Ramage and the Guillotine r-6

by Dudley Pope

  At Nampont the horses were changed again and later, as they skirted the old forest, Ramage noticed that only slender saplings and undergrowth stretched as far as he could see. From Nouvion - barely five miles from the actual battlefield of Crécy, Louis told him - the land was flat and uninteresting until the Frenchman pointed to the outskirts of a small town ahead: Abbeville, he said, his voice flat and expressionless.

  There were three gendarmes at the guardhouse covering the roads from Montreuil and Hesdin and, with pistols tucked in their belts, unshaven and cocked hats askew, they slouched over to the 'chaise. Two stood back while the third held out his hand for the documents, which Louis handed him with a polite greeting, answered by a non-committal grunt.

  After a cursory look at the papers he muttered something to the other two men and went back to the guardhouse. Louis glanced at Ramage and nodded his head slightly, then climbed out of the carriage, followed by Ramage, who signalled to Stafford to stay where he was.

  Almost at once there was a peremptory shout from the guardhouse. 'He wants all three of us,' Louis growled, and beckoned to Stafford. Inside the guardhouse there was a small, high desk behind which the gendarme was perched on a stool, his cocked hat now on a hook behind him and the papers spread open across the top of the desk, each held down by a small stone.

  'Which of you is Citizen Peyrachon?'

  Louis reached across to fold his two papers, jerking his head as if Ramage should not see them. 'I am Citizen Peyrachon, and you know better than to leave Committee papers lying around like that,' he snapped.

  The effect on the gendarme was startling, and Ramage saw that even he lived in terror of the Committee of Public Safety. The man slid off the stool as though it had been kicked from under him, and with what seemed to be one single movement he had his hat on his head and was offering Louis his papers, placating a member of the secret police.

  'Of course, Citizen!' he said hastily. 'I have not checked the papers of the other two but...'

  'I vouch for them, but check their papers; you have your duty to perform,' Louis said sternly.

  The man snatched the first passport. 'Citizen di Stefano?'

  'I am Signor di Stefano,' Ramage said pompously.

  The gendarme slid a piece of paper across the desk towards him and dipped a quill in a bottle of ink. 'Would you please sign your name?'

  With a flourish Ramage wrote 'Gianfranco di Stefano,' and passed the pen to Stafford, who wrote his assumed name beneath with all the assurance of a skilled actor.

  The gendarme straightened his hat and compared the signatures with those on the two remaining passports. He ran a finger down the travel documents, folded them all and handed them back to Louis. 'Cela suffit, Citoyen' he said, 'have a good journey.' Louis took the documents and with a curt grunt turned on his heel and walked back to the carriage, as if he had bestowed a favour on the gendarme.

  The coachman whipped up the horses and the 'chaise clattered through the cobbled streets of Abbeville. It was a wretched and gloomy town, depressing in its squalor. Many of the houses were wooden and bare of paint, with planks hanging down loose and obviously too rotten to hold any more nails. A number of houses had their windows and doors boarded up. The whole town looked as though half its inhabitants had fled several years ago at the rumour of an approaching invader and never returned. And that, Ramage realized, remembering Joseph Le Bon, was almost what happened; except that the enemy had been their own people, and Abbeville had been ravaged by fratricide, not war.

  As they reached the square Louis pointed up at a long balcony which ran the length of the first floor of a house, and then imitated a woman primping her hair and adjusting her hat, and Ramage knew that it was from there that the women of the town had watched the execution which had been delayed for their benefit by Joseph Le Bon. Louis stared ahead as the carriage passed the place where his wife had been beheaded.

  Once through the square the 'chaise swung inland after running parallel with the coast for eighty kilometres and followed the valley of the River Somme. Nine miles beyond Abbeville they reached Ailly, and while the horses were being changed Louis pointed out the Red Cap of Liberty perched on top of the weathercock, which swung in the wind a point either side of south-west, reminding Ramage of a patient schoolmaster shaking his head in reproof.

  A few miles farther on Ramage and Stafford saw their second symbol of the Revolution: Flixecourt, a village otherwise indistinguishable from most of the others on the Paris road, boasted its own Tree of Liberty. The damp air - probably helped by night mists from the River Somme - had rusted the metal trunk and branches, as though Liberty at Flixecourt had passed the autumn of its days and was now well into winter. Louis laughed bitterly at Ramage's comment and said: 'It began rusting the day the blacksmith finished making it!'

  The coachman reined in at Picquigny for the last change of horses before Amiens and, to Ramage's surprise, began cursing the postmaster, swearing he would never reach Amiens before the curfew with such spavined and broken-winded beasts. Louis climbed out to add his voice to the protest. Two gendarmes strolled over to listen and were promptly involved by Louis, who invited them to note that the postmaster's villainy would be the cause of them reaching Amiens after the curfew, but they refused to become involved. With that Louis reached inside the 'chaise and took out his papers, beckoning to the gendarmes. There was a whispered conversation, with much nodding towards Ramage, who caught the phrase 'Committee of Public Safety,' and a few moments later both men walked over to the postmaster and told him peremptorily to provide good horses. The postmaster nodded sullenly and went back to the stable, signalling the coachman to follow him. 'Choose for yourself,' he mumbled, 'I cannot help it if the horses they provide are broken-winded. It happens to all of us at a certain age, and these horses are no exception.'

  An hour later, with the sun setting behind them, they saw Amiens Cathedral high above the city, the sun's last rays turning the stone of the tall spires into pinnacles of pink marble. And then, with an almost startling suddenness as the sun dropped below the horizon, the city was in shadow; the Cathedral spires became menacing and stark grey fingers towering over narrow streets. Somewhere below them would be jail cells and police headquarters, guillotines and Trees of Liberty. Although France was at war, Ramage knew by now that the enemy the French people were still incited to fight in almost daily exhortations was not the English but almost every aspect of their lives before the Revolution: anything connected with the ancien régime, and a lot more besides.

  The Church - although according to Louis there was talk of Bonaparte allowing the priests some freedom after recently signing the Concordat with the Pope - was obviously still a major enemy, and perhaps the hardest for the Revolution to fight (although by now the one from which it had least to fear), since both Church and priest had until a few years ago been so much part of people's lives. Charitable institutions were also the enemy; their almshouses and hospitals had been destroyed or taken over. Anyone faintly connected with the aristocracy had long since fled abroad or taken a tumbril to the guillotine and, Louis had told him, so had many people whose only connection with the aristocracy had been proud boasts of high-born relatives, boasts made before the Revolution and frequently imaginary, intended only to impress neighbours.

  The main enemy, the one said to lurk round every corner, was the anti-Revolutionary. To be so denounced to the local Committee of Public Safety or the police put any man's life in peril, since all too many tribunals set up by the Committees - there was one in every town - listened to the charges and, like Joseph Le Bon, either refused to listen to the evidence or disregarded it, along with any defence. The general view was that the guillotine settled any doubts: the thump of a head dropping into the basket was the sound that secured the Revolution from plotters. The guillotine was also a great boon to a man heavily in debt, Louis had said bitterly. It was surprising how many creditors were strapped down on the 'Widow' after being denounced by debtors, and equally surpri
sing how many grocers and bakers and butchers expanded their businesses after their rivals were judged to be plotting against the Revolution.

  All the facts that Louis had told him last night in that tiny room at the Chapeau Rouge in Boulogne, all the horrifying examples he had cited of the tribunals at work (not least the one that sent his own wife to her death), seemed to take on a new and more immediate meaning as the horses trotted towards Amiens. In Boulogne there had been risks. He never forgot for a moment that he was in an enemy country - the sudden unexpected arrival of the gendarme at the door yesterday morning had been a frightening enough reminder. But somehow Amiens seemed different; although for the moment he was not sure why, he was beginning to feel uneasy. Was it because Amiens was well inland, away from escape by sea? No, that was absurd; he was not a turtle that had to be near water. Nor was it due to the sheer size of the city.

  It must be the atmosphere which, even from this distance and viewed from a jogging 'chaise, seemed sinister and full of foreboding. If he was taken prisoner and locked in the room of a house, with an armed sentry at the door, obviously he would feel trapped and more than aware of the danger he was in. But supposing he was taken prisoner in the same circumstances and locked in a cell in a fortress with an armed sentry at the door: he would be in no more and no less danger - but the heavy, cold atmosphere of a fortress cell would frighten him more, as if the sheer bulk of a fortress was menacing.

  He wished he could talk about it to Louis; he was certain the Frenchman would understand his uneasiness. But whispered conversations as they approached the city would puzzle the coachman and might arouse his suspicions, even though he had been a jovial enough fellow so far. That was another reason for unease: everyone had been comparatively jovial while the 'chaise rattled along the road from Boulogne, but once it approached the shadows of Amiens itself the joviality had vanished - even the coachman had flared up at the postmaster at Picquigny - and for Ramage it had been replaced with a grey fear that came like evening mist in a valley, something that just formed without apparent effort or movement.

  Louis pulled out his watch. "We will be in just before curfew, unless one of these horses goes lame.'

  The Hotel de la Poste was in a street barely a hundred yards from the Cathedral, whose spires, more than 350 feet high, made the few clouds in the darkening sky seem torn pennons streaming from cavalrymen's lances. The owner, a surly man with sharp, shrewd eyes and who bore no resemblance to his Corporal brother in Boulogne, made no secret of the fact that his inn was almost empty, although he made it clear that that was no reason why anyone should expect the kind of service given in Paris. From the way he said it, he obviously had a hatred of Paris which extended to anyone who might be going to or coming from the city.

  He rubbed the palms of his hands on his green baize apron as he inspected the three small bags the coachman handed down and then gave a contemptuous sniff, and Ramage guessed that despite his Revolutionary fervour, m'sieur le patron judged the prosperity of his guests by the reliable ancien régime yardstick of the quantity and quality of their baggage.

  Ramage left Louis to arrange the rooms and the Frenchman went into one of his now familiar winks-and-nods consulations with the owner, ending up by producing an almost cheerful look on the Norman's face when he heard they would be staying several days, accepting without question the explanation that the Italian wanted to visit some of the factories to look into the possibility of arranging a regular supply of the plush, woollen stuffs and goat-hair costumes for which Amiens was famous and all of which were hard to buy in Italy, though in great demand. Louis then spoiled the effect by adding a last flourish, saying that once his business was done here, Signor di Stefano would go on to Paris to conclude his business with the Ministry of Marine. The Norman gave a prodigious sniff which made it clear that nothing good ever happened in Paris, least of all to Italians. Picking up the lightest of the bags he led the way to the staircase.

  There had been no sign of the innkeeper's daughter, although the Corporal's description of the shrewdness of his prosperous brother had proved accurate so far. Ramage wished he knew which room the lieutenant-de-vaisseau occupied during his twice-weekly visits: he had the impression that it would always be the same one, so that the linen need not be changed too frequently. The Corporal's brother would be up to all those tricks, and probably more of his own devising - as became a successful hotelier, the Corporal would say with pride.

  The room he was to share with Stafford was large and high-ceilinged, a domed bedstead standing in one corner with faded blue silk curtains and counterpane. Another bed, little more than a wooden frame made up with a mattress and a matching counterpane, stood in another corner, with a chest of drawers against the wall between them. A round table with four chairs in the centre of the room completed the furnishings, apart from long and faded green velvet curtains at the windows which had been washed so often that the remaining nap looked like patches of incipient mildew, and a threadbare carpet covering most of the floor. Ramage was relieved to notice that none of the floorboards creaked. Would the lieutenant-de-vaisseau's. room be furnished in the same way - with equally silent floorboards? He was thankful for Louis's shrewdness in demanding to be shown several rooms before deciding which they would take: the first two, on the floor above, were too small; two others on this same floor (the door of a third remained locked) were the same as the room he was in: a large and small bed, one chest of drawers, one table and four chairs. All the windows were tightly shut, so that each room smelled musty with the hint of trapped odours from the kitchen reminding Ramage that meals would be served in their rooms. It was a French habit for which he was thankful: dining-rooms were a danger because it was too easy for gendarmes to glance round at the diners as often is they wished, and conversation had to be guarded, with Stafford silent.

  As Louis and the innkeeper left the room they were discussing the supper to be served for all three of them in Ramage's room in half an hour's time, and when Ramage shut the door behind them Stafford whispered: 'All right if I talk, sir?’

  'Yes - just keep your voice down and listen for footsteps in the corridor.'

  Ramage waited, and when the Cockney began unpacking his bag, emptying the contents on to the smaller bed but remaining silent, Ramage said: 'What were you going to say?'

  Stafford looked round in surprise: ' Oh, there wasn't nothing I wanted to say right now, sir; it's just sitting in the coach. not being able to say nothing that's so aggravatering.'

  'Aggravating,' Ramage corrected automatically, long since accustomed to the Cockney's mispronunciations. 'Well, make the best of this evening because you'll have to be silent tomorrow.'

  'Aye aye, sir,' Stafford said, walking over to the door and kneeling down, as though looking through the keyhole. He opened the door quietly and just enough to be able to look at the edge of the lock. Then he shut the door and walked back to his bed, picking up a small bag made of soft leather and pulling open the drawstring. He shook out several small strips of metal which had the ends bent into various shapes, picked one up and examined it, grunted and put them all back in the bag.

  Ramage was unsure how to interpret the grunt and asked: 'Can you manage that kind of lock?'

  Stafford looked hurt. 'Wiv a bent pin held in me toes, sir' he said contemptuously.

  That evening, after the innkeeper and his painfully thin wife had cleared away the supper and left the room, Ramage said, ‘I haven't eaten a meal like that for a very long time. At least some good chefs survived the Revolution!'

  'Wait until you see the bill,' Louis cautioned. 'Innkeepers are the new bankers ...'

  Ramage patted his stomach reflectively. 'Jowl of salmon sole, roast pigeon, bouillie beef— I haven't had that for years - and roast fowl. Picardy beer - not much body to it, admittedly, but nice enough if you treat it as small beer - and Volnay wine. Better than salt pork and pease, eh, Stafford?'

  The Cockney belched happily, his eyes slightly out of focus. 'Never taste
d sole like that, and that there bully beef, or whatever you call it. Beer ain't up to much, like you say, sir, but the wine -' he looked down at his empty glass, 'well, it'd ease the journey down a bumpy road, I reckon. Thought they was short of food!'

  'Make no mistake,' Louis said, 'they are. There were food riots in many towns last year. This man Jobert knows where to get the delicacies - and he pays a high price. You can get anything - if you have the money. The ordinary people though: many of them have less than your people in England.'

  'Nice to be rich,' Stafford commented contentedly, 'even if only for a few hours!'

  Ramage pushed the carafe towards him. 'You and Louis had better finish that up, but don't expect to eat like that every night we're here!'

  Stafford shook his head. 'Once in a lifetime's enough, sir. Cor, wait until I tell the lads.' He topped up Louis's glass and then filled his own, and after putting the carafe down, carefully he raised his glass and looked Ramage straight in the eye.

  "Ere's to you, sir, an' the Marcheezer, an' may you both live to a ripe hold hage -'

  Louis reached for his glass, but Stafford had not finished. 'I'm a bit tipsy, sir, an' I ain't very good wiv words, but the other lads - not just Jacko and Rosey, but all the rest of them - well, they'd want me ter thank you for gettin' them out of trouble so often —' He saw the puzzled expression on Ramage's face and hurriedly explained. 'Well, like when we rescued the Marcheezer, and then when that Don rammed us in the Kathleen, and the privateers at St Lucia with the Triton, an' the 'urricane, an' that skylarking in the Post Office brig . . .'

  As if startled at the length of his speech he hurriedly gulped his wine, followed by Louis, and put his glass down nervously.

  Ramage held out his own empty glass, and Louis poured some wine.