by Seth Hunter
On 22 June, Hardy, who had been sent off in the brig, reported that they had landed at Malta about a week earlier – and left a few days later, heading east. This finally persuaded Nelson that they were bound for Egypt.
‘As you advised us about a year ago,’ he said to Nathan. Nathan winced as if it was a rebuke, and perhaps it was.
So the squadron sailed east, sending Hardy ahead to look into Alexandria. On 29 June he reported back. The roads, he said, were empty.
It was the same evening that Nathan had sighted the French fleet in the murk of the khamsin.
‘So you must have been just a few miles to the east,’ he mused, perhaps unwisely. He did not like to ask where they had been going, but Nelson told him anyway.
‘On our way to fucking Asia,’ he snarled, through gritted teeth.
They had first gone to Aleppo, Berry supplied, and then the Gulf of Antalya and then back up along the coast of Asia Minor to Crete.
‘Chasing shadows and rumours across the Levant,’ he added softly.
Nelson’s great fear was that the threat to Egypt had been a ruse to divert him far to the east while Bonaparte landed his troops in Sicily. So he hurried back towards Italy – only to find he was wrong again.
It was this, he said, that had broken his heart.
‘So what have you been doing, sir?’ he enquired of Nathan in the same suspiciously light tone. ‘Pray entertain us with a full account of it, for we are dearly in need of entertainment, are we not, Berry?’
‘Perhaps later,’ Berry advised Nathan, in case he should presume to take this instruction literally. ‘Shall I prepare the fleet for sea, sir?’ he enquired of his Admiral with the gentleness normally preserved for the old and infirm.
‘Why not? We may as well check out this latest “rumour”.’ Nelson’s glare at Nathan was even fiercer for having only one eye to give it vigour, rather like the glare of a Cyclops. ‘For it is better than chasing back to Gibraltar for fear they may be on their way to England.’
Nathan returned to the Swallow to inform Imlay of the change of plan.
Imlay, however, would have none of it.
‘You may go where you damn well please,’ he declared, ‘but we are going to Naples and there is an end to it.’
The argument raged fast and furious and they might have come to blows, had it not been for the intervention of Miss Devereux, who was brought out of her cabin by the row. But even her pleas failed to move Imlay. It was her father who was paying for this expedition, he informed them, and not Captain Peake, nor Admiral Nelson, nor any other Briton that he knew of, and it was her father who had the prior claim on them. Captain Peake might go to the Devil for all he cared, but he would not take the Swallow with him, nor any of its crew, save those in the service of King George. And if Captain Peake wished to dispute it, they might settle it with swords or pistols at any time of his choosing.
Nathan was tempted to take him up on the offer, but it would not do. They could not fight a duel in front of the entire crew, most of whom would very likely be in Imlay’s corner. His only other recourse was to appeal to Nelson, but Nelson might be reluctant to seize what was, technically speaking, a private ship-of-war in the service of the American President, with all the diplomatic complications that would ensue, especially with so much else on his mind.
So in the end there was nothing for it but to quit his command.
He had all hands piped on deck and addressed them one last time.
‘Men – as many of you know, I am a British officer,’ he began. They stared back at him without expression. ‘And as such I am bound by my oath to King George – and my own inclination – to offer my services to Admiral Nelson in his pursuit of the French. I expect many of you feel the same way …’ He paused and surveyed the stony faces before him. There was no immediate sign that they were moved by the same considerations. He doubted, in fact, if half of them understood more than a few words of what he was saying. He sighed. ‘However, you have all signed on for the duration of the voyage, and until the Swallow returns to Gibraltar your duty is clear – you must remain with the ship and serve Mr Imlay here as you have served me.’
He nodded towards Imlay who stood, stiff and formal, at his side. He thought he saw relief on some of the faces before him. Others stared back with the same incomprehension as before.
‘It only remains for me to thank you all – every one of you – from the bottom of my heart, for the loyalty and devotion you have shown to me and to the ship and to your shipmates over the past months, and especially during the battle with the Meshuda. Thank you – and a safe voyage.’
He nodded to the boatswain, but before he could give the order to dismiss, Nathan heard another voice pipe up from among the body of men in the waist, a voice with a distinct American accent.
‘Three cheers for the Captain. Hip, hip – huzzah!’
And to Nathan’s frank amazement the entire crew, American, Russian, Italian, Portuguese – even the British – raised their disparate voices in three hearty cheers.
Nathan felt his eyes prick with tears and turned away with a curt nod to Imlay – though even he looked moved, Nathan thought, as he made his way below.
He found Louisa Devereux in the stern cabin. Her eyes, too, were suspiciously red.
‘I wish you a safe voyage to Naples,’ he began formally, ‘and a happy reunion with your papa.’
He was rewarded with a glare almost as savage as Nelson’s. ‘Why did Imlay call you Captain Peake?’ Her voice was accusing.
‘Because that is my name,’ he confessed. ‘Captain Turner is what you might call a nom de guerre.’
‘So you are English?’
‘I am.’ He thought of explaining that his mother was American and that he had relatives in New York, but this would, he thought, be an unworthy distraction.
‘I thought you were,’ she declared, though with little satisfaction. ‘An English naval officer?’
‘Post Captain.’
‘So will you come to Naples when you have finished fighting your wars?’ she asked him bluntly. ‘Or will I have to find you in England?’
He was so unhappy it took him a moment to take in the significance of what she had said. Then he took her in his arms. It would have been ungallant not to, though he knew it was unwise. It was probably less wise to kiss her, but he did it any way. Tears were always so seductive, he had always thought, at least in a woman. He told himself that she would forget him within days of arriving in Naples.
Before he left, he packed the charts they had taken from the Meshuda. Legally speaking, they probably belonged to Imlay, or Mr Devereux, or the American President, but Nathan was damned if he was going to leave them behind after all the trouble they had caused him.
Tully and O’Driscoll were waiting for him on the quarterdeck with their bags packed. As King’s officers they were bound to accompany him – and he expected nothing less. And so they took off their hats, made their bows to Imlay, shook hands with Mr Cribb and the rest of the warrant officers, and stepped into the waiting barge.
‘I expect,’ said Imlay, just before Nathan disappeared over the rail, ‘that we shall meet again, sooner or later.’
‘I expect we shall,’ replied Nathan in the same resigned tone. Then Imlay put out his hand and Nathan took it. It was, he thought, like shaking hands with his own destiny.
Berry offered Nathan accommodation in the Vanguard, but the two lieutenants were packed off to the Orion and the Zealous, both of whose Captains had need of officers. Nathan experienced a familiar sense of desolation as he watched Tully ferried over to the Orion and felt as alone again, and as lonely, as he had felt in the Moorish prison on the Rock of Gibraltar or on the deck of the flagship off Cadiz with the four men hanging from the yards.
‘Captain’s compliments,’ said a small unbroken voice at the approximate level of his waist and he looked down to see one of the younger servants looking up at him, ‘and he would be obliged for the pleasure of your compan
y, sir, in his day cabin.’
Captain Berry’s day cabin was immediately below the Admiral’s and almost as well-appointed, with a view of the mountains of the Morea through the great stern windows. Unexpectedly he was alone apart from his steward, who poured from a freshly opened bottle of Madeira before he was dismissed.
‘So how did you find the Admiral?’ Berry wanted to know, after the conventional toasts.
‘Well, as you advised, he has changed a great deal from when we were at Cadiz,’ Nathan replied warily. ‘But then the loss of his arm …’
‘I vow he would lose the other for a sight of the French fleet on the open sea,’ put in Berry abruptly. ‘But these constant setbacks, they are driving him to madness.’
‘He expects too much of himself,’ observed Nathan, drawing on his seniority as a member of Nelson’s squadron in the Gulf of Genoa back in ’95, for Berry had joined them a year later in San Fiorenzo.
‘Aye, I grant you that, but then he feels a lot is expected of him.’ Berry kept his voice low, for the stern windows were open and voices carried, even in as big a ship as the Vanguard. ‘He was appointed to this command over the heads of a great many more senior officers – and many who think themselves far more deserving. They will be only too glad to see him fail.’
‘Even if it means a French victory?’
‘You know as well as I that there are plenty who put their careers before their country. And if the French do win, they will blame Nelson for it.’
‘I do not see how Nelson can be held to account,’ said Nathan after a moment. ‘Their lordships were much opposed to the notion that Bonaparte had Egypt in his sights. They were convinced it was a ruse.’
Berry nodded. He must have known of Nathan’s own difficulties in that regard.
‘It is not as if he did not go there,’ Nathan went on. ‘He just got there too soon.’
‘Aye, but bad luck is as often held against one as bad judgement,’ observed Berry, ‘especially in a Commander.’
This was true. Bonaparte thought luck was the most important attribute a General could have. But Nathan thought it prudent to keep this wisdom to himself.
‘Well,’ said Berry, raising his glass, ‘let us hope your phantoms are still in Alexandria when we get there –’ so now they were his phantoms, thought Nathan, and presumably he would be blamed for their absence – ‘and do not slip by us once more in the night, on their way to Corfu.’
‘Corfu?’ Nathan looked startled. ‘Why Corfu?’
‘Because it is as secure an anchorage as you will find in these waters, the main base of the Venetian fleet – and now in French hands. As you would know, of course,’ he added significantly.
Nathan said nothing, but he wondered how many of his acquaintance knew of his nefarious activities in Venice.
‘And why would the French fleet remain in Alexandria,’ Berry persisted, ‘once they have delivered the Army?’
Nathan frowned. ‘Is that why you were in the Bay of Coron?’
‘We thought it was well placed to intercept them if that was where they were headed.’ He shrugged. ‘But you know the Admiral. He is mad to be at them. Could you not see it in his face?’ He considered a moment and then he glanced at the deck above his head. ‘I only hope it does not betray him to a greater madness.’
The wind had shifted westward and they made good time on the return to Alexandria, sighting Pompey’s Pillar in clear weather soon after noon on the first day of August. It was Nathan’s birthday – but there was no present for him. The harbour was full of shipping, and not a single one of them French.
‘Dear God,’ murmured Berry in an undertone, looking across to the lonely figure of his Admiral staring towards the shore. ‘He will kill himself.’
‘He is as likely to kill me,’ confided Nathan, who felt his responsibility keenly.
They turned eastward along the coast with little hope of a result, and at 1.30 p.m. Nathan sat down in the Vanguard’s wardroom to as miserable a dinner as he could remember. The assembled officers ate in a wretched silence, in which requests to pass the salt or the gravy, or ‘Could I trouble you for the pickle, sir,’ rang out like the tolling of the death-cart at a time of plague. Then, just as the cloth was being removed, a very small midshipman came running in with a message from the officer of the watch.
‘Signal from the Zealous,’ he squeaked, without delivering himself of the usual compliments. ‘“Enemy in sight!”’
Chapter Twenty-four
The Shoals of Abukir
They were in the Bay of Abukir. Thirteen of them, moored in a single line, the nearest very close to the island where Nathan had first sighted the Meshuda, the rest curving away to the south-east, right up against the edge of the Inner Shoal. As near invincible a line of battle as Nathan could have imagined, for an approaching enemy would be obliged to run directly into the fire of some 500 cannon on the ships alone – with more guns mounted on the island and in the fort on the headland, which was now occupied by the French.
And then there were the shoals.
Nelson called a council of war in his cabin to which all the Captains were invited – his band of brothers. The sight of the French fleet had worked wonders for his state of mind. He was more like the Nelson of old, the Nelson Nathan remembered from the Bay of Cadiz. But there was something almost feverish about his excitement, something not altogether reassuring.
The Captains had been asked to bring any charts they had of Abukir Bay. There were three. One – the only one that was English – showed the whole region from Alexandria to Aleppo, but Abukir was no more than a small indentation in the coastline with no markings of any kind. Ben Hallowell had a small sketch of the bay taken from a French prize, but it was not much better. And there was another French map torn from an atlas. There were very few soundings and those they had they did not trust.
Nelson lost a little of his exuberance.
‘Do we have no better than this?’ he demanded. ‘And is there no chance of obtaining a pilot?’
‘Captain Peake knows something of the bay,’ Berry ventured with a glance at Nathan, who had told him of his battle with the Meshuda. Every eye now turned to him. Nathan knew many of the Captains personally, the rest by name and reputation, and he knew they must all be curious to know what he was doing there. They would all be aware of his arrest and imprisonment. Some would also know, or guess, that he had other duties beside that of a ship’s Captain.
‘I also have a chart,’ he nodded, ‘of sorts.’
He unrolled the chart he had taken from the Meshuda and spread it on the table. There was a collective intake of breath as they gathered round. It showed the entire bay, from Abukir Island in the west to Rosetta in the east, with the shoal waters clearly outlined and the soundings marked in fathoms.
‘You have been here?’ Nelson queried him sharply. ‘In this very bay?’
Nathan acknowledged that he had. As the Captains listened in silence, he described some of the obstacles he had encountered during his battle with the Meshuda.
The silence continued for a long moment after he had finished speaking. Nathan thought he might have given offence by his presumption, for besides Berry he was the most junior officer present – and a frigate Captain at that. Then Nelson spoke.
‘What would you say is the draught of a French two-decker?’ he asked the company at large.
They agreed that it would be about 23 feet – much the same as their own.
‘And the length?’
Someone rather hesitantly proposed that it must be about the same length as a British two-decker, which was about 170 feet, if you did not take the bowsprit into account.
‘And I am sure you will have observed that they are moored by the head only,’ said Nelson. ‘So they will swing with the wind and the current. Yes?’
He gazed around the table and there were several nods in agreement, though it was clear to Nathan that most of them, like him, did not have the faintest idea what Nelson was
talking about.
Then Nathan got it. If the French ships were moored by the bow only – and not at bow and stern – they must be able to swing their own length without danger of running aground. His voice was joined by several others who had come to the same conclusion.
‘Which is room enough, do you not think,’ Nelson continued, ‘for our seventy-fours to sail right around their line and up the other side?’
‘By God it is!’ exclaimed Berry. ‘We will come up on their blind side.’ He blushed furiously when he realised what he had said, but Nelson appeared not to have noticed, or if he did, not to care.
‘Not all of us,’ he corrected him. ‘The first five will suffice. The rest, led by Vanguard, will bear up to seaward.’
‘We will take them on both sides,’ declared Berry, in case the Admiral had not made it plain enough for them.
‘But – do you mean us to pass right down the line?’ This from Sam Hood – and he had a point, for it would expose each of them to the fire of the entire French fleet.
‘No. We will engage the van and the centre only,’ Nelson assured him. ‘We will bring the whole weight of our attack against the first seven in the line and overwhelm them before the ships at the rear can come to their assistance. They will, as you can see, have the wind against them. Each ship will anchor beside her opponent – by the stern only, mind, so the head does not drift up into the wind. Is that clear?’
It was clear enough to Nathan. He only wished he had a ship.
‘And I assume we are to attack at dawn?’ said a voice. Nathan did not know whose it was, but it was a silly question. The sun was already low in the sky and at that latitude there was very little in the way of twilight. It would be properly dark in an hour or so.
‘By God we will not,’ said Nelson. They all looked at him. One or two were smiling. The others looked as startled as Nathan was. He caught Berry’s eye and recalled his words.
‘I only hope it does not betray him to a greater madness.’
Nelson was looking straight at him. ‘You trust this chart?’ he said, placing his hand upon it as if it was a Bible.
