we would attack.”

“He should have studied Nelson,” said Hoste, eyes alight with hero-worship. “When he did clear for action, he did so only on the seaward side.”

When this was translated, Ferdinand looked confused. Capel was busy arranging model ships, ten or so in line with another eight bearing down on them, a cloth rolled up to represent the arc of Aboukir Bay. With his finger he showed Foley’s route, looking at the King to ensure he understood.

“They fought well, the Frenchmen,” said Hoste. “There was no thought of surrender, and every one of our ships suffered great
damage
,
Bellerophon
particularly, she losing a full third of her complement as casualties. But they were out-gunned, out-manned, and
outfought
.
Le
Peuple
Souverain
cut her cable and ran aground;
L’Orient
, it appeared, had been painting and some of the residue of that caught fire. The rest, barring
Guillaume
Tell
and
Le
Généraux
, struck.”

The destruction of Admiral de Brueys’ flagship had been heard ten miles away. Troubridge, so eager to enter the battle, had run his ship aground at the head of the bay. Later he said he thought that he had suffered some form of explosion below, so great was the force of the blast transmitted through the water. It transpired that the treasure of the Knights of St John, looted from Malta, with sixty ingots of gold to the value of
£
600,000, had gone to the bottom with her.

“The cost?” asked Sir William. He did not mean in terms of money.

“Some two hundred dead on our side, sir,” Capel replied, “with seven hundred wounded. The enemy losses were of the order of two thousand dead or missing.”

“This will mean a peerage,” said Sir William. A servant entered
to give the Ambassador a message. He smiled, looked at the two young officers, and said, “My wife seems quite recovered. She is in an open carriage at the gates and desires, if you have finished your report, that you join her.”

Half in love with her already, both young men rushed to
comply
. They found her as Sir William had described, wearing on her head an embroidered turban that read “Nelson and Victory.” Emma Hamilton took them through the streets, singing patriotic songs, shouting that Britannia had triumphed and generally whipping up an already excited populace to a frenzy of celebration. She was aided by two young men who thought her a most remarkable creature, young men who spent as much time admiring her and thinking about bedding her as they did about the victory at the Nile.

The arrival of the
Vanguard
in the Bay of Naples, under tow, part of the trickle of ships that made up Nelson’s victorious fleet, came as no surprise. Fishing boats, trading-vessels, lookouts on high points of the southern Italian coast had been searching for her topsails for weeks. The journey from the Straits of Messina to the Bay of Naples had been regal progress as ships altered course to hold some
tenuous
link to an English sailor who had saved Europe and had placed the most telling check for five years on that monster, the French Revolution.

Hardy had been made post after the battle and had taken over as flag captain, while Berry had been sent home with the despatches announcing the victory, which would surely get him a knighthood. Despite his best endeavours, Thomas Hardy, big, bluff, red-faced, and a bit of a quarterdeck tyrant, couldn’t get his admiral to rest. Bandage over his bad eye, in constant pain from the wound it
covered
, letter after letter poured from Nelson’s pen, as he sent what frigates he could muster flying in all directions, promising, pleading, flattering or chastising, depending on who was the recipient. When not writing he was pacing the deck, thinking and planning, as if there were still a French menace afloat to chase, his good eye
s
e
arching
the horizon for the return of his messengers.

Contact with ships from home brought out-of-date news, the despatch of the victory at the Nile yet to reach London. Fanny was pleased with a portrait by Lemuel Abbot, now finished, that he had sat for on his last leave; her son Josiah, previously praised, was for some reason in bad odour with St Vincent, and was to be sent to serve with his stepfather. That troubled him little, since hardly an officer breathing was not in trouble with the acerbic St Vincent. Davidson wrote, creating the usual pangs of jealousy when he
mentioned
his offspring. He had answers from friends and the Admiralty to the requests he had made for this person or that to be advanced; bills, pleas for intercession, enough to keep him occupied for a week, all of which would have to be replied to. And having discovered his secretary was useless—the man had fainted at the Nile—Nelson had dismissed him and undertaken the correspondence with the help of the parson, Mr Comyn.

Nelson came on deck without his bandage as they opened the bay, hair swept forward to cover the angry scar. He began pointing out the landmarks to a pair of the younger midshipmen, part of a group who never ceased to trail him, as if by touching his hem they could pick up an ounce of glory. He named the two great castles, Dell’ovo and Nuovo, that dominated the approaches, detailing the armament that made it a dangerous place to attempt to take from the sea. There were bastions, too, covering the arms of the bay, full of great guns that could send a ball though a wooden ship’s hull. The battery of St Elmo was right above the Palazzo Sessa, and that got a special mention.

“Take note, young Pasco, of the dangers of sailing into such a place. See how, at a mile distant, they will make it warm for any
vessel
caught in a crossfire. They are cunningly placed so that an assaulting fleet must wonder at which fort to return fire, and the wind in these parts is fickle enough to see you becalmed under the guns.”