‘Gracious me!’ he said. ‘Such prompt service!’
Coincidentally, later on that day a letter arrived for Talleyrand from the Pope, discreetly sealed, elegantly worded. Stranger still, it proposed much the same things as the Prince had urged on Sir Percy.
Which just shows you how odd history can be. Up to that point who would have bet a fake farthing that two such contrasted careers might coincide?
Chapter 12: EARNING EMMA
‘…in irons,’ Nelson added to his order.
‘In irons?’ Julius and Ada spoke in chorus—but could have sung it opera-style for all the good protesting did them. Even Frankenstein’s reasonable offer of medical assistance during the battle had been turned down.
‘In irons,’ the Admiral confirmed from his position of god-like authority on the poopdeck. ‘Because I am entrusted with your safety. And I do not trust you. Or like you. Oh, and Hardy,’—this to the captain of the Victory, just setting off to do his bidding.
‘Yes sir?’
‘If they give you trouble, flog them.’
‘Very good, sir.’
So it was that during the famous ‘Second Battle of Trafalgar’ Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace and Foxglove were securely confined below the waterline, safe from enemy shot or from seeing history unfold. The only things they could truthfully recount of being there were sails the size of postage stamps on the horizon and then hour upon hour of ear-splitting noise. Likewise, the only fighting they took part in was against waves of panicking rats sent scurrying across their laps by each thundering broadside.
None of which comprised a memoir worth publishing or even anecdotes worth repeating. The very best they could hope for was to boast being present at ‘Trafalgar II’—and then hope no one asked for further details.
All because, soon after the French fleet’s sailing was reported along the chain of English frigates stretching right to Cadiz, down into the Victory’s stinking depths they went, to be chained up alongside an American awaiting hanging for sodomy. Neither he nor they were cheerful company.
Ada might well be profoundly changed inside but externally she was still Lord Byron’s girl. Some of the phrases she used as they were bundled away brought blushes to the rough tough sailors carrying them. But for the futility of flogging an unfeeling Lazaran back, a likewise shocked Captain Hardy would have implemented Neo-Nelson’s threat of the cat o’ nine tails.
There’d been no prior warning of such degradation. On the contrary, the Admiral had been absolutely jubilant that having them aboard had finally drawn the enemy fleet out.
‘Five years of blockade and not a peep!’ he’d exulted to them, shortly before the sudden exiling below. ‘We couldn’t tempt ‘em out to battle whatever we did. I thought their ships would rot in port before I had a chance to sink the swine!’
In his excitement he’d even reverted to the broad Norfolk accent of his youth, such that there was some difficulty in understanding. His officers, the ‘band of brothers’ stood around amazed.
‘Borr!’ he told Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace, ‘If I’d known old Boney wants what’s in your noddles so bad I’d ‘ave ‘ad ye press-ganged years ago, painted purple and tied to the topmast! God bless ‘ee!’
You could have construed that as flattery of some sort, but shortly after the Admiral turned and issued his harsh instructions.
‘Dark-Nelson’ indeed said Lady Lovelace—or words to that effect.
In a previous professional incarnation Frankenstein had treated the aftermath of a naval flogging. He didn’t want his back similarly turned into steak tatare and so, unlike Ada, held his tongue. However, his mind was given full permission to think harsh things.
The most printable of which was that if Admiral Nelson’s tactics were as unpredictable as his moods then the battle was as good as won.
Which it was. Gloriously and famously, after a tedious—to Julius and Ada and Foxglove and the American—long afternoon of continuous cannon fire, cries and the reek of powder smoke and blood from the surgeon’s space above. As the day wore on—and how it wore on—huzzahs and jubilation were added to the heady mix of sound. British gunfire had always predominated, since Albion’s Jack Tars could load and fire two shots to ‘Jacque Crapaud’s one, but eventually it was playing a solo. Even those imprisoned down in the murky gunnels could draw their own conclusions as firm as those on deck.
Late in the day they had a visitor. By Julius’s pocketwatch it must have been evening outside (much difference it made to them) but Nelson’s beaming visage lit up even their darkness, rendering his lantern redundant. His smile was such they could see every tooth, even the black back-molars.
Nor was that all they could see but would rather not. There was a gaping wound in his chest, obliterating the Order of the Bath, and another exactly where they’d got him last time, down through a shoulder epaulette and into his spine. The difference was that this time round Nelson was still standing—albeit crookedly. There was ragged flesh but no blood. At Trafalgar II the French snipers had been flogging a dead horse. Neo-Nelson was pumped so full of superior serum and unresolved ambitions it would have taken a broadside from a hundred-gunner to lay him low.
‘We won!’ he informed them. ‘Ten sunk and twenty prizes!’
Lady Lovelace was still sour.
‘And our losses?’ she asked, out of malice. Julius could have punched her. Even Foxglove was tempted.
Nelson’s face darkened.
‘None! Of course not, woman. English ships don’t strike their flags!’
‘Did any Frenchies escape?’ asked Julius, hurriedly.
‘Not one!’ replied the Admiral, Ada’s faux paux forgotten. ‘Not one! An annihilation victory!’
In the course of their brief acquaintance Nelson had impressed them as one of those rare specimens: the natural human predator. Accordingly, annihilation was his favourite word. Along with one other…
Somehow he was reminded of it. Suddenly the Admiral was no longer in the bowels of the Victory with them, nor riding a wave of a victory. Neo-Nelson was far away and in other company.
‘They’ll have to give me Emma now…,’ he mused, turning abruptly plaintive. ‘Won’t they?’
Then even the condemned American’s heart was touched as they saw the hero of the hour and age break down and weep—or as best as a Lazaran can.
Chapter 13: A SWEET TREAT
Admiral—soon to be High-Admiral and Earl—Neo-Nelson wasn’t with them. Which was a relief frankly. Ever since setting foot on English soil he and thus they had been mobbed night and day by worshipping crowds. Characteristically quick to seize an opportunity, he had drawn the hordes to besiege the Admiralty whilst he lobbied within for Emma Hamilton’s revival. He reckoned the just-this-side-of-hysteria baying of ‘Nel-son! Nel-son!’ rattling the windows would do his cause a power of good.
Rightly so. A letter would go from Whitehall to the French Government that very night and set off a very grisly series of events. One of the secrets not even Napoleon knew was that Lady Hamilton had already been raised but then lost. She currently walked elsewhere and in a very curious frame of mind—but that’s another story.
Meanwhile, Frankenstein and Ada and Foxglove’s story went like this. The pungent Port of London where they finally landed gave way to the cacophony of the City and debriefings in the wasps’-nest of the War Ministry. Then the summons from Talleyrand arrived, superseding all other claims on their time.