He peered more closely. That face was lined and drawn, the eyes red-rimmed; with a sudden increase of attention he looked again, turning his head. On his temples his hair was quite white. Not merely did he look like someone fresh from battle; he looked like someone who had been under frightful strain for a long time. So he had, indeed, he realized, half wondering at himself. He had been bearing the burden of this horrible siege for months now. It had never occurred to him that his face, Hornblower’s face, would tell tales about him as other men’s faces told tales about them. He had striven all his life to restrain his features from revealing his feelings. There was something ironic and interesting about the fact that he could not prevent his hair from greying nor the grim lines from deepening about his mouth.
The desk under his feet was swaying, as if the ship were in the open sea, and yet even his veteran sea-legs had difficulty in keeping him upright, so that he had to hold on to the bracket before him. Only with extreme care could he let go his hold and pick his way to his cot, and fall across it, face downward.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The new problem which Hornblower was debating as he walked his quarter-deck, while H.M.S. Nonsuch swung at anchor in Riga Bay, was one which he had long foreseen, but which lost none of its urgency for all that. Here was winter coming; there had been heavy frosts at night for as far back as he could remember, and the last two days had brought flurries of snow, which had temporarily whitened the landscape and had left a few drifts which even now showed as white streaks on the northern faces of the dykes. The days were growing short and the nights long, and the brackish water of Riga Bay was covered with a thin scum of ice. If he stayed much longer his ships would be frozen in. Essen had assured him that for at least two more weeks he would be able to make his exit along a channel sawn in the ice by labourers whom Essen would supply, but Hornblower was not so sure. A northerly gale — and one might arise at any moment — could keep him wind-bound while at the same time it would freeze everything up and jam the narrow exit to the Bay, between Oesel and the mainland, with piled-up drift ice that neither saws nor even explosives could pierce. A squadron frozen in was a squadron immobilized until next spring; and a squadron frozen in was one which was a certain prey to the French if Riga should fall. Twenty years ago a Dutch squadron at Amsterdam had been captured by French hussars charging over the ice. What a thundering bulletin of triumph Bonaparte would make of it if a British squadron, under the notorious Commodore Hornblower, should fall into his hands in the same way! Hornblower turned in his stride a yard before he had reached the limit of his walk. Prudence dictated an immediate withdrawal.
The breechings of that carronade were frayed. When Bush noticed it someone was in for a bad quarter of an hour. And yet he could not withdraw. When he had mentioned the possibility Essen had shown positive dismay. If his men were to see the British ships go away they would be quite sure the place was doomed. They would lose heart completely. The British naval officer who had led the final charge at Daugavgriva had grown into a legendary figure in their minds, a mascot, a symbol of good luck. If he were to leave them that would be a proof, in the men’s minds, that he had lost hope. He could not possibly withdraw. He might compromise; he might send most of the squadron out and retain only a sloop and a gunboat; he might send everything out and remain himself, but to separate himself from his command was in direct violation of the Articles of War.
Here was a fool of a midshipman in his way dodging about in front of him as though bent on distracting him from his train of thought. It would be the masthead for him; God knew the commission had lasted long enough for every single person on board to have learned that the Commodore must not be distracted when he was walking the deck.
“What the hell — ?” he bellowed at the blenching midshipman.
“B-b-boat approaching, sir,” stammered the youth. “M-Mr Hurst told me to tell you. He thinks the Governor’s on board.”
“Why wasn’t I told before?” said Hornblower. “Have you sent for Captain Bush, Mr Hurst? Call the guard!”
“Aye aye, sir!” said Hurst, and Hornblower saw Bush appear on the quarter-deck as the words left Hurst’s lips, and the marine guard was already forming up abaft the mizzen-mast.
Of course Hurst had done all these things without waiting for orders; roused abruptly from his reverie Hornblower had not had the sense to realize it. He strode to the side. The Governor was approaching in a big pulling-boat, which was steering towards them along the clear channel through the thin ice which the last eddies of the Dwina river still kept clear before they lost themselves in the Bay. As the Governor caught sight of him he sprang up into the sternsheets waving his cocked hat, he even tried to dance, precariously, both arms extended over his head, at imminent risk of falling overboard.
“Something’s up, sir,” said Bush at Hornblower’s side.
“That looks like good news,” said Hornblower.
The Governor arrived on the quarter-deck, hat still in hand. He flung his arms round Hornblower and hugged him, swinging his lean body up into the air so that his feet left the deck. Hornblower could imagine the grins that were being exchanged around him as he kicked in the air like a baby. The Governor put him down, clapped his hat on his head, and then seized first Hornblower’s hand and then Bush’s, and tried to dance a sort of ring-a-ring-of-roses with the two Englishmen. There was no more controlling him than one could control a bear.
“What is the news, Your Excellency?” asked Hornblower; Essen’s grip on his hand was painful.
“Oh,” said Essen, flinging the Englishman’s hands away so as to spread his arms again. “Bonaparte has started to retreat.”
“Has he, by God!” said Hornblower.
“What does he say, sir?” asked Bush, quite incapable of understanding Essen’s French, but Hornblower had no time for Bush, because the Governor was pouring out his news in a torrent of gutturals, drawing upon the vocabularies of half Europe for his words so that even Hornblower could hardly understand what he was saying.
“He left Moscow five days back,” roared Essen. “We beat him at Malo-Jaroslavetz. Beat him in a pitched battle, and now he’s running as hard as he can for Smolensk and Warsaw. And he won’t get there before the snows! He’ll be lucky if he gets there at all! Chichagov is marching hard to cut off his retreat at the Beresina. He’s ruined. They’re dying in thousands every night already! Nothing to eat, and winter’s here!”
Essen stamped grotesquely about the deck, more like a dancing bear than ever.
“Please, sir, please. What does he say?” asked Bush pathetically.
Hornblower translated to the best of his ability, the other quarter-deck officers eavesdropping shamelessly. As the wonderful nature of the good news dawned upon them, they began to cheer; down on the main-deck they caught the infection, and all through the ship men were cheering and tossing their hats in the air, even though they hardly knew what they were cheering about, save for the hurried words that flew from lip to lip — “Boney’s beaten!”
“We can get out of this bay before the ice comes, by God!” said Bush, snapping his fingers; it was obvious that if he had not a wooden leg he would be dancing too.
Hornblower looked across at the mainland.
“Macdonald’s shown no sign of retreating yet,” he said. “If he had the Governor would have mentioned it.”
“But don’t you think he’ll have to, sir?” Bush’s expressive face showed anxiety now instead of joy. A moment before anything delightful had been possible — escape from Riga Bay, possibly even escape from this landlocked Baltic altogether, maybe even a return to England, but now Bush was back again to the cold reality that the siege of Riga was still going on.