Conquest Read online

  A sergeant major stepped forward, clipped the Union Flag of Great Britain to the halyards and paused. Kydd nodded. At the gate Bowden signalled, and the first of the minute guns thudded out. It was answered joyously by every ship at anchor as the flag was slowly and ceremoniously raised for all to see. The castle and town were theirs.

  Baird put down his sword and scabbard with a clatter on the beautifully polished dark table and sank into one of the chairs, staring into space. Around him, a babble ebbed and flowed as officers commented on the tasteful mix of yellow-wood beams and skilful embellishments in the long room.

  ‘A damn fine day’s work!’ snorted Colonel Pack, and was heartily echoed by others.

  Brigadier General Ferguson, standing in admiration by a dark-stained painting, guffawed. ‘See here, Jeffrey – they’ve taken after Vermeer!’

  ‘Kydd, old bean, clap your peepers on this – here’s a rattlin’ fine parcel o’ ships for you!’ said another, peering at another oil.

  ‘They say for wines the Cape can’t be beat!’ said one, with a fruity chuckle.

  ‘A right agreeable place t’ be in winter, I’m told, what with—’

  ‘Be silent!’ roared Baird, galvanised out of his chair.

  The room fell into a hush. ‘Sit, if you please,’ he growled, remaining standing. He went to the small, mullioned windows, looked out moodily, then swung round on them. ‘For reasons that escape me, in taking this castle we’ve had an easy time of it. It makes me uneasy – it makes me suspicious! In the next few hours we’re to move on Cape Town to take peaceful possession. What will we find? That we’re outnumbered by a hostile population intent on selling out to the French? A Hollander army coming over the hill? A trap, well sprung?’

  No one stirred. ‘And do I have to remind you that we’ve only this castle and the one town? The governor of Cape Colony has by no means surrendered to us and is still at large – and at the head of a powerful army, which, no doubt, is increasing in size daily. Unless he decides tamely to lay down his arms and capitulate, the rest of the colony is duty bound to rise against us. An area half the size of Europe!’

  He sat down, suddenly looking very tired. ‘Gentlemen. We have a task worthy of Hercules himself ahead of us, for while we’ve secured a military victory, if we’re to cling to our toehold on this continent then we must turn a defeated people to accepting our rule, preferring such to any other.

  ‘Dutch ruled by English – the fruits of this colony instead to flow to London, an alien flag, customs, language. Will they accept it? Do we force them to bend to our laws, pay taxes in the name of King George, speak English to each other? And what of the common currency? Is now the guinea to supplant the Netherlands dollar? Do debts to the Batavian Republic now accrue to the English Crown?’

  In the details it was almost beyond comprehension: an entire government and civil service to be brought into being, administration with the devising of rules and ordinances suited to the regulation of a people in the exotic territory of Africa.

  ‘Yes, gentlemen. Tomorrow we step out and show ourselves to the worthy inhabitants of Cape Town. I will have no indiscipline, still less plundering. This is the newest jewel of empire in the Crown of Great Britain!’

  There was a cautious murmur of appreciation, but Baird did not respond, letting it die. He continued in a quite different, muted tone: ‘Gentlemen, we are so few. And at so many thousand miles from England, I pray you will not forget, for I never will do so, we are entirely – and completely – on our own.’

  A bitter south-westerly flurried and bullied the immense crowds that pressed up to the bank of the River Thames. They had been there since before the pallid dawn. High-born and low, none was about to miss the greatest occasion that London had ever seen, one that could be talked about for a lifetime – one that they themselves had witnessed.

  Frederick Stanhope, Marquess of Bloomsbury, and his wife were spared the crush, guests of the Lord Chancellor at the Inner Temple Gardens of the Inns of Court, and with a splendid view of the river. They, too, had braved the raw weather, determined not to miss the extraordinary spectacle.

  For the lady companion to the marchioness, snuggling into her fur-lined pelisse, the day was one of special meaning, touching on the two men closest to her. England was preparing her greatest honours for the hero saviour Lord Horatio Nelson, their late commander-in-chief, whose body at that moment was approaching in the mourning barge of King Charles II, at the head of a river procession that stretched for miles.

  From Greenwich, where it had lain in state for three days, the body was to be transported to Whitehall Stairs, to lie overnight in the Captain’s Room of the Admiralty before the pageant of a state funeral at St Paul’s Cathedral the next day.

  ‘You’re not too chilled, Cecilia?’ the marchioness asked, glancing askance at her cold-numbed face.

  ‘Not as would stand next to what our brave sailors endure out at sea, m’ lady,’ she replied, with spirit. Who knew where her brother and the man she loved were at that very moment?

  Having just missed them at Portsmouth when they had sailed with Nelson, she had sent a heartfelt letter telling Renzi of her deep feelings for him, promising she would wait for ever. Even though he had confessed he loved her, he had absolved her of any implicit obligation, believing it unprincipled even to imply matrimony while he was impecunious. Her letter might or might not have found him, and then the news of the great battle had reached England and, like so many others, she had waited with fear in her heart as detailed casualty lists had been made known.

  When the body of Nelson had arrived in his battered flagship she had discovered too late that Kydd and Renzi’s ship L’Aurore had been the one with the honour of bringing it upriver to Greenwich and then was immediately dispatched to sea again.

  It was odd that the particular fleet they were attached to was not specified – word was that they were to join some mysterious expedition but, cloaked in secrecy, details had been impossible to come by. She had, however, the infinite boon of knowing they were safe and well – a hurried letter from Kydd at Greenwich before they left had asked her to let their parents know this.

  No reply had come from Nicholas . . . but then, almost certainly, he had not received her letter and when he did . . .

  But nothing could be certain as far as he was concerned. How would he take her outpouring of passion, her indelicate revealing of ardour and need? As a man of scrupulous sensitivities, how must he regard—

  ‘Oh, do look, Frederick!’ exclaimed the marchioness, gripping her husband’s arm. ‘I do believe they’re coming!’ From between the piers of Blackfriars Bridge the first of the ceremonial barges was emerging.

  The river was alive with craft, some keeping pace, others moored at the embankment, figures clinging to the masts and rigging, naval boats on flank escort. But all eyes were on the four mourning barges in the lead: draped in black with a dash of vivid colour, one after another they issued out in solemn procession, the regular muffled thud of three-minute guns from the Tower of London a fitting dirge.

  The marquess consulted a paper. ‘Ah, the first does carry at its head Lord Nelson’s personal standard, his guidon and banners each to be borne by a Trafalgar captain.’ It drew nearer, its sweeps drawn by liveried oarsmen in a rhythmic rise and fall. Under the canopy aft stood a number of richly caparisoned individuals. ‘And aboard from the College of Arms are Rouge Croix and Blue Mantle senior heralds, with their pursuivants.’

  Closely following, the next held Nelson’s gauntlet and spurs, helm and crest, four heralds bearing his banner as Knight of the Order of the Bath, another Trafalgar captain with surcoat, target and sword.

  And the third – noble, dignified, with no standards, banners or pennons aloft except one: the Union Flag of Great Britain at half-mast.

  With a thrill of unreality, Cecilia realised that the mortal remains of Lord Horatio Nelson himself lay under the black-plumed canopy, the four shields of his armorial bearings bright against th
e black velvet enshrouding all. Three bannerolls of the Nelson lineage were borne by officers of Victory known to him – Signal Lieutenant Pasco, Mr Atkinson the sailing master, and others who had done their duty at Nelson’s side on that fateful day. Norroy King of Arms himself bore the viscount’s coronet on a sable cushion.

  Following in the fourth barge was the chief mourner – known in the processional as Admiral of the Fleet Sir Peter Parker, senior officer of the Royal Navy, but within the service as the captain of Bristol who, in 1778, had taken into his ship a raw Lieutenant Nelson. Now in his eighties, he shared ceremonials with sixteen admirals and two captains – Hardy of Victory and Blackwood of Euryalus.

  Beyond the sombre blackness of the mourning craft came the splendour of His Majesty’s barge, with dignitaries representing the Crown of Great Britain, followed by the Admiralty barge immediately astern, with all the pomp of the Lords Commissioners for executing the office of Lord High Admiral.

  Then it was the flamboyantly ornate trappings of the City State Barge, with the Lord Mayor of London and other officials, all in elaborate mourning dress.

  Seven seamen from Victory were deployed in the next, two openly weeping: from time to time they held aloft the shot-torn colours worn by their ship to heartfelt huzzahs echoing out from the riverbank.

  Then stretching away behind was the rest of the processional: the great livery companies of London in their ceremonials – the Merchant Taylors’ Company, the Goldsmiths, the Apothecaries, the Drapers and more.

  It was pageantry on a national scale. And nothing less could do justice to the stupefying feeling that the nation shared of the world shaking on its foundations at the passing of both a hero and an age.

  Cecilia stood numbly as the procession passed, barely able to take in that this day she was to be the one honouring the great admiral while those who knew him and loved him were far away at sea. For them she would see it through as they would have done, and later tell them of this momentous day.

  The head of the river cortège had rounded the bend on the way to Whitehall Stairs and the Admiralty, and still the immense waterborne cavalcade moved past. It was an extraordinary expression of popular and imperial grief, and could never be forgotten.

  ‘Come, Frederick – we’re to be early at St Paul’s tomorrow, I’m told,’ said the marchioness, in hushed tones, and led the way to the carriage.

  The next day was as bitterly cold, with lowering grey skies, but mercifully less wind. The streets began filling before dawn, the crowds jostling for the best vantage-points. More still packed the line of procession, from the Admiralty to Charing Cross and then along the Strand and through the City, but it was not until noon that they were rewarded with the sight of the first of the great cortège: the scarlet of battalions of soldiers in drill order advancing with the slow thump of a bass drum draped in black. Then came the colour and grandeur of heralds, and the massed figures of the great in the land, princes of the Blood Royal, nobility and gentry. But none of these could command the intense respect and attention that the next carriage did.

  The funeral car of Lord Nelson. Drawn by six black horses, it was made up to be a simulacrum of HMS Victory in black and gold, a figurehead with laurels at the stem and an ensign at half-mast above an elaborate stern. Under a sable-plumed canopy was the richly worked coffin – crafted from the main-mast of L’Orient, the flagship of the French admiral at the Nile and preserved for its ultimate purpose.

  Around the pillars of the canopy were laurels and Nelson’s motto – Palmam Qui Meruit Ferat: ‘Let he who deserves it wear the palm.’ Atop the whole was his viscount’s coronet and within were heraldic devices and trophies from a lifetime at sea.

  A rustle, as of a long sigh, was the only sound as it passed: the simultaneous baring of heads. Many were visibly moved, silent, weeping, evidence of the depth of feeling at the loss of their paladin. At Temple Bar the procession was joined by the Lord Mayor with the City Sword, accompanied by the aldermen, sheriffs and other notables of London.

  At the cathedral a strict discipline kept the crush of people from overwhelming the ushers. Only those with tickets personally issued from the College of Arms were admitted within. In respect to his diplomatic status, the Marquess of Bloomsbury’s party was accorded the envied privilege of seats under the dome.

  Cecilia was awestruck: the lofty sweep of the dome’s catenary curves, with its noble paintings of St Paul, the richness of the pew’s carving, the splendour of the arrayed nobility of England. From the galleries hung vast battle-stained ensigns of enemy ships captured at Trafalgar, so evocative of what had recently passed out at sea. And before them the empty place reserved for the body.

  After hours of patient waiting, there was a flurry of movement at the grand western portico. It was the seamen, taking position for the arrival of the catafalque. Soldiers of two Highland regiments filed in on each side, gravely marching in slow time until they had lined the processional route inside the cathedral. They halted, turned about inwards and rested on their arms reversed.

  And then it was time. The Victory seamen lifted the coffin from the funeral car with infinite care and, with pallbearers and supporters, began the journey to their admiral’s final resting place. As it entered, the organ majestically filled the cathedral in homage until the coffin was reverently placed in the quire for the service of evensong.

  The gathering shadows of the winter dusk added to the solemnity, and a special chandelier of 130 candles was lit and hung suspended within the dome, its light spreading grandeur for the final act of the burial service.

  When the coffin with Lord Nelson’s earthly remains had been carried to the centre of the dome under a funeral canopy of state, it was placed on a raised platform. His relatives and close friends gathered by it – and the seamen of Victory, who still carried the colours under which he had fought.

  Age-burnished words rang out clear and certain in the echoing silence. ‘“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live . . . and is cut down like a flower . . . Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear brother here departed . . . ”’

  A choir of a hundred men and boys, which included those of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey, sang the concluding anthem, the pure, soaring resonance a paean of sad beauty.

  And then the burial service was complete.

  Stepping forward, the Garter King of Arms pealed forth words hallowed in orders of chivalry since the days of Henry V. ‘“That it hath pleased Almighty God to take unto his divine mercy the Most Noble Lord Horatio Nelson, Viscount and Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe in the County of Norfolk, Knight of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Vice Admiral of the White Squadron of the Fleet, Duke of Bronte in Sicily, Knight Grand Cross of the Sicilian Order of St Ferdinand and of Merit . . . let us humbly trust, that he is raised to bliss ineffable and to a glorious immortality.”’

  While the ringing words sounded the length and breadth of the cathedral, the steward, comptroller and treasurer of Nelson’s household solemnly snapped their staves of office and threw them on to the coffin, stepping back to allow the seamen with the colours to spread the flag as a pall in a last act – but, before the horrified gaze of the princes of heraldry, they did not. Instead they ripped and tore at the flag until each bore away something to retain of the commander they had adored. A rippling murmur of understanding arose from the pews.

  The organ, played by a pupil of Mozart, again filled the air with a grand and melancholy piece and the coffin sank from sight to its rest.

  It was over.

  ‘The price of victory was too high, I’m to believe,’ Stanhope said, his tone subdued as though still under thrall to what they had seen.

  Baron Grenville raised his glass in solemn salute. ‘It must be admitted, dear chap. Lost to his country at the very moment of his triumph. I do hope the people won’t forget him now he’s gone, poor fellow.’

  In the opulent d
rawing room a large fire was the only cheerful presence among the murmuring, black-decked throng gathered there after the burial. ‘I saw that your cousin did not attend,’ Stanhope reflected. ‘I know the man would have been there if it had been possible, so must only conclude that the waters in Bath have not effected a relief.’

  That cousin was William Pitt, prime minister of Great Britain and known to be gravely ill. Grenville sighed. ‘It grieves me to say it, but I’m sanguine he’s not to be long for this world either – days at most. He’s much cast down since hearing of the cost of Trafalgar – and so soon following, that damnable rout at Austerlitz.’

  ‘If there is a tragic outcome, in these dolorous times the King will wish to form a government with all expedition. And if Hawkesbury declines – as I believe he will – then His Majesty will peradventure call upon your own good self, dear fellow.’

  ‘I must allow it, Frederick.’

  ‘Have you . . . ?’

  Grenville gave a lopsided smile. ‘An impossibility to conjure a world without a Pitt, as all must declare. I have a mind to gather in a ministry of all the talents, as it were. I shall bring back Windham as secretary of war, young Charles Grey comes to mind for the Admiralty, and Fox – well, he’ll be cock o’ hoop to be made foreign secretary. Oh, and that freelance intemperate Richard Brinsley Sheridan, why, I’ll make sure his energies are absorbed as treasurer of the Navy – plenty of accounts to pore over, what?’

  Stanhope paused at the jocular tone. ‘You’re not, who might say, overcome at the prospect? I rather fancy your greatest challenge will not be in domestic politics, my friend.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Of course, the war.’

  Frowning, Stanhope continued, ‘The Tsar and Austrians beaten squarely in the field – it means the utter ruin of the Coalition – and with the Russians withdrawing over the border and Emperor Francis treating for a peace we’re left where we started, without a single friend. I can only see as our crowning challenge the prosecuting of this war when all the chancelleries of Europe are against us.’