by Needle, Jan
He pushed a map across the table and stabbed a finger at it.
‘See here. The river runs a hundred miles up to Lake Nicaragua. The lake runs for another hundred to within three leagues of the great South Sea, the great Pacific Ocean. And there is talk, sir – and men claim that it is true – there is talk of a canal that joins them. Seize control of that, and the Americas are ours! North and South! The whole of Spain’s possessions!’
Nelson, although in many ways like Dalling in enthusiasm, was also a cautious man. He leaned forward, pushed his wig back to reveal the sparse pale-ginger hair, and traced the San Juan river from sea, to lake, to ocean.
‘Hhm,’ he said. ‘At the very least we could cut off the Spanish south from their holdings in the north. We could build a port and harry all their fleets to death. What say you, Cuthbert?’
But Hastie spoke before him.
‘That whole territory is a grave for white men,’ he said, earnestly. ‘Whole armies are wiped out. Whole navies. Captain Nelson, it would be the death of you.’
To everyone’s surprise, Nelson laughed. There was joy in it, real humour.
‘Well I will not last forever, Timothy, and you’re forever telling me I have not long to go in any way. To take this treasure-mine for our dear country, to wrest this cornucopia from the overweening Don. Well, would that not be a triumph for all time?’
Collingwood said quietly, ‘But there is Granada in the question. As fortified as any town can be. Two hundred miles from when we enter the San Juan.’
‘Well, Henry Morgan did it,’ Dalling said. ‘A buccaneer leading a rabble of drunken villains waiting for the rope. And he was Welsh, like Mr Hastie here.’
Nelson’s face spoke satisfaction.
‘I think that it is possible, at least,’ he said. ‘If there is a canal, well… By God and all the angels, sir, I think that I would like to help you try it.’
Four
It was not just up to the governor, however, whatever Dalling thought. While he went bull-headed onward with the preparations, the chaos and the fury deepened. Nelson went next day to meet Sir Peter Parker, in Admiral’s Pen, and walked into a storm.
‘You think it is straightforward, do you?’ Parker asked him, icily. ‘You have taken too much notice of that fiery little man. He is like a poison thorn in my side on this matter, and I take it badly that one of my leading officers should so easily be misled.’
Nelson was without his friend and counsel Collingwood this morning, and it was not Hastie’s place to argue with an admiral. Nelson’s pale face flushed, and he unconsciously shifted his wig across his ravaged scalp.
‘And can you not turn out more like an English officer?’ said Parker, testily. ‘I have never seen a wig like yours, sir, and it is exceeding unbecoming.’
Direct attack, as usual, put steel into Nelson’s heart. He plucked the yellow horsehair off his head and tossed it to the floor. Hastie flinched at the impertinence, but Parker, strangely, smiled.
‘Ah that is better. The real man revealed. By gob, though, you’ll look smarter when it’s fully grown.’
Nelson wiped his brow.
‘I beg your pardon, Sir Peter, and agree with all my heart. But it is better, believe me, than it was a month ago, and Mr Hastie has eased most of the soreness. The climate is not suited to my pale skin, I fear. How mean you, sir – misled?’
Parker made a gesture to a cluttered table.
‘This phantasie Dalling has of kicking out the Don from all America. This “secret expedition” up to Granada with two thousand men. He is crazed with the idea of silver and gold, I tell you. He sees himself as great as General Wolfe.’
Hastie and Nelson, at a gesture, took chairs beside the table. A servant brought them lemonade. It was very cool and both men tried not to swallow too greedily.
‘At first glance,’ said Nelson, circumspectly, ‘it seemed to have a certain merit in it. Lawrie, who superintends the whole of the Shore, thinks Guatemala and all of the Spanish provinces ripe for the taking. Indeed, he thinks their hold on the whole of southern America is rickety. It may not need an outside push. It may collapse from within itself.’
Parker laughed.
‘Oh, that would suit Dalling to the ground. He is commander-in-chief of land forces – most of whom are sick, and drunk, and almost worse than useless – and conveniently forgets that Jamaica is an island, and as such depends on nothing but the navy. Which is me, Nelson, and a few good ships and men like you. To fight the Dons we would have to bereave Jamaica of her real defence, and hope the French and Spanish squadrons that are cruising the vicinity are a figment of our imaginations. John Dalling can go and hang himself.’
‘Sir John,’ said Nelson quietly. ‘He is a man of certain power, however much he…’
He let that die. Sir Peter was not angry, merely uninterested.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Between these walls, perhaps more power than sense. You like him, don’t you, Nelson? You are like him, too. Hotheads, the pair of you.’
‘From Norfolk,’ put in Hastie. All three chuckled.
‘I’ll tell you what I plan to do,’ Admiral Parker went on. ‘And even this will be dependent on his actions in the immediate. I will offer him an escort for the ships of his expedition, and I will tell him it will be commanded by one of my best young officers – you. What’s more, captain, I propose giving you a better and a bigger ship. What say you to that?’
Nelson was pulling at his growing fronds of hair. He shook his head decisively.
‘No, sir,’ he said. Parker frowned, and Nelson met it with a smile.
‘I am grateful at the offer, naturally, and flattered by your late description of me. However, the Hinchinbrook suits me perfect. I have worked her up with my loyal people, and we know her inside out. She is roomy, and sound, and sea-kindly. A different vessel, however fine a frigate, would serve as a distraction, sir. It’s a sorry workman who don’t trust his tools.’
‘But there may be more than guarda costa brigs in the contention,’ Parker responded. ‘John Dalling may think his expedition secret, but who knows what intelligence may have leaked? There are slavers here, and American smugglers, while the soldiers the governor confides in as a fighting force seem not much better than a gang of drunks.’ He paused. ‘And even guarda costa brigs mount sixteen guns apiece, and their sailors are of the very best.’
‘Although Spanish,’ put in Hastie, satirically. But he did not raise a laugh this time. Hastie was not a sailor.
‘Nelson,’ said Sir Peter Parker. ‘John Dalling is your friend. Do you deny that?’
The captain’s pale skin coloured.
‘I am not a man who will deny the truth, sir. Ever.’
‘As well I know, sir. But you will convey nothing of this to him, under whatever circumstance. Do I have your word?’
Nelson nodded stiffly.
‘You do not need my word, sir. Duty is my word. If I ever fail to do my duty, then I hope that I may die. My duty is not to prattle confidences. John Dalling is a man I much admire, but his judgment in matters military is not ever my concern. You are my admiral and my lord.’
‘Well then,’ said Parker. ‘And the most pressing matter is not precisely military. The recent prize money due from the successful sortie against Omoa is another matter where the governor trifles with me. The prizes must sail back to England to be assessed and allocated, not least because there will be no agreement here. But when I lately put the matter in the hands of Mr Harrison the Advocate General, Governor Dalling threw him from the King’s House on to the street.’
There was a short silence. Hastie stole a glance at Nelson’s face.
‘I know it, sir,’ said Nelson. ‘Indeed, I witnessed it, with Mr Hastie here and Lieutenant Collingwood. The governor was intemperate. No one would deny that.’
‘He denies it, sir, believe me. But I have set people on to change his mind, and if his mind won’t change, it will be the worse for him. He has two days at most. He wil
l apologise to Harrison, or face the consequences. There, sir, is an end to it.’
The interview seemed over, but there was more to come.
‘You will not accept a bigger ship than Hinchinbrook, then? Well, that is your decision, and I admire your principles and reasons. But you do accept the escort duty, I trust?’
Nelson picked his wig up from the floor. He regarded it as he might something unexpected, alien. His thoughts were furrowed on his brow.
‘I understood, Sir Peter, that I was to lead an expedition up the San Juan del Norte river. I understand that the first fort is merely thirty miles upstream. I look forward to some action, sir. I cannot perhaps express to you how much I crave it.’
‘And?’
‘And you say escort duty, sir. Which means…?’
‘Which means I will not risk a good ship and good men on some madcap jaunt up a vile filthy ditch infested with snakes and crocodiles and disease. You escort them to the river mouth, to Greytown, or St John, or however it styles itself these days. The river flotilla will be then commanded by one Captain Collins. He is a volunteer, as are his soldiers of the Jamaica Squadron. If there is dying to be done, I want you to have no part of it.’
When Nelson maintained his silence, Parker clapped his hand upon the table, then sharply rang a bell.
‘Is that understood, sir? Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Nelson, as the door opened. ‘Yes sir, perfectly. And…I thank you for it.’
There was an officer in the doorway, dressed in the uniform of colonel. Behind him was a younger man, not much more than twenty five or so.
‘Gentlemen,’ said Sir Peter, ‘come you in. This is Horatio Nelson, who is but twenty years old or so and already full post-captain. You may trust him with your lives. This is Timothy Hastie, of the surgical, whom Nelson places great trust in and so, I guess, may you.’
Heads nodded gravely. Parker switched his gaze.
‘Gentlemen, I give you Captain Polson of the 60th, who has been awarded the rank, for this sortie, of lieutenant colonel. And of the 79th, Captain Richard Bulkeley. They command, between them, well above two hundred and fifty men – regular – and a force of volunteers as yet uncounted.’
Polson let out a laugh that was very nearly bitter. Nelson sharply raised his head.
‘There will be good men among them I have no doubt,’ said Polson. He seemed a very stiff and formal soldier type. ‘But there are the Loyal Irish, and many men from out of prison who have joined the Jamaica Volunteers, then a ragtag from Port Royal slums, then the dregs of discharged sailors and privateersmen. Oh, and the volunteers from a so-called regiment of blacks, both runaway slaves and free, but all quite keen to cut a white man’s throat, no doubt.’
Nelson disliked this type of talk intensely. He shot one glance at Admiral Parker, then a harder one at Polson.
‘Capital,’ he said, icily. ‘I do so like to run a happy ship. With your permission admiral, I will go about my business. It is pressing.’
The admiral acceded with only half a smile. And Nelson and his ‘medical’ swept out.
Five
The Harrison affair moved on in fits and starts. While Nelson oversaw final work on Hinchinbrook’s yards and cordage in Port Royal, powder, shot and other ordnance material was hauled down to the jetties in a train of ox-carts. The fleet transports, alongside wharves in Kingston, were taking on supplies enough for more than two thousand men, and making preparations to have them marched on board.
As always in loading spirits in Jamaica, many full casks were spiked or broken, many full men – soldiers, sailors, layabouts – ended up ‘as drunken raving bastards.’ The sound of beating and of the whip almost drowned out the carousing, morning, noon and night, and to add to the problems, Sir Peter Parker’s press gangs roamed the jetties, indiscriminately snatching sailors already assigned to transports, to make up his Navy numbers.
The chaos at the waterside was almost matched by the chaos in the smarter side of town. Under constant pressure from the admiral and his cohorts, Governor Dalling agreed to reinstate Harrison as Attorney General, and let the matter die. All very well until Harrison got on his high horse, and insisted Dalling formally admit that he had lost his temper, and the fault was his entirely.
‘Red rag to a bull,’ Nelson told Cuthbert Collingwood. ‘Dalling exploded, and sacked him from his position as Advocate General into the bargain. Which put Admiral Parker in impossibility. Advocate General is an appointment of the Admiralty, and Sir Peter will be forced to approach London to settle it. And in the meantime…well, you can imagine.’
In the meantime, Dalling himself was set aside as governor, and his post went temporarily to Brigadier General Archie Campbell, who had just arrived from England to be his mere Lieutenant.
‘Poor Parker was fit to hang himself,’ said Nelson. ‘The army brings him out in hives at the best of times, and he said he feared his piles might rupture. I was in two minds as whether he was jesting!’
General Campbell, however, proved himself in Parker’s eyes when the time came to embark the expedition. He rode down from Spanish Town to Kingston in full ceremonials expecting to salute a fighting force of volunteers and non-regular soldiers on the Grand Parade, and was met instead with an abysmal rabble.
As Hastie reported it to Nelson, ‘there were not above a hundred men or so, surrounded by whores and slavers on the snatch, and most of them were heavily in liquor. There was a lot of nakedness, or very near it, with women’s dugs and soldiers’ buttocks flashing in the sun, and many of the military looked set to clear them with their muskets. Then Campbell trotted up there on his charger, calm as summer.’
It could have gone a half a dozen ways, but Campbell’s next gambit won the day and undying loyalty from the men. Instead of lashes, or fists, or a musket ball – he disbursed ten guineas, which they were told they could collect on board their transports, in the form of rum.
‘Sir,’ said Hastie. ‘You will never see again men turn so beautiful from drunken villains to the merest grateful serfs. The only pity is that Campbell is staying here and leaving us to Colonel Polson’s tender mercies on the Main.’
For which half-jest he was reprimanded for discourtesy.
Nelson’s orders were to set sail as soon as maybe for the Mosquito Shore. His first task was to round up his flotilla, which consisted of a large three-masted transport, three sloops, two brigs and a tender called the Royal George. On board they carried something of a secret weapon – a barge made up in sections to sail up shallow rivers – which would be put together when they reached the San Juan entrance. This was in the charge of Lieutenant Edward Despard, and the men of the Royal Batteaux Corps. Although not thirty, Despard had made his name designing fortifications for Jamaica, and would do so, if need be, on the Main.
Tim Hastie, standing near Nelson on his privileged position on the quarterdeck, watched the hills of Jamaica slowly fading from sight with mixed emotions. It was the third of February, and the expedition had been so long in the preparation that time was close to being critical. The health of his patient was not good, and it would inevitably get worse as the season grew hotter and more fetid. Thomas Dancer, the appointed surgeon for the venture, was actually of the opinion that the land they were heading for was a place of fine good health, and a cure for most ills. Which Tim thought as unlikely as a snowstorm in high summer.
Hastie had been told also, many times, that his man was prone to seasickness, but true or not it was the least of his concerns. The night before they had left port he had stripped and washed Nelson, and administered wine and vinegar and ground cinchona bark, contrary to Dancer’s direct instructions. It had done some good undoubtedly; but his fears remained.
Another myth or story Hastie had heard about this skinny, unwell man was that he did not flog his sailors. One day beyond the Palisades this was also proved untrue, and on the person of some poor drunk wretch who had jumped overboard responding to the cries of wife or sweethe
art. Indeed the leaving of the port had quite unsettled Tim, and he had wondered at the numbers prepared to risk their lives rather than be wrenched finally away from land. The quays had been swarming with screaming, shouting women, begging and supplicating their menfolk not to go.
The flogging itself was even more unsettling, taking place in wonderful sunshine, on an empty azure sea, with the sharp stink of sweating men mixed with the scented breeze from off the hidden island. There were on board the Hinchinbrook several hundred men, and paraded in the morning after breakfast they made a sort of carnival. Soldiers mostly in red, one contingent sporting enormous white cockades, while the sailors were drab in greyish whites and blue. On the quarterdeck, the officers clustered and strutted in their scarlets and their golds.
Nelson was the master of ceremonies, although he looked to Hastie more like a gaudy sort of ghost. He had newly powdered his wig, and his skin glared white, as if treated with mercury. But Dr Dancer, when Tim made so bold to express a small concern, was impatient of his worries.
The navy way of flogging was unlike what he knew from army camps, but with similar effect. It was a measure of Nelson’s compassion, he was told, that the sailor got only twelve – he could, for such a crime as running, have been killed if a captain so wished, whipped to death. God knows why, Tim thought. The result, after all, would have been the same – a man lost for good and all.
To receive his dozen, he was lashed to a grating lifted off the deck and tied upright in the shrouds towards the stern. He was stripped naked to the waist, nipped at wrist and ankle by thin cords, and given a folded rag to hold between his teeth. With Nelson watching, and the other officers, he listened to the first lieutenant read out the charge against him. Then he was whipped.
Hastie, who had volunteered for service only to amass the cash to marry Sarah, the maid he loved in Liverpool, had already decided that his role in life would rather be to ease men’s pain than cause it, and he watched with eyes half closed. Six marines stood guard with muskets, and a boatswain’s mate swung the vicious thongs and smashed them home. No human sound issued from any lip throughout the flogging; the sailor did not even grunt. When it was finished they eased his lashings, gave him a pail of water, and he was allowed below. Now it was the soldier’s turn.
