by Dudley Pope
'And the commission and warrant officers - Southwick, Aitken and the others, yes and young Paolo - what happens to them?'
'Well, they'll join another ship if they can find a berth, but hundreds of lieutenants and masters will be after a few dozen jobs. Paolo should find another ship because my father has enough influence to arrange a midshipman's berth. There's virtually no limit on the number a ship can carry: it depends on the captain.'
She sat upright to avoid the sun dazzling her and wondered if it could possibly tan her bosom a little. Her nipples were so large and brown. Did Nicholas prefer small pink ones, she wondered again. He seemed more than satisfied with them as they were, although she realized new husbands were unlikely to be critical.
'So you lose everyone once the ship is laid up again,' she commented. 'Supposing a month later - a month after you are back in London - the Admiralty commissions the Calypso again and gives you command?'
'I can ask for the officers, and for Southwick, and if they're not employed I'd probably get them. But the men - not one, unless they heard about it and volunteered, because they'd be scattered across the country, or perhaps serving in merchant ships.'
'And if the war started again?'
'I still wouldn't get them back. They'd volunteer or be pressed and be sent to whichever ship needed men most urgently. I'd have to start all over again. My name is well enough known that volunteers would join, hoping for prize money. But - well, you saw that I knew just about everything concerning every man in the Calypso.'
'Yes, you seemed to be father confessor to men twice your age. Anyway, at least we're not at war,' she said and touched his arm. 'At least you're not away at sea and I'm not sick with worry in case you have been wounded. Killed even.'
'That's a cheerful thought for a summer's afternoon!' he protested.
'Every time I hold you in bed, I feel a scar,' she retorted. 'Like knots in a log. You've been lucky so far, the shot or sword cuts have not damaged anything vital. Why, you've done more than enough already to be able to resign your commission and just run the St Kew estate.'
'My mother has been talking to you!'
'Not really. She would like you to, and so would your father.'
'He has no faith in the Admiralty or politicians.'
'That's hardly surprising, considering what they did to him. If they hadn't made him the scapegoat so many years ago, he would probably have been First Lord now, not St Vincent.'
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'Perhaps - but I wouldn't have done so well.'
'Why on earth not?'
'He would have been so determined that no one should accuse him of favouring his son that I'd probably still be a lieutenant commanding a cutter, probably on the fishery patrol off Newfoundland.'
'So although you might complain about Lord St Vincent's policies, you've done well enough, thanks to him.' Sarah was unsure why she was sticking up for St Vincent, who had always seemed taciturn, almost boorish, when she had met him.
'Thanks to his predecessor, Lord Spencer. He gave me my first chances in the early days - the chance to win my spurs, as it were.'
'So you have a honeymoon task - to get enough information to persuade the First Lord and the Cabinet to change the country's policy towards Bonaparte!'
'Not quite,' he said wryly. 'Just to convince the First Lord to keep enough ships in commission. I - we, rather - don't want war; we just want to be ready because we think it is coming.'
She buttoned up her dress. 'Come on, let's get on our way. War may be coming, but it's certain we have only a few weeks of our honeymoon left and Jean-Jacques expects us for an early supper.'
Sarah riding side-saddle brought a stop to the daily life in each village: women stood at the doors of their houses or shops, or came down the paths to the gates in response to cries from their children.
'We're probably the first foreigners they've seen since before the Revolution,' Ramage commented, keeping a tight rein on his horse, which was nervous at the shrill cries and cheers of the darting children.
'They wonder what nationality we are,' Sarah said. 'There'd be fewer smiles if they knew we were English.'
'Yes, they won't like the rosbifs here. Still, we could be Spanish, or even French: here in Brittany anyone from another province is a foreigner!'
'But we are obviously aristos,' Sarah said quietly. 'They probably think we escaped the guillotine at the Revolution and with the peace have returned from exile...'
Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'I am not very worried about that! It's more significant that Fort du Toulbroch, Fort de Mengam and the Lion Battery are still fully manned, as though the war was still on and a British squadron might sail up the Gullet any moment.'
'I can see another fort ahead of us. There, just to the right of that church.'
'Yes, the church is at St Pierre and the fort is de Delec, less than a mile short of Brest. This side of it, anyway.'
'How many sides are there?'
He laughed and explained: 'The port is built on both sides of the entrance of the Penfeld river, just where it runs out into the Gullet. From what I remember of the charts and from what Jean-Jacques said last night, the arsenal is this side, by the entrance to the river. Then as you go upstream there's the repair jetty, and a couple of dry docks and another arsenal. Then on the other side, to the east, there's the Château with high walls: an enormous fortress complete with gate and towers. There are barracks further inland. The commander-in-chief's house is in the centre of town, the Hôtel du Commandant de la Marine, in the Rue de Siam, although why I should remember that I don't know! There's a naval college nearby. All along this side of the river are more quays, for another arsenal which is probably used for storing guns and carriages. On the road to Paris at the main gate, the Porte de Landerneau on the north side of the town, there's the hospital. I remember the map of the town in the Hydrographic Office at the Admiralty, drawn ten or fifteen years ago, noted that the pile of garbage from the hospital was polluting the water. And the cartographer was called St Nicolin. Strange how one's memory dredges up these odd items!'
'Look,' Sarah said, 'I can see masts. Like trees that have lost their leaves.'
'Yes, there's just one more village, Laninon, before we reach the port. Ah, over to the right you can now see the ships at anchor in the Roads in front of the port. Yards crossed, sails bent on - why, it really does look as if Bonaparte is preparing a fleet. To send to India, the West Indies, the Cape ...? Eight... nine ... eleven ships of the line. Thirteen ... fifteen ... sixteen frigates. Four transports. And various others - corvettes, frigates en flûte -'
'What are they?' she interrupted.
'Frigates with most of the guns removed and fitted out as transports. And,' he continued, listing what he saw, 'they're anchored out in the Roads, ready to sail. I wonder what we will see along the quays once we get into the port...'
She shivered. 'I don't like this, Nicholas. Supposing they stop us in the port and want to see your documents? You captured and sank enough French ships for them to know your name only too well. They could accuse you of being a spy.'
'Hardly a spy,' he protested. 'My papers give my full name. There's nothing secret about our visit - we're on our honeymoon. I'm not writing down lists of ships ... And remember, there's nothing to prevent a French naval officer visiting Portsmouth, or Plymouth - nor anywhere he wants in England. He could probably set up an easel in front of Southsea Castle and paint all the ships he saw riding at anchor at Spithead, and with half a dozen small boys and a sergeant of fusiliers watching him admiringly.'
'Yes, but remember what Jean-Jacques said,' Sarah reminded him.
'Dearest, poor Jean-Jacques is a stranger in his own country. He's lived in England as an exile since 1793. Nine years. A long time.'
'He realizes that. Imagine leaving a château empty, except for vandals, for nine years ... Still, I must say he's done everything to make us comfortable. Thank goodness he brought linen, crockery and cutlery with him from E
ngland. The place might be short of furniture but it's still more comfortable than the back of this horse!'
As they jogged along the lane skirting the coast and passing through the village of Laninon before reaching the Penfeld river, Ramage noted the state of the road. Apart from its width it was little more than a deserted track pocked every couple of yards with large potholes. Yet it was obviously the most important road for the defence of Brest because it was the only link (without going miles inland and swinging out again) with the three forts and the Lion Battery. The defences of Brest were between the port and Pointe St Mathieu, but quite apart from rushing out field artillery or cavalry, it was unlikely a company of soldiers could hurry along here on a dark night without a quarter of them spraining ankles in potholes. Yet summer was the time to fill potholes so that cartwheels and horses' hooves packed down the earth.
By the time they returned to the château, to be greeted by Jean-Jacques, they were weary, feeling almost stunned by the monotonous trotting of the horses. Jean-Jacques' valet, Gilbert, busied himself with buckets of water, filling the only bath in the house. This, a large circular basin about twelve inches deep, had been found outside - the Revolutionaries had used it for watering their horses. Now, with it sitting on a thick bath mat on the dressing room floor Gilbert walked back and forth from the kitchen stove with buckets and jugs of hot water. Finally, with six inches of hot water in the bath and some jugs of cold left beside it, he reported all was ready and left.
Those buttons! Being constantly in the company of a woman with a beautiful body (with a body, he told himself proudly, which delighted a French dressmaker who took pride in cutting and stitching her material to emphasize or take advantage of every nuance of breast and thigh), buttons took on a new meaning for him. Previously they were devices for holding together pieces of cloth; now they could be a gateway to ecstasies.
Slowly she undid the buttons of her dress, starting at the bottom so that finally with a quick shrug of her arms the whole dress slid to the floor, and as he started up from the armchair she said: 'No, dearest: poor Gilbert has spent the whole afternoon boiling this water - let's use it while it is hot.' More buttons, more shrugs, and she stood naked, pleased at his obvious pleasure in watching her. Yes, her breasts were firm; yes, her hips were generous without being plump. Yes, her buttocks had that pleasing fullness: so many Frenchwomen, she noticed, had the flatness of young boys.
She turned slowly, and then picked up the towel. 'You bring the soap,' she said, and he stood up and began to undress, thankful that while in France he found it easier to forget breeches, which the French seemed to associate entirely with the aristocracy, and wore the trousers which the sans-culottes had adopted as a garment and a slogan.
By the time they had bathed and dressed, Sarah wearing a pale yellow dress which was low cut in the latest fashion, Ramage was sure he would doze off at the dinner table. However, in the high-ceilinged dining room, sparsely furnished with a table and five chairs, they found Jean-Jacques in high spirits. He had, he told them, just been able to trace some more of the furniture left behind and stolen by looters when he fled the Revolution.
Stocky, with crinkly black hair, a nose so hooked that in some lights he looked like a contented puffin, and dressed as though Louis XVI was still on the throne, instead of long ago executed by a revolutionary mob, Jean-Jacques wiped his mouth with a napkin. 'Landerneau, out on the Paris road, that's where I found them,' he said. 'A dining table, twelve chairs, the sideboard and wine cooler.'
'Who had them?'
'The mayor. He was using the table and four chairs; the rest were stored in his stable. Luckily his wife was proud of the table and kept it well polished.'
'What happens now?' Sarah asked.
'Tomorrow I am sending my bailiff and a couple of carts tc collect everything. With plenty of straw to protect the wood.'
'The mayor doesn't claim they're his?' Ramage asked.
'Oh yes, although of course he doesn't deny they were once mine. He claims the Revolution put an end to all private property.'
'You had an answer ready for that!' Ramage could imagine the conversation.
'Oh yes. He had half a dozen silver tankards on the sideboard with someone's crest on them, so I said in that case I'd take three since he had no claim to them. His wife nearly had hysterics!'
'But you haven't made a friend - a mayor can be a dangerous enemy,' Sarah said.
'The Count of Rennes has few friends in Brittany after the Revolution,' Jean-Jacques said grimly. 'My real enemy is Bonaparte, so I need hardly care about the mayor of little more than a hamlet. And since Héloïse - well, stayed behind - when I went to England I have no sons to inherit the title or this château. Rennes,' he said quietly, as though talking to himself while he stared back through the centuries, 'the ancient capital of Brittany. Two hundred years ago we were one of the half dozen most powerful families in the country. Now the last survivor is reduced to retrieving sticks of his furniture from the local thieves. Where are all my paintings, my silver, my gorgeous carpets, the Gobelins tapestry which ran the length of that wall?' - he gestured to one side of the long dining room - 'the Venetian glassware which has been handed down from father to son for generations? Being used by oafs.
'I don't begrudge oafs their possessions, but they are just as content swilling rough wine from pottery mugs. They get no pleasure from looking at and using a Venetian goblet; indeed, it just means they get short measure. To them, a Gobelins is a piece of cloth that keeps out a draught, or makes a good tarpaulin to prevent hay blowing off a rick. I could accept the local people stripping this château when the Revolution began if I thought they'd appreciate the treasures they stole. But...'
Ramage wanted to change the subject to cheer up the Count, whose grandfather had begun the family friendship with the Blazeys, but there was a difficult question to ask, and now was obviously the time to get the answer.
'Héloïse - have you seen her?'
'The Countess of Rennes, in the eyes of my Church still my wife, though no doubt divorced by some new law of the Revolution? No, I last saw her here nearly ten years ago, when she refused to escape with me.'
Sarah knew only that the Count had spent his exile in England alone while his wife stayed in France, and could not resist asking: 'Why did the Countess stay?' A moment later she could have bitten her tongue.
The skin of Jean-Jacques' face suddenly seemed too tight for the bone structure, but he struggled to present an unconcerned smile. 'She agreed with the aims of the Revolution, or at least she said she did. She was very young then. It goes back a long time: she hated her father, who was of course one of the King's favourites, and she imagined the King once snubbed her at Versailles. Hardly the stuff of revolution, one might think, but she brooded so that when the mob from Brest and Nantes and Angers came yelling through the gate, crying death to the King (and the Count of Rennes) she met them in old clothes and invited them in and served them my best wine. Meanwhile I escaped with my valet and my life. She was very beautiful. Still is, I expect. She is the mistress of one of Bonaparte's generals, I believe: a former corporal, who is not too proud to bed a citizeness who has an old title in her own right and another by miarriage.'
He signalled to one of the servants, indicating that the glasses were empty. 'The candles are getting low, too,' he said, and apologized to his guests. 'Before long we'll be reduced to using rush dips.'
Sarah said: 'You know, all that riding has made me so tired... Perhaps Nicholas will give you your game of backgammon.'
The Count stood at once, apologetic. 'Of course, both of you must be worn out: how thoughtless of me to keep you up talking of sad yesterdays. Yesteryears, rather. But tomorrow perhaps weshall dine at a more suitable table - I must be the first Count of Rennes to entertain in his own dining room with his guests seated round a scrubbed kitchen table.'
Ramage laughed and turned to Sarah. 'In Jean-Jacques' defence, I should explain that the house he bought in England was f
urnished with the finest English furniture he could find!'
'Ah, the house in Ruckinge. You know Kent, my dear? Not Ruckinge? I was fortunate enough to be able to carry jewellery with me when I left here for England and by selling some I could buy a house in Kent. Although I love that house, my heart is really here, even though the château is almost empty. I spent my childhood here. My father's father's father - so many forebears - grew up here and died of old age. The vaults in the chapel an nearly full. There'll be just enough room for me. Perhaps the original builder saw into the future and knew how many of us he would need to accommodate!'
'You seem to be full of gloomy thoughts tonight,' Ramage said as he helped Sarah from her chair.
'Yes, and as your host I am appalled that I have to put you in a suite over in the east wing furnished only with a bed, two chairs, commode and a single armoire. And no curtains at the windows.'
'You should see the great cabin of a frigate,' Ramage said dryly.
The Count led them to the door and once out of earshot of the two servants said: 'I met an old friend today. He lives at La Rochelle but travelled to Rennes by way of L'Orient to arrange some business. He was an officer in the old Navy and like me escaped to England. He says that five ships of the line and six frigates are being prepared at La Rochelle, and seven and eleven of each in L'Orient. How does that compare with Brest?'
'Eleven and sixteen,' Ramage said grimly. 'So twenty-three ships of the line and thirty-three frigates are being commissioned along the Atlantic coast. I wonder what's going on at Toulon?'
'I must admit that's a large fleet for peacetime,' Jean-Jacques said, and then added, as if to reassure himself that there was a future: 'But I am sure Bonaparte wants peace now. At least, he wants to - how do you say, to "consolidate". You've seen how he has sent most of his soldiers home to reap the harvest. There are many hundreds of miles of roads still to be repaired - thousands in fact. Today France is a whole country where reaping, ploughing and sowing will take every available man this year if the people are not to starve. Already he is gambling on a good harvest - a bad one would topple him. People will go short in time of war, but with peace they want full bellies.'