Mr. Marsden was a tall and incredibly elegant gentleman of middle age, oldfashioned 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 had 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 singlehanded the war to the death against the French Empire and Bonaparte.
It 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, grayhaired and lean, of an obviously junior grade, to judge by his threadbare coat and frayed linen.
Only the briefest salutations were exchanged while Hornblower put his bundle down on the table.
“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?”
Hornblower told of the momentary capture of the Guèpe; Mr. Marsden kept his grey eyes steadily on Hornblower’s face during the brief narrative.
“The French captain was killed?” asked Marsden.
“Yes.”
There was no need to tell about what Meadows’ cutlass had done to the French captain’s head.
“That indicates that this may be genuine,” decided Marsden, and Hornblower was puzzled momentarily until he realized that Marsden meant that there had been no rusedeguerre and that the papers had not been deliberately ‘planted’ on him.
“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.
“Yes,” agreed Marsden; he was a man of icycold 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?”
“Nothing of great importance except this, sir.”
’This’ was of course the leaden covered dispatch. Dorsey was looking keenly at the twine which bound up the sandwich.
“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.”
Dorsey reached down and took a penknife from the tray in front of Marsden, and cut the twine, and the sandwich fell apart.
“Ah!” said Dorsey.
It was a large linen envelope, heavily sealed in three places, and Dorsey studied the seals closely before looking over at Hornblower.
“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.”
He handed it to Marsden, and tapped the seals with his finger.
“Those are the seals of this newfangled Empire of Bonaparte’s, sir,” he said. “Three good specimens.”
It was only a few months before, as Hornblower realized, 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.
“I would like to open this carefully, sir,” said Dorsey.
“Very well. You may go and attend to it.”
Fate 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.
Later 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.
For 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.
“Villeneuve’s in Ferrol,” said the newcomer. “This has just come by telegraph. Calder fought him off Finisterre and was given the slip.”
Marsden took the dispatch and read it with care.
“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.”
Marsden 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.
“What is this acquisition, Captain?” asked Barrow, the simple question breaking into Hornblower’s train of thought like a pistol shot.
“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.
“But that may be of vital importance, Captain. What was the purport of it?”
“It is being opened at the present moment, sir. Mr. Dorsey is attending to that.”
“I see. Dorsey in forty years in this office has become accustomed to handling captured documents. It is his particular department.”
“I fancied so, sir.”
There was a moment’s pause, while Hornblower braced himself to make the request that was clamouring inside him for release.
“What about this news, sir? What about Villeneuve? Could you tell me, sir?”
“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.”
“No prizes, sir?”
“Calder seems to have taken a couple of Spaniards.”
Two 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.