“I was a prisoner of war there in ‘97, sir.”
“Did you escape?”
“No, sir, they set me free.”
“By exchange?”
“No, sir.”
“Then why?”
“I helped to save life in a shipwreck.”
“You did? So you know about conditions in Ferrol?”
“Fairly well, sir, as I said.”
“Indeed. And you say it’s a difficult to watch. Why?”
Sitting in a peaceful office in London a man could experience as many surprises as on the deck of a frigate at sea. Instead of a white squall suddenly whipping out of an unexpected quarter, or instead of an enemy suddenly appearing on the horizon, here was a question demanding an immediate answer regarding the difficulty of blockading Ferrol. This was a civilian, a landsman, who needed the information, and urgently. For the first time in a century the First Lord was a seaman, an Admiral — it would be a feather in the Second Secretary’s cap if in the next, immediate conference he could display familiarity with conditions in Ferrol.
Hornblower had to express in words what up to that moment he had only been conscious of as a result of his seaman’s instinct. He had to think fast to present an orderly statement.
“First of all it’s a matter of distance,” he began. “It’s not like blockading Brest.”
Plymouth would be the base in each case; from Plymouth to Brest was less than fifty leagues, while from Plymouth to Ferrol was nearly two hundred — communication and supply would be four times as difficult, as Hornblower pointed out.
“Even more with prevailing westerly winds,” he added.
“Please go on, Captain,” said Barrow.
“But really that is not as important as the other factors, sir,” said Hornblower.
It was easy to go on from there. A fleet blockading Ferrol had no friendly refuge to leeward. A fleet blockading Brest could run to Tor Bay in a westerly tempest — the strategy of the past fifty years had been based on that geographical fact. A fleet blockading Cadiz could rely on the friendly neutrality of Portugal, and had Lisbon on one flank and Gibraltar on the other. Nelson watching Toulon had made use of anchorages on the Sardinian coast. But off Ferrol it would be a different story. Westerly gales would drive a blockading fleet into the cul-de-sac of the Bay of Biscay whose shores were not merely hostile but wild and steep-to, with rain and fog. To keep watch over Villeneuve in Ferrol, particularly in winter, would impose an intolerable strain on the watcher, especially as the exits from Ferrol were far easier and more convenient than the single exit from Brest — the largest imaginable fleet could sortie from Ferrol in a single tide, which no large French fleet had ever succeeded in doing from Brest. He recalled what he had observed in Ferrol regarding the facilities for the prompt watering of a fleet, for berthing, for supply; the winds that were favourable for exit and the winds that made exit impossible; the chances of a blockader making furtive contact with the shore — as he himself had later done off Brest — and the facilities to maintain close observation over a blockaded force.
“You seem to have made good use of your time in Ferrol, Captain,” said Barrow.
Hornblower would have shrugged his shoulders, but restrained himself in time from indulging in so un-English a gesture. The memory of that desperately unhappy time came back to him in a flood and he was momentarily lost in retrospective misery. He came back into the present to find Barrow’s eyes still fixed on him with curiosity, and he realized, selfconciously, that for a moment he had allowed Barrow a glimpse into his inner feelings.
“At least I managed to learn to speak a little Spanish,” he said; it was an endeavour to bring a trace of frivolity into the conversation, but Barrow continued to treat the subject seriously.
“Many officers would not have taken the trouble,” he commented.
Hornblower shied away from this personal conversation like a skittish horse.
“There’s another aspect to the question of Ferrol,” he said, hurriedly.
“And what is that?”
“The town and its facilities as a naval base lay at the far end of long and difficult roads over mountain passes, whether by Betanzos or Villalba. To support a fleet there under blockade, to keep it supplied by road with the hundreds of tons of necessary stores, might be more than the Spaniards could manage.”
“You know something of these roads, Captain?”
“I was marched over them when I was a prisoner.”
“Boney’s Emperor now and the Dons are his abject slaves. If anyone could compel them to attend to their business it would be Boney.”
“That’s very likely, sir.” This was more a political question than a naval one, and it would be presumption on his part to make further comment.
“So we’re back,” said Barrow, half to himself, “to where we’ve been ever since ‘95, waiting for the enemy to come out and fight, and in your opinion in a worse situation than usual, Captain.”
“That’s only my opinion, sir,” said Hornblower hastily.
These were questions for Admirals, and it was not healthy for junior officers to become involved in them.
“If only Calder had thrashed Villeneuve thoroughly!” went on Barrow. “Half our troubles would be over.”
Hornblower had to make some reply or other, and he had to think fast for non-commital words that would not
