David Dickinson: Death and the Jubilee

For a split second Powerscourt didn’t know what to do. He looked round suddenly to make sure Lady Lucy was safe. She was chatting happily to an elderly peer. Harrison was escaping back to Germany. He could never be brought to justice now for all his crimes. But then, Powerscourt realized, he had won. Harrison’s plans had been thwarted. The City of London had been saved. The Irish rifles had been intercepted. Lady Lucy was safe.

He waved back across the water, as if saying goodbye. Fitzgerald and Rosebery joined him in the salute as the Royal Yacht passed on to the end of the line and turned back towards Portsmouth. The Konig Wilhelm band had fallen silent. ‘Rule Britannia’ had finished.

‘I tell you one thing,’ said Rosebery cheerfully, looking at the contrast between the old German ship and the assembled might of the Royal Navy. ‘They say he wants to build a fleet to rival ours, that Tirpitz and the bloody Kaiser. Well, just look at the difference between what they’ve got and what we’ve got. It’s going to take them a bloody long time.’

Suddenly, in the midst of this vast Naval Review, Powerscourt and Lady Lucy found themselves completely alone on one side of the boat. The other passengers had gone to inspect the flagship of the Imperial Russian fleet on the other side of the Danube .

‘Lucy,’ said Powerscourt, in a voice she hadn’t heard for weeks, ‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘Yes, Francis?’ said Lady Lucy, her eyes sparkling brighter than the shine on the ship’s polished brass.

‘It’s just that with all this charging around and about,’ said Powerscourt, trying to sound grave and serious, ‘we’ve hardly had any time to ourselves at all.’

Around and behind them the vast display of naval pomp and arrogance, the cruisers, the destroyers, the battleships might have been in the Pacific Ocean rather than the peaceful waters of the Solent.

Lady Lucy teased him. ‘I do hope your shoulder’s better,’ she said with a mischievous smile.

‘I think it’s almost better now.’ Powerscourt removed the sling and put his left arm around Lady Lucy’s waist in a trial run. He held her tight.

‘What were you going to suggest, Francis?’ His wife gazed innocently up into her husband’s face.

‘Let’s go home, Lucy,’ said Powerscourt.

’Francis,’ Lady Lucy replied, ‘that would be delightful. I’m rather tired of hotels just at the moment. Let’s go home.’