“It is only a short ride,” said Essen, “and one I think you will consider worth the making.”
Hornblower climbed on to his horse, with a nod of thanks to the groom who held its head, and then they all wheeled and dashed away through the clattering streets. A postern was opened for them in the eastern fortifications – so far no enemy had shown his face on this bank of the Dwina – and they rode out over a drawbridge spanning the ditch. On the glacis beyond the ditch was a large force of soldiers, squatting and lying in rank; as soon as the cavalcade appeared they came hastily to their feet, dressed their lines, and then, in obedience to a shrill chorus of bugles, presented arms, their regimental colours fluttering in the little breeze. Essen reined up, returning the salute.
“Well, what do you think of them, sir?” he asked Hornblower with a chuckle.
They were ragged soldiers – bare skin showed frequently in the ranks through holes in the blue or dirty grey uniforms. They were shambling, unsoldierly soldiers, too; any troops who had seen hard service might be ragged, but Hornblower, looking along the ranks, had the impression of voluntary dirt and disorder. Essen was still chuckling, and Hornblower looked the harder to find the reason for this mirth. Essen would not have brought him out here just to see ragged soldiers – Hornblower had seen enough of those in the past three months to last him the rest of his life. There were several thousand men, a strong brigade or a weak division; Hornblower glanced at the regimental standards to ascertain the number of units present, and then he nearly lost his precarious seat with surprise. Those flags were red and yellow, the national colours of Spain, and the moment this dawned upon him he realized that the ragged uniforms were the remains of the Bourbon white and blue he had come so much to hate ten years ago during his captivity at Ferrol. Not only that, but on the left of the line there was a single standard of silver and blue – the Portuguese flag, held aloft before a single shrunken battalion of scarecrows.
“I thought you would be surprised, sir,” said Essen, still chuckling.
“Who are these men?” asked Hornblower.
“Some of Bonaparte’s willing allies,” replied Essen, ironically. “They were in St Cyr’s Corps at Polotsk. One day they found themselves on the very fringe of the outpost line, and fought their way down the river to join us. Come and meet their general.”
He urged his horse forward, and he and Hornblower cantered up to where a ragged officer sat a bony white horse at the head of an even worse-mounted staff.
“I have the honour to present,” said Essen, formally, “His Excellency the Conde de los Altos – His Excellency Commodore Sir Horatio Hornblower.”
The Conde saluted; it took Hornblower a few moments to make himself think in Spanish – the last time he had used that language was during the abortive attack on Rosas, two years ago.
“It is highly gratifying to meet Your Excellency,” he said.
The Conde’s expression revealed his startled pleasure at being addressed in his own tongue, and he replied rapidly.
“You are the English Admiral, sir?”
Hornblower did not see fit to enter into explanations regarding the difference between an Admiral and a Commodore, He merely nodded.
“I have asked that my men and the Portuguese be returned by sea to Spain, there to fight against Bonaparte on our own soil. They tell me that as this can only be done by sea your consent must be secured. You will grant it, of course, sir?”
That was asking a good deal. Five thousand men at four tons a man meant twenty thousand tons of shipping – a large convoy; it would be straining his powers for him to pledge his government to provide twenty thousand tons of shipping to carry the Spaniards from Riga to Spain. There never were enough ships. And there was also the question of the moral effect on the garrison of Riga if they were to see this seasonable reinforcement which had dropped from the clouds, so to speak, shipped away again as soon as it arrived. Yet on the other hand there was a chance that Russia might make peace with Bonaparte, and in that case the sooner these Spaniards were beyond the clutches of either country the better. Five thousand men would make a considerable army in Spain – where the Spaniards were likely to do their best – while it was only a trifling force in this continental war of millions. But none of this was of nearly as much importance as the moral side. What would be the effect on the other unwilling allies of Bonaparte, the Prussians and the Austrians, the Bavarians and the Italians, when they heard not merely that a national contingent had fought its way to join the allies, but had been received with open arms, fêted and made much of, and finally shipped back to their native land with the least possible delay? Hornblower expected a tremendous revulsion of feeling among Bonaparte’s satellites, especially if the Russians executed their determination to keep on fighting through the winter. This might be the beginning of the crumbling of Bonaparte’s Empire.