Lords of the Nile

by Jonathan Spencer

  Jullien shook his head in wonder. ‘Jamais! Jamais n’ai-je été aussi haut! Merveilleux!’ Too excited to translate, Jullien thrust his hand out to Hazzard and Hazzard shook it wholeheartedly – for he had ‘never been up so high’, and neither had Hazzard, truth be told. But for war, he thought, he would have been this young man’s very good friend.

  Out to sea, there was no Nelson, no Union Jack, only the red, white and blue bars of the Revolutionary tricolour as far as the eye could see. Orient sailed in the centre between the 80-gun Franklin up ahead and the Tonnant astern, the battle-fleet boxing in the vulnerable transports protectively, frigates in full sail on the outer lines, accelerating, dropping back, patrolling, ever watchful. There before him at last lay the four hundred ships he had sought.

  He recalled the calculations he had made that night on the Esperanza: a fleet of such size, given the sea-room required, would cover some four square miles of the sea. As he looked from west to north, to east and south, he could see nothing but ships. For today, he admitted, the Mediterranean was indeed the ‘French Lake’. Yes, he thought, Xerxes would be impressed indeed.

  The old lookout watched Hazzard riding the roll of the ship. He took the unlit pipe from his lips and said something to Jullien, who called to Hazzard over the wind, ‘He says, you are born for the sea! He can tell! Mes compliments!’

  Jullien laughed and clapped him on the shoulder, thrilled. Hazzard nodded back at the old seaman, who returned to his pipe and his watch, looking out over the endless blue, his wrinkling eyes narrowed by decades of wind and sun.

  They heard cheering on the deck below, saluting Jullien, and he waved back at them. The enormous ship had shrunk in size and shape to that of a distant bulging cigar, surrounded by blue and foaming white. It seemed so small Hazzard wondered if he might fly out to sea if he fell.

  As they descended, Hazzard felt a fraud. Although he had enjoyed Jullien’s company and the beauty of the vista from the tops, he had gambled that few naval officers could resist the chance to humble a soldier on the ratlines. Hazzard had planted the seed in Marais with the cold-blooded determination to climb up and reconnoitre the fleet – and he had done so more perfectly than any seaborne night raid could have achieved. He now had an accurate idea of their number and tactical disposition – and had calculated how to send every ship to perdition.

  * * *

  Hazzard stood with Jullien in the glow of candlelight at the dining table as the introductions continued. The other diners had already begun, serving themselves from the many dishes placed at intervals between the candelabra. But Bonaparte waited at the head of the table, two silent Berber bodyguards behind him, devoted to their new lord who had brought them freedom from the bagnio prison of Valletta, and freed them from the clutches of the Knights.

  Jullien made the introductions, the savant interpreter from the Barrakka Gardens whispering in Hazzard’s ear. There were no other officers present, and neither was Derrien. It was to be a meeting of academics, Bonaparte playing his favoured role of Member of the Institute, rather than Commander in Chief of an army.

  The silvering Gaspard Monge scowled back at Hazzard from his seat – with his broad brow and furious stare he seemed more a maddened poet or composer than the logistical brain behind the entire enterprise.

  ‘And what is your field, sir?’ asked Hazzard, knowing it would annoy him. ‘I fear I am forever buried in Thucydides and Plutarch.’

  ‘My “field”, m’sieur,’ said Monge, the interpreter translating carefully, ‘is the physical. The optical. The sun. The Earth. Light. Heat. The furnace, the steam. Smelting, casting, the iron – fire. Life, m’sieur. These things,’ he concluded gravely, ‘are my “field”.’

  Bonaparte leaned back, proud of his ageing mentor, and several clapped their hands, Bravo, bravo.

  Berthollet, of equal age and station to Monge, stood to shake Hazzard by the hand. ‘A pleasure to meet a fellow scholar, M’sieur Azzarre.’ The French often dropped the H and final D in his name, something Hazzard was used to, but which here he smiled at, as if charmed from hearing it for the first time. ‘But my commiserations,’ continued Berthollet, spreading his hands in apology, ‘the fortunes of war have caught us all. You are most welcome at our table.’

  ‘I am privileged, sir.’

  ‘And may I present the comtesse de Biasi,’ said Jullien.

  Hazzard turned to find an elegant lady, with the grace of a monarch. She smiled kindly and lifted her gloved hand to him. ‘Madame,’ he said, bowing to kiss, ‘an honour.’

  He knew his face was expressionless, giving away nothing, saying nothing of the wildfire of his thoughts: After all this time, are you friend or foe? What of Sarah? Who are you?

  She was sixty if a day, he thought, but he saw a sharpness in her not dissimilar to Lady Hamilton in Naples. In a single glance she conveyed her support, her care, and her fears.

  ‘It is all mine,’ she replied in English and glanced at Berthollet, adding in French, Jullien translating for Hazzard, ‘For we are all here at the mercy of Fortune, are we not, Claude-Louis?’

  She was magnificent, thought Hazzard, and sensed at once that she was an ally – though how or why he could not say. ‘It was certainly Mercy, and not Mars,’ he replied, ‘which led me to safety here, madame.’

  There was a smattering of light applause led by Berthollet, who inclined his head with a sincere, ‘Bravo, m’sieur, kindly said.’

  ‘And Madame Dutoit…’ said Jullien, indicating the pretty but vacant face in the glow of candlelight opposite. She could have been barely nineteen. She batted long dark eyelashes at him in lieu of a fan, perhaps in the hope of dalliance. She got nothing in return. Hazzard took her to be the mistress of one or several of the army officers. He looked to the next, introduced by the comtesse.

  ‘One of my protégées, Jeanne-Marie Arnaud, danseuse from the Comédie in Paris.’

  Jeanne had a frank, sensual look beneath her loose blonde coiffure, and Hazzard could tell at once she was tough as oak. ‘Mademoiselle. An ornament to the stage.’

  Jeanne gave a lazy smile. ‘Oh la… If only there were more such men aboard this smelly boat…’ Charlotte Dutoit tittered uncertainly and the gentlemen did their best to join in, protesting jovially.

  ‘And my other protégée, Mademoiselle Isabelle Moreau-Lazare.’

  Hazzard took her in with an interested look, as any man would. It was the first time he would speak to Sarah since she had left England two years earlier. Her hair was longer and darker than he remembered. She was more beautiful than ever. But with it had come a slightly drawn, gaunt look to her cheeks, the years of evasion and deception taking their toll. ‘Mademoiselle.’ The word nearly caught in his throat. ‘Another beauty.’ He bowed. ‘Your servant, ma’am.’

  She nodded and looked away, bored, saying, ‘M’sieur,’ as if he were anyone.

  He turned back to Jullien, feeling bloodier and bloodier, his heart pounding, his muscles tautening, fury welling up inside him, with Admiralty Intelligence, with their treacherous spymasters in Room 63, Sir Rafe bloody Lewis and Commander Charles Blake and their endless lies, with the whole damned circus caravan before him – but also with Sarah herself, despite his best instincts, despite all he could imagine of the risks she had run, of her extraordinary courage: How could she just sit there in front of me so?

  Jullien introduced Jean-Joseph Marcel, ‘the printer and Orientaliste’, and Fourier, ‘the mathematician and physicist’, Poussielgue ‘the diplomat’, Geoffroy St Hilaire ‘the zoologist’, Le Père, ‘President of Engineers’, and Bourrienne, ‘the diplomat of reportage’. Crushed together at a corner sat two very young men, boys of barely eighteen. ‘And these, the youngest of our fraternity,’ said Jullien, ‘Prosper Jollois and Edouard de Villiers du Terrage, of the School of Bridges and Highways.’

  De Villiers rose and shook his hand eagerly, ‘M’sieur, enchanté. I have never met an Englishman before…’ and sat, embarrassed as the interpreter did his wor
k.

  Jollois added, somewhat more ironic, ‘Though you do not have any horns that I can see…’ And they laughed, Hazzard among them, glad of any release from the turbulence caused by seeing Sarah.

  ‘To be on such an expedition, you must be very talented.’

  De Villiers went red. ‘We are draughtsmen, m’sieur, and we shall record all that we see – the great temples, the monuments and sculptures.’ He grew excited. ‘And perhaps build a bridge on the Nile…’

  There was light applause and amused laughter. ‘Certainly you shall!’ cried Monge, wagging a finger at him across the table. ‘When you finish your exams.’ The boy bowed his head, pleased, Jollois nudging him in the ribs until they both laughed. ‘Your pardon, m’sieur,’ said De Villiers, ‘But yes, it is a great honour.’

  ‘And they should be honoured to have you too,’ Hazzard said with a bow. He hoped the boy would survive what was to come.

  Between the Dutoit girl and Jeanne Arnaud sat another savant, some ten years Hazzard’s senior, with curling hair and a dark, sullen gaze. Jullien murmured with some reverence, ‘And this is Nicolas-Jacques Conté, the engineer, the aeronaut.’

  Hazzard bowed. Aeronaut. An evocative term, he reflected, that truly only the French could have coined. ‘I saw a balloon ascent in England once,’ said Hazzard, playing the eager layman. ‘It was magnificent, a work of art. Though it came down with a bump. Does this make you an engineer or artist, sir?’

  Conté was in a foul mood, perhaps because of the voyage. ‘I make men fly, m’sieur,’ he glanced at another nearby, ‘with science, not art.’

  The man at the foot of the table laughed. ‘Ah! You lie, for art makes us all fly, Nicolas!’ He was nearly the oldest of the savant group, and Jullien’s voice took on a sudden warmth.

  ‘The painter, Vivant Denon,’ he said. A strong, grand figure with quick eyes and easy smile, in flamboyant cuffs and cravat. He took Hazzard’s hand with a sincere welcome:

  ‘Vivant, je vous en prie – I, er, beg you to say.’

  Berthollet apologised for Conté. ‘More than aeronaut, m’sieur, Citizen Conté is also magicien. You have this word in English? For he makes the engines that move the world! And I am a poor man of the chemistry laboratory. We are, all of us, in this special Commission of the Sciences and the Arts, this new Institute of Egypt,’ he said, with a broad gesture and a pointed look at Denon, ‘men of science, and art, Vivant.’ Denon raised his glass happily and the assembly gave Berthollet kind applause.

  Jullien and Hazzard took their places, the young interpreter, a nervous Citizen Dazier, sitting between them, to give Jullien a rest. ‘Quite an operation,’ said Hazzard, glancing at Monge. ‘I shall wager, sir, that you were the mastermind behind its organisation…?’

  There was some merriment at this and Berthollet ribbed Monge, the pair like elderly schoolboys. ‘Well yes, and no,’ explained Berthollet. ‘We did it together, but somehow became as one. Every ticket, every docket was addressed eventually to one person: a Citizen Monge-Berthollet!’ They all laughed again but Hazzard pressed him.

  ‘But what an undertaking. I cannot imagine how difficult it was.’

  Monge leaned forward. ‘Twenty thousand books, ten thousand bottles, thousands of tons of powder, cannons, carriages, tablecloths, pens, ink, bedding, hammocks, tents, medicines, buckles, bootlaces!’

  Jollois called from the end, ‘Sandalwood and rosewood and cedarwood floors!’

  They laughed again, Bonaparte pleased with them, taking a silent pride in the accomplishments of his masterpiece – while Hazzard quietly calculated the stores and supplies they must have crammed in every ship.

  ‘Although,’ admitted Berthollet, ‘there was one item nearly forgotten from the list…’

  Monge pooh-poohed him. ‘Oh do stop, Claude—’

  Le Père of the engineers leaned forward to deliver a loud whisper, ‘Citizen Monge himself…!’

  After the laughter subsided, Bonaparte chimed in, ‘It seems the greatest obstacle to Citizen Monge joining us,’ he declared, ‘was Madame Monge.’

  ‘One cannot do battle with one’s wife,’ said Monge.

  ‘I had to convince her,’ said Bonaparte, ‘and appeared at their doorstep while Citizen Monge was occupied. She thought I was one of his students, in need of a good meal.’

  The table rocked and Hazzard joined in, and thought no ill of them. Until his eye caught Sarah, and he thought of Bartelmi, and Derrien, and a sleeping nation on the Nile, unaware of the disaster soon to come.

  ‘All for science and art?’ asked Hazzard.

  ‘Indeed, sir,’ said Monge forcefully. ‘We shall unearth a civilisation. Never been done before.’

  ‘Forgive me for saying so, gentlemen,’ said Hazzard, ‘but after Malta you seem to be more men of invasion than art.’

  There was an uncomfortable silence, the broad smiles on reddened cheeks slowly fading. In the hiatus, Hazzard flapped out a napkin onto his lap and busied himself heartily at the dishes before him. ‘This looks delicious,’ he said. Bonaparte watched him with an amused smile.

  ‘Ah, no no,’ corrected Monge. ‘The soldiers, they do as in all nations. They invade. But we,’ he said, with a firm nod, ‘we are the true explorers.’

  Marcel the printer commented as he cut into his food, ‘At least we are not mere readers of others’ efforts, “m’sieur”.’

  Bonaparte came back to life at this and tucked into the fish course before him while an official refilled his glass with Chablis. ‘Surely a nation of readers, Citizen Marcel,’ said Bonaparte, ‘would move the world, would they not? And you a printer. Tut tut.’

  Marcel shrugged again. ‘But do you not also say history is but a series of lies, constructed by victors?’

  ‘Ha!’ cried Monge, pointing at Bonaparte as if in a parlour game. ‘You did! I recall quite clearly. Caught! Caught!’

  The slightly chastened laughter died down and Bonaparte looked to Hazzard. ‘Would you agree?’

  Hazzard continued to eat. ‘I feel obliged to remind you all,’ said Hazzard, looking at his plate, ‘that Herodotus wrote the first treatise about Egypt, without conquest.’

  Denon laughed – ‘Touché, haha!’ – but Marcel merely muttered his reply, ‘Then we shall be the first to disprove him…’

  ‘By all means,’ said Hazzard, ‘plant your banner, for what good it will do in a land that has swallowed armies whole, and watched countless banners blow into dust.’

  Denon and Berthollet applauded and Bonaparte inclined his head in some respect. ‘We shall see. We go not in conquest, like Cambyses, but in liberation, and discovery.’

  Hazzard goaded them further. ‘Rather a large fleet for so few explorers.’

  Denon laughed again. ‘And our twenty thousand bottles of Burgundy!’

  ‘Not quite, Vivant,’ said Berthollet with a tilt of his glass. ‘Some is Bordeaux.’

  Denon laughed and Hazzard added, ‘Ah, you mean Claret,’ he said. ‘Made in Aquitaine. Which was English, if memory serves.’

  They did not laugh this time. Hazzard continued, slicing into his cutlet. ‘But discovery can be a treacherous business. What of Naples, for example? So many things there that one may read of, which reveal themselves in the end to be mere falsehood.’

  He jabbed his fork into a mouthful and chewed, then looked at the comtesse, Jeanne, and Sarah. ‘Would you not agree, madame? That one is inevitably disheartened after such long travels, loss and sacrifice… then not to find what one seeks?’ He looked at them all. ‘I hope this does not happen with you gentlemen. It would be such a shame. To find no one to liberate, I mean.’

  Sarah looked down at her plate. The comtesse de Biasi put a hand on his arm. ‘Oh, but surely, all places have their mysteries. And perhaps,’ she said more directly, ‘we all find what we seek elsewhere.’

  Lies.

  The word came to him again and again.

  The Admiralty. Blake, Lewis – Sarah.

  Lies.

  ‘I m
et Sir William Hamilton, sir,’ said Hazzard to Bonaparte. ‘Did I not say?’

  Bonaparte’s head snapped up. ‘No. You did not.’

  ‘I am sure he would send his regards. A charming gentleman. His lady wife is remarkable.’

  ‘Yes! Yes,’ said Denon with enthusiasm, ‘I do know them, lovely people. And excellent guides for travellers in those parts. He is a keen study of le volcan fire-mountain there. Extraordinary man. And such collections!’

  Hazzard tore at the meat on his plate. ‘Alas they could not help me in my researches.’ He looked at Sarah. ‘Have you met the Hamiltons in Naples, mademoiselle?’

  She shook her head, looking away. ‘I haven’t.’ Je n’ai pas. Bored, muttered idiom, uninterested, almost sulking – it was perfect, thought Hazzard.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hazzard, ‘Rather what I thought.’

  Lies.

  Something in him wanted to scold her, hurt her. He could not stop himself. The dishes on the table were changed for the next course, the Berbers standing aside, junior aides and Maltese girls clearing away quickly.

  ‘To discovery,’ said Monge with a stern look at Hazzard, raising a glass. Everyone followed, Bonaparte watching Hazzard. Hazzard did not move.

  ‘You would not drink to discovery, Mr Hazzard?’

  Hazzard looked at the ladies again, at the savants. ‘I would, but not at such cost.’

  Bonaparte was curious. ‘Such cost as what?’

  Hazzard thought of their brig, the Esperanza, the battle with the corvettes, of dead men floating in the sea, or lying in the gutters of Naples, the rubble of Valletta – and what lay ahead for Egypt. ‘At the cost of lives, sir.’

  ‘Discovery and blood, m’sieur,’ said Conté, ‘whether shed by the explorer or the explored, is in the nature of Man, the nature of things.’ There were murmurs of approval from the more aggressive at the table.