the French have suspended their invasion plans. I failed. Now Sidney Smith has sent me to Cadiz to warn you of Nelson and shake your confidence. He wants to foment disunion between your two nations. But that’s not why I’m really here. Emma Hamilton thinks her lover will die in any fight and wants me to forestall one.”
“Emma Hamilton?”
“Nelson’s mistress. She wants him home.”
Now the admirals wondered if I was performing a comedy. It’s not my fault I get sent on errands by eccentrics and lunatics.
“I’ve made something of a bollocks of being a double agent,” I went on, “and having seen a lot of war, saving countless lives seems the one useful thing I might salvage out of the past year and a half that I’ve been tangled in great events. I’m sure every wife in Cadiz shares Emma’s sentiment.”
“And your reward as an emissary of peace?”
“I’m trying to get to Venice to find my family. The British promised me passage if I persuade you.” I shrugged. “Nelson’s arrival isn’t what you wanted to hear, but is it not an excuse to hesitate?”
Villeneuve sighed. “And how do you propose we do that, Monsieur Gage? Napoleon has already expressed frustration with my prudence.”
“Just admit to the British that you prefer to avoid battle and don’t intend to molest England. The July battle demonstrated your mettle. Now propose a naval truce. With Bonaparte occupied in Austria and winter coming on, cooler heads can prevail. Peace has to start with someone, and why not you, Admiral? Send me back with a white flag. I negotiated Rochambeau’s surrender in Saint-Domingue and helped with the sale of Louisiana. I had a modest role in the Treaty of Mortefontaine. While people are forever dissatisfied with me, I’m really simply moderate, as well as a Franklin man, an electrician, and a good father when not losing my son abroad or sending him down a chimney.”
“Bah,” said Admiral Magon, who remembered me from Boulogne as I remembered him. He was the one who’d dutifully given the order that led to the disastrous drownings, and had the aggressive features of a pugnacious officer in a way Villeneuve could only envy. Part of leadership depends on looks. I also noted that the officer who had followed Napoleon’s foolish order of a naval exercise in a storm had been promoted, while the man who wisely refused, Bruix, had been shunted aside. “This man is a spy and a sycophant who pretended to have saved our emperor from drowning. He hangs about fleets and armies to make his fortune. Now he wants us to give up like cowards to please his British masters.”
“I did save him, and if you want evidence of his favor, examine my Jaeger rifle. People find me indispensable, when not shooting at me. A good drinking companion, too.”
“He comes with no letter from Nelson, no rank, and no retinue.”
“I have a handkerchief from Lady Hamilton, a pendant from Napoleon, and common sense. War is only logical when you can win it.”
“This is ridiculous,” Admiral Pierre Dumanoir said. “He’s here to betray us. Look at his face. There’s no character there.”
In a twist of fate, it was the Spanish who came to my aid.
“If what the American says is true, and Bonaparte is marching on Austria, why are we risking our nation’s ships for an invasion that will never happen?” Commodore Ignacio Alava asked his colleagues. “This Gage claims to know Nelson; why not send a counterproposal? We’ve nothing to lose and he can buy us time while we train and refit. We can’t sail anyway. The barometer is falling. A gale is coming.”
“All the more reason to get out of this trap of a harbor now,” countered Dumanoir. “We’ve a brief window of favorable wind; let’s follow orders and escape to the Mediterranean before Nelson can stop us.”
“We can’t escape because we don’t have adequate supplies, repairs, men, or training,” volleyed back Commodore Dionisio Galiano, another Spaniard. “Half our crews are soldiers with no sea experience at all. A fifth of your French sailors are sick. If the British catch us, we’ll be destroyed. I think this opportunist represents opportunity. Let him talk while we train.”
“Such hesitancy may be the habit of the Spanish navy, but not of the French,” Magon growled. “In Spain they may count what they don’t have, but in France we win by putting to use what we do have.”
Galiano laughed. “When was the last time the French navy won?”