The closing months of the year are trying for Captain Nelson, essentially laid up in Leghorn. He chafes under the inactivity of an extended stay in port. Except for one fruitless diplomatic trip to Genoa, when I stood at attention with the other marines as Captain Nelson, resplendent in full dress uniform, disembarked for a meeting with the doge, his duties have extended no farther than overseeing repairs and the replenishment of stores.
This is not without significant difficulties. Stores are so scarce that ships are reusing canvas and cable which ought to be condemned, but there is nothing with which to replace them.
Nelson’s frustration stems largely from the fact that the French fleet is getting stronger, and the French army is menacing Italy, and Admiral Hotham, with his decaying ships and lack of stores and shortage of men, is reluctant to try to do anything other than keep the French in port.
‘Even with the state of our ships, we would still be superior to the French fleet in a fight,’ Captain Nelson grumbles irritably.
He has found lodgings in Leghorn and spends a good amount of time there. Although he attends Agamemnon daily, he spends most nights ashore, and occasionally he appears during the forenoon watch looking as if he has had very little sleep the night before. One of the other marines came back from leave ashore and said that Captain Nelson spends his evenings with a ‘companion.’ I have heard that she is his landlady, but I have heard other theories as well. One says that she is an opera singer. Another, that she is a high-class prostitute. I don’t know why any of it should bother me at all… but it does.
Today he is lying sprawled on the mattress in his berth while I read to him the letters that require his attention. This is one of the days when he looks as if he had been out all night; his eyes are red and tired. He yawns.
‘Would you prefer me to go, and let you rest, sir? I can return at your pleasure, if you—’
‘No; I’m sorry, Mr Buckley. Let us finish with work, and then perhaps I will nap for a short time. I was entertaining some other officers last night: first with a dinner, then we attended an opera performance, and we did not part ways until quite late.’ He sits up and swings his legs over the side of his berth. ‘I would like your opinion of something.’
He reaches into his waistcoat and pulls out a slim package wrapped in paper. He opens the paper to display a miniature portrait, painted in oils on some sort of card. ‘I had it done for my dear wife, but I don’t think it a particularly good likeness. Nor does Josiah—that is, Midshipman Nisbet. What do you think?’
I think that the one of me, that my brother had commissioned for my wedding day, is superior; and I think that my bastard husband did not deserve it.
Where did that come from? I shove Nell back down into the dark recesses of my former life and examine the miniature.
The artist has captured the captain’s features individually, but they don’t quite combine into a cohesive whole—rather like my aborted drawing of Jack Mackay. He has made Captain Nelson’s lips a little too thin, and the manner in which he has rendered the captain’s injured eye makes him appear wall-eyed. The pupil of Captain Nelson’s right eye does not dilate and contract like the other, but the eye moves largely in tandem with its partner. The artist’s treatment of the captain’s coat is perfunctory.
‘I am afraid I would be inclined to agree, Captain. It resembles you, but the artist didn’t get it quite correct. You are much more interesting looking.’
He considers this. ‘Interesting looking…?’
‘Well… yes. This man is pleasant-looking enough, but not very interesting. The artist has not captured your character. The spark in your eyes is missing. And I think… he has made your nose a bit too round.’
Nelson studies the miniature. ‘I think you are right about my nose. But what of my character is lacking?’
‘If you told me that this man was Captain Nelson, who took Bastia and Calvi from the French, I would not believe it. There’s no fire in him. This man looks like a… clergyman. Someone who stays at home and… cultivates roses.’
‘I think you just described my father.’ He looks bemused.
‘I’m sure she will love it, sir,’ I reassure him. ‘Even if it only resembles you a little.’
Richard holds another miniature, painted on ivory; one that he had commissioned of our first child. He is inconsolable, and I do not have the energy or the heart to try. It is a death portrait. The tiny boy who was delivered weeks too soon was blue and lifeless when they drew him from my womb. The nurse gave him to me to hold before they took him away, and my heart broke when I looked at his little face. He was beautiful, and perfect, and dead. The life that I had carried inside myself for so long was just… gone.
‘We can have another,’ Richard tells me. I look away. Another child is another child, but it is not a replacement for this child. There can be no replacement for this child.
Richard thought that the miniature would be a comfort for me, he says. It is a beautiful painting, the ivory emphasising the transparency of my son’s perfect skin. But I cannot look at it. I’m not sure how he ever thought I could.
‘Put it away,’ I whisper to him. ‘One day I will cherish it. But now it is too painful.’
I have encountered no further difficulties with Captain Spencer, but that does not mean I have not encountered him. I can feel his eyes on me every day at muster. I do not dare look his way. Wandering eyes will get a man called out, and God forbid I should make eye contact with the man. While he is always cool and correct and speaks in the undertones of a gentleman when talking to the other officers, there is something predatory about him. He makes me feel like a rabbit. I do not like him.
In preparation for Christmas, Captain Nelson purchases gifts for people at home and arranges for bequests to be distributed from his agent in London. He directs £200 to be sent to his father’s parish in Norfolk, to be spent on blankets and warm clothing for the poor. I know that he frets about the money of his own that he expended in Corsica, for which he has yet to see any hint of reimbursement, yet he spends nearly as much on these gifts.
‘It is not as if I can use the money here, Mr Buckley. I have all that I need.’
All that he needs, except for cable and canvas, spars and pitch… the shortages of these things hang over the fleet like a storm cloud.
The fleet puts to sea on 21 December for St Fiorenzo. We are nearly three weeks at sea; three weeks of heavy seas and violent storms. It is unclear to me why we undertook this cruise. We see no enemy ships. Whilst I might think that it is craven of the French to cower in Toulon, even so, they are not being bashed about, soaked, and sea-sickened as we are.
Captain Nelson hosts a belated Christmas dinner ashore in St Fiorenzo for Agamemnon’s officers and the captains of some of the other ships that also languish here. When I encounter him the following day, he looks a little… out of kelter.
‘This sitting in port will be the death of me, Mr Buckley,’ he groans. ‘I am stagnating, and trying to drown my frustration in good cheer only makes me repentant the following day.’
I decant a drop of ether from the bottle in his medicine chest into his palm, and he claps his hand to his forehead and holds it there.
‘I fear I have been remiss,’ he says after a minute or two. ‘I neglected to ask you if there was anything I could do for you, in observance of Christmas.’
No one has offered or asked me such a question in two years. Apart from the requisite divine service and some extra rations, the observance of Christmas has been almost nonexistent.
‘Thank you, Captain,’ I say softly, ‘but there is nothing that I need.’
He seems disappointed. ‘I should have liked to have given you something, but I didn’t know what you might like.’
I try to think. ‘Perhaps a book, sir. Of whatever you would like.’
‘But what do you like to read, Mr Buckley?’
‘If it is something that interests you, sir, I know it will interest me.’
I do not see him the following day because he is sitting a court-martial, but when I go to sort his mail, there is a package on his desk with my name on it. I undo the string and paper, and inside is a volume of Henry V, by William Shakespeare. The edges of the binding are worn. When I open the book, Horatio Nelson is written across the top of the flyleaf.
On 7 February we put to sea again, and spend another seventeen miserable days cruising. If possible, the weather is even worse than before. Men are falling sick again.
We cannot drill, which adds to the tedium of the marines’ days. But it means that I do not have to see Captain Spencer, who when he last inspected us walked between the ranks and stood behind me for longer than necessary, breathing in my ear. It was all I could do not to shudder.
Captain Nelson is not well, and he has not requested my assistance for several days. During the last time I spent working with him, he was pale and feverish, and crampy with a flux. I did my best to work quickly and efficiently as he lay curled in his cot, giving me direction, but eventually he told me, ‘That will be all, Mr Buckley. I cannot work anymore today.’ Andrews, now his first lieutenant, has been taking more of the captain’s physical duties, and I have seen Captain Nelson on deck very little. When I have seen him, he looks sick.
I should not be surprised. Flux, once established on board, seems to sicken almost one man in five. There are seven men in my mess, and two of them are sick with it. I understand from Captain Nelson’s correspondence that it is equally bad throughout the other ships.
I suppose I should not worry about the captain. The surgeon and his mate are doing what they can for the sick, and Captain Nelson has an advantage in his private cabin and seat of ease in the quarter-gallery. The ratings and marines must walk, stiff-legged and doubled-over, to the beakhead, where in all likelihood they will have to wait for a head to become available. Men who can still work fag grey-faced and sullen through their watches, and crawl back into their hammocks until they have to get up again.
George Augustus Josephs and I sit eating our evening meal, what there is of it. One of our messmates, Francis Bennett, had to be moved to the sick berth yesterday, so dehydrated that he needed more attention than the rest of us could provide. Thomas Scully is one of those who can still work, but he views tonight’s supper with distrust. ‘It’s only going to go through me like fire,’ he says morosely. Scully replaced Fierson, and none of the men have fully embraced his presence in our mess. It’s as if they don’t expect him to stay long. They have yet to warm up to me completely, and I’ve been here for five months now.
Joe is one of those who has kept his distance. I infer that his relationship with Fierson had been much like mine with Jack Mackay. Thank God you are not here, Jacky.
‘Why do you use “Joe” instead of “George”?’ I ask Joe.
‘Well, it i’nt just George, is it? It’s George-Augustus.’
I hadn’t realised that the two names contained a hyphen.
‘My parents had grand idears,’ he mutters.
We reach Leghorn again on 24 February; and Captain Nelson calls me into his cabin. He still looks most unwell.
‘I must send the sickest men to hospital,’ he tells me. ‘They will need transfer tickets. I need you to go to the surgeon and discover who they are.’
‘Yessir, Captain.’
‘I ought to know,’ he says tiredly. ‘But I have been very low.’
The brazier is burning, and his cabin is warm and dry, but he appears to be cold. He sits hunched in his chair near the brazier.
‘How are you now, sir?’ I venture.
‘I am surviving, Mr Buckley, but only just. I have requested leave to go ashore to try and get myself back up again.’
‘I hope that you shall, sir.’
‘All I need is a good reason, Mr Buckley.’
Captain Nelson’s ‘good reason’ arrives just two weeks later. The French appear to be on the way to try to retake Corsica. In a single day of frantic activity, Agamemnon puts to sea with a British fleet of fourteen ships.
Agamemnon is still under-strength, and Captain Nelson does not look fully recovered himself, but his internal fires are stoked once more. Gone is the listlessness that had seemed to surround him like a fog. He is intent, focused, and collected.
This looks as though it might be our first fleet action. Captain Spencer reviews our ranks. As he passes behind me, he stops. My gut clenches, and it has nothing to do with any flux. He twitches the tail of my coat.
‘What is this, Private Buckley?’
‘Sir.’
‘The lining of your coat tail is torn, sir.’
‘What…?’ I say, startled, then bite my tongue.
‘I did not invite you to address me, Private.’ His voice never rises; it stays menacingly soft.
Oh, but you did, sir. You asked me a direct question. Regardless, my coat lining was not torn this morning. I can’t say any of this, so I stay silent.
‘You will repair it, Private, and then you will stand a double watch tomorrow.’
I don’t speak, and he moves on. But before he does, he brushes his hand against my bum. I clench my jaw so hard that I think my teeth will crack.
When I go below and remove my coat, I discover that the lining of my coat tail is not torn; it has been cut with a knife, an L-shaped rent in the fabric that hangs down below the hem. I feel a dangerous rage build inside me.
There is no evidence that it was he who cut your coat. Be careful.
As I try to repair my coat lining, I realise that the rage has less to do with my coat, than with where his hand had lingered before he walked away.
Thanks to my exchange with Captain of Marines Spencer, I am beginning the first of my two consecutive watches at noon the following day, 10 March, when the French fleet finally comes into view. Admiral Hotham makes the signal for a general chase, and Captain Nelson has Agamemnon off like a shot in pursuit of the fleeing French. As he passes me on deck, he says, ‘Hah, Mr Buckley—now we shall give the French fleet a taste of true English valour!’ before he goes below.
It doesn’t happen that way. Half-way through the first dog watch, it appears that the French have got a favourable wind and are gaining distance. As the sun is setting, Admiral Hotham calls off the chase.
The consequence of a double watch is that one only gets four hours off duty before the next watch comes around. I am back on duty at the beginning of the middle watch. It will be four o’clock in the morning before the watch ends, and I will get no more sleep tonight. I cannot complain; the sailors always do four hours on, four hours off, and not all marines stand watch daily. Our watches serve only to guard the stores and the officers.
At two bells, I am surprised to see Captain Nelson on the quarterdeck. He seems calm, composed, and alert.
‘Good morning, Mr Buckley,’ he says, quietly coming upon me in the starlight.
‘Good morning, sir.’
‘Perhaps it will be today, God willing.’ He stands silently for a minute, then asks me, ‘Are you prepared, Mr Buckley?’
‘I believe so, sir.’
‘The sooner it comes, the better,’ he says. ‘I shall not sleep until we engage them.’ He lays a hand on my shoulder, then returns to pacing the quarterdeck.
It does not come today, however. We cannot get close enough. The wind is uncooperative, and any breeze we catch soon deserts us. We go to our suppers with a sense of a frustration.
‘You ever fourght aboard ship, Buckley?’ Joe asks.
‘You ever fought anywhere, Buckley?’ Simon Greeley echoes.
I throw a piece of particularly weevily biscuit at him. ‘No, never, Simon. I spent all summer on Corsica enjoying the scenery. No,’ I continue, addressing Joe and pointedly ignoring Simon, ‘I haven’t fought aboard ship before.’
‘Ah, well… it i’nt that different from fighting on land. ’Scept how th’ ship rolls when th’ guns fire,’ he says.
‘They’ll likely put you in the fighting tops,’ says Tom Scully. ‘You’re small and quick, and good with that rifle of yours.’ He has recovered from the flux, although he’s thinner than he was when he joined us. Francis Bennett, who was sent to hospital when we got back to Leghorn, hasn’t re-joined the ship yet.
‘Won’t matter that he’s quick,’ says Simon. ‘There’s no place to run.’
‘Ah, stop being an arsehole, Greeley,’ Joe tells him.
Matthew Tinsdale, a tall, lean, muscular man who never says very much, volunteers, ‘If they put you in the tops, Ned, I’ll be up there with you. They’ve assigned me a volley gun.’
I’ve seen these monsters. They have a short stock and seven muzzle-loaded barrels. One has to be strong to handle them, because they kick like a horse. I think they were designed to be used by sailors, but sailors don’t like them. Sailors aren’t dumb. I’m not sure that Tinsdale likes them much either, but we don’t get to say, ‘Actually, sir, I’d rather not.’
I lie in my hammock, listening to the sounds of men sleeping, and think of Captain Nelson, who will not sleep until the battle is over.