Tested by Fate

by David Donachie

  The Marquis de Niza turned out to be a pompous oaf—who, as Nelson informed St Vincent by letter later that day, “is a complete nincompoop in matters pertaining to the sea.” He had to resist the desire to chuck him overboard, either just to the left or right of his barge. It was Nelson’s task, as commander in the Mediterranean, to hold together a coalition that included allies who were often more of a burden than an asset. De Niza had ships, which Nelson was short of, so the idiot must be humoured before being sent to Naples.

  Nelson’s Neapolitan allies were no more helpful. The supplies and troops demanded by de Gallo were nowhere to be seen: no guns, no food, no ammunition, and not a single soldier. Nelson was obliged to supply the Maltese insurgents from his own stores. He also called on the French commandant at Valetta to surrender or face destruction, but the man knew he was bluffing and answered accordingly.

  Useless here, Nelson resolved to return to Naples, but first he used the force at his disposal to frighten into surrender the French garrison on the second Maltese island of Gozo. The defenders, without the fortress protection of their compatriots on the mainland, sailed for France with their arms and flags, leaving Ball a safe anchorage from the coming winter storms and good supplies of wood, water, and food on the fertile island, while denying those commodities to the enemy on Malta. It ensured that if all else failed, and no reinforcements got through with supplies, the fortresses could be starved out.

  Correspondence between Nelson and Naples was constant, as was the reverse, and Sir William and Emma knew of every step taken at Malta—while Nelson was well aware of what little progress had been made in Naples. Baron Mack talked more than he acted and planned more than he executed.

  Emma threw herself into the task of keeping up Maria Carolina’s morale. This proved increasingly difficult as it became more and more obvious just how many Neapolitan nobles were in touch with the French. Some were genuine republicans, but others hoped to save their wealth and possessions by appearing to support the Revolution.

  What was evident was that the Queen had little support in Naples among the nobility or the peasantry. Through various ministers, she had used spies and informers to root out the more vocal of their enemies. Torture, confessions, several executions, or banishment followed. Called a “White Terror” by Jacobins it was a pale copy of the same regimen that had racked France, but whatever odium resulted fell squarely on the shoulders of the Austrian-born Queen. Ferdinand, as usual, was held to have been manipulated rather than responsible.

  Even the peasants who loved him had no time for Maria Carolina. The sobriquet lazzaroni, originally applied to the numerous beggars of the city, was a corruption of the name Lazarus. Feckless they might be, but the beggars and paupers were also organised, with strict bounds to territory and a court of their own which handed down harsh punishments for transgression. Since Ferdinand loved them and protected them, it was little wonder that they reciprocated. Neither was it a wonder than when some statute was issued limiting their activities he was never held to be at fault.

  Blame centred on the Queen. Good King Ferdinand they would save from his own nobles, his wife they would happily burn at the stake.

  The task of reassuring the Queen was made easier by Nelson’s return and the fact that Baron Mack finally declared himself ready for battle. He invited Nelson and the Hamiltons to inspect his forces before their move to the north. Nelson stood on a podium with Mack as the contingents marched by, drums beating, trumpets blaring, and flags waving. Bursting with martial pride Mack declared them “la plus belle armée de l’Europe.”

  “And splendid they look,” Nelson replied in halting French, while thinking in plain English, “all that glisters is not gold.”

  His own task was to transport a force of soldiers and artillery to Leghorn, land them behind the French and secure that port. Thankfully Culloden was now ready for sea and her captain Thomas Troubridge bursting for action. However Mack and Nelson, alert to the likelihood of treachery, did not even tell the Neapolitan in command of that army their destination. General Naselli was told he was bound for Malta. His demeanour made it plain that the only place he wanted to be was back in front of his own hearth. He. was scared stiff and the appalling weather as they sailed north rendered him less than useless, since he was convinced they were about to drown.

  He was no better when they arrived. After accepting the surrender of the city, he was more interested in appeasing the local Jacobins than corralling them, and horrified by the suggestion that he might undertake offensive operations. The same applied to the numerous French privateers that filled the harbour: Naselli wished to let them depart, ships and all. Nelson knew he could leave Troubridge to see to that dilemma, so he parted with Culloden and sailed south, happy to hear by despatch that the corsairs had left without their ships.

  The return from Leghorn was made on the same storm-tossed sea under a low grey sky as the outward journey, yet Nelson ran into a messenger sent by Emma Hamilton, bearing despatches from England. One informed him of his elevation to a barony, an occasion for toasts in his cabin. In her private correspondence Emma wrote that she feared for his well-being at sea: she was worried about the stormy conditions. Unaware that he was on the way back she also begged him not to go ashore at Leghorn, which was home to many a republican sympathiser who might take his life on the blade of a stiletto. The better news was that no one in Naples knew where he had been or when he would return.

  Another felucca found them off Stromboli, bearing tidings that had Nelson ordering Allen to break open the wine for a second time. “Gentlemen, I have received news that King Ferdinand is in Rome.”

  It was dour Thomas Hardy who asked, “But is it true, sir?”

  That earned him a wry smile. “Lady Hamilton writes to tell me it is, that the French have abandoned the city and retreated north.”

  On this occasion Nelson could not fault Hardy for being wary. He viewed Neapolitans as grubby, thieving rascals, and the notion that they could beat the French was one of the few things that made the Ghost laugh.

  The waters of the bay reflected the grey colour of the sky, even Vesuvius losing its double-domed majesty as its plume of gaseous smoke merged with low clouds, and the mood of the locals was no more cheerful. When Nelson landed he was greeted with none of the usual huzzahs, and the glances he was thrown ranged from anxious to hostile. It wasn’t long before he found out why. The “most beautiful army in Europe,” sent to eject the French from Italy, had disgraced itself: Neapolitan troops had plundered their own baggage train long before they made contact with the enemy so that their fellows went without rations. The King and his entourage suffered too, spending two whole days without food, their baggage scattered throughout the army. The guns were in the wrong place, the cavalry nowhere to be found and information had come in that a French force of thirteen thousand men was holding a strong position at a place north of Rome called Castellana.

  That meant their main force had abandoned the Papal capital as indefensible. The latest information put Ferdinand in Rome, where he was accepting the fealty of the Roman nobility and dreaming of an expanded kingdom. But he was far from master of the city, since the French had left a contingent of some five hundred men to hold the Castel St Angelo, a vital hilltop fortress overlooking the Tiber. Everything depended on Baron Mack beating the French force to the north.

  “Your opinion, Admiral?” asked Sir William, looking tired and older than his years.

  Like all civilians behind the lines, he had heard rumours of the most depressing kind—that Baron Mack had been captured; that the army of Naples was in full retreat; that half of the Neapolitan commanders had deserted to a republican enemy with whom they were in sympathy. More worrying was information that was not in doubt: the Austrians had declined to move to support Naples. Mack must defeat the French on his own.

  “Mack has superior numbers, Sir William, but not the quality of troops, so the issue must be in doubt.”

  “And if he loses?”r />
  “The road to Naples is open. The French have nothing to fear from their rear, and the Baron does not command a force that will stop running once it is in motion. Their officers are fond of display and boasting but they don’t like fighting—and I said that before they marched north.”

  The next few days were anxious indeed. Nelson saw Emma often but fleetingly, as she hurried between the Palazzo Sessa and the Queen’s apartments in the Palazzo Reale. The weather, overcast and dull, seemed to match the mood of the city. Everyone went about armed, fearful of a secret knife, and that applied to those who supported the Bourbons as well as those who opposed them. Sedition was now discussed openly.

  Nelson could do nothing but write fulsome reports to his commander-in-chief. He received word from Troubridge at Leghorn, corresponded with Ball off Malta, smoothed the feathers of the Marquis de Niza, and made sure his ships were ready for an evacuation. At the same time he was brusque with the admiral of a Russian squadron that had arrived, ostensibly to assist, but seemed too interested in Malta for his liking.

  The news from the north was constantly depressing, the only hope that French sympathisers were spreading false tales. Baron Mack had asked permission to sabre half the army for cowardice; the King had fled south ahead of a retreating army; half of what remained of that army had gone over to an enemy who were on the march, coming south to take and sack a now undefended Naples.

  And all the while three people bobbed around each other, Sir William observant but determined to be detached; Emma concentrating on boosting the Queen and keeping her promise to herself about Nelson; and Nelson, who felt increasingly secure that his one transgression weeks before would be the last. Sometimes it was agony to be in the same room as her, but he took comfort from the pain. He longed to ask Emma how she felt but could not, knowing that to do so would open the floodgates of his emotions.

  “The rumours are true, Nelson,” said Sir William. In his dressing gown and slippers, without the wig that usually hid his wispy grey hair, he looked worn and tired, while his voice reflected the despair he felt. “King Ferdinand returned to the Palazzo Reale in the garb of a common soldier. The lazzaroni heard he was back and demanded he appear. The man has no shame. He came out on to the balcony, and when he did so his peasants cheered him.”

  “God knows, he had little honour when he marched, but he has forfeited that now.”

  “The concept of honour is alien to Ferdinand,” Sir William replied sadly.

  Sir William had always rather liked the King for his simple ways, and for being a committed fellow hunter. They had shared many a chase together and many a drunken meal after the sun had gone down. Now, though, he was forced to see him in a new light; not as the fun-loving sovereign at one with his land and his people, but as a coward who, to get here so far ahead of his own men, must have fled at the first whiff of enemy grapeshot.

  “The army?” Nelson asked.

  “In full retreat. The French beat them at Castellana.”

  “Tom,” Nelson said softly to his servant, who was hovering in the shadows, “raise me Mr Tyson, would you, please?”

  “Beat them, did I say?” Sir William continued. “I rather think they beat themselves. They ran away and their officers were ahead of them. How can a man stomach such disgrace?”

  Looking at him, Nelson felt a wave of pity—here was a man seeing his life’s work disappear before him—but he had much to do, and his head was filled with the orders he must give to get all his ships ready for sea.

  Tyson came in, looking as dishevelled as the Ambassador. “You must, I hazard, have matters to attend to Sir William,” Nelson said.

  The washed-out eyes regarded him vaguely for a moment, then Sir William answered, “Yes.”

  “I will require an audience at the palace as soon as possible. Perhaps it would be wise to tell their Majesties beforehand that I have three transports available for them and their retinue. Naturally, should it become necessary to abandon Naples, I will take them and the royal family into my own ship.”

  “Such a thing must be carefully planned. The flight to Varennes looms large in the royal imagination.”

  Varennes, half way between Paris and the Rhine, was where Louis of France and Marie Antoinette had been apprehended trying to flee with their family to the frontier.

  “This is not France,” said Nelson, forcibly, “and we have the sea and British sailors behind us. But you are right, Sir William. There are so many traitors in this place that an attempt will certainly be made to stop them leaving.”

  “Perhaps at your audience …”

  “No!”

  Brusquely interrupted, Sir William was seeing Nelson as he had so often heard him praised: commanding, decisive, the master of his own surroundings. Perhaps this was the man his wife saw?

  “No,” Nelson repeated. “We must plan it, and they must do what we say. Whatever we decide must be arranged here and not a word of it breathed in the Palazzo Reale.”

  “You can do nothing without the consent and co-operation of the Queen, and in that, Admiral, you would do well to take advice from my wife.”

  “Sir William, I fully intend to include Lady Hamilton in whatever plan we devise.”

  The two men exchanged a look, one which underlined the subtext of what had been said, but it was equally plain, from the sudden breaking of eye contact, that neither party wanted to pursue it.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  NELSON ADMIRED EMMA for her beauty, and over the next week, as they planned the evacuation, he had more reason to appreciate her application and courage. Only she had the total trust of the Queen—Ferdinand, having seen his martial hopes dashed, had taken refuge behind his stupidity and was now no more than a cipher, doing as he was told, only throwing occasional tantrums to establish that he still had some rights as the king.

  Sir William was anxious about his possessions. He had no intention of leaving a lifetime collection to be plundered by looters, who would surely raid the empty palazzos as soon as order broke down. There was a great deal of virtu, even though most of his collection had gone already in HMS Colossus, a 74-gun ship so in need of repair that Nelson had ordered it home. Left were the things he valued most, personal possessions with a sentimental or an aesthetic value. It mattered little—when it came to planning a daring escape the skills he had honed as a diplomat were of scant use.

  With no force of soldiers to hand, protection must be provided for the King and Queen, their children and the king’s ministers—the royal regiments had gone north with Mack and were still fighting. It was suspected the gunners who manned the forts were republicans, while the crews of Caracciolo’s flagship and the frigate Archimedes were discontented and unreliable. British marines from Nelson’s ships would create suspicion—and cause no end of complications when it came to getting them back aboard.

  Ferdinand’s peasant supporters provided the solution. The leader of the lazzaroni, a barrel-chested, moustachioed peasant called Edigio Bagio had acted on his own initiative, sending men to the north of the city to disarm the deserters from Mack’s army who were fleeing south. He was busy forming bands to protect his beloved king, with guards outside the Palazzo Reale and armed bands close to the royal person. Ragged they might be, but it worked; if there was one thing a traitorous Neapolitan nobleman feared more than the monarchical state, it was the cut-throats of the streets.

  Numbers were another problem, for it was obvious that even with the ships at Nelson’s disposal more people would want to embark than he could readily accommodate. Nelson had sent messages off to Troubridge at Leghorn to come back with all haste. He had also requested from Alexander Ball, who was lying off Malta, that he send one of his 74s to Naples. But on no account was he to allow any Neapolitan ships to leave the blockade. Even if the ships requested did come in time, Nelson feared overcrowding.

  Priority must go to the royals, their retainers and ministers, in short the government. But Nelson had to get his fellow-countrymen away as well and t
here were too many for the available transports. His solution was to allot them the Portuguese ships commanded by that nincompoop the Marquis de Niza. To disguise the fact that he would be taking the Bourbons aboard Vanguard he told him he intended to remain in the bay and bombard the city as the French tried to take it, which he could not do with a ship full of passengers.

  Emma undertook to get a list of attendants and supporters from the Queen, but equally pressing were the royal possessions: clothes, state papers, money, and jewels that would go with them. No one could say how long their exile would last, just as no one could say for certain where they would finally find refuge. Sicily would be their first destination, since the occupants of that island hated anything to do with Naples, and could confidently be expected to do the precise opposite of their mainland cousins and support a King and Queen that the capital city had repudiated.

  But would the French leave them there in peace? They might invade Sicily, leading to a further evacuation and an exile at a foreign court. Thus everything must be taken to form a government in exile and that could not be left till the last moment: getting such a quantity of possessions aboard on the night of the evacuation would take too long. Emma again showed her worth. She had all their chattels brought secretly and in small quantities to the Palazzo Sessa. Sir William’s virtu, when packed, was loaded into Vanguard. No one observing packing cases leaving the ambassadorial residence knew that a good number of them belonged to the royal family.

  There was much more: when to evacuate—something that could not be decided until the French threat had been properly evaluated: Mack was still fighting a rearguard action. How to get them from the Palazzo Reale to a safe part of the shore—that solved by the information that there was a secret passage for that very purpose. Every move Nelson made was the subject of intense interest, and that applied equally to his ships. When he transferred them to an anchorage less exposed to gunfire from the forts it caused near panic, the assumption being that he was about to weigh anchor and leave Naples and everyone in it to stew.