Caribbean: a novel Part 21

'I was sure it could be done, so I jumped in early, and I expected the first lieutenant to jump down beside me, but when he saw the violence of the sea and the waters so high, he became timid and cried: "No small boat can get to there from here," and he refused to join us.

'Now Captain Locker dashed up: "Why aren't you boarding her?" and he became so angry, seeing us down there in our small boat without a leader that he shouted scornfully: "Have I no officer brave enough to board that prize?" and he made as if to jump down with us, but at that moment Lieutenant Nelson, he wasn't captain yet, leaped forward, restrained the captain, and cried: "It's my turn now. And if I fail, then it will be yours." And down he leaped, and off we went through the great seas that tossed us about like a cork in an agitated basin. Finally we reached the American and Nelson climbed aboard, with me right behind, and I heard him shout: "Lieutenant Horatio Nelson, officer of His Majesty King George Third and commander of this vessel." And let me tell you, when the cargo from that capture was sold in Jamaica, we all profited richly.'

Other stories were told, there in the fort as the Englishmen awaited the attack that never came, and all attested to the bravery of Nelson but also to his stubbornness and his determination to do things his way, but always clearly within the rules of the British navy and obedient to the time-honored laws of the sea. Poor performance he would not tolerate in men serving under him, even though they might often be twenty years older than himself, nor would he silently suffer incompetence in his superiors. If the latter flagged in their duty, he was quick to reprimand them.

For the moment, in the old fort at Port Royal he bided his time, preoccupied with other concerns. As a young man entering his twenties he was of course interested in women. Avidly he sought a wife who would support him emotionally in his naval career, so with his fellow officers, all junior to himself and like him unmarried, he conducted long and amazingly frank discussions regarding the type of young woman who might be suitable. And often in these discussions he would lay out his two basic rules for a navy marriage: 'First, an officer is only half a man if he lacks a wife and children, so get married. Second, he must pick that wife with extreme caution, for she must be his firm support and not the cause of his downfall.' He was sometimes reluctant, when speaking in public, about revealing his two final rules, for he applied them particularly to himself: 'Third, the woman I pick must be rich, so that I can cut a responsible figure among my equals. Fourth, she must come from an important family whose members can help me gain promotions. And I'm sure that somewhere in this world there is a young woman who fulfills those requirements.' Then he quickly added: 'And it would help if she hates the French, as we must do when engaging them in battle.'

When a listener asked if he expected to be fighting the French for the rest of his life, he snapped: 'What other enemy could there be?' Quickly he corrected himself: 'Enemies we have aplenty, but none so valiant at sea as the French. They're the immortal foe.' As he uttered these words he was looking out upon the sea in which his great predecessor Drake had said precisely the same about the Spanish and in which his successors would affirm their undying enmity to the Germans. Same sea, same ships of oak and iron and steel, same men of Devon and Suss.e.x and Norfolk, same enemy under different names, same islands to defend, and same young fellows wondering in the long watches of the night whom they would marry.

Of his four requirements, it was the third which gave him the most difficulty-that his wife be rich. As the sixth of eleven children born to an impecunious Norfolk clergyman, he was inordinately afraid of poverty and obsessively concerned with money. This made him a shameful fortune hunter, willing to marry almost anyone if she brought him both a sufficient dowry and relatives who would give a forward push to his naval career, so he refrained from telling his young a.s.sociates the real reason why he had avoided marriage with the various young charmers he had tentatively wooed.

In each case he tormented himself with ugly questions: How much will her parents give her? Will she inherit their wealth when they die? How soon could one expect them to die? Will she prove a careful custodian of the few funds we will have? And the most terrifying question of all: Suppose when this appointment ends I am not given a ship and am left ash.o.r.e with only a hundred pounds a year? Could she possibly live with a naval officer on half-pay and with no prospects? And when the answers to this barrage of rhetorical questions proved adverse, as they always did, he fled the young woman, grieved over their separation, and stumbled like the amorous sailor he was into another infatuation doomed to a similar end.

This terrible preoccupation with money revealed itself only when he was thinking of his matrimonial problems. When free to think about himself in his role as a fighting man, he invariably ignored personal gain, as Admiral Digby reported on Nelson's having been offered the New York Station: 'I greeted him with "Good fortune, Lieutenant Nelson. You are come on a fine station for capturing prize money," and he astounded me by snapping: "Yes, sir, but the Caribbean is the station for gaining honor." '

And it was honor, fame, glory that Horatio Nelson sought. Indeed, he was so hungry for these accouterments to a naval career that as a boy he pleaded, badgered and groveled for a.s.signments to fighting ships, and as a man, suffered untold humiliations in begging his superiors for an appointment to this or that larger ship. And if he was finally given one with 28 guns, he connived to get one with 64 and as soon as he boarded that ship he started machinations to get one with 74. But he was no fool chasing only greater size, for when he dined aboard the Spanish monster Concepcin with her 112 guns, he was not overawed, for he saw quickly that whereas 'the Dons may make fine ships, they cannot seem to make the men to staff them. Long may they remain in their present state!'

As Nelson grew older he also grew more bold, and occasionally statements came tumbling out revealing his positive l.u.s.t for glory. One night at the fortress in Port Royal he thought, while staring at the marvelous bay where the old town had vanished beneath the waves: How awful it would be to die before one had had his chance at glory! And next day he began writing a torrent of letters to his superiors, begging them for promotions, a.s.signments to better posts, commands of this fine ship or that. Shameless in his ambition, he was also honing himself mercilessly in those attributes of leadership which would ent.i.tle him to command, if opportunity ever came.

Since he could find no white heiress to fit his requirements on Jamaica, he was forced to seek temporary companionship from among the lively beauties of no means who cl.u.s.tered about Fort Charles, and Jamaican legend would always insist that in his loneliness he found warm consolation in the arms of three different girls of high color. Their names are not recorded, for they were not deemed worthy of remembrance, being half-breeds, as the local gentry called them contemptuously, but the little houses near the fort in which they lived could be pointed out, especially in those later years when the name Nelson was engraved in golden letters in the hearts of Englishmen.

'That's the wee house where Captain Nelson lived with his dark beauty,' the locals would say, and in time the three little houses lent a touch of humanity to the stories about the austere young captain who fretted in idleness awaiting a French attack on Port Royal.

Among the troops who monitored their captain's amatory behavior with closest attention was Midshipman Alistair Wrentham, sixteen at the time and just beginning to experience the compelling fascination that a pretty girl can exert upon a young sailor. He was not yet brave enough to consider approaching one of the half-caste girls, and since he knew no other, he spent his time wandering about the ruins of Port Royal and standing on the inner sh.o.r.e of the island, trying to catch a glimpse of the houses that had sunk beneath the waves when the earthquake struck. Others could see them, or so they claimed, but not he; however, one afternoon when he commandeered a small boat and went prowling offsh.o.r.e, he did spot the battered remains of a ship that had sunk at that distant time, and when he hurried back to the fort to announce his discovery, Captain Nelson himself wanted to be taken out to see the marvel, and in a kind of celebration he asked his dark lady friend to pack a basket of bread and cheese and dried meat, and he brought along a bottle of wine.

It was a gala afternoon, with Wrentham proud to be showing Nelson a matter connected with the sea, but the young fellow was deflated when Nelson peered closely below the waves and said: 'That ship, that style of ship I mean, can't be more than a dozen years old,' and when they rowed ash.o.r.e to ascertain when the sinking had taken place, old-timers who had been watching them chuckled: 'We know what you was thinkin', the earthquake and all. That'n sunk ten years ago, caught in one of our hurricanes with her caulkin' already worked loose. Went down like that.' So instead of receiving praise for his acuity as a sailor, even Nelson laughed at Alistair, not insultingly but with the implied caution: Look more carefully next time.

Wrentham's attention was diverted from such matters when two servants from Trevelyan, the famous sugar plantation in the center of the island, came with a carriage to the spot on the big island opposite Port Royal, launched a small skiff and sailed over to the fort: 'We bring a message to Midshipman Wrentham,' the men said, one white, one black, and when he stepped forward they turned to address Captain Nelson: 'The Pembrokes who own our plantation are close friends of the Wrenthams on All Saints, and our master seeks permission to entertain the young man for six or seven days.' When they looked inquiringly at Nelson, he nodded briskly and said: 'Fine young man. Ready for promotion soon. On your way.' But as Alistair was about to leave the fort, Nelson overtook him and cautioned: 'Not seven days, five, because I may soon be moved to another station and I'd like to see you again before I leave.'

The servants sailed their skiff westward the short distance to where their carriage waited and then drove at a steady gait northwestward to Spanish Town, the stately capital of the island which still retained reminders of when Spain owned Jamaica. Wrentham, charmed by his first view of the interior of the island he had speculated upon so often while serving guard duty at the fort, hoped that the men would halt there for the night, but they pressed on, taking a narrow but colorful road that led north along the banks of a tumbling stream, first with the stream on the left, then a ford and the stream on the right. Tall trees lined the way, with birds weaving in and out of the lower branches and calling to one another as if to proclaim the coming of Alistair Wrentham into the realm of the great sugar plantations.

When they broke out of the leafy trail and into the broad expanse of handsome fields where the sugarcanes grew, the men explained: 'Trevelyan ain't the biggest plantation. The one we're pa.s.sin' now is, off to the right. Croome it's called, and it's enormous. But ours is richer ... better soil ... better kept, too.' And when they reached that spot at which, years ago, Sir Hugh Pembroke used to stop to survey his princ.i.p.ality, they saw roughly the same: 'Yonder atop the hill, the windmills, sails flappin'. Below, the crusher where the oxen take the place of the breeze. See the little stone ribbon comin' down the hill to them small buildin's? Tha.s.s the channel brings the juice down to be cooked into sugar. And over there the most precious spot of all. Tha.s.s where we makes the black rum folks like so well, Trevelyan, and when you're a man, don't drink nothin' else. 'Cause real men drinks Trevelyan.'

Urging the horses on, the men brought Alistair down from the rise and onto the handsome stone bridge with its two arches and the stone aqueduct forming one of the parapets, then across it and up a slight rise toward the imposing great house: 'Golden Hall we calls it. Tha.s.s where the Pembrokes lives.' As they approached, the driver held the reins between his knees, brought his hands to his mouth, and uttered a powerful 'Halloo!' and to the front door came not one of the older Pembrokes but the most ravishingly beautiful young woman Alistair had ever seen, blond hair neatly braided, very white skin, flashing dark eyes, a hint of dimples at the chin and mysterious hollows in the cheeks. She wore, that day when he first saw her, a simple white dress, gathered high above her waist and held in place by a pink ribbon whose carefully tied bow streamed in front. He even noticed her shoes, delicate slippers with no heels, but then he noticed something disheartening: she seemed, in that first glance, strangely older than he, perhaps even nineteen or twenty, and he supposed, with a sense almost of terror, that she was either married or engaged to some young man of the district.

'My name's Prudence,' she said lightly as she came forward to extend her hand as he dropped off the carriage, and when he took it he felt quivering shocks run up his arm.

The five days he spent at Golden Hall with Prudence Pembroke and her family were an awakening to young Alistair, for even though his family, the Wrenthams of All Saints, was affiliated in some way with the Earls of Gore back in England, they had no sugar plantation nor the tremendous wealth that stemmed from the astute sale of muscovado and rum to hungry factors in London. He had never seen such a well-run plantation, nor a mansion like Golden Hall, nor a family like the Pembrokes: great tables of highly polished wood, framed oil paintings on the wall, portraits of both Sir Hugh and his powerful friend in Parliament, William Pitt, servants in military-type uniforms, and signs of luxury everywhere. The conversation, too, was what he called 'elegant,' for it dealt half with Jamaican problems, half with those in London, and he learned with dismay that fairly soon the Pembrokes, including Prudence, would be returning to their London home.

On that first full day at Golden Hall his embarra.s.sment began, because, as he had antic.i.p.ated, Prudence did turn out to be nineteen, more than three years older than he, but eight or nine years older in sophistication and her interest in the opposite s.e.x. She was a kind girl and not boastful about her reception by men, but she could not help dropping intimations that in both Jamaica and London young men had found her attractive, or that they had taken her to this ball and that, and the more she said, the more clear it became that he at a callow sixteen would have no chance at all to engage her attention.

But as a well-bred young lady she knew it was her responsibility to help entertain this friend of her family, so she took him on an exploration of the plantation, an inspection of the building from which the dark rum of Trevelyan issued, and even an excursion back to Croome Plantation, where he met one of the owner's sons, a young man in his late twenties. Is he the one she's engaged to? he wondered in a flush of jealousy, but he was relieved later when she whispered: 'He's such a bore. All he thinks of are horses and hunting.'

On the third day, when he was helping her over a stile that bridged a fence, she stumbled on one of the descending steps and fell inescapably into his arms, and he felt an enormous urge to hold her there and embrace her and even kiss her, but he could do none of these things. Instead, to his astonishment, she kissed him, crying: 'You're a perfect gentleman, Midshipman Wrentham, and the girl who gets you will be mighty lucky.' And off they went to watch the slaves tending the still-unharvested canes.

It was that kiss which set his mind to thinking seriously about her, and although he realized that she could never be interested in him, he was increasingly interested in her, and late that night he was projected bolt upright in bed: My G.o.d! I do believe she's the kind of young woman Captain Nelson's been looking for. And he ticked off the requirements he had heard Nelson expound so often: Loyal she would be, of that I'm convinced. Her parents have brought her up right. And she comes from an important family. They'd help him gain promotions. She'd look good, too, as an officer's wife. Know what to do ash.o.r.e. But then he thought: Is she rich? Obviously the family has money, but will any of it come to her?

He could not return to sleep, so convinced was he that if Prudence Pembroke was a.s.sured of funds, she was the ideal wife for his captain, and when day broke he was down early, awaiting her. In her absence he tried, with awkwardly self-revealing silences, to question his hosts regarding their plans for their daughter: 'What happens to a huge place like this when ...?' He could not say the phrase you die?

Mr. Pembroke had obviously contemplated this problem, for he said easily: 'That's always been a problem with us sugar planters, all of us. How to pa.s.s the plantation along without allowing it to be broken up.'

'How do you do that?'

'We always hand it on to the oldest son. That's the English way, the safe way.'

'But if you have no son?'

'Then the family can fall into difficulties. Avaricious sons-in-law and all that. But fortunately, we do have a fine son-in England now, working in the office of our factors to learn how the sugar trade is controlled.'

'You are fortunate,' and the conversation ended as Prudence came in, wearing bright red ribbons in her hair and about her waist. She announced that she was taking Alistair out to the far field to see cattle recently imported from England, and when they stood together, leaning on the rails that fenced the small holding pen in which the imported animals were being kept till they acclimatized, Alistair asked, audaciously: 'Prudence, are you rich?'

'What a silly question, Alistair. That's impudent!'

'I mean it. Would your parents allow you enough funds to pave the way for a naval officer ... that is, if you married one?'

She turned to face him, and said gently, almost tenderly: 'Alistair, you're a dear boy. Really you are. Handsome and well-mannered. But you are just a boy and I couldn't possibly ...'

'I don't mean me!' he blurted out, astonished rather than hurt.

'Who then?'

'Captain Nelson!' And in the agitated moments that followed he painted such a magnificent word portrait of Horatio Nelson, twenty-two years old, able, good family, brave beyond imagination, destined for high command, and seriously seeking a wife if she met his requirements, that she had to listen. Encouraged by her willingness to follow what he was saying, he told her of Nelson's heroic fight with the polar bear, of his leaping down into the small boat to take the surrender of the American pirate, and of how his men adored him as the finest young officer of his time.

They spent all that morning talking of nothing but Nelson and of what life with him would be like. 'He would,' said Alistair, 'be faithful unto death.' He spoke so persuasively that she finally said, very quietly: 'I have many young men, here and in London, but never one young man. Your Captain Nelson sounds like ... I mean, you make him out to be a hero.'

'He is.' And then a clever idea exploded between them, each entertaining it at the same moment, but he voiced it first: 'Ride back with me to Port Royal and let me introduce ...'

'Yes. Yes, I should like to meet your Captain Nelson.'

'We mustn't tarry, you know. He's due to be shipped out and we could miss him.'

Of course, when they proposed such a trip to the older Pembrokes, the latter were amused: 'Young women do not go traipsing off to meet young men to whom they've not been introduced.'

'But I would introduce them,' Alistair cried. 'Nelson's a fine man. You'd like him.'

'I'm sure we would,' Mr. Pembroke said. 'England exists because of her navy, none better in the world.'

'It would be unthinkable for you to go to Port Royal, Prudence,' her mother said firmly, and Alistair replied: 'But if I hurry back and tell Nelson what a marvelous daughter you have ...'

'Alistair!' Mrs. Pembroke said. 'We're not trying to get rid of Prudence. We're very happy with her, and in due course ... She knows scores of eligible young men.'

'But not Horatio Nelson.' He said this with such force that the three Pembrokes had to pay attention, and each thought: This boy is no fool. And if he says that Nelson is such a catch, perhaps we should listen.

Mrs. Pembroke said quietly: 'Every planter in Jamaica owes the Royal Navy a substantial debt. They keep us free. Protect our lifeline to London. We would be honored to have your Captain Nelson spend a week with us, providing he can break away from his duties,' and forthwith Mrs. Pembroke went to her desk and wrote out a courteous and encouraging note to Horatio Nelson, inviting him to visit Trevelyan Plantation as the guest of a family who appreciated the fine services provided by the navy.

'Please deliver this to your captain,' she told Alistair as she handed it to him, and he said enthusiastically as he accepted: 'We will all remember this day.'

But when Alistair Wrentham reached the end of the road and took the skiff over to Port Royal and hurried back to the fort, he was shattered by a fierce disappointment: 'Captain Nelson received orders yesterday and sailed for his new a.s.signment this morning.' Numbed, young Wrentham moved along the familiar corridors of the fort, bemoaning the fact that he had arranged the fateful meeting between Nelson and Prudence Pembroke one day too late, for he believed that such a marriage had been ordained by the G.o.ds of history. And when the final irony reached him he shuddered with regret, for the last task Nelson performed before sailing was to leave a note for Wrentham: 'As of this date, I have officially recommended, in recognition of your exemplary record, that you be promoted to the rank of master's mate in the Royal Navy. Horatio Nelson, Captain.'

Tears came to Wrentham's eyes as he held the paper, of special value not only because the promotion was a stepping stone to full lieutenancy but because it contained Nelson's signature. 'Too late,' he muttered, fighting back dismay. 'Too late. She was the wife he sought, I know it.'

At that moment, Nelson, aboard the ship that was taking him from Jamaica forever, had reached the point in the Caribbean at which the ramparts of the fort he had commanded so ably began to sink below the horizon. Saluting the rugged old building as it disappeared, he reflected on his continuing bad luck: Here I am at twenty-two years old heading home without a wife and without a command of my own. A mere pa.s.senger on this tedious boat, carrying bags of sugar and casks of rum instead of guns. His final judgment on Port Royal as it faded from view was a bitter one: That famous earthquake they keep talking about, better it had submerged the entire town.

The next four years were not the most disappointing that Nelson would know-we'll shortly see him in worse-but they were agonizing. He had no occupation but sailor, and here he was ash.o.r.e with no ship and no promise of any. He was on half-pay of only a hundred pounds a year-charwoman's wages he called it-which he knew was inadequate to support a wife and the children he wanted.

It was during this spell of idleness that he crystallized his vision of himself. 'I am a seaman,' he wrote in his diary. 'I was born to command some great ship in battle. There is no man in England, or France either, who has a better knowledge of seamanship and naval tactics. I must find me a ship, or my life is cut in half, useless and to no purpose.'

At twenty-four, pledging that the rest of his life would be spent in conflict with the French, he decided to spend his idle hours learning that language, so on his meager allowance he hied himself to France to study both the language and French customs against the day when he would profit from both. But alas! When he reached the house in the small provincial town where he had decided to settle, he found it occupied by an extraordinary English gentleman, a preacher with a hospitable wife and many children, including two remarkable daughters in their early twenties. They dressed well, spoke French without an accent, played the piano like virtuosos, and talked intelligently on any subject thrown before them.

In addition, they were beautiful, flirtatious and amusing, but best of all, to Nelson's thinking, it was rumored that they would have substantial dowries, so it was not long before he abandoned his French lessons-he would try four times later to master that difficult language, and fail-and started a serious courtship. To a friend he wrote: 'I am at last in love with a young woman admirably suited to be a naval officer's wife,' but curiously, he never in any of his letters identified which of the sisters he had settled upon. And then the love-stricken letters ceased; he had learned that whereas his Miss Andrews did have a dowry, it was a modest one, not nearly so large as he felt ent.i.tled to. He broke off his courtship and left France in a pout.

On 14 January 1784 he began a series of extraordinary letters to older acquaintances who might conceivably help him, and one summarizes the rest: 'There arrives a time in a man's life when his influential friends must either find him a situation in which he can rest secure for the rest of his life, or give him outright enough money to secure his position in society and the world. For me that critical moment has now arrived.'

With appalling frankness he informed a friend that he had lately found in England a young woman worthy in every respect of marriage to an officer, except that she had no fortune. Since he, Nelson, was now receiving no more than a hundred and fifty from his navy half-pay, would his friend please a.s.sure him a yearly gift of another hundred? Furthermore, he hoped the friend would do everything possible, knock on all doors, to find him an appointment to a ship or at least 'some public office, where I would not have to work? There must be many such jobs if you can but find them.'

Since his friend could not promise an annuity or find him a sinecure, the man who was destined to become the greatest naval genius in history considered his career ended at twenty-five, and in early 1784 he decided to abandon the sea and run for Parliament! For several hectic months he threw his considerable energies in that direction, but his slight figure and unruly hair, which he wore in a huge, unkempt pigtail, and his unimpressive voice charmed few, and his try at public office was a miserable failure.

At this low point, one of his friends, responding to his cries for help, prevailed upon the Lords of the Admiralty to give Nelson command of a small 24-gun frigate, the Boreas, headed for the West India Station.

Weak with joy at this unexpected reprieve, he informed his naval friends: 'A ship again. Aprowl in a sea I know well! Defending islands I love against the French! Never before have I known such exaltation!'

His new a.s.signment, an important one, was not without its temporary drawbacks, because when he reported to the Boreas, his first lieutenant, former Midshipman Alistair Wrentham, promoted from watch duty at Port Royal, informed him: 'Admiralty has arranged for you to carry with you a dozen young midshipmen from good families, oldest fourteen ...'

'Youngest?'

'Eleven, my nephew, destined to be the next Earl of Gore.' Nelson coughed, and Wrentham continued: 'You're also to deliver to Barbados a rather difficult woman, Lady Hughes and her unlovely daughter Rosy.'

'What do you mean, unlovely?'

'A big blob of a girl, high giggle, pitiful complexion, and desperate for a husband.'

As soon as Nelson saw the unpalatable pair coming down the dock accompanied by three servants, he exercised his captain's prerogatives and snapped: 'I will not take them aboard my ship. Tell them scat!'

Lieutenant Wrentham smiled, nodded as if he were about to order the women away, then said: 'I think you should know, sir, Lady Hughes is the wife of Sir Edward Hughes, admiral in charge of the West Indies Station, and it was his suggestion that she come out with you.'

Nelson rocked back and forth, studied the sky, and said quietly: 'Wrentham, bring Lady Hughes and her entourage aboard,' and Alistair hurried off to do so.

That night, after the women had retired to their quarters, Wrentham asked Nelson: 'What did you think of the daughter, sir?'

'Repulsive.'

'Begging your pardon, sir, but isn't it obvious that she's being taken out to the West Indies Station so she can find a husband? All those young officers and no English women.'

'What are you saying, Wrentham?'

'Mind your step, Captain, if I may be so bold as to suggest.'

'How?'

'Lady Hughes will want you for her son-in-law, of that I'm sure.'

It was as painful a cruise as Nelson would ever make, for Lady Hughes was obnoxious, sticking her nose into everything on her husband's behalf, while daughter Rosy grew more impossible each time he saw her. Between the mother's blatant attempts to match Rosy and Nelson, and the girl's porcine behavior-she made noises when she ate, her fat lips s...o...b..ring over liquids-Nelson would gladly have surrendered the command he had sought for so long.

'They're horrid,' he told Wrentham during one night watch, and that was before he heard the worst. The incredible news was delivered by Wrentham: 'Sir, are you aware that according to naval rules, since Lady Hughes, her daughter and her three servants are technically your guests aboard the Boreas, you're responsible for their pa.s.sage?'

'What do you mean by responsible?'

'I mean, as the host, you must pay their fare-a hundred and ten pounds, I believe.'

'Good G.o.d, Wrentham! That's more than half my pay.'

'Navy rules, sir.' And now whenever Nelson looked at his two ungainly pa.s.sengers he saw not only the boorishness of the mother and the grossness of the daughter, but also the flight of his pay. Since they were related to Admiral Hughes, he was obliged to be exceptionally polite, so one evening as they dined while the Boreas neared Barbados, he feigned courtesy and attention when Lady Hughes asked archly: 'Captain Nelson, am I correct in believing that you are not married?'

'As ever, ma'am, you are correct.'

'And is there, perhaps, some fortunate young lady waiting ash.o.r.e? "A sailor's life, hi-ho! A sailor's wife, hi-ho!" '

'I'm afraid young ladies have scant time for the likes of me.'

Lady Hughes betrayed her desperation by her next move: 'Rosy, darling, do fetch me that gray-silk kerchief.' When the ungainly girl had loped off, her mother told Nelson directly: 'Rosy, a dear child, thinks the world of you, Captain. Proximity and all that ...' She nudged him: 'That's what these romantic voyages are famous for, you know: "Under the stars the world seems vaster. Lulled by the waves, two hearts beat faster." '

'They tell me that's often the case.'

Quickly, before Rosy could return with the kerchief, Lady Hughes said boldly: 'You know, Captain Nelson, when Rosy marries she'll bring with her a considerable competence from her grandmother, considerable ...'

While Nelson mused on this information, Lady Hughes added: 'And the admiral and I would be very supportive. She's such a dear girl ... Very supportive, indeed.'

When dinner ended, Nelson took from the table a confusing problem. Lady Hughes had defined the situation so specifically that no listener could have been in doubt as to its possibilities: the fortunate young officer who married Admiral Hughes's daughter Rosy would have a considerable inheritance from the girl's grandmother, a sizable gift from the parents, and career support from the admiral, who had proved himself a canny political fighter where promotions and a.s.signments to good ships were concerned.

Every anxiety that Nelson had voiced in his famous letters now had a favorable resolution-money, a fighting ship, promotions, and a wife already accustomed to naval matters-and as he strolled nervously beneath the stars he could visualize his ready-made career: Given the right ship and the right command and a faltering French opponent, I could soar to the highest realms of glory. Stomping about the deck, he made brave to voice his innermost dreams: 'Once I have a fair start, Westminster Abbey for me. Buried among the great ones. My memory respected.'

Caught in the grandiloquent euphoria of battles and heroisms ahead, he uttered the final self-a.s.sessment: 'The day will come when England will need me. I cannot fail. And I shall not fail with her.'

But then the awful truth thrust its ugly head over the side of the ship, like some fearful dragon come to slay the sleeping defenders: The key to all this is Rosy, and no man should be expected to pay such a heavy price, not even for immortality. And he continued to stomp the ship, muttering under his breath with each step: 'No, no, no, no, no!' By the time the midnight bells sounded, he had made up his mind: if his future was to be determined in the hideous bed of Rosy Hughes, he would have to forgo it. And in the final days of his voyage he provided Lady Hughes with enough negative hints to enable her to guess what his decision had been.

To his surprise, this battle-hardened veteran of the matrimonial wars showed no personal grievance against him for rejecting her daughter, and on their last night at table she said effusively: 'Captain Nelson, I predict a great future for you in the navy.'

'What have I done to encourage that generous opinion?'

'I've watched you with the young boys who serve on deck.'

'Have I been harsh with them? They do require minding.'

'On the contrary. You've been kind and understanding.'

'Madam,' he said with forced gallantry, 'you have the advantage of me.'

'I mean that twice when some little fellow was too frightened to scramble up the shrouds to the crow's nest, I heard you tell him in a kindly voice: "Well, sir, I am going to race up the masthead, and believe that I may meet you there," and when the lad saw you climbing the rigging, out of respect he had to follow, and when you greeted him at the top, all fear was gone.'