Tested by Fate

by David Donachie

  The nights were the worst: alone in the dark he half feared, half hoped that Emma would visit him. A man with a lively imagination, he could easily conjure up the pleasure of her presence, just as easily as he could let his mind rip on the consequences. Often he feared to close his eyes, lest the images that assailed him came once more to mind.

  He saw more of Sir William on matters pertaining to duty since the Ambassador was his conduit to the Neapolitan government. Slowly and haphazardly his ship was being refitted, the army was being mobilised and trained, supplies and armaments were being stockpiled. And Baron Mack von Leiberich was on his way. The frustration lay in the time it all took, and the way the whole of Naples society seemed more intent on dancing, gossiping, drinking, and eating than war. As he wrote to St Vincent, they were no more than “a bunch of fiddlers and rascals.”

  Ferdinand and Maria Carolina made good their promise to receive him aboard one of their capital ships, the 74-gun Tancredi. His own barge crew, under the watchful gaze of his coxswain, Giddings, rowed him there. A stocky Londoner with a battered face, who had served with Nelson for years, Giddings never looked quite right in the neat blue jacket, white straw hat and gaily striped trews of his office. He looked like what he was: a bit of a brawler, a man who would never shy from a fight be it against a fellow sailor or the whole French fleet.

  On coming aboard, Nelson’s professional eye was employed in comparing the Italian vessel with one of his own. The ship was dry and weatherly, the rope work neat, and the decks were pristine, all of which testified to time spent at anchor, not the quality of build. The ships of his own fleet were worn, having been at sea for months, in blazing sun, howling gales, rain, sleet, heaving seas, and battle. Hardly a rope was not spliced or a sail lacking a patch, the decks gouged at the edges where the guns had been run in and out and in other places where shot had ripped out splinters. Even an amateur eye would spot repaired bulwarks and masts fished with spars and gammoned with ropes to strengthen them where cannonballs had struck or a hard blow had loosed them from their seatings.

  “What do you make of it, Mr Pasco?” Nelson asked the young midshipman at his side as the ceremony of piping aboard was completed.

  Wherever Nelson went he took with him one of the midshipmen, youngsters who alternated between fear of making a gaffe and the even greater dread that should food materialise they might not get enough. It was a means of introducing his young charges to polite society, but it afforded him a chance to get to know them better, and to ensure that their life in the midshipmen’s berth was bearable—it could be hellish if it was not carefully supervised. He also felt that contact with these youths kept him young.

  He enjoyed their company too. There were exceptions, morose individuals or those too nervous to relax, but in the main, once they had realised that Nelson was not going to devour them, the midshipmen were talkative and informative. He had formed the habit when he took his first command, and malicious tongues had wagged. He had pretended not to care, but before his marriage he had worried that there might some truth in the accusations covertly made against him.

  “Tidy, sir, very tidy,” Pasco replied.

  He was a white-faced youth, whose clear skin seemed impervious to either the ravages of his age or the Mediterranean sun. He was slim, with black hair and lively, dark brown eyes, keen as mustard to do well, bright, intelligent, with the right mix of mischief and capability. Pasco was just the kind of young man Nelson liked: one whom, should he survive, would rise to become a credit to the service.

  “And?”

  “The men, sir,” said Pasco doubtfully. “They seem timid. They fail to meet the eye.”

  It was true. Smart though they were they lacked the spark that animated a British crew. Britannia’s sailors had a way of looking at their officers which let them know that while they would be afforded all due respect, they were dealing with souls who knew how to go about their business. Not insolent—that would only bring down punishment—but assured.

  “Well observed, young Pasco,” Nelson said, as they were escorted across the maindeck, “d’you know, I quite missed that.”

  It was good to sense Pasco swell a little beside him. No doubt he would regale the midshipmen’s mess with the tale, embellished a trifle, of how he had put his admiral right. As they came up on to the sunlit maindeck, the midshipman fell a step behind so that his commanding officer could raise his hat to the Commodore of the Neapolitan fleet and the flag of the kingdom that streamed from the masthead.

  The commodore was Caracciolo, and by waiting on the quarterdeck, the Count had inflicted a minor insult on Ferdinand’s guest: given Nelson’s rank and what he had just achieved, Caracciolo should have greeted him at the entry-port on the maindeck. He looked at Nelson keenly to see if the slur had been noted, and his disappointment, when he was greeted by a bland British admiral, was almost palpable.

  Nelson and Count Caracciolo had met before, when the ships and troops of Naples had been despatched to Toulon in ’93. After that unfortunate town was abandoned to revolutionary reprisals Caracciolo, in one line-of-battle ship, had stayed with the British fleet as part of the squadron under Admiral Hotham. Able to speak clear if heavily accented English, he had served in the British Navy as a youngster attached to Admiral George Rodney, a man he admired greatly. At a dinner aboard Hotham’s ship, Nelson had questioned Rodney’s reputation. There was little doubt that the late, successful admiral had been corrupt. Everyone knew that in every command he had held, he had stretched the rules to near breaking point to line his own pockets and promote his followers, however dubious their abilities.

  He soon discovered that Caracciolo would not hear a bad word said about Rodney—nor it would seem, a true one. To the Italian the man was a paragon and any attempt to dent his reputation exposed the critic to contemptuous questions about their own capabilities and honesty. Everyone soon learned, including Nelson, that in Caracciolo’s company, Rodney was a subject best left alone.

  “The Commodore and I, Mr Pasco,” said Nelson loudly, “were at the battle off Genoa in March ’95, he on this very 74-gun and I in command of Agamemnon.”

  “Your favourite ship, sir, I am told.”

  “By whom?” asked Nelson, ignoring Caracciolo who seemed offended that the guest of honour was more interested in talking to one of his midshipmen than to his host.

  “All the old Agamemnons aboard Vanguard say it is so.”

  Three things pleased Nelson about that remark: first, that it was true; second, that his old shipmates were not shy of telling anyone; and third, his recollection of the large number who still served in whichever ship he sailed. It was comforting to have around him faces he knew.

  “Then while we are waiting for the King and Queen I shall tell you all about that day. I’m sure the Commodore will oblige you with a description as well. Having stayed close to the flagship he was so much better placed than I to observe the whole action.”

  Nelson knew by the man’s pursed lips that he had paid Caracciolo back for the slight, and he took the opportunity to move away from him to tell Pasco of what had occurred that day. It was another Nelson habit to regale his midshipmen with tales of battles, sometimes those he had fought himself, more often those he felt would inspire them.

  To call what happened in March 1795 a battle was to elevate it somewhat, Nelson rating it as no more than a skirmish. The French, sighting the British fleet had run for their home base of Toulon, with Admiral William Hotham in pursuit. Yet he had proved timid when a chance came to trounce the enemy, seemingly more afraid of damaging his own ships than those of the enemy. It was a day of high hopes that ended as dust. In the initial excitement he had dashed off a note to Fanny.

  My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied.

  He could have written a hundred pages as they sailed all through the afternoon and into the night. As the dawn mist cleared, the enemy lay ahead, still running, and Hotham
ordered the fleet to give chase on a parallel course in line-of-battle. As one of the fastest sailers in the fleet, Agamemnon was soon well ahead, with half-a-dozen other ships who had also out-sailed the main body forming a block between him and Hotham, and a clutch of frigates out ahead almost in touch with the enemy.

  One of the rearmost French ships, an 80-gun two-decker, had run foul of one of her consorts, carrying away her fore and main topmasts. The frigate Inconstant, with a mere 28 cannon immediately closed with what was identified as the Ça Ira, a bold step given the respective firepower of the vessels.

  Pasco was enthralled as he listened to Nelson, watching his hands as they traced the various ships’ positions on the hammock nettings.

  The frigate had received heavy fire and was force to haul off to avoid destruction, but had achieved the aim of slowing the enemy, towards which Agamemnon was now standing. The Ça Ira, under tow, was vulnerable, unable to manoeuvre, and unable to gain enough speed to get clear. Coming up in the wake, Nelson overhauled the Frenchman under a raking fire from his stern chasers. Nelson had had his own worries—Agamemnon was short of men through death, disease and the manning of prizes. He had too few hands aboard to sail the ship and fight the guns, so he resolved that the crew would have to do both.

  “Once in range, Mr Pasco, I called the men from their guns to man the braces and let fly the sheets. At the same time the quartermaster spun the wheel to bring Agamemnon’s head round. In the minute it took to come broadside on to the Ça Ira’s stern we had taken several knocks to our hull and observed a couple of balls nearly nick the mainmast. But those gun crews were soon back at their pieces, in time to pour a devastating fire into the Frenchman. That was repeated several times with our ship being cut up quite badly on the approach. Sailing straight in Ça Ira’s wake, we were unable to return fire.”

  “Hot work, sir,” said Pasco.

  “Two hours that went on, and though we took a bit of punishment we inflicted a damn sight more. Ça Ira was a perfect wreck. The pity is that we could have overhauled her, for she was a sitter, and by passing her to windward taken on the next ship in the French fleet.”

  “The Sans Culotte, sir.”

  “You know about this?” Nelson asked.

  “Yes, sir,” replied Pasco proudly. “We mids know of every battle you’ve been in. We re-fight them on our mess table.”

  Nelson nodded and smiled, for he had done the same thing himself as a youngster, and every time he and his messmates refought a battle, they always did better than the original admiral: taking more ships, inflicting more casualties, and employing superior tactics.

  “I fear to continue this, Pasco, lest you inform me of where I went wrong.”

  “The opinion is, sir,” said Pasco, guilelessly, “that it was Admiral Hotham who went wrong.”

  “I am forgiven on your mess table for not getting amongst the French laggards for the lack of any ships to support me?”

  Pasco replied in the same natural way. “Oh no, sir. You are reckoned brave but never foolish.”

  Nelson laughed out loud. “Not an opinion you will find unanimously shared in certain high places.”

  Had he been foolish? Tired of the punishment, the captain of the Ça Ira ordered his towing frigate to bring his head round and aim a broadside on his tormentor. The Frenchman had every right to expect his enemy to shear off, but Nelson did nothing of the sort—he sailed on boldly as most of the French shot screamed harmlessly over his head. What had Admiral Hotham seen? One of his smallest line-of-battle ships, isolated and outgunned, racing into battle as if nothing mattered but contact, a sitting duck that lost would weaken the fleet and rebound badly on Hotham’s reputation. That was when the Admiral raised his flags and ordered the recall, forcing Nelson to break off the action.

  “It would never do, Pasco, to say that Admiral Hotham was wrong that day. I had tested my luck, but it is not a good idea to push that particular lady too far.”

  The following morning the Ça Ira had been taken, along with Censuer, a 74-gunner then towing her, another engagement in which his Agamemnons had distinguished themselves. Yet Hotham, instead of continuing the pursuit and trying to bring the French to battle, had declined to agree with Nelson and his own second-in-command, Admiral Goodall. He, supported by the third admiral, Hyde Parker, had claimed “that they had done very well.”

  As a captain Nelson had strongly disagreed and said so. Now he was himself an admiral he knew that his opinion would have been the same.

  His tale was interrupted when a lookout shouted and all eyes turned to the shore, where the royal barge was pushing off. It was so like the day, five years before, when he had entertained the King on the deck of Agamemnon—the sun had shone then too. The royal couple and their court had come aboard to be fed and wined by splendid comestibles at the expense of Sir William Hamilton, who had been there too, with him his wife.

  And on that deck, close to a woman who excited him like no other, Nelson had very nearly committed the mortal sin of telling her so publicly. Just in time the news had come that a French warship was in the offing, which had given him the excuse to turf the royal party off the ship, Hamiltons included, and sail away from temptation.

  Now a whole flotilla filled the sparkling blue waters of the bay, timing their arrival aboard so that the royal party would arrive last. Of course, the Hamiltons were there, Emma in layers of white and cream muslin, a shawl of heavy lace preventing the sea breeze ruffling her hair. As he was not the host, Nelson was not obliged to welcome her as she came aboard, for which he was grateful.

  As they approached, the King and Queen were greeted by a 21-gun salute, stamping marines, and whistling pipes. The Queen and her entourage made straight for the cabin where they would remain until dinner. Maria Carolina was not a lover of the sea, and preferred to be surrounded by wooden walls and eager servants than stand on a windswept deck.

  Ferdinand arrived alone on the quarterdeck dressed in the uniform of an admiral, splendid for once in dark blue silk coat edged and buttoned with gold, sparkling white waistcoat and breeches, with a fine hat, trimmed with ostrich feathers, on his head. Graciously he tipped it to Nelson, a signal honour from a sovereign to a commoner, before insisting that his guest accompany him on the ritual inspection of the ship.

  “I do not believe, young sir, that we have been introduced.” William Pasco turned from watching the broad back of the King, to be faced by a vision. Emma was smiling at him, and his heart raced. He knew who she was and snatched his hat off his head. “Midshipman William Pasco, Lady Hamilton, at your service.”

  “I find myself without an escort, young man. You will observe that my husband, Sir William, is engaged with Count Caracciolo.”

  “If I can be of service, my lady?” replied Pasco hoarsely.

  “You may take my arm, young sir, and tell me about yourself.”

  Pasco had found that he could talk to Horatio Nelson with ease, but the notion of conversing with this woman rendered him tongue-tied. Like every blade aboard ship, he had heard tales of her past and her beauty, and had speculated with his shipmates by candlelight about the sybaritic practices of which she was capable. He had lain alone in the dark, as well, thinking about that very same thing.

  “You are, I would guess, serving on Vanguard?” Pasco nodded. “And you were at the Nile?”

  That brought out the pride that he, like every other man in Nelson’s fleet, felt at having shared in that battle. “I was.”

  “Good. I wish to hear as much of that engagement as I can. Admiral Nelson has told me about it, of course, as have several of his officers, both Vanguard’s and others. But I confess to you Mr Pasco, that I cannot hear enough.”

  Pasco could talk of the Nile with ease, even to a famous beauty, for not even the potency of his fantasies about her could dent his self-satisfaction. Like all of his shipmates he had thought about it, discussed it, embellished and honed it in preparation for a lifetime of recounting. They all knew they were heroes, an
d they could not wait to get back to their homeland to bask in the glory their story would bring them.

  And Pasco had an imaginative and colourful turn of phrase: he could describe the dying light as they approached Aboukir Bay, the way the sky turned first gold then orange. Even though he had spent most of the battle on the gundeck below, he knew enough to give a good description of the events of the night: of the coloured lights above every British vessel that identified them to each other; of the shot, shell, and fire, the screaming of men in the water, the blasted stumps of masts trailing over the side, and blood running out of the scuppers to stain the sea; of the boy Casabianca refusing to leave his father, the captain of L’Orient; then the final great cataclysm as the French flagship exploded, taking father, son, and six hundred crew to perdition.

  “Why, Mr Pasco,” said Emma, clutching his arm a little tighter, “you tell your tale so well as to render me fearful.”

  “I will not lie to you, my lady,” the boy said, his shyness now quite gone, “when I say that my heart beat as fast as it ever did that day, and there were occasions, seconds only I grant you, when I was frozen with fear. But my need to do my duty saw me through.”

  As he gazed into those amazing green eyes, Pasco felt pleased with himself. In perfecting his version of the tale he had reckoned that undiluted heroics would never do: humility and an admission of fear would be more believable.

  “You are lucky to have such a commander, Mr Pasco, are you not?”

  Pasco replied with genuine feeling. “The greatest sailor and the best man that ever lived, my lady, and there is not man in the whole fleet who will say otherwise.”

  Emma had heard often enough from the lips of Nelson’s officers how highly he was regarded, but she felt a warm glow as she encouraged this young fellow to tell her again. An admiral he might be, but Nelson could joke with the lowest swabber on the ship, and talk knowledgeably to every warrant officer about his duties and methods. The gunner reckoned the Admiral knew more about cannon, powder, and shot, as well as range and trajectory, than any man alive. The master, whose job it was to plot navigation and see to the sail plan would never fail to listen if Nelson cast an opinion, and only once in a blue moon advised against whatever course or change of sail he suggested.