So, despite such promptings to speed and the urgency of their aims, progress was desperately slow. No matter how far ahead the Papal scouts pressed, just beyond their vigilance the way was always impeded.
All in all, the French effort was highly impressive. The same single-mindedness brought to bear on the war in general would have ended it years before. Europe might have been Gallic from the Atlantic to the Urals by now.
Yet sheer bloody-minded stubbornness can also get results in the end, though eyes must be averted from the bill. Finally, the square of soldiery came to the southern edge of the Papal States. There awaiting them was Britain’s Royal Navy.
Napoleon said of his first, living, career, that he was thwarted by sea power. ‘Everywhere I went,’ he testified before dying on St Helena, ‘on every puddle they could float a boat on, there I found the British Navy.’
Of course, they had to clean the quote up for publication. The original was replete with ‘merde’s and even less decorous words.
Not that he was bitter. When everything was falling about his ears, post-Waterloo, the Emperor had such a high opinion of his nautical foe that he flung himself on their mercy for fear of his former subjects. A British ship had borne Bonaparte away from all the unpleasantness without the slightest thought of hanging him from their yardarm. Unlike him, they believed in fair play.
Nevertheless, the issue still rankled and the point remained that they’d perpetually been the fly—no, the wasp—in his ointment, the disruptive former lover at his wedding feast. One of the few things that could stir anxiety in Napoleon’s otherwise invincible self-confidence were thoughts of British masts looming on the horizon.
Had the Emperor been with Frankenstein and friends in person rather than just in spirit, he would have seen no cause for alarm. Even the ingenuity of the English didn’t extend to moving their squadrons across dry land. There were no men o’ war visible to give a tyrant collywobbles.
Yet he would have feared, indeed might have spewed his serum-dinner, had he known the awful truth. Frankenstein and co. were honoured indeed. Better than mere men o’ war and worth the weight of myriad hundred-gun first-raters, the spirit of the British Navy rather than its ships was there. Neo-Nelson had come to meet them.
Chapter 10: GETTING AHEAD
‘A-hem. Terrible tale,’ said the Admiral periodically as Frankenstein updated him. ‘Terrible!’
What with the close questioning Julius’ tale provoked, the telling took up most of their march to Naples. British seadogs had replaced the travelling Papal square and Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace rode in Nelson’s carriage at its centre, whilst Foxglove enjoyed the open air atop.
He had the best of it. ‘Terrible’ was both Nelson’s reaction to the recounting of their odyssey and also theirs to him. All that time buried in dank St Paul’s meant he reeked of the grave. Not only that but the Admiral was grumpy to the point of sourness. News of other people’s troubles only stirred him to fresh recollection of his own.
‘Talleyrand, eh? Terrible man. A sodomite, so they say. And a Frenchman. The two often go together. Mind you, can’t trust politicians of any breed. Take my case: you’re familiar with my final letter to the British people, the morning of Trafalgar?’
Frankenstein knew Ada was going to say ‘no,’ just for devilment. He covertly scraped her ankle with his heel to prevent it. Neo-Nelson required attentive hero-worship even more than the original.
‘Most certainly, sir,’ he replied for them both. ‘A famous document. You made but one modest request in return for all your services, namely that Lady Hamilton be considered your bequest to the nation and that they should see to her well-being.’
‘Precisely. And did they? I tell you most solemnly sir and madam, they did not! Instead, my dried up harpy of a wife led the mourning at m’funeral and poor Emma was left to starve. They wouldn’t even do that one little thing for me after I gave an eye and an arm and great victories to their cause…’
‘Disgraceful,’ commented Frankenstein—and not just to appease Nelson but because it was.
‘Terrible!’ the Admiral agreed. ‘Terrible. And then in seeking to live in the manner she merited my beloved was exposed to the insolence of creditors. She had to flee to Calais to escape them. There her end was one of grinding penury and neglect. Terrible! And yet they have the brass nerve to then go and resurrect me and expect one to fight on as if nothing had happened! They have no shame!’
‘Well, they don’t, do they?’ said Ada impatiently, as though an adult had come out with a childish statement. She fanned furiously away at the serum fumes wafting towards her till Nelson could hardly have mistook it. Frankenstein marvelled at her lack of empathy for someone in her own state who’d merely chanced to lie in the grave longer than she.
Still, Julius let it go. He been fearing she’d make reference to Lady Hamilton’s later addiction to the bottle and conversion to Catholicism.
Nelson leant forward. Lady Lovelace recoiled.
‘Let me tell you,’ he said, ‘in all confidence, they calculated wrong. Innocent Nelson gave all and asked for little but he got nothing—not even a new arm—said it’d ‘spoil recognition’! Well, no more! Now Nelson fights for himself! He sees the world differently!’
Frankenstein had heard stories to that effect. A new Nelson had returned to Britain’s service sure enough, but one less inspired by patriotism and with a pressing personal agenda. Rumour said his price for another Trafalgar was recovery of Emma’s body from the French and then her revival. In vain the British Government protested the Convention had exhumed her corpse from Calais and had it under close custody. Nelson’s unsympathetic response was ‘well, sort it!.’ Word was he’d give them a little while and then initiate negotiations with the French himself. And not only that, if they wanted the next battle to be another of his ‘annihilation victories,’ he was demanding a state wedding to Lady Hamilton, in Westminster Abbey, with all the Royal family there down to the last lapdog, and to hell with the Church of England’s objections!
You could hardly blame him, but there were also other rumours. Grimmer stories. Even during life he’d gone strange under the influence of Naples when lingering there with Emma. The influence of its corrupt court seeped in and bad things happened: massacres, summary hangings. Now here he was back in that City and nominally soulless! The papers spoke of a ‘dark Nelson’ and darker-still deeds.
Maybe he could benefit from a spot of staring at the Sistine’s roof or calculation of exactly whose plan he conformed to. Meanwhile, Frankenstein was careful. He smiled and looked Nelson straight in the eye. There was no light there, and less kindness. For relief and comparison Julius turned to Ada.
Then he looked again.
She was different! A gleam enlivened her vision. Frankenstein’s stomach leapt. It had not been there before, he could have sworn it. Her eyes had always been beautiful but bore the standard Lazaran fish-gaze.
So did that mean… Was her returned ‘spark’ not only real but visible?
Gunfire, fortunately distant gunfire, disrupted conversation. Their coach jerked to a halt.
It was nothing unusual, for the sniping and hit and run raids on them had continued in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies exactly as they had in Papal realms; possibly more so. The difference was that the British forces were prouder—or more vindictive. They often went after the snipers, heading into the foothills to supply instruction and exact revenge. It made overall progress that much slower.