Hornblower and the Crisis

by C. S. Forester

  ‘At least I managed to learn to speak a little Spanish,’ he said; it was an endeavour to bring a trace of frivolity into the conversation, but Barrow continued to treat the subject seriously.

  ‘Many officers would not have taken the trouble,’ he commented.

  Hornblower shied away from this personal conversation like a skittish horse.

  ‘There’s another aspect to the question of Ferrol,’ he said, hurriedly.

  ‘And what is that?’

  The town and its facilities as a naval base lay at the far end of long and difficult roads over mountain passes, whether by Betanzos or Villalba. To support a fleet there under blockade, to keep it supplied by road with the hundreds of tons of necessary stores, might be more than the Spaniards could manage.

  ‘You know something of these roads, Captain?’

  ‘I was marched over them when I was a prisoner.’

  ‘Boney’s Emperor now and the Dons are his abject slaves. If anyone could compel them to attend to their business it would be Boney.’

  ‘That’s very likely, sir.’ This was more a political question than a naval one, and it would be presumption on his part to make further comment.

  ‘So we’re back,’ said Barrow, half to himself, ‘to where we’ve been ever since ’95, waiting for the enemy to come out and fight, and in your opinion in a worse situation than usual, Captain.’

  ‘That’s only my opinion, sir,’ said Hornblower hastily.

  These were questions for admirals, and it was not healthy for junior officers to become involved in them.

  ‘If only Calder had thrashed Villeneuve thoroughly!’ went on Barrow. ‘Half our troubles would be over.’

  Hornblower had to make some reply or other, and he had to think fast for non-committal words that would not imply a criticism of an admiral by a junior officer.

  ‘Just possibly, sir,’ he said.

  He knew that as soon as the news of the battle of Cape Finisterre was released the British public would boil with rage. At Camperdown, at the Nile, and at Copenhagen victories of annihilation had been gained. The mob would never be satisfied with this mere skirmish, especially with Bonaparte’s army poised for embarkation on the Channel coast and Britain’s fate dependent on the efficient handling of her fleets. Calder might well experience the fate of Byng; he could be accused, like Byng, of not having done his utmost to destroy the enemy. A political upheaval might easily occur in the near future.

  That led to the next thought; a political upheaval would sweep away the Cabinet, including the First Lord, and possibly even the Secretariat – this very man to whom he was talking might be looking for new employment (with a black mark against his name) within a month. It was a tricky situation, and Hornblower suddenly felt overwhelmingly desirous that the interview should be ended. He was horribly hungry and desperately fatigued. When the door opened to admit Dorsey he looked up with relief.

  Dorsey halted at sight of Barrow.

  ‘The Secretary is with His Lordship,’ explained the latter. ‘What is it, Mr Dorsey?’

  ‘I’ve opened the dispatch that Captain Hornblower captured, sir. It’s – it’s important, sir.’

  Dorsey’s glance wavered over to Hornblower and back again.

  ‘I think Captain Hornblower is entitled to see the results of his efforts,’ said Barrow, and Dorsey came forward with relief and laid on the table the objects he was carrying.

  First there were half a dozen discs of white wax laid out on a tray.

  ‘I’ve reproduced the seals,’ explained Dorsey. ‘Two copies of each. That seal-cutter in Cheapside can cut a seal from these so that Boney himself couldn’t tell the difference. And I’ve managed to lift the originals without damaging them too much – the hot-knife method, you understand, sir.’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Barrow, examining the results. ‘So these are the new seals of the new Empire?’

  ‘Indeed they are, sir. But the dispatch – It’s the greatest of prizes. See here, sir! And here!’

  He stabbed excitedly at the paper with a gnarled finger. At the foot of the sheet, which was covered with paragraphs of careful handwriting, there was a crabbed signature. It had been written by a careless hand, and was surrounded by little ink blots as a result of the spluttering of a protesting pen. It was not really legible; Hornblower could read the first letters, ‘Nap –’ but the remainder was only a jagged line and a flourish.

  ‘That’s the first signature of this sort which has come into our possession, sir,’ explained Dorsey.

  ‘Do you mean he has always signed “N. Bonaparte” before?’ asked Hornblower.

  ‘Just “Bonaparte”,’ said Dorsey. ‘We have a hundred, a thousand specimens, but not one like this.’

  ‘He hasn’t adopted the Imperial style, all the same,’ said Barrow, examining the letter. ‘Not yet at least. He calls himself “I” and not “we”. See here, and here.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, sir,’ said Dorsey, ‘not that I’m familiar with French. But here’s something else, sir. And here.’

  The superscription said ‘Palais des Tuileries’ and ‘Cabinet Impériale’.

  ‘These are new?’ asked Barrow.

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir. Until now he did not call it a palace, and it was the “Cabinet of the First Consul”.’

  ‘I wonder what the letter says?’ interposed Hornblower. So far only the technical details had occupied their attention, like people judging a book by its binding without a thought for its contents. He took it from Dorsey’s hand and began to read.

  ‘You read French, sir?’ asked Barrow.

  ‘Yes,’ said Hornblower, a little off-handedly as he concentrated on his reading. He had never read a letter from an Emperor before.

  ‘Monsieur le Général Lauriston,’ the letter began. The first paragraph was taken up with allusions to the instructions already sent by the Ministries of Marine and of War. The second dealt with the relative seniority of General Lauriston and of various subordinates. The final one was more flamboyant.

  ‘Hoist my flags over that beautiful continent, and if the British attack you, and you experience some bad luck, always remember three things, activity, concentration of forces, and the firm resolution to die with glory. These are the great principles of war which have brought me success in all my operations. Death is nothing, but to live defeated and without glory is to die every day. Do not worry about your family. Think only about that portion of my family which you are going to reconquer.’

  ‘It reads like a counsel of despair, sir,’ said Hornblower. ‘Telling him to fight to the last.’

  ‘No mention of sending him reinforcements.’ agreed Barrow. ‘Quite the opposite, in fact. A pity.’

  To reinforce the West Indies would necessitate risking some of Bonaparte’s naval forces at sea.

  ‘Boney needs a victory here first, sir,’ suggested Hornblower.

  ‘Yes.’

  Hornblower found his own bitter smile repeated by Barrow. A victory won by Bonaparte in home waters would mean the conquest of England, the automatic fall of West Indies and East Indies, of Canada and the Cape, of the whole Empire; it would mean an alteration in the destiny of all mankind.

  ‘But this –’ said Barrow with a wave of the dispatch. ‘This may play its part.’

  Hornblower had already learned the importance of negative information, and he nodded agreement. And it was at that moment that Marsden returned to the room, with a fistful of papers.

  ‘Oh, you’re here, Dorsey,’ he said. ‘That’s for His Majesty at Windsor. See that the courier leaves within fifteen minutes. That’s for the telegraph to Plymouth. So’s that. That’s for Portsmouth. Have the copying begun immediately.’

  It was interesting to watch Marsden in action; there was no trace of excitement in his voice, and although the successive sentences followed each other without a pause they did not come tumbling out. Each was clearly enunciated in a tone of apparent indifference. The papers Marsden brought in might
be of vital importance – most certainly were – but Marsden acted as if he were handing out blank sheets in some meaningless ceremony. On their way to Barrow the cold eyes passed over Hornblower without affording him an opportunity of taking his leave.

  ‘No further messages, Mr Barrow?’

  ‘None, Mr Marsden.’

  ‘There will be no confirmation from Plymouth before eight o’clock tomorrow morning,’ remarked Marsden looking at the clock.

  The telegraph in clear weather and daylight could transmit a message from Plymouth in fifteen minutes – Hornblower had noticed several of the huge semaphore standards during his recent journey; last year he had landed outside Brest and burned a similar machine. But a written message, carried by relays of mounted couriers (some of them riding through darkness) would take twenty-three hours to make the journey. On wheels in his post-chaise he himself had taken forty; it seemed now as if it were weeks, and not hours.

  ‘This captured dispatch of Captain Hofnblower’s is of interest, Mr Marsden,’ said Barrow; the tone of his voice seemed to echo Marsden’s apparent indifference. It was hard for Hornblower to decide whether it was imitation or parody.

  Yet it was only a matter of moments for Marsden to read the dispatch and to grasp the important features of the writing of it.

  ‘So now we might imitate a letter from His Imperial and Royal Majesty the Emperor Napoleon,’ commented Marsden; the smile that accompanied the words was just as inhuman as the tone of his voice.

  Hornblower was experiencing an odd reaction, possibly initiated by this last remark of Marsden’s. His head was swimming with hunger and fatigue; he was being projected into a world of unreality, and the unreality was being made still more unreal by the manner of these two cold-blooded gentlemen with whom he was closeted There were stirrings in his brain. Wild – delirious – ideas were forming there, but no wilder than this world in which he found himself, where fleets were set in motion by a word and where an Emperor’s dispatches could be the subject of a jest. He condemned his notions to himself as lunatic nonsense, and yet even as he did so he found additions making their appearance in his mind, logical contributions building up into a fantastic whole.

  Marsden was looking at him – through him – with those cold eyes.

  ‘You may have done a great service for your King and Country,’ said Marsden; the words might be interpreted as words of praise, perhaps, but the manner and expression would call for no modification if Marsden were a judge on the bench condemning a criminal.

  ‘I hope I have done so, sir,’ replied Hornblower.

  ‘Exactly why do you hope that?’

  It was a bewildering question, bewildering because its answer was so obvious.

  ‘Because I am a King’s officer, sir,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘And not, Captain, because you expect any reward?’

  ‘I had not thought of it, sir. It was only the purest chance,’ answered Hornblower.

  This was verbal fencing, and faintly irritating. Perhaps Marsden enjoyed the game. Perhaps years of having to throw cold water on the hopes of innumerable ambitious officers demanding promotion and employment had made the process habitual to him.

  ‘A pity it is not a dispatch of real importance,’ he said. ‘This only makes clear what we already could guess, that Boney does not intend to send reinforcements to Martinique.’

  ‘But with that for a model –’ began Hornblower. Then he stopped, angry with himself. His tumultuous thoughts would make greater nonsense still expressed in words.

  ‘With this as a model?’ repeated Marsden.

  ‘Let us have your suggestion, Captain,’ said Barrow.

  ‘I can’t waste your time, gentlemen,’ stammered Hornblower; he was on the verge of the abyss and striving unavailingly to draw back.

  ‘You have given us an inkling, Captain,’ said Barrow. ‘Please continue.’

  There was nothing else to be done. An end to discretion.

  ‘An order from Boney to Villeneuve, telling him to sail from Ferrol at all costs. It would have to give a reason – say that Décrès has escaped from Brest and will await him at a rendezvous off Cape Clear. So that Villeneuve must sail instantly – weigh, cut, or slip. A battle with Villeneuve is what England needs most – that would bring it about.’

  Now he had committed himself. Two pairs of eyes were staring at him fixedly.

  ‘An ideal solution, Captain,’ said Marsden. ‘If only it could be done. How fine it would be if such an order could be delivered to Villeneuve.’

  The Secretary to the Board of Admiralty probably received crackpot schemes for the destruction of the French navy every day of the week.

  ‘Boney will be sending orders from Paris, often enough,’ went on Hornblower. He was not going to give up. ‘How often do you transmit orders from this office to commanders-in-chief, sir? To Admiral Cornwallis, for instance? Once a week, sir? Oftener?’

  ‘At least,’ admitted Marsden.

  ‘Boney would write more often than that, I think.’

  ‘He would,’ agreed Barrow.

  ‘And those orders would come by road. Of course Boney would never trust the Spanish postal services. An officer – a French officer, one of the Imperial aides-decamp – would ride with the orders through Spain, from the French frontier to Ferrol.’

  ‘Yes?’ said Marsden. He was at least interested enough to admit an interrogative note into the monosyllable.

  ‘Captain Hornblower has been engaged on gathering information from the French coast for the last two years,’ interposed Barrow. ‘His name was always appearing in Cornwallis’ dispatches, Mr Marsden.’

  ‘I know that, Mr Barrow,’ said Marsden; there might even be a testy note in his voice at the interruption.

  ‘The dispatch is forged,’ said Hornblower, taking the final plunge. ‘A small party is landed secretly with it at a quiet spot on the Spanish Biscay coast, posing as French officials, or Spanish officials, and they travel slowly towards the frontier along the highroad. A succession of couriers is coming in the opposite direction, bearing orders for Villeneuve. Seize one of them – kill him, perhaps – or perhaps with the best of luck substitute the forged order for the one he is carrying. Otherwise one of the party turns back, posing as a French officer, and delivers the false letter to Villeneuve.’

  There was the whole plan, fantastic and yet – and yet – at least faintly possible. At least not demonstrably impossible.

  ‘You say you’ve seen these Spanish roads, Captain?’ asked Barrow.

  ‘I saw something of them, sir.’

  Hornblower turned back from addressing Barrow to find Marsden’s gaze still unwavering, fixed on his face.

  ‘Haven’t you any more to say, Captain? Surely you have.’

  This might be irony; it might be intended to lure him into making a greater and greater fool of himself. But there was so much that was plainly obvious and which he had foreborne to mention. His weary mind could still deal with such points, with a moment to put them in order.

  ‘This is an opportunity, gentlemen. A victory at sea is what England needs more than anything else at this moment. Could we measure its value? Could we? It would put an end to Boney’s schemes. It would ease the strain of blockade beyond all measure. What would we give for the chance?’

  ‘Millions,’ said Barrow.

  ‘And what do we risk? Two or three agents. If they fail, that is all we have lost. A penny ticket in a lottery. An infinite gain against an inconsiderable loss.’

  ‘You are positively eloquent, Captain,’ said Marsden, still without any inflexion in his voice.

  ‘I had no intention of being eloquent, sir,’ said Hornblower, and was a little taken aback at realizing how much truth there was in such a simple statement.

  He was suddenly annoyed both with himself and with the others. He had allowed himself to be drawn into indiscretions, to appear as one of the featherbrained crackpots for whom Marsden must have so much contempt. He rose in irritation fro
m his chair, and then restrained himself on the verge of being still more indiscreet by displaying irritation. A stiffly formal attitude would be better; something that would prove that his recent speeches had been mere polite and meaningless conversation. Moreover he must forestall the imminent and inevitable dismissal if he were going to preserve any of his self-respect.

  ‘I have consumed a great deal of your very valuable time, gentlemen,’ he said.

  There was a sudden sharp pleasure, despite his weariness, in thus being the first to make a move, to volunteer to quit the company of the Secretary to the Board, and of the Second Secretary, while dozens of junior officers were prepared to wait hours and days for an interview. But Marsden was addressing Barrow.

  ‘What’s the name of that South American fellow who’s haunting every anteroom at present, Mr Barrow? You meet him everywhere – he was even dining at White’s last week with Camberwell.’

  ‘The fellow who wants to start a revolution, sir? I’ve met him a couple of times myself. It’s – it’s Miranda, or Mirandola, something like that, sir.’

  ‘Miranda! That’s the name. I suppose we can lay hands on him if we want him.’

  ‘Easily enough, sir.’

  ‘Yes. Now there’s Claudius in Newgate Gaol. I understand he was a friend of yours, Mr Barrow.’

  ‘Claudius, sir? I met him, as everyone else did.’

  ‘He’ll be coming up for trial within the week, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’ll swing next Monday. But why are you asking about him, Mr Marsden?’

  There was some faint pleasure in seeing one of those two, even though it was only the Second Secretary, so bewildered, and at the moment he was given no satisfaction.

  ‘So there is no time to waste.’ Marsden turned to Hornblower, who was standing uncomfortably aware that most of the drama of his exit had fallen a little flat with this delay. ‘The doorkeeper has your address, Captain?’