Hornblower and the Crisis

by C. S. Forester

  ‘Very well,’ said Marsden, and Claudius plunged into his subject. Only a slight gulping and hesitation as he began betrayed the agonizing strain he had been through.

  ‘It is necessary first,’ he said, ‘to point out that ambition may outreach itself. It is quite impossible to forge a long document in the handwriting of another and to achieve deception. I take it you have in mind a letter and not a mere few words? Then it would be better to make no attempt at exact reproduction. On the other hand carelessness would easily be fatal. This script, as I said, is the standard script used by French clerks – I fancy it is the one which used to be taught in Jesuit schools. There are French refugees in plenty. Have one of those write your letter.’

  ‘That’s very true, sir,’ said Dorsey to Marsden.

  ‘And again,’ went on Claudius, ‘have your French composed by a Frenchman. You gentlemen may pride yourselves on writing good French, grammatical French, but a Frenchman reading it would know it was not written by a Frenchman. I’ll go further than that, gentlemen. Give a Frenchman a passage in English and tell him to render it into French and a Frenchman will still be aware that all is not well when he reads it. You must have your French composed ab initio by Frenchmen, contenting yourselves with merely outlining what is to be said.’

  Hornblower caught Marsden nodding agreement. It was apparent that he was impressed, however little he wished to appear so.

  ‘Now, gentlemen,’ went on Claudius. ‘With regard to details of a lower degree of sensibility. I take it you have in mind to send your forged letter to a naval, or possibly a military, man? In that case the task can be approached with more confidence. Businessmen, soulless bankers, hard-headed merchants, with something more important to lose than other men’s lives, are likely to scrutinize documents more closely. But on the staff of a general there may always be some interfering underling wishing to call attention to himself. It is necessary to be quite perfect. This signature I am confident I can reproduce in perfection. This ink – I believe it can be matched in Chancery Lane; it will be necessary to make complete tests. This printed heading – you will need to have type specially cast in exact imitation. You will have less trouble in that respect than I encountered.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Marsden, actually betrayed into speech.

  ‘But the paper –’ went on Claudius, feeling its texture carefully with stubby but apparently sensitive fingers. ‘I will have to instruct you where to search for that, too. Would you be so kind, sir, as to hold the sheet up between my eyes and the light? This chain restricts my movements to an inconvenient degree. Thank you, sir. Yes, as I thought. I know that quality of linen, but there is a fortunate absence of watermark. It may not be necessary to have paper made de novo to match it. You may not appreciate the necessity for uniformity, gentlemen, unless you make use of your imagination. A single document may well be accepted, but you must think of a series. After receiving, let us say, six genuine documents, someone receives one spurious one. The recipient naturally lays them together in the course of the routine of his office. If one is markedly different from all the others – even if one is different in only a small degree – attention is clamorously called to it. Hinc illae lachrymae. And if that one has a content somewhat unusual – even though in other circumstances it might have passed – then the fat is in the fire, and Bow Street is called in. Et ego in arcadia vixi, gentlemen.’

  ‘Most illuminating,’ said Marsden, and Hornblower knew enough about him now to realize that this was the equivalent of a long speech in praise.

  ‘Now I come to “lastly” in my present sermon, gentlemen,’ said Claudius as the lightning flashed again and the thunder rolled. ‘Even in the pulpit I could feel the relief in my congregation at that word “lastly”, so I will be brief. The method of delivery must conform to the method of all the other deliveries. Once again, the greatest care is necessary in allowing nothing to call particular attention to this one item out of all the others.’

  Claudius when he had entered the room had been of a sickly pallor under the bristling beard, and he was whiter still when he finished his lecture.

  ‘Perhaps, gentlemen, you would permit me to sit down?’ he said. ‘I have not now the strength of which I used once to boast.’

  ‘Take him out, Dorsey,’ snapped Marsden. ‘Give him a glass of wine. I dare say he’s hungry, too.’

  It may have been at the thought of food that Claudius recovered something of his unabashed self-assertion.

  ‘A beefsteak, gentlemen?’ he said. ‘Might I hope for a beefsteak? For the past week empty dreams of a beefsteak have further embittered my nightmares of the rope.’

  ‘See that he has a beefsteak, Dorsey,’ said Marsden.

  Claudius turned back, still wavering a little, but with something of a smile just visible on his bristly lips.

  ‘In that case, gentlemen, you can count on my heartiest exertions for my King, my Country, and my Self.’

  With the departure of Dorsey and Claudius, Marsden turned to face Hornblower again. The room was almost dark, at high noon, with the black thunderclouds overhead. A sudden lightning flash filled the room instantly followed by a clap of thunder, like a vast cannon shot, coming without warning and ending without reverberation.

  ‘His Lordship,’ said Marsden in complete disregard of it, ‘has already approved in principle of the attempt being made. I consulted him this morning. Mr Barrow, I am sure, has in mind the French émigrés to attend to the composition and writing of the dispatch.’

  ‘I have, Mr Marsden,’ said Barrow.

  ‘It will be necessary to recapture the style, of course, sir,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Undoubtedly, Captain,’ agreed Barrow.

  ‘And the orders must be such that there is nothing patently impossible about them, too.’

  Marsden intervened.

  ‘Did your grandmother never learn to suck eggs, Captain?’ he asked, in the same unvarying tone. It was a deft reminder that the Secretaries had had years of experience in the writing of orders, and Hornblower had the sense to smile.

  ‘I had forgotten how much practice she has had,’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I was only anxious about the success of the plan.’

  Now the thunderstorm had burst. A breath of cooler air came stealing into the room, bearing with it the sound of torrential rain roaring down outside. Through the windows there was nothing to be seen but the rain.

  ‘Mr Barrow and Dorsey and Claudius can be trusted to deal with the details. The next point to consider is the landing.’

  ‘That should be the simplest part of the whole operation, sir.’

  The Spanish Biscay coast extended for almost three hundred miles from the French frontier to Ferrol, sparsely populated and rugged. There were inlets innumerable. The Royal Navy, omnipresent at sea, could be relied upon to put a small party on shore undetected.

  ‘I am delighted that you think so, Captain,’ said Marsden.

  There was a dramatic pause – a melodramatic pause. Hornblower looked from Marsden to Barrow and back again, and experienced an internal upheaval as he observed the glances they exchanged.

  ‘What have you in mind, gentlemen?’ he asked.

  ‘Is it not quite obvious, Captain, that you are the man best fitted to undertake this mission?’

  That was what Marsden said, in that same tone. Barrow spoke in his support.

  ‘You are acquainted with Ferrol, Captain. You have had some experience of Spain. You speak a little Spanish. You should have command.’

  That gave the cue for Marsden again.

  ‘You have no other command at present, Captain.’

  The significance of this particular remark was too obvious.

  ‘Really, gentlemen –’ said Hornblower. For once he could not think quickly enough to word his protests.

  ‘It is not a duty you could be ordered to perform,’ went on Marsden. ‘That is quite clear. It would be a purely voluntary mission.’

  To enter a hostile c
ountry in disguise would be to risk a shameful death. The gallows, the rope – but in Spain it would be the iron collar of the garotte. Strangulation. Convulsions, contortions, preceding death. No fighting service could ever order its officers to take that risk.

  ‘This Spaniard, Miranda, can be trusted, I am sure,’ said Barrow. ‘And if a Frenchman is needed as well – your opinion on that point would be valuable, Captain – there are at least three who have already done important work for us.’

  It was inconceivable that these two Secretaries, men of marble, could ever abase themselves to plead, but it seemed as if they were as close to doing so as ever in their lives. The Navy could order a man to climb the highest, steepest side of a ship of the line in face of well-aimed musketry; it took it for granted that a man would face unflinching broadside after broadside of grape; it could send him aloft on the darkest and stormiest night to save a few yards of canvas; and it could hang him or shoot him or flog him to death should he hesitate. But it could not order him to risk the garotte, not even with the nation’s existence trembling in the balance.

  Now this – this recollection of England’s desperate need – was something overwhelming, something that overshadowed every other consideration. In the calm atmosphere of this very room he had estimated the vital need for a victory at sea, and had balanced against it the trifling cost of his suggested attempt. That cost might be his own life, as it now appeared. And – and – who could he trust to keep a clear head, who could he trust to plan and to extemporize in an emergency? And already, unsought, there were forming in his mind improvements, refinements, in the rough plan which demanded his own personal action. He would have to agree; and in a moment of illumination he felt that he would never be happy again if he were to refuse. He must say yes.

  ‘Captain,’ said Marsden. ‘We have not forgotten Admiral Cornwallis’ recommendation that you should be made post.’

  The speech was so utterly disassociated from Hornblower’s present train of thought, so unrelated to what he had been about to say, that he could not possibly say it. Barrow glanced over at Marsden and then made his contribution.

  ‘There would be no need to find you a ship, Captain,’ he said. ‘You could be given a command in the Sea Fencibles which would confer post rank. Then you could be transferred for special service.’

  Indeed this was something alien intruding into the conversation. This was what Hornblower had given more than a passing thought to on his way here. Promotion to captain’s rank; he would be ‘made post’, placed on the list of captains. He would cease to be a mere commander perennially irked by the conventional form of address of ‘Captain’. He would be a real captain, he would have achieved the ambition of every naval officer down to the lowest King’s letter-boy in the service; once on the list only a court martial or death could stop his eventually becoming an admiral. And he had quite forgotten about promotion; he had forgotten his decision to press for it. It was not so surprising that he had forgotten about the Sea Fencibles, who constituted a volunteer reserve navy formed of wherrymen and bargees and fishermen who could be called into active service should an actual attempt at invasion occur. England was divided into districts for the organization and elementary training of these men, and each district was a captain’s command – a post captain’s command.

  ‘Well, Captain?’ asked Marsden.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ said Hornblower.

  He saw glances interchanged again; he could see relief, or perhaps satisfaction, or perhaps self-congratulation in those glances. They were pleased that their bribe had been effective, and he was about to burst out in an indignant denial that the offer had had any weight with him. Then he shut his mouth again, remembering the philosopher who said that he had often regretted having spoken but had never regretted remaining silent. A few seconds of silence – utterly fortuitous – had won him promotion to post rank; a few seconds of speech might imperil it. And he knew, too, that these two cynical men would not believe any such protestations for a moment. His apparent bargaining may even have won their respect; certainly they would deem a denial to be hypocritical and worthy of contempt.

  ‘Then I had better arrange for you to make Miranda’s acquaintance, Captain,’ said Marsden. ‘And I should be obliged if you would consider and elaborate a detailed plan for me to submit to His Lordship.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Orally, if you please. Nothing may be committed to paper regarding this plan, Captain. Except possibly your final report after achieving success.’

  ‘I understand, sir.’

  Was there the slightest hint of softening in Marsden’s expression? That last sentence of his was undoubtedly meant as a joke; it was something entirely out of the ordinary. Hornblower had a sudden insight; the Secretary, in addition to all his routine work, carried a responsibility which must occasion him considerable anxiety. He had necessarily to deal (because transient First Lords and Sea Lords could not maintain the needed continuity) with all matters of this sort, the gathering of information, the dissemination on occasions of false information – with spying, in fact, to use a single and ugly word. Hornblower could see already now how difficult it must be to find reliable agents, men who could be trusted not to play a double role. Marsden was experiencing relief at this moment, to such an extent as actually to show it.

  ‘I will make the arrangements for your posting to be gazetted, Captain.’ This was Barrow, attending to details. ‘You will read yourself in before the end of the week.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’

  When Hornblower reached the street the rain was only falling softly although with every appearance of doing so for a long time. He had no cloak, no tarpaulin, but he went out into the rain quite gladly. He felt he must walk and walk and walk. The rain on his face was pleasant, and he told himself that the soft rainwater would dissolve out the clammy sea-salt with which all his clothes were impregnated. The thought only distracted him for a moment from the others that were writhing in his brain like eels in a sack. He was about to become a captain at last, and he was about to become a spy.

  C. S. Forester died before he could finish Hornblower and the Crisis, but from the notes that he left behind it is possible to see how the story would have ended.

  Hornblower goes through a period of training in preparation for his spy mission. He brushes up his Spanish with a ruddy-complexioned Count Miranda whom he is to accompany to Spain in the disguise of the Count’s servant ‘He would have to watch every word and gesture, his life depended on doing nothing that would betray them.’ Then Hornblower goes through a crisis of conscience about becoming a spy.

  As he is rowed towards the ship that will take him from Spithead to Spain Hornblower thinks: One stage further along a hateful voyage. Each stroke of the boatman’s oars was carrying him nearer to a time of frightful strain; to something close to a certainty of a shameful and hideous death …

  He wonders whether to turn back, but sense of duty prevails.

  Forged letters are delivered to Villeneuve which prompts the Frenchman to come out and fight. This is what Nelson wants.

  It leads to the victory at Trafalgar. The course of history is changed.

  Hornblower and the Widow McCool

  The Channel Fleet was taking shelter at last. The roaring westerly gales had worked up to such a pitch that timber and canvas and cordage could withstand them no longer, and nineteen ships of the line and seven frigates, with Admiral Lord Bridport flying his flag in HMS Victory, had momentarily abandoned that watch over Brest which they had maintained for six years. Now they were rounding Berry Head and dropping anchor in the shelter of Tor Bay. A landsman, with that wind shrieking round him, might be pardoned for wondering how much shelter was to be found there, but to the weary and weatherbeaten crews who had spent so long tossing in the Biscay waves and clawing away from the rocky coast of Brittany, that foam-whitened anchorage was like paradise. Boats could even be sent in to Brixham and Torquay to return with letters and fresh water; in
most of the ships, officers and men had gone for three months without either. Even on that winter day there was intense physical pleasure in opening the throat and pouring down it a draught of fresh clear water, so different from the stinking green liquid doled out under guard yesterday.

  The junior lieutenant in HMS Renown was walking the deck muffled in his heavy pea-jacket while his ship wallowed at her anchor. The piercing wind set his eyes watering, but he continually gazed through his telescope nevertheless; for, as signal lieutenant, he was responsible for the rapid reading and transmission of messages, and this was a likely moment for orders to be given regarding sick and stores, and for captains and admirals to start chattering together, for invitations to dinner to be passed back and forth, and even for news to be disseminated.

  He watched a small boat claw its way toward the ship from the French prize the fleet had snapped up yesterday on its way up-Channel. Hart, master’s mate, had been sent on board from the Renown, as prizemaster, miraculously making the perilous journey. Now here was Hart, with the prize safely anchored amid the fleet, returning on board to make some sort of report. That hardly seemed likely to be of interest to a signal lieutenant, but Hart appeared excited as he came on board, and hurried below with his news after reporting himself in the briefest terms to the officer of the watch. But only a very few minutes passed before the signal lieutenant found himself called upon to be most active.

  It was Captain Sawyer himself who came on deck, Hart following him, to supervise the transmission of the messages. ‘Mr Hornblower!’

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Kindly send this signal.’

  It was for the Admiral himself, from the Captain; that part was easy; only two hoists were necessary to say, ‘Renown to Flag,’ And there were other technical terms which could be quickly expressed – ‘prize’ and ‘French’ and ‘brig’ – but there were names which would have to be spelled out letter for letter. ‘Prize is French national brig Espérance having on board Barry McCool.’