Losing Nelson by Barry Unsworth Read Free Book Online Page A

nearer as the light strengthens, silhouetted against the tawny cliffs of the island. Then sunrise, a single track of flame across the expanse of pale water …
    Ten o’clock. The bay is a platter brimming with sunlight. Hundreds of pleasure boats have put off from the shore. I see their sails and hulls reflected in the water, shades of blue, scarlet, dark orange. The boats make ripples in the surface, but to my mind there is no gash of white; it is as if the colours themselves have power to cleave the water. Bands of musicians have come out to meet the ships. The orchestra of the San Carlo Opera, in a barge strung with red, white, and blue bunting from stem to stern, plays “God Save the King” and “Rule Britannia” and “See the Conquering Hero Comes.” The martial strains resound across the bay and carry to the approaching ships. The
Vanguard
responds with the boom of cannon.
    The quayside is thronged with cheering people. We stand there at the prow. Tier upon tier of houses rise above us, pale yellow, rose pink, parchment colour, terracotta, rising into sun-hazed darker slopes of cypress and ilex. The balconies of the houses are festooned withflags, hung with baskets of carnations and roses. The ambassador’s barge comes out to us, greeted by a salute of thirteen guns. It draws alongside. Lady Hamilton, all dressed
alla Nelson
, flies up the ladderway. One of the most beautiful women of her time. She exclaims, “Oh, God, is it possible?” She faints in my arm and falls to the deck.
    A left-handed handshake from Hamilton; elderly, thin, distinguished. His words are not recorded. An hour later a further salute, twenty-one guns this time. Ferdinand I, ruler of the Two Sicilies, is approaching in his state galley, painted scarlet and gold, with spangled awnings. Some months away still the fiasco of his expedition, the ignominious flight. Perspiring in his black velvet and gold lace, he makes a speech of welcome. There is gratitude in that big-nosed face as he hails his “Deliverer and Preserver.”
    As the
Vanguard
moves in stately fashion towards the waiting city, we sit down to an elegant breakfast. Among the illustrious guests is Commodore Caracciolo, Bailli of the Order of Malta, admiral of the Neapolitan navy, who is in charge of the nautical education of the king’s nine-year-old son, Leopold. He is only a few months away from court-martial and death at our hands by public hanging as a traitor to his king.
    As we step onshore, the air is full of fluttering wings. Hundreds of fishermen with captive doves in wicker cages have been standing at the quayside, waiting for just this moment. They raise the cages aloft, release their captives. As the white birds mount upwards, I try to follow their flight, but my eyes are dazzled by the brightness of the sky, the sunlight hazed with dust, the rain of petals. I am confused by the music and the shouting of the people. We gain our waiting carriage and go clattering away over the black lava paving stones, up towards the British Embassy, Palazzo Sessa, whose façade is draped with red, white, and blue hangings.
    Something brought me back from this, perhaps some sound outside.Sitting there in the calm light of my study, my eyes felt this daze, this bewildering assault of sunlight and movement. Half involuntarily, I glanced up at the ceiling, as if to follow those beating wings, those floating petals. But there was only the Victorian stucco, crumbling here and there, of the cornice. Has any man before or since, any conquering hero whatever, made such a triumphant appearance in such a magnificent setting?
    I doubt it, really I doubt it. In the carriage clattering up to the embassy, there is not much talk. Fascinating to my mind, that short journey. The whole situation, all that was to happen, already contained there, in the words and glances. Four people in close proximity: Horatio, Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and Miss Cornelia Knight, the authoress, who had accompanied