The assembled staff raised their voices in protest, but Hornblower disregarded them with the sublime abstraction of a sick man. Then Brown appeared, cutlass at his side and pistols in his belt, followed by other members of the barge’s crew. Apparently he had seen his captain ride over the bridge, and, like the good subordinate he was, had brought the boat across after him. Brown’s face was contorted with anxiety, and he threw himself, too, on his knees beside Hornblower.
“Wounded, sir? Where is it? Can I—”
“No, no, no,” said Hornblower pettishly, pushing Brown away and getting to his feet, swaying. “It’s nothing.”
It was extraordinarily maddening to see a look of admiration come over Brown’s face. Anyone would think he was being heroic instead of merely sensible. Not far away—at the foot of the breach, apparently—a trumpet was pealing, high challenging notes, and this served to distract the crowd from their solicitude. Everyone looked in the direction of the sound, and presently a group of Russian officers approached them, leading a blindfold figure dressed in the blue trimmed with grey astrakhan of the French Imperial Staff. A word from Essen removed the bandage, and the officer—he wore a grey Hussar moustache—saluted with dignity.
“The chef d’escadron Verrier,” he said, “aide-de-camp to Marshal the Duke of Tarentum. I am ordered by the Marshal to suggest a suspension of hostilities for two hours. The breach is covered with the wounded of both sides, and it would be only humane to remove them. Each side can remove its own.”
“There are more French and German wounded than Russian, I am sure,” said Essen, in his horrible French.
“French or Russian, sir,” said the parlementaire, “they will die unless they receive speedy aid.”
Hornblower’s mind was beginning to work again. Ideas were leaping to the surface like wreckage from a sunken ship. He caught Essen’s eye and nodded meaningly, and Essen, like a good diplomatist, gave no sign of having received the hint as he shifted his glance back to Verrier.
“The request is granted, sir,” he said, “in the name of humanity.”
“I thank Your Excellency, in the name of humanity,” said Verrier, saluting, and then looking round for someone to blindfold him again and lead him through the breach.
The moment he was gone Hornblower turned to Brown.
“Take the barge back to the ship,” he ordered. “Hurry. My compliments to Captain Bush, and I would like you to bring back Lieutenant von Bulow to me. One of the lieutenants of equal rank will have to accompany him. Hurry!”
“Aye aye, sir.”
That was all that was necessary with Brown or Bush, thank God. A simple order brought simple yet intelligent obedience. Hornblower saluted Essen.
“Would it be possible, Your Excellency,” he asked, “to bring the Spanish troops over to this side of the river? I have a German prisoner whom I am going to return to the enemy, and I should like him to see the Spaniards with his own eyes first.”
Essen grinned with blubber lips.
“I do my best not merely to comply with every one of your wishes, sir, but even to anticipate them. The last order I gave on the other side of the river was for the Spaniards to brought over—they were the nearest formed troops and I intended to use them as garrison for the warehouses on the quay. I have no doubt they are there already. You would like them marched in this direction?”
“If you would be so kind, sir.”
Hornblower was casually waiting for nothing in particular at the jetty when the boat touched at it, and Lieutenant von Bulow, of the Fifty-first Regiment of Prussian Infantry, stepped ashore under the escort of Mr. Tooth and Brown and his men.
“Ah, Lieutenant,” said Hornblower.
Bulow saluted him stiffly, clearly puzzled at this new development, which had snatched him from his confinement aboard ship and dumped him at a moment’s notice in the ruined village.
“There is an armistice at the moment,” explained Hornblower, “between your army and ours. No, it is not peace—merely to clear the wounded from the breach. But I was going to take this opportunity of returning you to your friends.”
Bulow looked questions at him.
“It will save much formality with cartels and flags of truce,” explained Hornblower. “At this moment you have merely to walk down the breach and join the men of your own army. Naturally, you have not been properly exchanged, but you can, if you wish, give me your word that you will not serve against his Britannic Majesty nor against His Imperial Russian Majesty until an exchange has been effected.”
“I give you my word,” said Bulow, after a moment’s thought.
“Excellent! Then perhaps I might give myself the pleasure of walking with you as far as the breach?”
As they left the jetty and began the brief walk through the ruins of the village Bulow was darting the quick glances of a professional soldier about him; he was perfectly entitled, under any military code, to take every advantage of carelessness on his enemy’s part. His professional curiosity would have led him to stare about him in any case. Hornblower made polite conversation as they strolled.
“Your assault this morning—I daresay you heard the hubbub even on board?—was made by picked grenadiers, as far as I could judge by the uniforms. Most excellent troops—it is indeed a pity they suffered such loss of life. I trust that when you rejoin your friends you will convey to them my deepest condolences. But they had not a chance, of course.”
At the foot of the church tower there was a Spanish regiment, the men lying down in their ranks. At the sight of Hornblower the colonel called his men to their feet and saluted.
Hornblower returned the salute, conscious as he did so that Bulow at his side had, suddenly changed his gait; stealing a glance out of the tail of his eye he saw that Bulow was ponderously goose-stepping as long as the salutes were being exchanged. Yet it was very noticeable that even though Bulow’s formal training forced him into a goose-step at a moment of military courtesy, he had not failed to notice the troops. His eyes were bulging with unasked questions.
“Spanish troops,” said Hornblower, casually. “A division of Spaniards and Portuguese joined us from Bonaparte’s main army a little while ago. They fight well—in fact they were responsible for the final repulse of the last assault. It is interesting to notice how Bonaparte’s dupes are falling away from him now that the hollowness of his power is revealed.”
Bulow’s astonished reply must either have been inarticulate or in German, for Hornblower could not understand it, but his tone conveyed his meaning well enough.
“It goes without saying,” said Hornblower casually, “that I would like to see the magnificent Prussian Army ranged among Bonaparte’s enemies and England’s allies, too. But naturally your King knows his own policy best—unless, of course, surrounded as he is by Bonaparte’s men, he is not free to choose.”
Bulow stared at him in amazement; Hornblower was putting forward a viewpoint which was quite new to him, but Hornblower still made himself talk with the utmost casualness, as if he were doing no more than making polite conversation.
“That’s high politics,” he said with a laugh and a wave of his hand. “But one day in the future we might look back on this conversation as prophetic. One cannot tell, can one? Some time when we meet as plenipotentiaries I will be able to remind you of this talk. And here we are at the breach. It irks me to have to say goodbye, at the same moment as it gives me pleasure to restore you to your friends. My heartiest good wishes, sir, for you for the future.”