1‘This’ll do,’ said Hornblower to the landlady.

2‘Bring ’em up, ’Arry,’ yelled the landlady over her shoulder, and Hornblower heard the heavy feet of the idiot son on the uncarpeted stairs as he carried up his sea chest.

3There was a bed and a chair and a wash-hand stand; a mirror on the wall; all a man could need. These were the cheap lodgings recommended to him by the last postilion; there had been a certain commotion in the frowsy street when the post-chaise had turned into it from the Westminster Bridge Road and had pulled up outside the house—it was not at all the sort of street where post-chaises could be expected to be seen. The cries of the children outside who had been attracted by the sight could still be heard through the narrow window.

4‘Anything you want? ’ asked the landlady.

5‘Hot water,’ said Hornblower.

6The landlady looked a little harder at the man who wanted hot water at nine in the morning.

7‘Or right. I’ll get you some,’ she said.

8Hornblower looked round him at the room; it seemed to his disordered mind that if he were to relax his attention the room would have revolved round him on its own. He sat down in the chair; his backside felt as if it were one big bruise, as if it had been beaten with a club. It would have been far more comfortable to stretch out on the bed, but that he dared not do. He kicked off his shoes and wriggled out of his coat, and became aware that he stank.

9‘ ’Ere’s your ’ot water,’ said the landlady, re-entering.

10‘Thank you. ’

11When the door closed again Hornblower pulled himself wearily to his feet and took off the rest of his clothes. That was better; he had not had them off for three days, and this room was sweltering hot with the June sun blazing down on the roof above. Stupid with fatigue, he more than once had to stop to think what he should do next, as he sought out clean clothing and unrolled his housewife. The face he saw in the mirror was covered with hair on which the dust lay thick and he turned away from it in disgust.

12It was a grisly and awkward business to wash himself inch by inch in the wash basin, but it was restorative in some small degree. Everything he had been wearing was infiltrated with dust, which had penetrated everywhere—some had even seeped into his sea chest and pattered out when he lifted out his clothes. With his final pint of hot water he applied himself to shave.

13That brought about a decided improvement in his appearance although even now the face that looked out at him from the mirror was drawn very fine and with a pallor that made his tan look as if it were something painted on—that reminded him to look closely at his left jaw. Wear and tear as well as the shave had removed the paint that Maria had noticed. He put on clean clothes—of course they were faintly damp as always when newly come from the sea and would stay so until he could get them washed in fresh water. Now he was ready; he had consumed exactly the hour he had allowed himself. He picked up his bundle of papers and walked stiffly down the stairs.

14He was still incredibly stupid with fatigue. During the last hours in the post-chaise he had nodded off repeatedly while sitting up and lurching over the rutted roads. To travel post-haste had a romantic sound but it was utterly exhausting. When changing horses he had allowed himself sometimes half-an-hour—ten minutes in which to eat and twenty in which to doze with his head pillowed on his arms resting on the table. Better to be a sea officer than a courier, he decided. He paid his halfpenny toll on the bridge; normally he would have been greatly interested in the river traffic below him, but he could not spare it a glance at present. Then he turned up Whitehall and reached the Admiralty.

15Dreadnought Foster had displayed good sense in giving him that note; the doorkeeper eyed him and his bundle with intense suspicion when he first applied himself to him—it was not only cranks and madmen that he had to turn away, but the naval officers who came to pester Their Lordships for employment.

16‘I have a letter for Mr Marsden from Admiral Foster,’ said Hornblower, and was interested to see the doorkeeper’s expression soften at once.

17‘Would you please write a note to that effect on this form, sir? ’ he asked.

18Hornblower wrote ‘Bringing a message from Rear-Admiral Harry Foster’ and signed it, along with his boarding-house address.

19‘This way, sir,’ said the doorkeeper. Presumably—certainly, indeed—the Admiral commanding at Plymouth would have the right of immediate access, personally or through an emissary, to Their Lordships’ Secretary.

20The doorkeeper led Hornblower into a waiting room and bustled off with the note and the letter; in the waiting room there were several officers sitting in attitudes of expectancy or impatience or resignation, and Hornblower exchanged formal ‘good mornings’ with them before sitting down in a corner of the room. It was a wooden chair, unfriendly to his tormented sitting parts, but it had a high back with wings against which it was comfortable to lean.

21Somehow Frenchmen had boarded the Princess by surprise, in the darkness. Now they were raging through the little ship, swinging cutlasses. Everything on board was in a turmoil while Hornblower struggled to free himself from his hammock to fight for his life. Someone was shouting ‘Wake up, sir!’ which was the very thing he wanted to do but could not. Then he realised that the words were being shouted into his ear and someone was shaking him by the shoulder. He blinked twice and came back to life and consciousness.

22‘Mr Marsden will see you now, sir,’ said the unfamiliar figure who had awakened him.

23‘Thank you,’ replied Hornblower, seizing his bundle and getting stiffly to his feet.

24‘Fair off you was, sir,’ said the messenger. ‘Come this way, sir, please sir.’

25Hornblower could not remember whether the other individuals waiting were the same as he had first seen or had changed, but they eyed him with envious hostility as he walked out of the room.

26Mr Marsden was a tall and incredibly elegant gentleman of middle age, old-fashioned in that his hair was tied at the back with a ribbon, yet elegant all the same because the style exactly suited him. Hornblower knew him to be already a legendary figure. His name was known throughout England because it was to him that dispatches were addressed (‘Sir, I have the honour to inform you for the further information of Their Lordships that—’) and printed in the newspapers in that form. First Lords might come and First Lords might go—as Lord Barham had just come and Lord Melville had just gone—and so might Sea Lords, and so might Admirals, but Mr Marsden remained the Secretary. It was he who handled all the executive work of the greatest navy the world have ever seen. Of course he had a large staff, no fewer than forty clerks, so Hornblower had heard, and he had an assistant secretary, Mr Barrow, who was almost as well known as he was, but even so out of everybody in the world Mr Marsden could most nearly be described as the one who was fighting single-handed the war to the death against the French Empire and Bonaparte.

27It was a lovely elegant room looking out on to the Horse Guards Parade, a room that exactly suited Mr Marsden, who was seated at an oval table. At his shoulder stood an elderly clerk, grey-haired and lean, of an obviously junior grade, to judge by his threadbare coat and frayed linen.

28Only the briefest salutations were exchanged while Hornblower put his bundle down on the table.

29‘See what there is here, Dorsey,’ said Marsden over his shoulder to the clerk, and then, to Hornblower, ‘How did these come into your possession?’

30Hornblower told of the momentary capture of the Guèpe; Mr Marsden kept his grey eyes steadily on Hornblower’s face during the brief narrative.

31‘The French captain was killed? ’ asked Marsden.

32‘Yes. ’

33There was no need to tell about what Meadows’ cutlass had done to the French captain’s head.

34‘That indicates that this may be genuine,’ decided Marsden, and Hornblower was puzzled momentarily until he realised that Marsden meant that there had been no ruse-de-guerre and that the papers had not been deliberately ‘planted’ on him.

35‘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 counterattack on her.

36‘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?’

37‘Nothing of great importance except this, sir. ’

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

39‘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.’

40Dorsey reached down and took a penknife from the tray in front of Marsden, and cut the twine, and the sandwich fell apart.

41‘Ah! ’ said Dorsey.

42It was a large linen envelope, heavily sealed in three places, and Dorsey studied the seals closely before looking over at Hornblower.

43‘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.’

44He handed it to Marsden, and tapped the seals with his finger.

45‘Those are the seals of this newfangled Empire of Bonaparte’s, sir,’ he said. ‘Three good specimens.’

46It was only a few months before, as Hornblower realised, 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.

47‘I would like to open this carefully, sir,’ said Dorsey.

48‘Very well. You may go and attend to it. ’

49Fate 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.

50Later 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.

51For 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.

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

53Marsden took the dispatch and read it with care.

54‘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.’

55Marsden 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.

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

57‘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.

58‘But that may be of vital importance, Captain. What was the purport of it? ’

59‘It is being opened at the present moment, sir. Mr Dorsey is attending to that. ’

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

61‘I fancied so, sir. ’

62There was a moment’s pause, while Hornblower braced himself to make the request that was clamouring inside him for release.

63‘What about this news, sir? What about Villeneuve? Could you tell me, sir? ’

64‘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.’

65‘No prizes, sir? ’

66‘Calder seems to have taken a couple of Spaniards. ’

67Two 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.

68‘And Villeneuve broke through into Ferrol, sir? ’

69‘Yes. ’

70‘That’s a difficult place to watch,’ commented Hornblower.

71‘Do you know Ferrol? ’ demanded Barrow, sharply.

72‘Fairly well, sir. ’

73‘How? ’

74‘I was a prisoner of war there in ’97, sir. ’

75‘Did you escape? ’

76‘No, sir, they set me free. ’

77‘By exchange? ’

78‘No, sir. ’

79‘Then why? ’

80‘I helped to save life in a shipwreck. ’

81‘You did? So you know about conditions in Ferrol? ’

82‘Fairly well, sir, as I said. ’

83‘Indeed. And you say it’s a difficult place to watch. Why? ’

84Sitting 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.

85Hornblower 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.

86‘First of all it’s a matter of distance,’ he began. ‘It’s not like blockading Brest.’

87Plymouth 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.

88‘Even more with prevailing westerly winds,’ he added.

89‘Please go on, Captain,’ said Barrow.

90‘But really that is not as important as the other factors, sir,’ said Hornblower.

91It 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.

92‘You seem to have made good use of your time in Ferrol, Captain,’ said Barrow.

93Hornblower 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 realised, self-consciously, that for a moment he had allowed Barrow a glimpse into his inner feelings.

94‘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.

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

96Hornblower shied away from this personal conversation like a skittish horse.

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

98‘And what is that? ’

99The 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.

100‘You know something of these roads, Captain? ’

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

102‘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. ’

103‘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.

104‘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. ’

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

106These were questions for Admirals, and it was not healthy for junior officers to become involved in them.

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

108Hornblower 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.

109‘Just possibly, sir,’ he said.

110He 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.

111That 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.

112Dorsey halted at sight of Barrow.

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

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

115Dorsey’s glance wavered over to Hornblower and back again.

116‘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.

117First there were half a dozen discs of white wax laid out on a tray.

118‘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.’

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

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

121He 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.

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

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

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

125‘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.’

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

127The superscription said ‘Palais des Tuileries’ and ‘Cabinet Impériale’.

128‘These are new? ’ asked Barrow.

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

130‘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.

131‘You read French, sir? ’ asked Barrow.

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

133Monsieur 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.

134‘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. ’

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

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

137To reinforce the West Indies would necessitate risking some of Bonaparte’s naval forces at sea.

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

139‘Yes. ’

140Hornblower 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.

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

142Hornblower 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.

143‘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.’

144It 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.

145‘No further messages, Mr Barrow? ’

146‘None, Mr Marsden. ’

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

148The 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.

149‘This captured dispatch of Captain Hornblower’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.

150Yet it was only a matter of moments for Marsden to read the dispatch and to grasp the important features of the writing of it.

151‘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.

152Hornblower 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.

153Marsden was looking at him—through him—with those cold eyes.

154‘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.

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

156‘Exactly why do you hope that? ’

157It was a bewildering question, bewildering because its answer was so obvious.

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

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

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

161This 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.

162‘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.’

163‘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.

164‘With this as a model? ’ repeated Marsden.

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

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

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

168There was nothing else to be done. An end to discretion.

169‘An order from Boney to Villeneuve, telling him to sail from Ferrol at all costs. It would have to give a reason—say that Decrès 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. ’

170Now he had committed himself. Two pairs of eyes were staring at him fixedly.

171‘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.’

172The Secretary to the Board of Admiralty probably received crackpot schemes for the destruction of the French navy every day of the week.

173‘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?’

174‘At least,’ admitted Marsden.

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

176‘He would,’ agreed Barrow.

177‘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-de-camp—would ride with the orders through Spain, from the French frontier to Ferrol. ’

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

179‘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’s dispatches, Mr Marsden.’

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

181‘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.’

182There was the whole plan, fantastic and yet—and yet—at least faintly possible. At least not demonstrably impossible.

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

184‘I saw something of them, sir. ’

185Hornblower turned back from addressing Barrow to find Marsden’s gaze still unwavering, fixed on his face.

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

187This 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.

188‘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? ’

189‘Millions,’ said Barrow.

190‘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. ’

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

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

193He 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 feather-brained crackpots for whom Marsden must have so much contempt. He rose in irritation from 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.

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

195There 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.

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

197‘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. ’

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

199‘Easily enough, sir. ’

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

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

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

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

204There 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.

205‘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?’

206‘Yes. ’

207‘Then I shall send for you very shortly. ’

208‘Aye aye, sir. ’

209Hornblower had shut the door before he experienced any qualm regarding using this purely naval expression towards a civilian, nor did it linger, with so much else for his weary brain to think about. He wanted food; he was desperately in need of sleep. He hardly cared about the unknown Miranda, this mysterious Claudius in Newgate Gaol. What he must do was to eat himself into a torpor, and then sleep, and sleep, and sleep. But also he must write to Maria.