Breaking the Line Read Online Free PDF Page A

summer’s day was very different from the dull grey, choppy mass of the previous weeks.
    ‘That damned tramontana cast me low, Nelson. I feared to raise my head of a morning only to hear more bad news from the King’s ministers. But the southerly wind is with us, and the heat of the North African plains will warm our blood. Perhaps it will stir something in these supine Neapolitan breasts as well, so that we can begin to put right all that has passed to mortify us this last month.’
    It was easy to see that Sir William was being deliberately hearty, since such behaviour was not a normal component of his urbane and cultured nature. Was he trying to tell Nelson, in his own way, of his acceptance of the situation? If he was, then Nelson was prepared to take it at face value. Within a minute they were sitting at the table, talking like the two friends they had always been.
    ‘Oh! The news is mixed,’ said Sir William, when Nelson enquired of the latest despatches from the mainland. ‘Cardinal Ruffo and his band of ruffians have enjoyed some success, and that will lift the mood of the court. But Commodore Caracciolo’s behaviour will erase that.’
    To Nelson’s lifted eyebrow, Sir William continued, ‘He asked permission of the King to return to Naples to protect his estates from the French. He landed, met Cardinal Ruffo, declined an invitation to join his army and went north. We have had word, as yet unconfirmed, that he has gone over to the Republican cause.’
    Nelson recalled the morose countenance of the Commodore both on arrival in Sicily and on the various occasions he had seen him at the Colli Palace: squat, square of face, swarthy with piercing eyes. As he gazed upon his king and queen there had been no love in his face. Now, to Nelson’s way of thinking, Caracciolo had seemed a man who felt himself betrayed, and was conjuring up reasons to justify an act that others would see as treason.
    ‘It is to be hoped that the rumour is untrue,’ added Sir William, ‘for if Caracciolo has defected it bodes ill for the reconquest of the King’s dominions. It is on men like him that the royal couple must rely.’
    ‘I would not place too much weight on the likes of Commodore Caracciolo, Sir William,’ Nelson replied, with some asperity. ‘You are in danger, if you do, of sharing the high opinion he has of himself.’
    Others joined them for breakfast, Sir William repeating to each new arrival what the change of weather had done for him. He was looking forward to another day’s hunting, and pronounced himself certain that court mourning should be suspended for the deleterious effect it was having on morale. He abjured everyone to be a philosopher and accept whatever fate threw their way, oblivious to the fact that the admonishment flew in the face of his own recent behaviour.
     
    Perhaps it was the change in the weather, but Nelson, too, felt different, and as he boarded his flagship his step was lighter. However, there was the usual mass of correspondence to deal with, and money matters to sort out with John Tyson. A fleet could not run on air and Nelson needed money, a great deal of it, to keep his command supplied, and it was Tyson’s job to ensure a steady flow. In a war-torn world where armies and fleets competed with governments for coin, it was in short supply. Nelson lamented that with the treasures of Malta and the money Bonaparte needed to pay his army on board, there had been enough on the sunken L’Orient to keep him supplied for a year.
    ‘Ships carrying money and the like should fly a special flag, Tyson saying, “do not sink me”,’ Nelson moaned, as he studied the state of the accounts.
    Tyson shook his head at a man who seemed unaware of the greed of many of his fellow officers. Nelson could not fathom that there were captains who would let a whole fleet go to secure a Spanish plate ship. He merely informed Nelson of his efforts to raise coin from sources close by and from England, it being