The Barbed Crown

by William Dietrich

  “You’ll put me ashore again in enemy hands?” Necessity never made a good bargain, Franklin had lectured. “I’m getting dizzy going back and forth.”

  “They sent you to England to confound us with Boney’s preposterous proposal. I’m sending you to confound them with British relentlessness. And when the French kick you out, which they will, my orders will send you on to Venice from there. Dampen French ardor, Gage, and you can finish your business. It’s splendid how things work out.”

  I was skeptical of putting myself in French hands again, but this might indeed be a way to final passage. I hardly cared what these oak-headed naval officers did to each other, and I’d consistently escaped imprisonment or execution by using my wits and indispensability. One more message and I was on my way. “If you truly promise passage afterward,” I confirmed, though I wouldn’t have fully trusted him if he’d dribbled blood on a contract.

  “We usually have vessels going to the Adriatic on one mission or another.”

  Oddly, a quietly weeping Lady Hamilton had collected herself and was looking at me with new calculation.

  “You’ll stay with us for dinner before I take leave tomorrow?” Nelson asked politely.

  “It would be an honor,” I said resignedly.

  And so our meeting broke up, except that Emma took me by the sleeve to whisper in my ear. “The grove of Venus behind our home,” she murmured. “An hour after dinner. Please.”

  CHAPTER 26

  I was confused by Emma’s invitation. Was she the minx gossips described? That made no sense. I’d given no indication I was physically attracted to her, and she seemed distraught with worry about Nelson. Not only was I married, I was poor, without title or prospects. Even I didn’t think I was much of a prize. Nor were there any of the covert glances, under-table foot caresses, brushing of shoulders, swirling of hair, deep breathing, raised eyebrows, exaggerated smiles, tipped tongue, curved neck, revealed ankle, sensuous sipping, laughing at jokes, or any other signs women use to signal interest.

  No, Emma was clearly infatuated with a pallid admiral who struggled with a persistent cough. No wonder he’d ordered his coffin readied: if the French didn’t get him, consumption might. And this was the man whose mere name panicked the French navy!

  I found Nelson a charming host at dinner. He was quiet and made no reference to his exploits. But then he didn’t need to; the walls had pictures of his battles and the Worchester china, a present from Lloyds, had his recently invented coat of arms. I decided he was not so much shy as the kind of man so energetic that he had to keep his enthusiasm under rein, and a fellow slightly embarrassed by Emma’s worship. Nor did he need to boast; we all assured him he was the lion of England. Like all great leaders, Nelson was astute about human character. There’s nothing like listening to persuade the talkative that they’re the epitome of wisdom. I prattled on for a good two minutes without his interrupting me, and judged him wise as Solomon.

  The admiral sat at the head, Emma’s mother at the foot, and Smith and I to the right side, facing other relatives and the Danish historian J. A. Andersen. This guest was writing an account of the Battle of Copenhagen, and Nelson was already pondering his place in history. Most of us have the luxury of not having a personal biographer, but the admiral needed to edit things as much as he could. I’d already decided to write my own books.

  Blackwell had already hurried back to his ship. Nelson would travel to his flagship Victory the next evening.

  Since I was being ordered to confer with the French admiral Pierre Villeneuve, I doubted Lord Nelson would share strategy with me. But Smith remarked on Nelson’s ability to wring a decisive fight, and I dared contribute. It’s safer to talk about things I have no responsibility for, like naval strategy, than things I do, like retaining contact with my family.

  “Napoleon believes the same thing you do, Lord Nelson. Other generals care about ground, but he cares about armies. Smash the enemy, and the political and territorial gains take care of themselves.”

  Nelson came alive at this statement. His blind eye wasn’t patched but was vacantly unfocused. His good eye, however, fixed on me like fire, and for a moment I saw the passionate sailor Emma was hopelessly in love with.

  “Damned right,” he said, the sailor’s profanity gaining a “tsk” from Emma’s mother, Mrs. Cadogan. “Bonaparte understands that to annihilate is a mercy because it ends war quickly. We mustn’t let Villeneuve slip away again. I want a battle that wipes out his fleet, and with it the danger of England ever being invaded.”

  “Here, here,” Sir Sidney said.

  “Naval warfare is simplicity itself and yet endlessly complex, Mr. Gage,” he went on. “To move efficiently a ship must be long and narrow, but then its shape means it has cannon only to port and starboard, not fore and aft. Firing into the unprotected stern of the enemy is like firing into a bucket. The cannonballs rattle like marbles, bouncing, maiming, and bouncing some more, splinters flying and blood spewing. We maneuver to avoid such a fate, and lay sand to provide traction in the gore.”

  “Horatio,” Mother Cadogan scolded. “We’re having dinner.”

  “Quite right.” He’d barely touched his food, which was leg of mutton with capers, salt fish, plum pudding, garden greens, and peaches. “So traditionally no admiral dared present his bow or stern lest he be defenseless against the enemy broadside. The solution for each fleet was to form two parallel lines and slug it out. The problem is that the fleets have gotten too big. By the time you maneuver all of your dancers into position, like some elephantine minuet, the day is almost done. That’s what happened to Calder in July.”

  “At the Nile you got around both sides of the anchored French and pummeled them two ships to one,” I summarized.

  “Correct. I could outshoot the anchored Danes as well, right, Andersen?”

  “We were not ready for your aggressiveness, Your Excellency. It was a fearsome display of British gunnery.”

  “I fought the French at night at the Nile because they were anchored to help us keep track of where they were. But on the open sea, how do you force a conclusion?”

  “Perhaps by sending Ethan Gage to counsel surrender?” I said.

  He laughed. “If you hand me their fleet to scuttle, I’ll build you Cleopatra’s Barge to get to Venice! No, not by jabber jabber, but by grabbing their testicles and squeezing so hard that they can’t get away.”

  “Horatio!” Emma’s mother scolded again.

  “The traditional line of battle is too ponderous and makes it possible for the enemy to break off and escape. I want a pell-mell fight with the ships in a tangle and every captain in a death match, and a pell-mell fight is what I’m planning to achieve. Just how, Villeneuve will learn in all good time, but I’ll not be another Calder. I’m going to capture or sink them all.”

  He displayed the relish for battle that most men reserve for a meal or a brothel. It’s the small ones you want in a bad fight, I tell you: Bonaparte and Nelson were both terriers who bite and don’t let go. “If you do, you’ll be the savior of England,” I said politely, and obviously.

  “And finally get the reward you deserve,” Emma said more practically.

  The admiral smiled indulgently. “My dear, sweet, brave, beautiful Emma, could any reward keep up with your purchases?” He turned to the rest of us. “The latest bills from the tradesmen total a thousand pounds.”

  She pouted theatrically. “Only to have a decent home for the savior of the kingdom.” She turned to me. “How much does Napoleon spend on his homes, Mr. Gage?”

  “They seem to be running about ten million francs each.”

  “There, you see, Horatio? You are worth a thousand Napoleons!”

  He laughed. “Good Emma! If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons!”

  This seemed a little self-congratulatory all around, but we were tipsy from wine; they were a
s smitten as when they first met; and they pawed each other while Mother Cadogan looked embarrassed, smug, and startled at her daughter’s improbable rise.

  I wasn’t certain what the purpose of a secret rendezvous was, but an hour after we’d finished our sherry I left the house by the terrace doors and drifted to the garden as Emma had directed. In the September moonlight I saw a statue of Venus erotically undraped and bearing a none-too-surprising resemblance to the woman I was meeting.

  Emma emerged from the monument’s shadow, dressed in a translucent gown that gave a good blueprint of her ample figure. “Mr. Gage, thank God you’ve come to our humble home. I believe you’re a messenger from heaven.”

  “Just from Napoleon at Boulogne, I’m afraid.”

  “You must save my dear sweet husband from himself.”

  “I’m trying, but he seems quite uninterested in rescue, Mrs. Hamilton,” I said, addressing her by her widow’s name to reinforce propriety. Having been sent adventuring as punishment for tupping Napoleon’s sister, I was wary around notorious women. “Self-confident, too. I wouldn’t wish to be Villeneuve, should Nelson catch up with him. Whatever he does to bring on a pell-mell battle, I’ve no doubt he’ll win it.”

  “Yes. But he thinks he won’t survive.” She said this solemnly.

  “Every man who marches to war imagines death.”

  “No. And it’s not just the coffin. He’s put sheet music of a funeral dirge he liked into that horrid casket, and he carries the box about like a favorite toy. Do you know he’s kept the coffin in his sea cabin and sat on it to dine?”

  “His profession is a risky one. Maybe it’s a way of laughing at death and keeping up his courage.”

  “He’s ill, Ethan, and plagued by fate. When he served in the Caribbean a voodoo fortune-teller foretold she saw no future for him beyond 1805.”

  I felt a chill. “I hadn’t heard that.”

  “He predicts his own death if battle comes to pass.”

  “I thought you were both looking forward to reward from his triumph?”

  “That’s silly talk to buck up our spirits. I see disaster if he sails on Victory.”

  “The commonest fear in the world. Men forecast their own death, survive, and live happily ever after, laughing at their own superstition.”

  “No, he’s not coming back, I know he’s not, unless you act.” She was close to weeping, and suddenly she clutched me, her body pressed against mine. Her weight gave her quite ample architecture on top, and her breasts mashed like twin pillows.

  “Me? I keep trying to, but I’m swamped by modern times, Emma.” The first name seemed appropriate, considering she was draped on me like wallpaper. “Conscripted armies, spy agencies, smoking factories, manipulated public opinion—I fear this new world we’re making is damned difficult to direct. Talleyrand says the nineteenth century is a plague of democratic incivility, and a temptress named Catherine Marceau agrees. In any event, I’ve no power. I’m little more than a courier of unwanted information to belligerent antagonists with centuries of stored hatred, a simpleton simply trying to earn passage to look for my family.” Each day was ticking remorselessly by.

  “You’re the only sane man here, Ethan, because you’re sensibly selfish like me. Don’t deny it, we’re both people of low character, trying to survive in a cruel and insane world. And you’re right: this battle has become unnecessary. Bonaparte has given up his plans for invasion. England already controls the seas. There’s no need for annihilation because French naval will has already been annihilated.” As I’ve said, there was shrewdness to this Borgia of a woman, who had not a thimble of Astiza’s character but a mind meant for maneuvering.

  “I’m flattered, but what more can I do?” I tried to step backward, but she followed like a waltz.

  “Look.” Emma held up her left hand, displaying a gold wedding band. “This is not from my late husband, but my one true love. Horatio donned one, too.”

  “When? How?” Nelson was, after all, still officially married. Bigamy would make the scandal too gigantic to ignore.

  “We had a ceremony with a parson last night. We took the holy sacrament and exchanged vows under the moon, both of us weeping. It was tragically romantic, beautiful, and doomed.” She was imagining a Greek tragedy of her own life.

  “Like those novels women enjoy. I’ve studied them carefully and am thinking of writing one of my own.”

  “We had to solemnize our love because we know that unless a miracle happens, we’ll not see each other again.”

  “It’s not a legal marriage, is it?”

  “No. Fanny is still alive and refuses divorce. But it’s a marriage of the heart and soul, truer than inky documents and mumblings in church.”

  I was impressed. First Josephine wangles a church marriage on the eve of her coronation, and now Emma had one on the eve of Nelson’s sailing. These women had their eye fixed as fiercely as Nelson scans an enemy horizon. Females have clearer strategy and firmer purpose than most generals, and more ruthlessness, too. “I offer congratulations, but this changes nothing, does it?”

  “The change must come from you, Ethan. You’re the miracle I’ve been waiting for. Who would have thought from a failed spy, a rogue, and a wastrel, defeated at Boulogne and deceived by all sides?”

  I wasn’t happy with this catalog, though I was impressed by her research. “Doesn’t that make me a poor miracle?”

  Her face tilted up, her bosom heaving with emotion and her hair lustrous under the stars. For just that moment I understood poor Nelson’s hopeless love. And I also knew the pair would never be allowed to live without scandal. Once the war was won the hero worship would subside and the tongue wagging would begin. For Nelson, death was the only way out. But for Emma, his survival meant her own. Maybe even real marriage someday.

  We all have our fantasies.

  “Not if you persuade the French admiral the hopelessness of battle,” she urged. “The English are too bullheaded and confident to listen. But France is the capital of reason. To have Sidney Smith send you to Cadiz, it’s astonishing! Because you alone see truth. My love will cut Villeneuve’s fleet to pieces and die in the cutting. This must not happen. The French must be persuaded to abandon all naval ambitions so we can live in happiness. Somehow you must persuade Admiral Villeneuve.”

  “Persuade him of what?”

  “Not to fight. Lay up his ships, as you want the English to do. Offer a truce.”

  “But he’s not emperor. He’s terrified of Bonaparte.”

  “Then you must make Horatio an even greater terror,” she pleaded, eyes wet, mouth begging. “And you must explain that if he delays long enough, the love of my life will be so sick he must retire to Merton. He’s failing, Ethan. Tempt Villeneuve!” Her fingers clenched like claws. “Do not surrender to fate, Ethan Gage. Make me a miracle.”

  CHAPTER 27

  I did my best by meeting with the other side in the great cabin of the French flagship Bucentaure, a new, eighty-gun two-decker moored in Cadiz. This port in Spain’s southwest corner, guarding the approaches to Gibraltar, was where the French had retreated after the Cape Finisterre fight with British admiral Robert Calder on July 23. As the warship swung at anchor its stern windows gave a panoramic view of a secure harbor, the white city and its gray forts occupying a peninsula that gives protection from Atlantic rollers and English ships. By the same token it’s a difficult pocket to work out from, since the prevailing wind is from the sea and the mouth is a tangle of shoals. This gave the French and Spanish fleet an excuse to dither. While the admirals talked I kept imagining Nelson’s cannonballs smashing through all that window glass, screeching the length of the hull and bouncing like marbles.

  It was October 8, 1805. The wind had shifted briefly to blow from the brown Iberian hills, and so Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve called his French and Spanish admirals to a council of war to see if the
y should weigh and sail. With Napoleon having abandoned his plan to invade England, Villeneuve’s new orders were to proceed to the Mediterranean and harass Austrian possessions from there. The question was when, whether, or how to obey this directive. There were fourteen of us in the low-beamed cabin: seven French officers, six Spanish, and me.

  I’d appeared as miracle or plague, depending on whom you asked, transferred from British frigate under flag of truce to a Spanish cutter and transported into the enemy harbor. I presented myself as diplomat, envoy, and man of peace, an American working for France and England and thus suspect but useful to all sides. I had papers from both countries and my Jaeger rifle from Napoleon to prove my bona fides, not to mention a broken sword hilt from Talleyrand and twenty pounds in English sovereigns I’d wheedled out of Smith. Indicative of the desperation and depression of the Combined Fleet commanders was that they decided to hear what I had to say. When no alternative is attractive, even Ethan Gage gets an audience.

  The mood was tense. The Spanish officers were reluctant allies at best, forced by Napoleon’s bullying of their nation’s King Carlos to side with France. The French were no happier, frustrated that their desperate need for supplies and repairs was met with excuses and delay by the Cadiz shipyards. The Spanish merchants demanded cash, which the French captains didn’t have. The French needed supplies and men for forty ships from the two nations combined, which the Spanish couldn’t fulfill. Now the admirals stared balefully at me because I’d brought more unwelcome word. Nelson was returning to the blockading British fleet and bringing enough warships to allow the English to risk a full-scale battle.

  “Surely the British are running low on supplies and must put into Gibraltar to get more,” Villeneuve said with more hope than sense. He’d none of Nelson’s dash, but instead a double chin, receding hair, and fretful hands. He seemed doggedly dutiful but a conscientious administrator instead of a warrior.