CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Among the mass of long-delayed mail from England were great packets of printed pamphlets, in French and in German, a few even in Dutch and in Danish. They were appeals to Bonaparte’s forces to desert his standard — not suggestions for mass desertions, but intended for the individual soldier, telling him that he could be sure of a welcome if he were to come over. They denied the statements that Bonaparte was continually making in his proclamations, to the effect that England confined her prisoners in floating hells of hulks, and that deserters were forced by ill-treatment to take service in England’s mercenary regiments. They offered a life of ease and security, with the honourable alternative, only if requested, of enlistment in the British forces, to those who wished to strike a blow against the tyrant. The French pamphlet was certainly well written, and presumably the others were too; maybe Canning, or that fellow — what was his name, now? — Hookham Frere, had had a hand in composing them.
The letter that accompanied the pamphlets, charging him to do his utmost to get them into the hands of Bonaparte’s forces, had an interesting enclosure — a copy of a letter from Bonaparte to Marmont, intercepted presumably somewhere in Spain, in which the Emperor raged against this new evidence of British falseness and perfidy. He had seen some of the first pamphlets, apparently, and they had touched him on a sore spot. Judging by the wording of his letter, he was driven quite frantic at this attempt to seduce his men from their allegiance. If the violence of the Imperial reaction was any guide, then this method of warfare was likely to be effective. The usually well-fed and well-cared-for Prussians under Macdonald’s command were on meagre rations now that the country round had been stripped bare by foragers; an offer of a life of well-fed ease combined with an appeal to their patriotism might bring in deserters in plenty. Hornblower mapped out in his mind a formal letter to the Governor in which he would suggest that a few pedlars be sent into the French camp ostensibly to sell luxuries but really to distribute these pamphlets. Here where Bonaparte’s men were suffering real hardship and meeting with small success the appeal might carry more weight than with Bonaparte’s main army in Moscow; Hornblower was inclined to distrust the flamboyant Russian bulletin about the burning of Moscow, and Alexander’s fervent public declaration that he would never make peace while a Frenchman was on Russian soil. In Hornblower’s opinion French morale was likely to be still high enough, and Bonaparte’s strength still great enough, to force peace at the bayonet’s point from Russia in the Russian capital, be the destruction of Moscow never so great — even as great as Moscow said it was.
Someone knocked at the door.
“Come in,” bellowed Hornblower, irritated at the interruption, for he had intended to spend all day catching up on his arrears of paper work.
“A letter from the beach, sir,” said the midshipman of the watch.
It was a brief note from the Governor with its point compressed into a single sentence —
I have some new arrivals in the city who I think will interest you if you can spare the time for a visit.
Hornblower sighed; his report to London would never be finished, apparently, but he could not ignore this invitation.
“Call away my barge,” he said to the midshipman, and turned to lock his desk.
God knew who these ‘new arrivals’ would be. These Russians were sometimes so portentously mysterious about trifles. It might be a fool’s errand, but on the other hand he must find out what this new development was before sending off his despatch to England. As his barge danced over the water he looked over at the siege-lines; the battering guns were still volleying away — he had grown so used to the noise that he only noticed it when his attention was called to it — and the usual long pall of smoke lay over the flat country there.
Then the boat entered the mouth of the river and Daugavgriva’s ruins were hidden from view save for the dome of the church where he had so often stood. Riga came steadily nearer and nearer, and they had to keep close to the bank to avoid the worst of the Dwina’s rapid current, until at last the oars ceased and the barge slid against the steps of the river-wall. At the head of them waited the Governor with his staff and a spare horse for Hornblower.