England would clamour for the head of the officer they deemed responsible. Yet come what might he could not but feel that he had taken the best course in proving that England had the power to strike and would not hesitate to use it. There were few occasions in history when timidity was wise.
They were bringing further news to St. Petersburg, too. Wellington was on the offensive in Spain; in two desperate strokes he had cleared his front by storming Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, and now was ready to strike into the heart of the Peninsula. The knowledge that a large part of Bonapartes army was hotly engaged in the South might bring firmness to the councils of the North.
His brother-in-law was an Earl nowanother victory or two would make him a Duke, reflected Hornblower. Barbara would be proud of him, and to Hornblower that was another reason for him to dread failure for himself; Barbara had a high standard of comparison. But she would understand. She would know how high were the stakes he was playing for in the Balticas high as those her brother was playing for in Spain; she would know what moral courage was needed to make the kind of decisions he had made. She would be considerate; and at that moment Hornblower told himself that he did not want his wife to have to be considerate on his account. The thought revolted him, drove him to make his excuses to Wychwood and plunge out on deck, into the pouring rain under the grey sky, to walk the quarter-deck while the other officers eyed him askance and kept well clear of him. There was not a soul in the squadron who had not heard that only fools crossed the Commodores hawse when he was walking the deck.
The brisk wind was chill, even in late May, here in the North Baltic; the squadron pitched and rolled over the short steep waves, leaden-hued under the leaden sky, as it drove ever northward towards the Gulf of Finland, towards Russia, where the destiny of the world hung in the balance. The night was hardly darker than the sky, up here in the sixtieth degree of north latitude, when the sky cleared, for the sun was barely hidden below the horizon and the moon shone coldly in the twilight as they drove past Hoghland and hove to in sight of Lavansaari so as to approach Kronstadt after sunrise.
Braun was on deck early, leaning against the rail, craning over in fact; that faint grey smear on the horizon to the northward was his native land, the Finland of lake and forest which the Tsar had just conquered and from which he was a hopeless exile. Hornblower noted the dejection of the poor devils pose and was sorry for him, even in the keen excitement of anticipation regarding the reception they might be accorded. Bush came bustling up, in all the glory of epaulettes and sword, darting eager glances over the deck and aloft to make quite sure that everything in the ship was ready to bear the inspection of an unfriendly power.
Captain Bush, said Hornblower, Id be obliged if you would square away for Kronstadt.
Aye aye, sir.
Hornblower would have liked to have asked if the arrangements for saluting were properly in train, but he forbore. He could trust Bush with any routine duty, and he had to be very careful not to interfere with the working of the ship. He was glad that so far he had never forgotten to make use of the polite forms of request when giving orders to Bush, who was his equal in substantive rank. Id be obliged and if you please still came strangely enough to his lips as a preface to an order.
He turned his back on the dawn and trained his glass aft on the squadron; they were squaring away and taking up their stations astern in succession, the two sloops, and then the two bomb-vessels, and the cutter last.
General signal, he snapped, Keep better station.
He wanted his squadron to come up the difficult channel in exact, regular order, like beads on a string. Out of the tail of his eye he saw Basse and Wychwood come on deck, and he ignored them.
Make that signal again, he rasped, with Harvey s number.
Harvey was yawing slightly from her course; young Mound had better keep a sharp eye on his helmsman, or he would be in trouble. To starboard, where the wide shoals extended from the Oranienbaum shore, there were buoys to mark the limits of the channel, which serpentined back and forth in unpredictable fashion. If ever he had to penetrate this channel as an enemy he would find it a tricky business. There were the low grey fortifications of Kronstadt on the port bow; a turn in the channel sent the Nonsuch heading directly for them, so that in the event of fighting the fire of the guns there would enfilade the whole line. Then the channel swung back again, and then it straightened out so that all ships would
am invited to dinner with the Tsar and Bernadotte, said Hornblower to Bush; he handed over the letter, and Bush looked at it wisely with his head on one side as if he could read French.
Youre going, I suppose, sir?
Yes.
It would hardly be tactful to begin his first encounter with the Russian and Swedish authorities by refusing an Imperial and a royal command.