“What do we think we’re doing?” he asked. “We’ll be getting ourselves shot in a moment.”
Hornblower was staring forward at the Prussian army, at the glitter of bayonets and the flags black against the snow.
“I want to go up to the Prussians,” he said.
The discharge of the battery close at hand drowned the words Essen said in reply, but what he meant to say was plain enough.
“I am going,” said Hornblower stubbornly. He looked round and caught Clausewitz’s eye. “Are you coming too, Colonel?”
“Of course he cannot,” expostulated Essen. “He cannot risk being taken.”
As a renegade, a man fighting against his own country, Clausewitz was likely to be hanged if ever the Prussians laid hands on him.
“It would be better if he came,” said Hornblower, woodenly.
This was a strange feeling of simultaneous clairvoyance and illness.
“I’ll go with the Commodore,” said Clausewitz suddenly, making what was probably the bravest decision of his life. Perhaps he was carried away by Hornblower’s automaton-like recklessness.
Essen shrugged his shoulders at this madness which had descended upon them.
“Go, then,” he said. “Perhaps I may be able to capture enough generals to exchange for you.”
They trotted forward up the road; Hornblower heard Essen bellow an order to the battery commander to cease fire. He looked back; Brown was trotting after them, a respectful five lengths behind. They passed close to some of the Cossack light horse, who looked at them curiously, and then they were in among Prussian skirmishers, who, from the shelter of rocks and inequalities in the ground, were taking long shots at the Cossacks. No one fired at them as they rode boldly through. A Prussian captain beside the road saluted them, and Clausewitz returned the salute. Just beyond the skirmishing line was the first formed infantry, a Prussian regiment in battalion columns of companies, two on one side of the road and one on the other. The colonel and his staff were standing in the road staring at the odd trio approaching them — the British naval officer in his blue and gold, Clausewitz in his Russian uniform with the row of medals, and the British seaman with cutlass and pistols at his belt. The colonel asked a question in a loud dry tone as they approached, and Clausewitz answered it, reining in.
“Tell them we must see the general,” said Hornblower in French to Clausewitz.
There was a rapid exchange of dialogue between Clausewitz and the colonel, ending in the latter calling up two or three mounted officers — his adjutant and majors, perhaps — to accompany them up the road. Here they saw a larger infantry force formed up, and a line of guns, and here was a party on horseback, the feathers and braid and medals and mounted orderlies indicating the presence of a general’s staff. This must be the general — Yorck, Hornblower remembered his name to be. He recognized Clausewitz at once, and addressed him abruptly in German. A few words on each side seemed only to add to the tension of the situation, and there was a short pause.
“He speaks French,” said Clausewitz to Hornblower, and they both turned and waited for him to speak.
“General,” said Hornblower; he was in a dream, but he made himself speak in his dream. “I represent the King of England, and Colonel Clausewitz represents the Emperor of Russia. We are fighting to free Europe from Bonaparte. Are you fighting to maintain him as a tyrant?”
It was a rhetorical question to which no answer was possible. Silent perforce, Yorck could only await the rest of what Hornblower had to say.
“Bonaparte is beaten. He is retreating from Moscow, and not ten thousand of his army will reach Germany. The Spaniards have deserted him, as you know. So have the Portuguese. All Europe is turning upon him, having found out how little his promises mean. You know of his treatment of Germany — I need not tell you about that. If you fight for him you may keep him on his tottering throne for a few days longer. You may drag out Germany’s agony by that length of time. But your duty is to your enslaved country, to your King who is a prisoner. You can free them. You can end the useless pouring-out of the blood of your men now, at this moment.”