“Why the devil didn’t I go myself?” he demanded of no one in particular. “Captain Bush, I’ll be obliged if you’ll have my barge called away.”
“But the smallpox, sir —”
“Smallpox be damned. And there’s none on board that ship.”
The midshipman’s voice came across the water to them.
“Nonsuch ahoy! She’s a prize. Taken yesterday by a French privateer.”
“Who’s that captain I was speaking to?” demanded Hornblower.
“A renegade Englishman, sir. He shot himself as we came on board.”
“Is he dead?”
“Not yet, sir.”
“Mr Hurst,” said Bush, “send the surgeon over. I’ll give him one minute to get his gear together. I want that renegade’s life saved so that we can see how he looks at a yard-arm.”
“Send him in my barge,” said Hornblower, and then, through the speaking-trumpet. “Send the prisoners and the ship’s officers over to me.”
“Aye aye, sir.”
“And now I’ll get some clothes on, by God,” said Hornblower; he had only just realized that he had been standing naked on the quarter-deck for an hour or more — if he had obeyed his first impulse and gone over in his barge he would have boarded the Maggie Jones without a stitch on.
The captain and the two mates were ushered down into Hornblower’s cabin, where he and Bush questioned them eagerly, the chart of the Baltic spread out before him.
“We heard that renegade tell you the truth, sir,” said the captain. “We were ten days out from Memel, bound for the Belt, when he pounced on us yesterday — big ship-rigged privateer, ten guns a side, flush-decked. Name Blanchefleur, whatever way you say it. What the Frogs call a corvette. French colours. They put a prize crew on board under that renegade — Clarke’s his name, sir — an’ I think we were headed for Kiel when you caught us. They shut us up in the lazarette. God, how we yelled, hoping you’d hear us.”
“We heard you,” said Bush.
“How were things at Memel when you left?” demanded Hornblower.
The captain’s face wrinkled; if he had been French he would have shrugged his shoulders.
“The same as ever. Russian ports are still closed to us, but they’ll give anyone a licence to trade who asks for it. It’s the same with the Swedes on the other side.”
“What about war between Bonaparte and Russia?”
This time the tangle of doubt really made the captain shrug.
“Everyone’s talking about it, but nothing definite yet. Soldiers everywhere. If Boney really fights ‘em he’ll find ‘em as ready as Russians ever are.”
“Do you think he will?”
“I wish you’d tell me, sir. I don’t know. But it was true what Clarke told you, sir. The Tsar and Bernadotte are meeting soon. Perhaps you can guess what that means. It means nothing to a plain man like me, sir. There have been so many of these meetings and conferences and congresses.”
So there it was; Sweden and Russia were still in the equivocal position of being nominal enemies of England and nominal allies of Bonaparte, pretending to make war, pretending to be at peace, half belligerent, half neutral, in the strange manner which seemed to have become fashionable nowadays. It was still doubtful whether Bonaparte would take the tremendous step of waging war on Russia. No one could analyse Bonaparte’s motives. One might think that he would do better for himself by turning all his vast resources towards finishing off the war in Spain and endeavouring to strike down England before attempting the conquest of the East; but on the other hand a swift decisive blow at Russia might free him from the menace of a powerful and doubtfully friendly nation at his back. Bonaparte had conquered so often; he had struck down every nation in Europe — except England — and it hardly seemed likely that Russia could withstand the impact of his massed forces. With Russia beaten he would have no enemies left on the mainland at all. There would only be England left to oppose him, single-handed. It was comforting that England had not taken active measures in support of Finland when Russia attacked her, all the same. That made a working alliance with Russia far more practicable now.
“Now tell me more about this Blanchefleur,” said Hornblower bending over the chart.
“She nabbed us off Rügen, sir. Sassnitz bore so’west, eight miles. You see, sir —”
Hornblower listened to the explanations with attention. A twenty-gun corvette under a good French captain was a serious menace loose in the Baltic With the trade beginning to move on the melting of the ice it would be his first duty to capture her or drive her into port and blockade her. A ship of that force would be able to put up a good fight even against one of his sloops. He hoped he could entrap her, for she would be far too fast for Nonsuch to overhaul her in a stern chase. She was sending her prizes into Kiel, for there they could dispose of the prisoners, pick up a French crew, and start the hazardous voyage round Denmark to the west — Bonaparte needed naval stores, with ships of war building in every port from Hamburg to Trieste.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “I’ll not detain you longer. Captain Bush, we’ll talk to the prisoners next.”
But there was little to learn from the seamen of the captured prize crew, even though they were brought in separately for questioning. Four of them were Frenchmen; Hornblower conducted his own examination of them, with Bush looking on admiringly. Bush had already succeeded in forgetting all the little French he had so painfully learned during his enforced sojourn in France. Two were Danes, and two were Germans; Mr Braun was called in to interpret while they were questioned. They were all experienced seamen, and as far as Hornblower could gather they had all been driven to take service in the Blanchefleur sooner than be conscripted into Bonaparte’s navy or army. Even though they were faced with what might well be a lifetime in an English prison the Frenchmen refused any offer to serve in the British Navy, but the others accepted immediately Braun put the suggestion to them. Bush rubbed his hands at acquiring four prime seamen in this fashion to help fill his chronically undermanned ships. They had picked up a little French in the Blanchefleur, and they would soon pick up enough English in the Nonsuch or the Lotus; certainly they would under the stimulus of a rope’s end handled by an experienced petty officer.
“Take ‘em away and read ‘em in, Mr Hurst,” said Bush, rubbing his hands again. “Now, sir, shall we take a look at that damned renegade Englishman?”
Clarke was lying on the main-deck of the Nonsuch, to which he had been hoisted from the boat by a tackle at the yardarm, and the surgeon was still bending over him. He had tried to blow out his brains, but he had only succeeded in shattering his lower jaw. There was blood on his blue coat and on his white trousers, and his whole head was swathed in bandages, and he lay tossing in agony on the canvas sheet in which he had been hoisted. Hornblower peered down at him. The features he could see, chalk white so that the tan looked like a coat of dirt, were pinched and refined and weak, a thin nose and hollow cheeks, brown eyes like a woman’s, with scant sandy eyebrows above them. What little hair Hornblower could see was scanty and sandy too. Hornblower wondered what combination of circumstances could have led him into betraying his country and taking service with Bonaparte. Hatred of imprisonment, perhaps — Hornblower had known what it was to be a prisoner, in Ferrol and Rosas and in France. Yet that over-refined face did not seem to indicate the sort of personality that would fret itself to pieces in confinement. It might have been a woman, perhaps, who had driven him or led him to this, or he might be a deserter from the Navy who had fled to escape punishment — it would be interesting to see if his back was scarred with the cat-o’-nine-tails. He might perhaps be an Irishman, one of those fanatic who in their desire to hurt England refused to see that the worst England had ever done to Ireland would be nothing compared with what Bonaparte would do to her if she were once in his power.