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smiling, ‘My dear, you must have a care not to let the kindness of your heart take you into such an area. By your beauty and nature you will place a burden of reaction on Thomas Hardy that will lead only to resentment. Not from Hardy, I think, for he is so very fond of you, but other minds will not be so well disposed.’
    Looking at Nelson Emma understood that he was talking less about Hardy than himself, saying that in matters naval she must not interfere.
    ‘You have seen a man flogged?’ Emma asked, as he took her arm to lead her away from the unfortunate sailor.
    ‘More than once I have ordered it, my dear, but only as a final sanction. It is a device of discipline that I dislike. It tends, I believe, to make a good man bad and a bad man worse. There are many officers who share my view yet more who do not. You know Tom Troubridge as a gentle soul.’
    ‘A touch humourless,’ Emma interjected, though she added hastily that she was fond of him.
    Nelson grinned. ‘He is a serious sailor, and that makes him somewhat dour ashore. And there is also his recent loss, for he was devoted to his wife. But Tom is also a ferocious captain who will not tolerate dissent on his decks. When the cancer of mutiny spread from England to the fleet he was at the vanguard of the hangings that saw it squashed.’
    ‘You have never hanged a man?’
    Nelson stopped and looked at her. ‘With God’s good grace, Emma, I have never had the need.’ That was a subject too melancholy to dwell on, so Nelson set himself the task of restoring the previous mood, helped by the attitude of the crew.
    The carpenter, repairing damage from the storm that brought them to Palermo, was eager to let Emma ply a saw. The gunner, normally a most capricious and temperamental cove, welcomed Emma into his screened-off lair, lit only a by a lantern shining through a glass panel in the bulkhead that ensured the flame could never reach the powder. Few were admitted to this den, though Nelson was always welcome. Emma was shown the various grades of gunpowder, invited to smell them crushed to pick up the odour of saltpetre. Given a charge to make, the gunner pronounced that she had a natural eye for measure. Sailmakers stitched for her, ropeswere specially spliced and knots created, and Nelson bemoaned in good humour the loss of an arm that made it impossible to compete. Men who had known him with two arms attested to their admiral’s old skill.
    Emma, observing the attention of the men when it shifted from her to him, was sure she had never seen anyone so elevated converse so easily with the commonalty. Sir William was urbane, gentle and kind, and very good with his people, but there was never a hint in his aristocratic behaviour that the relationship was anything other than that between master and servant. But Nelson was different. In his case it was not noblesse oblige: he was one of them. Take away the blue coat, the gleaming orders and the hat, and there would have been nothing to tell you that he too was not a common sailor. Though they had a care to be polite, Emma got no sense from his men that they felt they were talking to anyone other than a professional equal. They even joshed him gently, or shared a well-worn joke. Loving him, she had never doubted his qualities as a leader; observing this she felt he could never fail, for these men would never let him down.
    Nelson could not recall ever having been so happy. It was as if he had changed places with some other man, so different were his feelings about everything: his duties, the problems of the Mediterranean command, his relations with his commander-in-chief, the Admiralty and government at home.
    Ashore it was the same, with everyone accepting quickly the status of the pair. It was just taken for granted that they were lovers and that Sir William knew it. Throughout January, Nelson was struck not by the change in people but by the lack of it. The Queen was just as effusive in his presence, insisting