The Commodore

muzzle of a dismounted siege-gun, pointed skyward and helpless—a cheering sight for the defence. That was only the beginning. Gap after gap was blown in the earthworks; the whole interior was plastered with shells. At one moment there was a much bigger explosion than usual, and Hornblower guessed that an ‘expense magazine’—the small store of gunpowder kept in the battery and continually replenished from the rear—had blown up. Down below him the defence had taken new heart, and every gun along the menaced front had reopened fire; it was a shot from the village, apparently, which hit the muzzle of the dismounted gun and flung it back upon the ground.

“Signal ‘cease fire’,” said Hornblower.

Thirteen-inch shells were not munitions of war that could be readily obtained in the Baltic, and there was no purpose in wasting them upon a target which was silenced and at least made temporarily useless. And then came the countermove on the part of the attack, as he had expected. A battery of field artillery was coming over the distant slope, six guns, minute at that distance, jolting and swaying after their limbers. The country was still marshy, for the summer was not yet old enough to have dried up the fields, and the artillery, hock and axle-deep in the mire, made only slow progress.

’Signal for the target to change,’ ordered Hornblower.

There was no means of observing the fall of the shells on the new target, for the bomb-ketches were dropping them just over the high dyke. It was a matter of chance should they do any destruction, but Hornblower could guess that the park and depots of an army of sixty thousand men conducting a first-class siege were likely to be both extensive and crowded; a few shells dropped there might do good. The first field battery was approaching the water’s edge, the horses wheeling round to leave the guns pointing at the bomb-ketches at neat geometrical intervals.

“Harvey signals she’s shifting target, sir,” reported Gerard.

“Very good.”

Harvey was firing at the field battery; it took her a little while to get the range, and field-guns, spaced far apart in a long thin line, were not a good target for mortars, even though the fall of the shells was now under direct observation. And a second battery was coming up on the flank of the first and—Hornblower’s telescope could easily make them out across the narrow extremity of the bay—there were more guns coming into action to put the bomb-vessels under a cross-fire. One of Harvey’s shells burst close beside one of the guns, presumably killing every man serving it, but by chance leaving the gun itself still on its wheels. The other guns had opened fire, the smoke creeping lazily from their muzzles. Across the bay the other field batteries were coming into action, although at very long range for field artillery. There was no purpose in continuing to expose the bomb-ketches to the fire of the shore; Macdonald had two hundred field-guns, and there were only two bomb-ketches.

“Signal ‘Discontinue the action’,” ordered Hornblower.

Now that he had given the word it seemed to him that he had waited over-long. It seemed ages before the bomb-ketches got their anchors hoisted, and Hornblower could see, as he waited anxiously, the splashes thrown up all round them by the shots from the shore. He saw the sweeps thrust out from the sides of the lighters take a grip on the water, swinging the vessels round, and then the white sails mounted the masts, and the queer craft sailed away out of range, making vast leeway which caused them to head crab wise aslant of their course. Hornblower turned away with relief to meet the eyes of the governor, who had been standing silently watching the whole operation through a vast telescope which he had mounted upon the shoulder of a patient orderly whose back must have ached with crouching.

“Excellent, sir,” said the Governor. “I thank you, sir, in the name of the Tsar. Russia is grateful to you, sir, and so is the city of Riga.”

“Thank you, Your Excellency,” said Hornblower.

Diebitch and Clausewitz were awaiting his attention. They were eager to discuss future operations with him, and he had to listen to them. He dismissed his midshipmen and signalling party, hoping that Somers would have the sense to interpret the glance he threw him as a warning not to let his men get hold of any Lettish spirits while they were ashore. Then he resumed the conversation, which was continually interrupted by the coming and going of orderlies with messages, and hasty orders given in languages that he could not understand. But the results of those orders were soon apparent; two regiments of infantry came filing up through the village, with bayonets fixed, lined the earthworks, and then dashed out on the glacis with a yell. The heavy guns in the battery which should have torn them to pieces with grapeshot were all silent; Hornblower watched the sortie reach the approach trench almost without opposition; the men burst into it over the parapets, and hurriedly began to tear down the sandbags and gabions with which it was constructed, while down into the ruined battery came a French infantry force too late to stop them, even if they had been able to do so under the artillery fire of the besieged. In an hour the work was done, the approach trench levelled over large sections, the tools taken, spare gabions heaped together and set on fire.

“Thanks to you, sir,” said Clausewitz, “the progress of the siege has been delayed by four days.”

Four days; and the French had all the rest of the year to continue pounding the defences. It was his duty, and the Russians’, to maintain them as long as might be. There was something a little depressing about the prospect of trying to maintain this outwork while Bonaparte was marching, irresistibly, into the heart of Russia. Yet the game had to be played out to the end. He parted from his hosts feeling weary and disconsolate, a dark shadow overhanging any elation he might feel regarding the success—the success that had won four days—of his attack on the French. The pipes squealed as he came over the side of the Nonsuch: Captain Bush and the first lieutenant and the officer of the watch were on the quarter-deck to receive him.

“Good evening, Captain Bush. Would you be kind enough to hang out a signal for Mr. Duncan and Mr. Mound to repair on board here immediately?”

“Yes, sir.” Bush did not speak again for a second or two, but he did not turn away to obey. “Yes, sir. Mound was killed.”

“What’s that you say?”

“One of the last shots from the beach cut him in two, sir.” Bush was trying to keep his expression harsh as usual, but it was obvious that he was deeply moved. Yet he had not grown as fond of Mound as had Hornblower. And in that one moment there came flooding over Hornblower all the torrent of regrets and doubts which he was to know for so long to come. If only he had ordered the bomb-ketches out of action earlier! Had he been wantonly reckless of human life in keeping them in action after the field batteries began to return fire? Mound had been one of the best young officers he had ever been fortunate enough to command. England had suffered a severe loss in his death, and so had he. But his feeling of personal loss was more acute still, and the thought of the finality of death oppressed him. The wave of torment was still breaking over him when Bush spoke again.

“Shall I signal for Duncan and Harvey’s first lieutenant, sir?”

“Yes, do that, if you please, Captain Bush.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Hornblower was endeavouring to write a note in French to the Governor—a weary exercise. Sometimes it was words and sometimes it was phrases which were beyond his power to express in French, and each hitch meant retracing his steps and beginning the sentence again.

Despatches received at this moment from England—he was trying to say—inform me that the armies of His Majesty the King of Great Britain and Ireland have been successful in a great battle fought on the 14th of last month at Salamanca in Spain. Marshal Marmont, Duke of Ragusa, was wounded, and some ten thousand prisoners were captured. The British general, the Marquess of Wellesley, is, according to the advices I have received, in full march for Madrid, which is certain to fall to him. The consequences of this battle cannot be estimated too highly.

Hornblower swore a little to himself; it was not for him to recommend to the Governor what action he should take regarding this news. But the fact that one of Bonaparte’s armies had been thoroughly beaten, in a battle fought between equal numbers on a large scale, was of the highest importance. If he were Governor, he would fire salutes, post proclamations, do all that he could to revive the spirits of soldiers and civilians in their weary task of holding Riga against the French. And what it would mean to the main Russian army, now drawing together in the south to defend Moscow in one last desperate battle, it was impossible to estimate.