Admiral Hornblower

by C. S. Forester

  ‘Pardon, sir, but do you hear anything? Gunfire, maybe?’

  Hornblower strained his attention.

  ‘Yes, gunfire, by God,’ he said.

  It was the lowest, faintest muttering, coming upwind from the distant shore.

  ‘The Frogs have got there before us, sir,’ said Bush.

  ‘Be ready to anchor,’ said Hornblower.

  Nonsuch crept steadily on, gliding at three or four knots towards the land; the water around her was greyish yellow with the mud borne down by a great river. The mouth of the Dwina was only a mile or two ahead, and with the spring rains and the melting of the snows the river must be in full flood. The buoys of a middle-ground shoal enabled Hornblower to make sure of his position; he was coming within long cannon-shot of those flat green shores. As though standing in the yellow water there was a church visible on the starboard bow, with an onion-shaped dome surmounted by a cross which reflected back to him, even at that distance, the red glare of the sunset. That must be the village of Daugavgriva, on the left bank; if it were in French hands entrance to the river would be dangerous, perhaps impossible, as soon as they had big guns mounted there. Maybe they already had.

  ‘Captain Bush,’ said Hornblower, ‘I’d be obliged if you would anchor.’

  The cable roared out through the hawsehole, and Nonsuch swung round to the wind as the hands, pouring aloft, took in the sails. The rest of the squadron came up and prepared to anchor just when Hornblower was beginning to feel he had been too precipitate, or at least when he was regretting bitterly that night had come upon him before he could open communication with the shore.

  ‘Call away my barge,’ he ordered. ‘Captain Bush, I am shifting to Harvey. You will assume command of the squadron during my absence.’

  Mound was at the side to welcome him as he swung himself up over Harvey’s low freeboard.

  ‘Square away, Mr Mound. We’ll close the shore in the direction of that church. Set a good hand at work with the lead.’

  The bomb-ketch, with anchor catted and ready to let go, stole forward over the still water. There was still plenty of light from the sky, for here in 57° North, within a few days of the solstice, the sun was not very far below the horizon.

  ‘Moon rises in an hour’s time, sir,’ said Mound, ‘three-quarters full.’

  It was a marvellous evening, cool and invigorating. There was only the tiniest whisper of water round the bows of the ketch as she glided over the silvery surface; Hornblower felt that they only needed a few pretty women on board and someone strumming a guitar to make a yachting expedition of it. Something on shore attracted his attention, and he whipped his glass to his eye at the very moment when Mound beside him did the same.

  ‘Lights on shore,’ said Mound.

  ‘Those are bivouac fires,’ said Hornblower.

  He had seen bivouac fires before – the fires of el Supremo’s army in Central America, the fires of the landing force at Rosas. They sparkled ruddily in the twilight, in roughly regular lines. Traversing his glass round, Hornblower picked up further groups of lights; there was a dark space between one mass and the other, which Hornblower pointed out to Mound.

  ‘That’s no-man’s-land between the two forces, I fancy,’ he said. ‘The Russians must be holding the village as an outwork on the left bank of the river.’

  ‘Couldn’t all those fires be French fires, sir?’ asked Mound. ‘Or Russian fires?’

  ‘No,’ said Hornblower. ‘Soldiers don’t bivouac if they can billet in villages with roofs over their heads. If two armies weren’t in presence they’d all be comfortably asleep in the cottagers’ beds and barns.’

  There was a long pause while Mound digested this.

  ‘Two fathoms, sir,’ he said, at length. ‘I’d like to bear up, if I may.’

  ‘Very good. Carry on. Keep as close inshore as you think proper.’

  The Harvey came round with the wind abeam, half a dozen hands hauling lustily on the mainsheet. There was the moon, rising round and red over the land; the dome of the church was silhouetted against it. A sharp cry came from the forward lookout.

  ‘Boat ahead! Fine on the port bow, sir. Pulling oars.’

  ‘Catch that boat if you can, Mr Mound,’ said Hornblower.

  ‘Aye aye, sir. Starboard two points! Clear away the gig. Boat’s crew stand by!’

  They could see the dim shape of the boat not far ahead; they could even see the splashes of the oars. It occurred to Hornblower that the rowers could not be men of much skill, and whoever was in charge was not very quick in the uptake if he wanted to avoid capture; he should have headed instantly for shoal water if he wanted to avoid capture, while as it was he tried to pit oars against sails – a hopeless endeavour even with that light breeze blowing. It was several minutes before they turned for the shore, and during that time their lead was greatly reduced.

  ‘Hard-a-lee!’ roared Mound. ‘Away, gig!’

  Harvey came into the wind, and as she lost her way the gig dropped into the water with the boat’s crew falling into it.

  ‘I want prisoners!’ roared Hornblower at the departing boat.

  ‘Aye aye, sir,’ came the reply as the oars tore the water.

  Under the impulse of the skilled oarsmen the gig rapidly was overtaking the strange boat; they could see the distance narrowing as the two boats disappeared in the faint light. Then they saw the orange-red flashes of half a dozen pistol-shots, and the faint reports reached them over the water directly after.

  ‘Let’s hope they’re not Russians, sir,’ said Mound.

  The possibility had occurred to Hornblower as well, and he was nervous and uncomfortable, but he spoke bluffly –

  ‘Russians wouldn’t run away. They wouldn’t expect to find Frenchmen at sea.’

  Soon two boats, rowing slowly, emerged from the gloom.

  ‘We’ve got ’em all, sir,’ said a voice in reply to Mound’s hail.

  Five prisoners were thrust up on to the deck of the Harvey, one of them groaning with a pistol bullet through his arm. Someone produced a lantern and shone it on them, and Hornblower heaved a sigh of relief when he saw that the star which glittered on the breast of the leader was the Legion of Honour.

  ‘I would like to know monsieur’s name and rank,’ he said, politely, in French.

  ‘Jussey, chef de bataillon du corps de Génie des armées de l’Empereur.’

  A major of engineers; quite an important capture. Hornblower bowed and presented himself, his mind working rapidly on the problem of how to induce the major to say all he knew.

  ‘I regret very much the necessity of taking M. le chef de bataillon prisoner,’ he said. ‘Especially at the beginning of such a promising campaign. But good fortune may allow me the opportunity of arranging a cartel of exchange at an early date. I presume M. le chef de bataillon has friends in the French Army whom he would like informed of what has happened to him? I will take the opportunity of the first flag of truce to do so.’

  ‘The Marshal Duke of Tarentum would be glad to hear,’ said Jussey, brightening a little. ‘I am on his staff.’

  The Marshal Duke of Tarentum was Macdonald, the local French commander-in-chief – son of a Scottish exile who had fled after the Young Pretender’s rebellion – so that it seemed likely that Jussey was the chief engineer, a bigger catch than Hornblower had hoped for.

  ‘It was extremely bad fortune for you to fall into our hands,’ said Hornblower. ‘You have no reason to suspect the presence of a British squadron operating in the bay.’

  ‘Indeed I had none. Our information was to the contrary. These Livonians—’

  So the French staff was obtaining information from Livonian traitors; Hornblower might have guessed it, but it was as well to be sure.

  ‘Of course they are useless, like all Russians,’ said Hornblower, soothingly. ‘I suppose your Emperor has met with little opposition?’

  ‘Smolensk is ours, and the Emperor marches on Moscow. It is our mission to occupy St Petersburg.
’

  ‘But perhaps passing the Dwina will be difficult?’

  Jussey shrugged in the lamplight.

  ‘I do not expect so. A bold push across the mouth of the river and the Russians will retreat the moment their flank is turned.’

  So that was what Jussey was doing; reconnoitring for a suitable place to land a French force on the Russian side of the river mouth.

  ‘A daring move, sir, worthy of all the great traditions of the French Army. But no doubt you have ample craft to transport your force?’

  ‘Some dozens of barges. We seized them at Mitau before the Russians could destroy them.’

  Jussey checked himself abruptly, clearly disturbed at realising how much he had said.

  ‘Russians are always incompetent,’ said Hornblower, in a tone of complete agreement. ‘A prompt attack on your part, giving them no chance of steadying themselves, is of course your best plan of operations. But will you pardon me, sir, while I attend to my duties?’

  There was no chance of wheedling anything more out of Jussey at the moment. But he had at least yielded up the vital information that the French had laid hands on a fleet of barges which the Russians had neglected, or been unable, to destroy, and that they planned a direct attack across the river mouth. By feigning entire indifference Hornblower felt that Jussey might be inveigled later into talking freely again. Jussey bowed, and Hornblower turned to Mound.

  ‘We’ll return to the squadron,’ he said.

  Mound gave the orders which laid the Harvey’s closehauled on the starboard tack – the French prisoners ducked hastily as the big mainsail boom swung over their heads, and the seamen bumped into them as they ran to the sheet. While Jussey and Hornblower had been talking two of the prisoners had cut off the sleeve of the wounded man and bandaged his arm; now they all squatted in the scuppers out of the way, while the Harvey crept back to where the Nonsuch lay at anchor.

  XVIII

  ‘Oars,’ said Brown, and the barge’s crew ceased to pull. ‘In bows.’

  The bow oarsman brought his oar into the boat and grabbed for the boathook, and Brown laid the barge neatly alongside the quay while the rushing Dwina river eddied about it. An interested crowd of the people of Riga watched the operation, and stared stolidly at Hornblower as he ran up the stone steps to road level, epaulettes, star, and sword all a-glitter in the scorching sunshine. Beyond the line of warehouses along the quay he was vaguely aware of a wide square surrounded by medieval stone buildings with high-pitched roofs, but he had no attention to spare for this his first close sight of Riga. There was the usual guard of honour to salute, the usual officer at its head, and beside it the burly figure of the Governor, General Essen.

  ‘Welcome to the city, sir,’ said Essen. He was a Baltic German, a descendant of those Knights of the Sword who had conquered Livonia from the heathen centuries before, and the French which he spoke had some of the explosive quality of the French spoken by an Alsatian.

  An open carriage, to which were harnessed two spirited horses who pawed restlessly at the ground, awaited them, and the Governor handed Hornblower in and followed him.

  ‘It is only the shortest distance to go,’ he said, ‘but we shall take this opportunity of letting the people see us.’

  The carriage lurched and bounced frightfully over the cobbled streets; Hornblower had twice to straighten his cocked hat which was jerked sideways on his head, but he endeavoured to sit up straight and unconcerned as they dashed along narrow streets full of people who eyed them with interest. There was no harm in allowing the inhabitants of a beleaguered city the opportunity of seeing a British naval officer in full uniform – his presence would be a pledge that Riga was not alone in her hour of trial.

  ‘The Ritterhaus,’ explained Essen, as the coachman pulled up his horses outside a handsome old building with a line of sentries posted before it.

  The reception awaited them, officers in uniform, a few civilians in black, and many, many women in gala dresses. Several of the officers Hornblower had already met at the conference that morning at Dwina Maude; Essen proceeded to present the more important of the rest of the company.

  ‘His Excellency the Intendant of Livonia,’ said Essen, ‘and the Countess—’

  ‘It has already been my great pleasure to meet the Countess,’ interposed Hornblower.

  ‘The Commodore was my partner at dinner at the Peterhof,’ said the Countess.

  She was as beautiful and as vivacious as ever; maybe, as she stood there with her hand on her husband’s arm, her glance was not so sultry. She bowed to Hornblower with a polite indifference. Her husband was tall, bony, and elderly, with a thin moustache that drooped from his lip, and short-sighted eyes that he assisted with a quizzing glass. Hornblower bowed to him, endeavouring to behave as though this were only one more ordinary meeting. It was ridiculous to feel embarassed at this encounter, yet he was, and had to struggle to conceal it. Yet the beaky-nosed Intendant of Livonia eyed him with even more indifference than did his wife; most of the others who were presented to Hornblower were obviously delighted to meet the English naval officer, but the Intendant made no effort to hide the fact that to him, the direct representative of the Czar and an habitué of Imperial palaces, this provincial reception was tedious and uninteresting, and the guest of honour nobody of importance.

  Hornblower had learned his lesson regarding the etiquette of a Russian formal dinner; the tables of hors d’oeuvres he knew now to be mere preliminaries. He tasted caviare and vodka once again, and the very pleasant combination of flavours called up a sudden host of memories. Without being able to prevent himself he glanced across at the Countess, and caught her eye as she stood chattering with half a dozen grave men in uniform. It was only for a moment, but that was long enough. Her glance seemed to tell him that she, too, was haunted by the same memories. Hornblower’s head whirled a little, and he made a prompt resolve to drink nothing more that night. He turned and plunged hastily into conversation with the Governor.

  ‘How delightfully complementary to each other are vodka and caviare,’ he said. ‘They are worthy to rank with those other combinations of food discovered by the pioneers of the gastronomic art. Eggs and bacon, partridge and Burgundy, spinach and – and—’

  He fumbled for a French word for ‘gammon’, and the Governor supplied it, his little pig’s eyes lighting up with interest in the midst of his big red face.

  ‘You are a gastronome, sir?’ he said.

  The rest of the time before dinner passed easily enough then, with Hornblower well exercised in having to discuss food with someone to whom food was clearly a matter of deep interest. Hornblower drew a little on his imagination to describe the delicacies of the West Indies and of Central America; fortunately during his last period of leave he had moved in wealthy London circles with his wife and had eaten at several renowned tables, including that of the Mansion House, which gave him a solid basis of European experience with which to supplement his imagination. The Governor had taken advantage of the campaigns in which he had served to study the foods of the different countries. Vienna and Prague had fed him during the Austerlitz campaign; he had drunk resinated wine in the Seven Islands; he rolled up his eyes in ecstasy at the memory of frutti di mare consumed in Leghorn when he had served in Italy under Suvaroff. Bavarian beer, Swedish schnapps, Danzig goldwasser – he had drunk of them all, just as he had eaten Westphalian ham and Italian beccaficoes and Turkish rahat lakoum. He listened with rapt attention when Hornblower spoke of grilled flying-fish and Trinidad pepperpot, and it was with the deepest regret that he parted with Hornblower to take his place at the head of the dinner table; even then he persisted in calling Hornblower’s attention to the dishes being served, leaning forward to address him across two ladies and the Intendant of Livonia, and when dinner was ended he apologised to Hornblower for the abrupt termination of the meal, complaining bitterly of the fact that he had to gulp his final glass of brandy because they were already nearly an hour late for the gala pe
rformance of the ballet where they were next due to go.

  He walked heavily up the stone stairs of the theatre, his spurs ringing and his sword clattering as it trailed beside him. Two ushers led the way, and behind Hornblower and Essen walked the others of the inner circle, the Countess and her husband and two other officials and their wives. The ushers held open the door of the box, and Hornblower waited on the threshold for the ladies to enter.

  ‘The Commodore will go first,’ said Essen, and Hornblower plunged in. The theatre was brightly lighted, and parterre and gallery were crowded; Hornblower’s entrance drew a storm of applause, which smote upon his ears and momentarily paralysed him as he stood there. A fortunate instinct prompted him to bow, first to one side and then to the other, as if he were an actor, as he said to himself. Then someone thrust a chair behind him and he sat down, with the rest of the party round him. Throughout the auditorium ushers immediately began to turn down the lamps, and the orchestra broke into the overture. The curtain rose to reveal a woodland scene, and the ballet began.

  ‘A lively thing, this Madame Nicolas,’ said the Governor in a penetrating whisper. ‘Tell me if you like her. I can send for her after the performance if you desire.’

  ‘Thank you,’ whispered Hornblower in reply, feeling ridiculously embarrassed. The Countess was close on his other side and he was too conscious of her warmth to feel comfortable.

  The music hurried on, and in the golden glow of the footlights the ballet went through its dazzling maze, skirts flying and feet twinkling. It was incorrect to say that music meant nothing to Hornblower; the monotonous beat of its rhythm, when he was compelled to listen to it for long, stirred something in the depths of him even while its guessed-at sweetness tormented his ear like a Chinese water torture. Five minutes of music left him dull and unmoved; fifteen minutes made him restless; an hour was sheer agony. He forced himself to sit still during the long ordeal, even though he felt he would gladly exchange his chair in the box for the quarterdeck of a ship in the hottest and most hopeless battle ever fought. He tried to shut his ears to the persistent insidious noise, to distract himself by concentrating his attention on the dancers, on Madame Nicolas as she pirouetted across the stage in her shimmering white, on the others as, chin on finger and the other hand supporting the elbow, they came down the stage a-tiptoe in alluring line. Yet it was of no avail, and his misery increased from minute to minute.