David Dickinson - Death and the Jubilee

‘What do you say to Sorrento, Lucy?’ said Powerscourt.

‘Sorrento?’ said Lady Lucy incredulously. ‘It’s late, Francis. You’ve had a very tiring few weeks. You must rest.’ She peered at him anxiously.

‘Sorrento as a place to escape to, Lucy, once this shoulder is better. We could go for a week or so. Spectacular scenery, dramatic walks round the coast. You can look at the Bay of Naples. On a good day you can see Capri.’

‘I think that is an excellent idea, Francis.’ Lady Lucy smiled at him, relieved that his brain was still working normally.

‘You see,’ said Powerscourt, moving on the sofa to find a more comfortable position, ‘I am sure this affair is over at last. So many times I have told myself the business has finally ended only for some other problem to occur, your kidnap, the missing rifles. Harrison’s Bank is safe. Mr Knox has no problems now with Irish terrorists. The Queen can ride out in glory on her great parade as safe as if she was in her own garden. It’s over.’

Powerscourt had never seen anything like it. Neither had anybody else. Stretched out before him in five long lines lay the British Fleet, or some of it. Eleven first class battleships, five first class cruisers, thirteen second class cruisers, thirty-eight small cruisers, thirty new torpedo boat destroyers, one hundred and sixty-three warships of the Royal Navy spread out across the Solent, thirty miles of Victoria’s sea power manned by forty thousand men and carrying three thousand naval guns.

Three days before one million Londoners had cheered themselves hoarse as a small great-grandmother, dressed in sober grey, had crossed the streets of her capital to a service outside St Paul’s Cathedral with an escort of fifty thousand troops from around her vast empire. Sophie Williams’ class of six-year-olds had been to a Jubilee dinner in the Town Hall and had gorged themselves on cakes and jelly. There had been no incidents along the route. Dominic Knox of the Irish Office had taken himself off to Biarritz for a celebratory holiday and a flutter on the tables.

But of Charles Harrison, wanted by the police in connection with the abduction of Richard Martin and the kidnapping of Lady Lucy, there had been no sign. The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police had told Powerscourt that Harrison might have left the country by private means or be hiding somewhere remote like the north of Scotland.

If the Jubilee in London was a celebration of the length of the Queen’s reign and the size of her Empire, the celebrations at the Naval Review at Spithead were about the might of the Royal Navy. Without calling home a single vessel from the overseas stations, the Admiralty had assembled the most powerful fleet the world had ever seen. Powerscourt, his left shoulder still in a light sling, and Lady Lucy and Johnny Fitzgerald were guests of Rosebery aboard the Danube , the vessel carrying members of the House of Lords, one of a flotilla of boats that followed the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert through the lines of warships, all manned by sailors in regular lines along the length of every deck. Salutes rang out over the water, clouds of smoke drifting towards the land. As the Prince of Wales in the Royal Yacht, flying among its five huge flags the Royal Standard of Great Britain and the German Imperial Standard, a black eagle on a gold background, moved through the fleet, bands played the National Anthem. The sailors cheered and waved their caps in the air as royalty passed by.

‘What are those ships over there?’ said Powerscourt to Rosebery, pointing to the most distant line, the one furthest from the land.

‘Those are the foreigners,’ said Rosebery, ‘Americans, Italians, Russians, Norwegians, Germans. They’ve come to see what the British Empire can put on the water.’

‘And what is that old ship with the two red stripes around her funnel at the end of the line?’ asked Powerscourt, raising his telescope to his eye.

‘That is SMS Konig Wilhelm of the Imperial German Navy.’ Rosebery too was peering at the foreign vessel. ‘Fellow from the Admiralty told me on the way down that she was actually built at Blackwell’s Yard in England nearly thirty years ago now.’

‘Why would the Kaiser send such a hulk to this parade, Rosebery?’

‘The admiralty man said it was very significant, that it was all done for public opinion at home.’ Rosebery was squinting through his glasses. ‘Bloody Kaiser wants the Germans to feel ashamed so they will vote him lots of money to build new ships. He’s just appointed a new Naval Secretary too, a man by the name of Tirpitz.’

The Royal Yacht was drawing abreast of the pride of the American Navy, the USS Brooklyn , painted not in black like the British, but in a gleaming white. More cheers rang out across the Solent.

‘God bless my soul!’ said Powerscourt suddenly. ‘I don’t believe it. Johnny, take a look at the party on the German deck, next to the Captain.’

Fitzgerald raised a telescope to his eye.

‘I don’t see anything unusual, Francis.’ He fiddled with the aperture. ‘Can’t see anything strange. Oh my God. I see what you mean. God in heaven, Francis, this is too much, it really is!’

‘What are you looking at?’ asked Rosebery

‘It’s not what we’re looking at Rosebery, it’s who.’ Powerscourt had turned pale. Standing on deck, chatting cheerfully to the Captain, dressed in an immaculate white suit that was almost indistinguishable from the uniforms, was Charles Harrison, former banker of the City of London, suspected of multiple murder, the man who tried to ruin Britain’s world-wide reputation for financial probity, the man whose secret society had sent the Mausers from Germany to Ireland to spoil an Empress’s Jubilee.

The Royal Yacht had reached the Konig Wilhelm . The German band broke into the British National Anthem. Some of the elderly peers on board the Danube , well fortified with champagne by now, began to sing.

‘Send her victorious

Happy and Glorious!’

The Prince of Wales looked particularly pleased with the reception from his cousin’s fleet. He bowed stiffly to the party on the deck.

‘That fellow in the white suit, the one not in uniform, Rosebery, do you see him? That is Charles Harrison.’ Powerscourt pointed to the bridge of the Konig Wilhelm .

‘Is he, by God,’ said Rosebery. ‘He’s got well away. He’s back among his own people now. That’s German territory, that ship. British police have no jurisdiction on board there.’

The German band had moved on to ‘Rule Britannia’. The peers were singing heartily.

‘When Britain first, at heaven’s command,

Arose from out the azure main . . .’

Powerscourt was remembering the conversation with his old tutor in Cambridge. Had Brooke not said that the leader of the secret society was an officer in the German Navy? Perhaps he was the Captain of the Konig Wilhelm .

‘This was the charter of the land

And guardian angels sang this strain . . .’

And then Charles Harrison saw Powerscourt. The same look of astonishment passed across his face that had crossed Powerscourt’s a few minutes before. He scowled. He shook his fist at them across the water. He shouted something in between the verses.

Powerscourt thought it was ‘One day we’ll get even with you, you’ll see.’ Johnny Fitzgerald thought the parting message was slightly different: ‘One day we’ll send you to the bottom of the sea.’ With a final shake of his fist he disappeared below the decks of the Konig Wilhelm .

‘Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves . . .’ Some of the peers were stamping their feet on the deck as they bellowed out the chorus. ‘Britons never never never will be slaves.’