Tested by Fate (33 page)

At that very moment small parties of British seamen were
fanning
out through the city, quietly rousing out their fellow countrymen, telling them to make their way to the northern mole, where the boats of the Portuguese Squadron were waiting to embark them and their possessions.

Emma found it hard to be patient while speeches were made, thanks professed, drink consumed in between toasts to every enemy France had, but mostly to Nelson, King George’s Navy, and
insincere thanks for the protective shield at sea of Britannia. Her calculation was that from the time of leaving this reception, she had at most fifteen minutes to take up her station. In her imagination she could see the boats being lowered from HMS
Vanguard
, each with its component of armed sailors. Nelson’s marines would already have secured the mole at the southern end of the harbour, the point of embarkation. She must make her way to the secret passage that ran from the Palazzo Reale to the shore. Admitted to the royal apartments Emma was the one who would have to tell her charges that it was time for them to leave.

As Nelson, Sir William, and Emma emerged, the empty carriage left, to return to the Palazzo Sessa and take on board Emma’s mother, the servants of the family and the final load of possessions. The trio, escorted by a party of armed
lazzaroni
provided by Edigio Bagio, hurried down the steep hills towards the harbour, parting with a whispered farewell as Sir William and Nelson
continued
towards the mole and the waiting marines.

Emma, with her part of the escort made her way to the secret gate. She was aware that the wind was strong, and that the sky above her head, seen between the high buildings, was full of scudding clouds flitting across the moon. It seemed appropriate, as if the gods had arranged for a stormy backdrop to a dramatic episode. One of the Queen’s German servants was waiting at the gate, opening it to her as she gave the password in his native tongue. Soon she was
following
a lantern along whitewashed and musty damp passages, climbing worn stairs to face the door she knew led to the private royal apartments.

Nelson, not for the first time in his life, was cursing the conditions. On a night when he needed calm water the Bay of Naples was choppy, and if his instincts were anything to go by it was going to get worse. The scudding clouds presaged foul weather coming in from the open sea, which would make the task of getting the
evacuees
aboard that much harder. He could hear the hiss of the waves on the shoreline and smell the tangy odour of sea-spray. Ahead, at
the point where the mole joined the shore, the phosphorescence from breaking waves showed a line of shadowy figures, one of whom, by his height and the way his pale skin reflected the moon, looked very familiar.

“Is that you Mr Pasco?”

“Sir,” the midshipman replied, rushing forward.

“Take Sir William to my barge,” said Nelson, gently urging the Ambassador forward, “then find me Mr Giddings. He has my sword and pistols.”

“I’m here your honour,” Giddings called, moving forward and unshading a lantern. As usual, he ignored the injunction that no sailor should speak to an officer unless asked to do so. He always had, since the day he had discovered over twenty years earlier that here was one officer who didn’t mind.

“This be a rum do an’ no error, your honour.”

“What is, Giddings?”

“This ’ere rescuing lark,” his coxswain replied, speaking as usual out of the corner of his mouth. By that one physical trait Giddings had the ability to make everything he said appear to be a closely guarded secret. The irony was that this time it was just that.

“Comes to a sorry pass when kings and the like can’t trust their own. Worse’n than the bloody frogs, I say.”

Nelson was tempted to ask how he knew, since it had been a well kept secret just what the crew of HMS
Vanguard
were being employed to do. But he decided not to bother; he had learned from experience that the crew of a man-o’-war always seemed to know what was going on. He took the proffered weapons then, accosting one of Hardy’s lieutenants, requested confirmation from him that all was in place. The man could only reply regarding what he knew: that the mole was secure, the boats manned and ready and since there had been no sound of gunfire, the armed parties that had fanned out through the city were going about their business quietly.

“Then,” he said, hauling his boat cloak around him to ward off the night chill, “we wait.”

Emma emerged into a brightly-lit chamber to find the entire royal party assembled and dressed for the outdoors. Having curtsied to the indifference of the King, who was determined not to look her in the eye, she did the same to Maria Carolina, seated on a chair, who beckoned her forward. She smiled at the silent children, and mentally ticked off that the numbers in the room, including
retainers
, tallied with what had been agreed.

“Emma,” Maria Carolina said, and proffered her hand, which Emma took as she executed a low curtsy. A folded piece of
parchment
was pressed into her hand, that followed a whisper low enough to evade the hearing of the Ferdinand. “We have had this note from Commodore Caracciolo.”

Emma hesitated to unfold it. Time was short and the danger that their proposed flight would be discovered very real. But at an insistent nod from the Queen she moved over to an oil lamp and began to read, slowly, since her ability to read Italian was not as good as her speech. Not that the message was difficult. In it Commodore Caracciolo, as commander of the Neapolitan navy, stated that the situation was grave, that the royal family could not be sure of being safe in the city, and that he felt their security could be better guaranteed if they were to take refuge aboard his ship.

Her thoughts would be the same as those of Maria Carolina. Was this a genuine offer or did he know of the plan to go aboard Nelson’s flagship? If so, was there a trap waiting to be sprung if the King and Queen failed to respond to his invitation? The
lazzaroni
were not the only armed men in Naples. Every disloyal nobleman had retainers to use against them and Caracciolo had half the
officer
-class of the navy at his disposal, all aristocrats, but how many loyal to the crown? Fortunately, he had few men—the sailors,
fearing
for their homes and loved ones, had deserted their ships and come ashore to swell the ranks of fearful mobs that had begun to rule the streets.

Emma suddenly felt very isolated. There was no one to ask, no one to consult, and she could feel, by the silent atmosphere in the
room, that this letter has been the cause of some friction.

“Your Majesty,” she said, addressing the broad back of the King, sensing that to appeal to his more sensible wife would not aid
matters
. “Do you have complete faith in Commodore Caracciolo?”

“I have never had any reason to suspect him of being disloyal,” Ferdinand boomed.

Emma wondered if he suspected a single member of his court. If anyone was capable of occupying cloud cuckoo land it was Ferdinand. Emma saw the Queen’s head drop, and knew that she had her support, but she also knew that such support would count for nothing if she could not persuade the King. This was typical Ferdinand: to let matters reach such a stage then to throw in some objection. But he held the ultimate power: everyone else in the room, Francis, the Hereditary Prince, his pregnant wife, the Princes Leopold and Alberto, and the three royal princesses, did not matter.

“I agree with you.” Emma said, emphatically. That made Ferdinand turn round, and he aimed a glare at his wife, now reduced to looking at her own twisting and anxious hands. “His ship will, of course be in the company of the rest of the other ships of the Neapolitan fleet at present in Naples?”

Ferdinand frowned as though the question was a difficult one.

“Which means that he will also be in the company of all the officers of that fleet.” Maria Carolina looked up, her eyes showing that she knew the route Emma was about to take. The fact that Ferdinand turned away again demonstrated that he was not
completely
stupid either. “If you can assure Admiral Lord Nelson that you have complete faith in all your naval officers then I feel he would be forced to recommend that you accept Commodore Caracciolo’s offer. If not?”

The question was left hanging, but truly it was one that answered itself. Ferdinand was no more certain of the loyalty of Caracciolo than he was of anybody else. Even he must know that the most profound protestations of fealty were often the ones that masked the deepest treachery: the notion that there were no Republican sympathisers amongst his naval officers was patently absurd. Royalty
reasserted itself as Ferdinand, with that inability to admit an error, which was a hallmark of his character, said. “Naturally, that is the conclusion I myself have reached.”

There was a moment then when no one moved, the enormity of what they were about to do taking hold, at least in the adult minds. Once out of the palace, the royal family was beyond the pale. They were deserting the city and their state, so that even men who had been supporters would curse them for abandonment, the indifferent would hate them, and their enemies would bay for their blood, claiming that only the spilling of that could cleanse their new dominion.

It was the Queen who moved first, she was a woman who expected no clemency anyway. Maria Carolina stood by the door to the secret passage and willed her husband to enter first. Looking at him, the slow way he turned, the look in his eye and the
deliberate
way he responded, Emma sensed that this was what he wanted. To be able to say at any future date, should his motives be called into question, that he had been reluctant to depart but that his Queen, lacking the same love of patrimony that filled his breast, had forced him.

Maria Carolina held her tears well, not so Francis, the
Hereditary
Prince, though he was outdone by the wailing of his pregnant wife, which was soon added to by the cries of her first born, still a baby in swaddling cloths. Young Prince Alberto, six years old and Emma’s favourite was not crying, but he was pale and shaking as though in the grip of a fever, so much so that Emma requested that one of the servants carry him. She brought up the rear, the last
person
to leave that well-appointed apartment, the private drawing room of the royal couple, the palace of three hundred rooms were she had spent so many happy times. If she felt saddened, Emma could understand the depth of feeling that must affect her charges. The closing of the door was like a clanking death knell for a whole way of life.

F
ERDINAND
, who knew the exit well, had stopped before the last turning in the passageway, forcing Emma to pass and be the first to risk herself at the postern gate. As she went, she had to impose silence on the party, no easy matter with a princess in the throes of panic, and a baby given to wailing.

The King’s self-elected
lazzaroni
guards, who had escorted Emma to this place, still manned the gate, a quartet of swarthy, ragged individuals bearing muskets as tall as themselves. When Ferdinand emerged they knelt to kiss his hand, and were patted on the head like pet dogs. It was noticeable as the party moved off that they did not follow. They had an open gate to the palace: loyal to their king they might be, but with him gone his chattels were there for the looting.

Emma’s nerves were jumping as they made their way along the shoreline. It had been her idea that Nelson’s men should not
venture
from the mole: then if the royal party was accosted they could say that they were shifting to a Neapolitan ship, not fleeing into British custody. Now she wished that she had around her a party of Nelson’s tars, whom she knew she could trust.

They were on the mole at the point where it met the shore, with Nelson ordering all lamps shaded and his men to make
themselves
as obscure as possible, most staying in the boats, the rest pressing themselves against any dark object to hide their profile. As always, Giddings, his coxswain, was right behind the Admiral.

“Bit like press-ganging, your honour,” Giddings whispered.

Indeed it was, Nelson thought: the dark, wild night, men
hiding
in wait for an unsuspecting individual to meander into the maw of the naval net. He had always hated that duty, and counted
himself
lucky that he had only rarely undertaken it. Ships were manned
easily in peacetime, and when war threatened his name and reputation provided him with a crew.

“Trade,” Giddings added, employing the phrase he had used as a press-ganger.

“
Aeneid
,” said Nelson, stepping forward to give the agreed
password
, appropriate, since it was the title of Homer’s tale, which was partly about the flight of royal survivors from the sack of Troy. He unshaded a lantern as he said it and immediately saw Emma’s pale but beautiful face. As their eyes met Nelson reckoned that, for a moment, they both forgot their purpose, but it was fleeting for Emma stepped aside to let the royal party through.

“Your Majesty,” Nelson said, raising his hat to Ferdinand with Emma translating. “I have arranged for the ladies to be placed in the cutter, which is the steadiest boat we have. May I suggest that they go aboard first?”

Even by faint lantern light Nelson could see that Ferdinand had to weigh this against his royal prerogative. He looked as if he was about to demur, when Nelson added, “I know you to be a fine sailor, sir, and the waters of the bay, which will indispose the ladies in their present disturbed state, will not affect you.”

That mixture of truth and flattery made the King step to one side and Nelson said to Emma, “Lady Hamilton, pray go with the Queen, the smaller children, and her ladies. My own quarters have been set aside for their accommodation.”

It was dark enough to take her hand and squeeze it, but in the lantern light he gazed into her deep green eyes, framed by the
fur-trimmed
cowl of her cloak. In that instant both Emma and Nelson felt everything else fade to insignificance: the presence of their charges, the hissing of the wind as it bent the branches of nearby trees, the crash of a wave against the brickwork of the mole.

“The men are waiting to assist, sir,” said Midshipman Pasco, breaking the spell.

Nelson watched as Emma got aboard nimbly and took up
station
in the prow. What followed was a pantomime of cries, squeals,
protests, and entreaties as the rest of the ladies embarked. There was no steady gangplank as there would have been for the royal barge—the boat was bobbing unevenly through several feet of air, with just a sailor’s hand to steady them.

Eventually the Vanguards got them aboard, with several marines to provide protection, and shoved off into waters that were much more agitated than those around the mole. That brought forth renewed wailing which turned to near panic as a flash of lightning illuminated the western sky, followed by a deep roll of thunder.

Getting the royal servants into the boats was just as bad—they screeched like banshees, almost outdoing the ladies—but Ferdinand, to his credit, boarded Nelson’s barge easily, while Prince Leopold, like the sailor he had always wanted to be, assisted others to take their place. Then he leaped back on to the mole and bent to kiss the soil of his homeland, before boarding again to watch the
receding
shore as the crew bent to their oars.

The waters were vicious: a cross sea that added to the local
currents
set up waves that headed the barge, and others that slammed into the quarter to create a corkscrew effect. All the while, to the west, Nelson could see the approach of a storm.
Vanguard
showed just how bad the sea-state was, rolling and pitching at single anchor. If such a swell was prevalent in this relatively sheltered part of the anchorage, Nelson knew that out of the lee of the land it would be much worse. His plan had been to weigh for Palermo as soon as the passengers were aboard and accommodated, but that would have to change. There would be few good sailors amongst the royal party, and seasickness was inevitable.

Could he stay in the bay and ride out the worst of the weather? The royals’ escape would not remain secret after daylight, neither would it take much to deduce where they were. How disloyal were the officers of the Neapolitan fleet? Would they, knowing that their King and Queen were aboard the British flagship, attempt to force a change of circumstance?

The scene at the entry port of
Vanguard
was one of utter
confusion. Those Britons in Naples who had been alerted by Nelson’s shore parties had hired boats and, even if instructed to head for Portuguese ships, were determined to clamber aboard his. In the cries, shouted curses, and commands that followed, he could hear the voices of many nationalities, including a whole host of French. There were hundreds of
émigrés
in Naples, who had fled the Terror in France. They needed to get away too, sure that any revolutionary army would guillotine them without hesitation.

In the chaos it took an hour longer than Nelson had anticipated to get the King aboard. By then he and every other passenger in the barge was soaked to the skin and chilled to the marrow. Yet still Ferdinand took the salute as he came aboard. Dripping seawater by the bucket-load and shivering, he was still an anointed sovereign.

If it had been chaos in the boats it was even worse on board: there were too many people and not enough room to
accommodate
them. The wardroom had been allotted to the King, his ministers and the British Ambassador. With
Vanguard
riding at
single
anchor in a heavy swell it was hard for someone without good sea legs to make any progress from one part of the ship to the other. Most of the passengers had succumbed quickly to seasickness, which rapidly turned the ship into a near cesspool. This mixed with
rainwater
and spray that forced its way through every gap in the straining planking.

The royal servants, with only one exception, were useless and the lot of tending to the stricken passengers fell to Emma and her mother, both of whom seemed impervious to the tossing of the ship. There were bruises and broken bones, and cries of fear mixed continually with the sound of retching.

Emma took charge of the Admiral’s quarters and the ladies, while Mrs Cadogan saw to the men. In this she earned the
admiration
of Ferdinand, who as a good sailor did not suffer but whose dignity would not allow him to offer help to any of his less
fortunate
companions.

Nelson’s great cabin was a mess, with anything not fixed to the
deck sliding back and forth as the ship pitched and rolled. The smell was worse between decks, but not much worse. Emma was
comforted
by the steadiness of her own stomach and asked Tom Allen to provide warm water to bathe the shivering baby. Meanwhile she comforted the Queen and the Hereditary Princess, and cradled the suffering Prince Alberto, singing to him and telling him stories, while she reflected that those born to rule seemed to lack any resource when the careful pattern of their lives was disrupted.

Nelson appeared at the doorway, one hand on the lintel,
swaying
easily on well-attuned sea legs, water streaming off the oilskins he had donned on coming aboard. He had come to tell his royal passengers of his decision to wait for the weather to moderate before he set sail, but it was obvious, from their prostrate condition, that they couldn’t have cared less.

Emma was thinking that with her clothes streaked with grime and other people’s vomit, her cheeks unpowdered and red from
sea-water
, she must look a frightful mess. However, to Nelson, she looked magnificent.

Dawn brought some respite, though as Nelson emerged from the chart room, where he had snatched a much needed nap, the
horizon
looked just as grey and unwelcoming as it had the day before. The weather had eased slightly, and the low cloud was lifting so that the shore had ceased to be an indistinct line, and had become again a series of identifiable locations. The harbour area was still full of boats, some surrounding the British transports and Portuguese
warships
as the fearful of Naples sought refuge. Most surrounded
Vanguard
, endless petitioners seeking an audience with their
sovereign
to persuade him to return to his palace, either to oversee the defence of Naples or to stop the disorder and looting that had already broken out.

This kept the King and his ministers busy, and Nelson, who had concerns of his own, grew impatient. Time and again he sent Tom Allen to the wardroom, with a request that the Marquis de Gallo,
Sir John Acton, and Sir William Hamilton join him in the fore
section
of Captain Hardy’s cabin, but half the day had gone before that request was satisfied.

“Gentlemen,” Nelson said, “I have requested you join me so that we can decide what to do about the Neapolitan ships
remaining
in the harbour.”

Acton, who saw himself, quite rightly, as the Admiral of the Neapolitan fleet, looked as though he understood what Nelson meant. Not so de Gallo, who, once it had been translated, looked perplexed. Sir William sensed what might be coming and prepared himself to deploy a degree of diplomatic emollience.

The capital ships of Naples were off Malta with Captain Ball, who had been requested to keep them there, but two heavy 40-gun frigates, commanded by Caracciolo, were anchored close inshore under the guns of the Neapolitan forts.

“They cannot be left to fall into the hands of the French,” Nelson said. “Then they must be persuaded to sail with us,” said de Gallo.

“Without crews?” asked Nelson. Attempts to bribe the
crewmen
—who had gone ashore to protect their own homes—to return to their ships had failed, obliging Nelson to send over some of his own seamen to help man them. But Caracciolo showed no sign of wanting to weigh. “I suggest that if we cannot get them away they must be burned.”

“Impossible,” erupted de Gallo. “Huge sums of money have been poured into creating the fleet, and those are two of the newest vessels.”

“It will be nonsense, Marquis, if crewed by Frenchmen I have to engage them in battle.”

“Can you not crew them, Admiral?” asked Acton. As the man who had initiated the construction of these very ships he was clearly on the horns of a dilemma, with pragmatism fighting sentiment.

“No,” Nelson replied.

His tone was a trifle brusque for Sir William, who winced. But Nelson was not prepared to tell even these men how short-handed
Vanguard
was. He had shifted men into Troubridge’s ship off Leghorn, which meant the men he had sent to the Neapolitan ships, 25 in number, were all he could spare. Nor was he going to say openly that if his request that
Culloden
return to Naples was
fulfilled
in time this conversation would be redundant. With Troubridge here he would either take Caracciolo’s ships or sink them.

“The King will never agree to this,” said de Gallo, “and I doubt even the Queen could be brought to consider it.”

“Considered it must be,” Nelson replied, “and I would ask that you put the matter before the King.”

It was a forlorn hope that Ferdinand would agree, and never had the Queen’s indisposition been more unfortunate. Nelson
reckoned
, as he watched the three courtiers file out, that she would have put aside any considerations of money and ordered them to be taken or sunk—if for no other reason than to tell the traitors in Naples what they could expect of a future restoration of royal power.

He was still ruminating as the cabin door opened to admit
Midshipman
Pasco, as alert as ever although he had probably been up all night. “Boat approaching, sir,” he said, “and Captain Hardy
reckons
Baron Mack is in the thwarts.”

The man Nelson greeted at the entry port bore little
resemblance
to the glittering white-uniformed general that Nelson had last seen reviewing his beautiful army. That force was now shattered, and so was their leader. Mack’s hair was awry, his uniform stained and tattered. He looked as broken as the force he had led to defeat.

Nelson felt sorry for him, although he suspected him to be an incompetent soldier who had led a very inept army. Reports of the deployments Mack had made, and the way he had used his
inexperienced
troops, had made many question his sanity. But now he was being asked to shoulder all the blame. It was telling that King Ferdinand, his titular commander-in-chicf, who had shown no signs of seasickness hitherto, had declined to receive him, claiming illness as his excuse. The Queen, who would certainly have received him was genuinely sick, a fact endorsed by Emma Hamilton, who Nelson had been forced to send for.