Hornblower and the Crisis

by Forester, C. S.

  “The French captain was killed?” asked Marsden.

  “Yes.”

  There was no need to tell about what Meadows' cutlass had done to the French captain's head.

  “That indicates that this may be genuine,” decided Marsden, and Hornblower was puzzled momentarily until he realized that Marsden meant that there had been no ruse de guerre and that the papers had not been deliberately 'planted' on him.

  “Quite genuine, I think, sir. You see —” he said, and went on to point out that the French brig could not have expected for one moment that the Princess would launch a counter attack on her.

  “Yes,” agreed Marsden; he was a man of icy cold manner, speaking in a tone unchangingly formal. “You must understand that Bonaparte would sacrifice any man's life if he could mislead us in exchange. But, as you say, Captain, these circumstances were completely unpredictable. What have you found, Dorsey?”

  “Nothing of great importance except this, sir.”

  'This' was of course the leaden covered dispatch. Dorsey was looking keenly at the twine which bound up the sandwich.

  “That's not the work of Paris,” he said. “That was tied in the ship. This label was probably written by the captain, too. Pardon me, sir.”

  Dorsey reached down and took a penknife from the tray in front of Marsden, and cut the twine, and the sandwich fell apart.

  “Ah!” said Dorsey.

  It was a large linen envelope, heavily sealed in three places, and Dorsey studied the seals closely before looking over at Hornblower.

  “Sir,” said Dorsey. “You have brought us something valuable. Very valuable, I should say, sir. This is the first of its kind to come into our possession.”

  He handed it to Marsden, and tapped the seals with his finger.

  “Those are the seals of this newfangled Empire of Bonaparte's, sir,” he said. “Three good specimens.”

  It was only a few months before, as Hornblower realized, that Bonaparte had proclaimed himself Emperor and the Republican Consulate had given place to the Empire. When Marsden permitted him to look closely, he could see the imperial eagle with its thunderbolt, but to his mind not quite as dignified a bird as it might be, for the feathers that sheathed its legs offered a grotesque impression of trousers.

  “I would like to open this carefully, sir,” said Dorsey.

  “Very well. You may go and attend to it.”

  Fate hung in the balance for Hornblower at that moment; somehow Hornblower was aware of it, with uneasy premonition, while Marsden kept his cold eyes fixed on his face, apparently as a preliminary to dismissing him.

  Later in his life — even within a month or two — Hornblower could look back in perspective at this moment as one in which his destiny was diverted in one direction instead of in another, dependent on a single minute's difference in timing. He was reminded, when he looked back, of the occasions when musket balls had missed him by no more than a foot or so; the smallest, microscopic correction of aim on the part of the marksman would have laid Hornblower lifeless, his career at an end. Similarly at this moment a few seconds' delay along the telegraph route, a minute's dilatoriness on the part of a messenger, and Hornblower's life would have followed a different path.

  For the door at the end of the room opened abruptly and another elegant gentleman came striding in. He was some years younger than Marsden, and dressed soberly but in the very height of fashion, his lightly starched collar reaching to his ears, and a white waistcoat picked out with black calling unobtrusive attention to the slenderness of his waist. Marsden looked round with some annoyance at this intrusion, but restrained himself when he saw who the intruder was, especially when he saw a sheet of paper fluttering in his hand.

  “Villeneuve's in Ferrol,” said the newcomer. “This has just come by telegraph. Calder fought him off Finisterre and was given the slip.”

  Marsden took the dispatch and read it with care.

  “This will be for His Lordship,” he said, calmly, rising with deliberation from his chair. Even then he did not noticeably hurry. “Mr Barrow, this is Captain Hornblower. You had better hear about his recent acquisition.”

  Marsden went out through a hardly perceptible door behind him, bearing news of the most vital, desperate importance. Villeneuve had more than twenty ships of the line, French and Spanish — ships which could cover Bonaparte's crossing of the Channel — and he had been lost to sight for the last three weeks since Nelson had pursued him to the West Indies. Calder had been stationed off Finisterre to intercept and destroy him and had apparently failed in his mission.

  “What is this acquisition, Captain?” asked Barrow, the simple question breaking into Hornblower's train of thought like a pistol shot.

  “Only a dispatch from Bonaparte, sir,” he said. He used the 'sir' deliberately, despite his confusion — Barrow was after all the Second Secretary, and his name was nearly as well known as Marsden's.

  “But that may be of vital importance, Captain. What was the purport of it?”

  “It is being opened at the present moment, sir. Mr Dorsey is attending to that.”

  “I see. Dorsey in forty years in this office has become accustomed to handling captured documents. It is his particular department.”

  “I fancied so, sir.”

  There was a moment's pause, while Hornblower braced himself to make the request that was clamouring inside him for release.

  “What about this news, sir? What about Villeneuve? Could you tell me, sir?”

  “No harm in your knowing,” said Barrow. “A Gazette will have to be issued as soon as it can be arranged. Calder met Villeneuve off Finisterre. He was in action with him for the best part of two days — it was thick weather — and then they seem to have parted.”

  “No prizes, sir?”

  “Calder seems to have taken a couple of Spaniards.”

  Two fleets, each of twenty ships or more, had fought for two days with no more result than that. England would be furious — for that matter England might be in very serious peril. The French had probably employed their usual evasive tactics, edging down to leeward with their broad sides fully in action while the British tried to close and paid the price for the attempt.

  “And Villeneuve broke through into Ferrol, sir?”

  “Yes.”

  “That's a difficult place to watch,” commented Hornblower.

  “Do you know Ferrol?” demanded Barrow, sharply.

  “Fairly well, sir.”

  “How?”

  “I was a prisoner of war there in '97, sir.”

  “Did you escape?”

  “No, sir, they set me free.”

  “By exchange?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Then why?”

  “I helped to save life in a shipwreck.”

  “You did? So you know about conditions in Ferrol?”

  “Fairly well, sir, as I said.”

  “Indeed. And you say it's a difficult to watch. Why?”

  Sitting in a peaceful office in London a man could experience as many surprises as on the deck of a frigate at sea. Instead of a white squall suddenly whipping out of an unexpected quarter, or instead of an enemy suddenly appearing on the horizon, here was a question demanding an immediate answer regarding the difficulty of blockading Ferrol. This was a civilian, a landsman, who needed the information, and urgently. For the first time in a century the First Lord was a seaman, an Admiral — it would be a feather in the Second Secretary's cap if in the next, immediate conference he could display familiarity with conditions in Ferrol.

  Hornblower had to express in words what up to that moment he had only been conscious of as a result of his seaman's instinct. He had to think fast to present an orderly statement.

  “First of all it's a matter of distance,” he began. “It's not like blockading Brest.”

  Plymouth would be the base in each case; from Plymouth to Brest was less than fifty leagues, while from Plymouth to Ferrol was nearly two hundred — communication
and supply would be four times as difficult, as Hornblower pointed out.

  “Even more with prevailing westerly winds,” he added.

  “Please go on, Captain,” said Barrow.

  “But really that is not as important as the other factors, sir,” said Hornblower.

  It was easy to go on from there. A fleet blockading Ferrol had no friendly refuge to leeward. A fleet blockading Brest could run to Tor Bay in a westerly tempest — the strategy of the past fifty years had been based on that geographical fact. A fleet blockading Cadiz could rely on the friendly neutrality of Portugal, and had Lisbon on one flank and Gibraltar on the other. Nelson watching Toulon had made use of anchorages on the Sardinian coast. But off Ferrol it would be a different story. Westerly gales would drive a blockading fleet into the cul de sac of the Bay of Biscay whose shores were not merely hostile but wild and steep to, with rain and fog. To keep watch over Villeneuve in Ferrol, particularly in winter, would impose an intolerable strain on the watcher, especially as the exits from Ferrol were far easier and more convenient than the single exit from Brest — the largest imaginable fleet could sortie from Ferrol in a single tide, which no large French fleet had ever succeeded in doing from Brest. He recalled what he had observed in Ferrol regarding the facilities for the prompt watering of a fleet, for berthing, for supply; the winds that were favourable for exit and the winds that made exit impossible; the chances of a blockader making furtive contact with the shore — as he himself had later done off Brest — and the facilities to maintain close observation over a blockaded force.

  “You seem to have made good use of your time in Ferrol, Captain,” said Barrow.

  Hornblower would have shrugged his shoulders, but restrained himself in time from indulging in so un English a gesture. The memory of that desperately unhappy time came back to him in a flood and he was momentarily lost in retrospective misery. He came back into the present to find Barrow's eyes still fixed on him with curiosity, and he realized, selfconciously, that for a moment he had allowed Barrow a glimpse into his inner feelings.

  “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 commital 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.