by Dudley Pope
Ramage shook his head dumbly, hoping that the Corporal would not get tired of perching on the stairs on his one good leg before he had finished his revealing story.
'Ah - well, he seals it up and calls for his messenger. Not an ordinary messenger, though; this man is a highly trusted officer, a lieutenant-de-vaisseau, no less, attached to Citizen Bruix's staff. The officer produces his special leather bag, Citizen Bruix puts his report inside, and then he locks the bag with a special key - a key which never leaves Citizen Bruix's possession - and then the lieutenant leaves for Paris before dawn next morning.'
'How do they open the bag in Paris?' Ramage asked innocently.
'With the duplicate,' the Corporal snorted contemptuously. 'That's the point, the duplicate key is kept at the First Consul's headquarters. No matter where in the world he is,' the Corporal said grandly, 'the duplicate key is always with him, ready to open the bag of dispatches from Citizen Bruix's headquarters.'
Ramage nodded his head wonderingly. 'The secret of success is careful preparation,' he said sententiously. 'I always tell my men, measure the wood carefully before you begin to saw, and then you -'
'Quite, quite,' the Corporal interrupted impatiently. 'Well, the lieutenant leaves immediately for Paris on horseback - note that; no comfortable, slow coach, as in the days of the ancien régime, but a galloping horse. For speed, you understand; so that the First Consul shall always know exactly what is going on all over the Empire.
'Off he gallops, whatever the weather, and he rides like the wind until it is too dark to proceed - the First Consul expects the report to be waiting on his desk first thing on Monday morning,' the Corporal explained, oblivious to the contradiction of the timing implied. 'In fact, the lieutenant usually manages to reach Amiens, and that's where my brother has his inn. A very comfortable establishment, you understand; one well equipped to attend to the wants of Citizen Bruix's special messenger.
'The lieutenant stays that night, dines well after such a ride, sleeps in his special room and at dawn he is off again. By nightfall he is in Paris with the report. So you can see why I know,' he added proudly. 'About the Invasion, I mean.'
'Indeed I do,' Ramage said, awe in his voice.
'Ah well, you will be wanting to get to bed.' With that he stumped up the two remaining stairs, led the way along a short corridor and opened a door. He handed the candle to Ramage and stood back to let him pass. 'I could tell some stories,' the Corporal said wistfully, 'but you'll be tired.'
'Oh no,' Ramage said eagerly. 'These men of mine are sleepy, and they can go to bed; but me - I would like the chance of talking with a man of affairs like yourself, and I have a few francs left to buy the wine.'
The Corporal winked and stumped back along the corridor. 'I'll see you downstairs then,' he called back over his shoulder. 'And tell your men not to worry about the English; they can sleep soundly in their beds. My brother already has plans to open an inn at Dover - how about that, eh?'
As soon as they were all in the room and the door was shut, Jackson whispered: 'I couldn't follow any of that, sir, but from the way you was listening it sounded as though it was useful.'
'It was,' Ramage said cheerfully, 'and there's more to come. I'm going downstairs to drink with him for an hour or two. You had better get some sleep, just in case we have to prowl around tomorrow night. Before you turn in just make sure you can hold the tools properly -' he gestured at the canvas bags Rossi and Stafford had just put down by the foot of one of the beds. 'Try and look like professional carpenters — without cutting yourselves ...'
He eyed the two large beds. 'I seem to remember you snore, Rossi. What about you, Stafford?'
The Cockney shook his head sadly. 'Me too, sir. Jacko doesn't - you'd best share a bed wiv 'im, and I'll doss wiv Rossi.'
'Very well,' Ramage said, and took the passports and travel documents from his pocket. 'You'd better look after these,' he said, handing them to Jackson. 'Who knows, I might get as drunk as that fellow stretched out on the chairs.'
The American grinned. 'That'll be the day, sir. You all right for money?'
Ramage took ten francs from the handful in his pocket and gave the rest to Jackson. 'You might as well look after these, just in case.'
He sat down on the bed for a few minutes. A ghost of an idea had appeared while the Corporal was telling the story of the lieutenant-de-vaisseau's overnight stay in Amiens. And 'ghost', he reflected, was the right description: the more he thought about it, the more he saw it had precious little shape or substance. Well, there was time enough for him to look closer...
He found the Corporal waiting behind the bar, a bottle in one hand and the corkscrew ready in the other. 'Ah,' he began turning the corkscrew as soon as he saw Ramage, 'you can tell me if you have a red wine the like of this in Italy.'
'I'll be glad to,' Ramage said eagerly; so eagerly that the Corporal hastened to make it clear that Ramage was paying for it. 'It's not expensive, though, and you'll enjoy it!'
The bottle had gone and been replaced by another (the Corporal making sure that each bottle was paid for as soon as it was uncorked) before Ramage could get him back to the subject of his brother at Amiens, a man for whom the Corporal combined envy with pride.
'He has a fine position, right by the crossroads, Paris ahead, Rouen to the right, Arras to the left. That's the secret of a profitable inn, of course; you have to be where the traveller can find you. Great mistake I made, settling here. I was relying on the local people for custom but -' he glowered at the half dozen men still playing dominoes at the table, two empty bottles and one half-full representing the entire evening's drinking for six men, 'well, you can see; they talk like wine cellars about how much they need, but half a bottle each sees them through the evening.
'My brother, though: there he is, on the main post road to Paris, tactically placed —' he cocked his head a moment, as though the word brought back memories of a more martial life, 'yes, strategically placed for the travellers to Paris. Travellers have the money to spend. Generals are the best - at least six staff officers with them, and a dozen soldiers. Forage for the horses, a big dinner and an early breakfast and they're away, so you can get their rooms tidied up in good time for fresh guests.
'Ah, my brother knew what he was doing when he took over the Hotel de la Poste. He was telling me his plans for after the Invasion of England. He thinks he'll open his first place at Dover - after the travellers' trade again, of course. He's not sure from the map which is the most popular route to London, though. One road goes through - Canterbury, I think he said - and the other through Ashford. He'll wait and see which the Army favours and take over the best hotel at one or the other place. London - ah, he has big plans for London. The headquarters staff, that's who he has his eyes on in London.'
He filled his glass and drank deeply and, as if comparing the position of former Corporal Jobert in Boulogne with his brother M. Jobert in Amiens, he said almost spitefully: 'But he's not in England yet, and he has his problems in Amiens. Ah, I could tell you a thing or two about them, too . . .'
His eyes seemed to go glassy at the thought, and Ramage prompted him. 'We all have our problems, it's overcoming them that distinguishes the men from the boys!'
'Or the girls,' the Corporal said, almost absently. 'It's his daughter that is the problem, you see. My niece. A fine girl mind you; pretty and hard-working, but inclined to be wilful. My brother says that the minute the girl and the lieutenant first looked at each other, he knew there would be trouble.'
He drained his glass, and Ramage pushed the bottle towards him. 'Trouble? With the lieutenant on the First Consul’s headquarters staff?'
‘The Admiral's staff,' the innkeeper corrected him. ‘Twice a week he rides into the hotel yard - on Saturday night as he goes to Paris, and on Tuesday night as he returns with orders and dispatches for Citizen Bruix from the First Consul. It all seems very romantic to a young girl, I suppose.'
'It would be a good match,' Ramage said, know
ing that would provoke the Corporal into more confidences.
The Frenchman shook his head sadly. 'It might seem like it to you, because you are looking at it as a carpenter; but you have to consider it from the point of view of a man of property: a man like my brother - or me, come to that. She’s his only child, you see, so what happens when he's gone? None of us live for ever. But a lieutenant's wife - will a naval man settle down to an innkeeper's life after the war?'
Ramage nodded his head vigorously, not liking the sad note. creeping in to the Corporal's voice, which was already slurring as the new wine added its weight to that drunk before Ramage and his men arrived at the Chapeau Rouge. ‘After all, you've settled down as an innkeeper after a military life.’
The flattery was so gross that for a moment Ramage thought he had overdone it, but the Corporal screwed up his eyes, as if examining the statement and liking what he saw. 'That is true,' he admitted judiciously, 'and I don't want you to think I'm against the young man. He is a smart fellow. Five years ago he was a haberdasher’s assistant. He joined the Navy – and now look at him. Why, in a year or two who knows – he might be given the command of a sloop of war; a frigate, even.’
‘He’ll end up an admiral, you’ll see,’ Ramage whispered in a suitably awed voice. ‘An admiral, think of that!’
'Not a chance," the Corporal said firmly, 'the war won't last long enough. It takes time to become an admiral; another seven or eight years, I should judge, and the war will be over this time next year, you'll see.'
'Still, he has an interesting job now - and exciting, too; just imagine, galloping to Paris with urgent dispatches; sleeping with a pistol in his hand to guard them safely I expect . . .'
The Corporal laughed condescendingly. 'Not as romantic as that, I can assure you. Sleeping with a pistol in his hand - why, he would probably blow his foot off in his sleep! That's the thing you people don't understand. When you are handling secret dispatches all the time - as this young man is - you get used to it. Like you carpenters starting off with a plain plank of wood. Why, my brother says the lieutenant has even left the satchel behind on the dinner table - how about that, eh?' He nudged Ramage across the table. 'Mind you, my brother is a responsible innkeeper, and seeing the young man was lifting his glass a bit freely - it's a fault he has, 1 have to admit - he kept an eye on the satchel. After all, the First Consul's secret documents have to be safeguarded.'
'Indeed they do,' Ramage said. 'What about another bottle?'
Ramage was weary, jubilant but just sober when he finally returned to the room to find Jackson still awake but the other two snoring stertorously. After assuring Ramage that the passports and travel documents were safely hidden under the bolster, Jackson waited to see if he was going to hear an account of the talk with the Corporal. Ramage thought about it for several minutes and decided that their situation was precarious enough for the American, as the second-in-comand of the little expedition, to need to know all the details, so that he could take over if necessary.
Keeping his voice down to a whisper, Ramage quickly outlined the orders he had received from Lord Nelson and the procedure he intended to adopt to get reports back to England.
'I'm hoping we'll get all the information at the same time, so we can all go together; but if not, then one of you will sail as necessary with Louis and Dyson in the Marie here, meet the Folkestone Marie - she'll be going to the rendezvous every night from tomorrow night onwards, Dyson was bright enough to arrange that - and return with her to Folkestone. Each report must then be taken at once to Dover Castle, so that it can be forwarded immediately to Lord Nelson.'
Ramage paused to rest his throat: whispering was extra-ordinarily tiring, and he wondered if he would end up with a sore throat.
'Now we get to this innkeeper. He wants us to call him "The Corporal" by the way: it seems he was once in Boney's Army, and lost the leg in Spain. He has a brother who owns an inn at Amiens called the Hotel de la Poste - remember that name. The brother's name is Jobert. Now, the French admiral in charge of the invasion flotillas along this coast - and that includes construction - is called Bruix. Every Friday night Bruix writes a report on the state of the invasion flotilla, including new construction, and sends it to Bonaparte's headquarters in Paris first thing on Saturday morning.
'In other words,' Ramage said slowly, 'all the information the Admiralty needs might be contained in that one report. It could be this week's, last month's - but the information it contains would take us six months to discover on our own.’
He could feel Jackson's body tensing as he grasped the significance of what Ramage was saying.
'The link between the Corporal's brother in Amiens and Admiral Bruix is a young lieutenant who rides to Paris, leaving Boulogne early on Saturday and arriving in Paris on Sunday night -'
'And spending Saturday night at the Hotel de la Poste,’ Jackson whispered.
'Not only that, but he drinks too much, left the leather dispatch case behind on the dining-room table at least once, and is much enamoured of the innkeeper's daughter.'
'Does he spend the night with her?' Jackson asked bluntly.
'I doubt it; in fact the worthy innkeeper and his wife probably lock her bedroom door. They are considering him as a husband for the girl, and as she's the only child that means they are deciding whether or not he is worthy of inheriting the Hotel de la Poste when they die: probably in lieu of a dowry, knowing how canny their sort of folk can be,'
Jackson was silent for a moment, and then whispered cautiously: 'If we could get our hands on the bag . . .'
'We'd find it locked. Only two keys - Admiral Bruix has one; the other is kept at Bonaparte's headquarters.'
'But a leather bag,' Jackson said longingly. 'I can just see Staff's face. He's brought a set of picks with him, and those leather bags never have much of a lock on them . . .'
'Surprising how useful it is to have a locksmith in one's crew,' Ramage mused, 'and particularly one trained to work in the dark . . . Still, what bothers me is that it all looks a little too easy at the moment.'
'Well sir,' Jackson whispered cheerily, 'over the past two or three years we've had our share of jobs that looked impossible from the start, but we managed them.'
'That's what I mean,' Ramage said, unable to keep the sharpness out of his voice. 'The difference is that this looks so easy at the beginning that we can be sure it'll turn out to be difficult.'
'Ah, you're looking at it from halfway through, sir,' Jackson pointed out. 'We're already in France and halfway through carrying out the orders. I doubt if you thought they were so easy when Lord Nelson gave them to you.'
Ramage recalled the three meetings - in the library at the Duchess of Manston's, in that miserable room at the Admiralty with the green-painted walls, and in that cellar-like room in Dover Castle. Jackson was right; at the time they seemed the most impossible orders he had ever heard of, let alone received.
'I see what you mean, but don't let's get too confident, Jackson. And we need some sleep too.'
CHAPTER NINE
Ramage woke next morning with a start but knew he had not been roused by the daylight trying to penetrate the dirty window panes. Approaching footsteps - the heavy tread of boots on wooden planks; the measured steps of a man climbing stairs, not the thud-and-click of the Corporal and his wooden leg. He sensed that Jackson was already awake and looked round at the two men in the other bed. Both of them were watching him over the top of the blanket, waiting for a word or gesture.
'If he's coming here, we bluff! Pretend to be sleepy,' he whispered.
The man reached the top of the stairs and marched along the corridor. Ramage remembered two other doors, but the man was not interested in them and, even though he was waiting for it, the sudden heavy banging on the door made Ramage jump.
'Open the door! Police!'
Ramage forced himself to wait. One gendarme. Surely there would be two if it was trouble? But they might be intelligent enough to have surrounded the inn,
or more could be waiting at the bottom of the stairs. Again there was a banging on the door and an impatient order to open it. Ramage forced a noisy yawn and, in the French heavily laced with Italian that he had used the night before, called out: 'Who is that making so much noise? Is breakfast ready?'
'Police,' the man called, 'open the door!'
'Open it yourself,' Ramage said in a surly voice, 'I am still waking up.'
The door swung open and a gendarme, one arm protruding from under the cape drawn round him against the early morning chill, slouched into the room. He flung the cape back over his shoulders, like a bird settling its wings, and rubbed a hand over the stubble along the side of his jaw, the rasping reminding Ramage of a holystone sliding along a dry deck.
'Out of bed!' he ordered, 'and show me your passports and lodging passes!'
Knowing the other three would be watching him for a lead, Ramage slowly got up, mumbling to himself in Italian, and Rossi followed, muttering a stream of Italian which more than made up for the silence of the other two. Ramage fished around under the mattress and Jackson, guessing what wasneeded, pulled the documents from under his side of the mattress and gave them to Ramage.
. Handing the four passports to the gendarme, Ramage waited for him to read the details, but instead the man barked: 'Lodging tickets!'
Ramage shook his head dumbly. 'What are lodging tickets?’
'No lodging tickets?' the gendarme repeated incredulously. 'But you must have them! Why ...'
They could knock him out and tie him up and leave him gagged under the bed. Providing he had been alone, they might be able to escape through the window - although Ramage realized that he had no idea what was outside: perhaps a yard with a high wall. Blast Louis for forgetting lodging passes: here they were, trapped and about to be arrested as spies, all because Louis had forgotten lodging passes. But - up to a point - time was on their side; a little judicious stupidity on his part might result in the gendarme revealing whether or not he was alone.