Hornblower caught Marsden nodding agreement. It was apparent that he was impressed, however little he wished to appear so.
“Now, gentlemen,” went on Claudius. “With regard to details of a lower degree of sensibility. I take it you have in mind to send your forged letter to a naval, or possibly a military, man? In that case the task can be approached with more confidence. Business men, soulless bankers, hard headed merchants, with something more important to lose than other men’s lives, are likely to scrutinize documents more closely. But on the staff of a general there may always be some interfering underling wishing to call attention to himself. It is necessary to be quite perfect. This signature I am confident I can reproduce in perfection. This ink — I believe it can be matched in Chancery Lane; it will be necessary to make complete tests. This printed heading — you will need to have type specially cast in exact imitation. You will have less trouble in that respect than I encountered.”
“Yes,” said Marsden, actually betrayed into speech.
“But the paper —” went on Claudius, feeling its texture carefully with stubby but apparently sensitive fingers. “I will have to instruct you where to search for that, too. Would you be so kind, sir, as to hold the sheet up between my eyes and the light? This chain restricts my movements to an inconvenient degree. Thank you, sir. Yes, as I thought. I know that quality of linen, but there is a fortunate absence of watermark. It may not be necessary to have paper made de novo to match it. You may not appreciate the necessity for uniformity, gentlemen, unless you make use of your imagination. A single document may well be accepted, but you must think of a series. After receiving, let us say, six genuine documents, someone receives one spurious one. The recipent naturally lays them together in the course of the routine of his office. If one is markedly different from all the others — even if one is different in only a small degree — attention is clamorously called to it. Hinc illae lachrymae. And if that one has a content somewhat unusual — even though in other circumstances it might have passed — then the fat is in the fire, and Bow Street is called in. Et ego in arcadia vixi, gentlemen.”
“Most illuminating,” said Marsden, and Hornblower knew enough about him now to realize that this was the equivalent of a long speech in praise.
“Now I come to ‘lastly’ in my present sermon, gentlemen,” said Claudius as the lightning flashed again and the thunder rolled. “Even in the pulpit I could feel the relief in my congregation at that word ‘lastly’, so I will be brief. The method of delivery must conform to the method of all the other deliveries. Once again, the greatest care is necessary in allowing nothing to call particular attention to this one item out of all the others.”
Claudius when he had entered the room had been of a sickly pallor under the bristling beard, and he was whiter still when he finished his lecture.
“Perhaps, gentlemen, you would permit me to sit down?” he said. “I have not now the strength of which I used once to boast.”
“Take him out, Dorsey,” snapped Marsden. “Give him a glass of wine. I dare say he’s hungry, too.”
It may have been at the thought of food that Claudius recovered something of his unabashed self-assertion.
“A beefsteak, gentlemen?” he said. “Might I hope for a beefsteak? For the past week empty dreams of a beefsteak have further embittered my nightmares of the rope.”
“See that he has a beefsteak, Dorsey,” said Marsden.
Claudius turned back, still wavering a little, but with something of a smile just visible on his bristly lips.
“In that case, gentlemen, you can count on my heartiest exertions for my King, my Country, and my Self.”
With the departure of Dorsey and Claudius, Marsden turned to face Hornblower again. The room was almost dark, at high noon, with the black thunder clouds overhead. A sudden lightning flash filled the room instantly followed by a clap of thunder, like a vast cannon shot, coming without warning and ending without reverberation.
“His Lordship,” said Marsden in complete disregard of it, “has already approved in principle of the attempt being made. I consulted him this morning. Mr Barrow, I am sure, has in mind the French émigrés to attend to the composition and writing of the dispatch.”
“I have, Mr Marsden,” said Barrow.
“It will be necessary to recapture the style, of course, sir,” said Hornblower.
“Undoubtedly, Captain,” agreed Barrow.
“And the orders must be such that there is nothing patently impossible about them, too.”
Marsden intervened.
“Did your grandmother never learn to suck eggs, Captain?” he asked, in the same unvarying tone. It was a deft reminder that the Secretaries had had years of experience in the writing of orders, and Hornblower had the sense to smile.
“I had forgotten how much practice she has had,” he said. “I beg your pardon, gentlemen. I was only anxious about the success of the plan.”
Now the thunderstorm had burst. A breath of cooler air came stealing into the room, bearing with it the sound of torrential rain roaring down outside. Through the windows there was nothing to be seen but the rain.
“Mr Barrow and Dorsey and Claudius can be trusted to deal with the details. The next point to consider is the landing.”
“That should be the simplest part of the whole operation, sir.”
The Spanish Biscay coast extended for almost three hundred miles from the French frontier to Ferrol, sparsely populated and rugged. There were inlets innumerable. The Royal Navy, omnipresent at sea, could be relied upon to put a small party on shore undetected.
“I am delighted that you think so, Captain,” said Marsden.
There was a dramatic pause — a melodramatic pause. Hornblower looked from Marsden to Barrow and back again, and experienced an internal upheaval as he observed the glances they exchanged.
“What have you in mind, gentlemen?” he asked.
“Is it not quite obvious, Captain, that you are the man best fitted to undertake this mission?”
That was what Marsden said, in that same tone. Barrow spoke in his support.
“You are acquainted with Ferrol, Captain. You have had some experience of Spain. You speak a little Spanish. You should have command.”
That gave the cue for Marsden again.
“You have no other command at present, Captain.”
The significance of this particular remark was too obvious.
“Really, gentlemen —” said Hornblower. For once he could not think quickly enough to word his protests.
“It is not a duty you could be ordered to perform,” went on Marsden. “That is quite clear. It would be a purely voluntary mission.”
To enter a hostile country in disguise would be to risk a shameful death. The gallows, the rope — but in Spain it would be the iron collar of the garotte. Strangulation. Convulsions, contortions, preceding death. No fighting service could ever order its officers to take that risk.
“This Spaniard, Miranda, can be trusted, I am sure,” said Barrow. “And if a Frenchman is needed as well — your opinion on that point would be valuable, Captain — there are at least three who have already done important work for us.”
It was inconceivable that these two Secretaries, men of marble, could ever abase themselves to plead, but it seemed as if they were as close to doing so as ever in their lives. The Navy could order a man to climb the highest, steepest side of a ship of the line in face of well aimed musketry; it took it for granted that a man would face unflinching broadside after broadside of grape; it could send him aloft on the darkest and stormiest night to save a few yards of canvas; and it could hang him or shoot him or flog him to death should he hesitate. But it could not order him to risk the garotte, not even with the nation’s existence trembling in the balance.