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.
“He may have to retreat,” said Hornblower, “but until then we stay here, unless I receive orders to the contrary.”
Essen caught sight of their sober faces and turned on them again. He slapped Bush on the back so that he staggered with the force of the blow; he snapped his fingers under Hornblower’s nose, and pirouetted with the grace of a performing seal. It was absurd that with all this going on, with Bush asking questions regarding the future, with Essen acting like a lunatic, and with the whole ship forgetting discipline in a mad outburst of cheering, Hornblower’s brain should be planning and thinking still, with that swift clarity and that fevered rapidity which he knew by now portended some new development. Bonaparte in retreat, Bonaparte beaten, meant a tremendous revulsion of feeling throughout Europe. All the world knew that Wellington was threatening France from the south; and now the Empire was in peril from the east. It would hardly be possible for Bonaparte’s shattered army to hold on to Poland once it had begun its retreat; the next campaign would see the allies on the frontiers of Prussia and Austria, and it was likely that both Prussia and Austria would in that case be glad to change sides, The King of Prussia was practically a prisoner in French hands, but the Prussian army—the greater part of the force now besieging Riga—could act as a free agent if it wished. The desertion of the Spaniards had shown them the way, and the pamphlets which he had had printed in Riga and distributed among the besiegers by Russian pedlars would not let them forget the lesson. Bulow would be able to bear witness to the truth of his assertions—Hornblower was glad he had set him free.
“I am sending Diebitch out to beat up the besiegers’ lines with a sally,” Essen was saying. “I must see how they take this news. Would you care to accompany me, sir?”
“Of course,” said Hornblower, coming out abruptly from his dreaming. What with fatigue—he was always weary now—and rapid thinking and excitement he was still a little ‘mazy’, as they said of fuddled men in the village when he was a boy. He announced his departure to Bush.
“You’re worn out, sir,” protested Bush. “You’re no more than a shadow. Send someone else, sir. Send me. Send Duncan. You’ve done all that’s necessary, sir.”