Ramage's Devil r-13

by Dudley Pope

  'You must find that box uncomfortable, milady.' As soon as Sarah reassured him, he turned to Ramage and took a deep breath.

  'Edouard used his ears and eyes carefully, milord, and he acted as a simpleton so that he could ask silly questions - and sprinkled some shrewd questions among them.

  'Anyway, it means this. As far as the Count is concerned, because France is now at war with England again and the Count spent all those years in England, he is regarded as an enemy of the state. He was denounced and the authorities in Paris sent orders to the chef d'administration in Rennes to arrest him.'

  'Where is he being confined?'

  'Ah, that's my next piece of information. He will be confined in the Château in Brest, the naval headquarters. He and many others not yet brought in.'

  'What others?'

  'Landowners like the Count who returned from exile, people who in the past year or so have fallen out of favour with Bonaparte or the local préfet or even a local chief of police. Priests who have spoken out too boldly. People to whom some of those in authority owe money...'

  'Why the Château at Brest - to be near a convenient ship?'

  Gilbert nodded. 'They will be transported to Cayenne as soon as a ship (a frigate, the cavalry captain said) can be prepared.'

  'So the Count had how long - a year? - back in his home...'

  'Eleven months, sir. Now, concerning you. The officer knew you had been staying here but Edouard was naturally a great supporter of the Republic and told the officer that you had received a warning yesterday evening and fled, leaving your trunks behind. This was confirmed by the Count, who was still in the room.

  'The Count pretended anger - he said you were under the protection of passeports issued by Bonaparte. The cavalry officer just laughed and produced a handful of papers and read them to the Count - I think because he had some idea that the authorities could blame him for your escape.

  'Anyway, the first was a letter from the préfet at Rennes addressed to you by name, milord, telling you of a decree dated a few days ago. It enclosed a copy of the decree that made you a prisoner of war, from the second Prairial in the eleventh year of the Republic, which is a few days ago. The decree was signed by the First Consul, and with Bonaparte's signature was that of M. Marot, the Secretary of State.'

  'And her ladyship?'

  'No mention of wives, milord. Edouard had the impression that the letter was simply a copy of one being sent to all foreign males. He thought that women and children were not affected.'

  Ramage looked squarely at the little man. 'What it means now, Gilbert, is that you and Edouard and the rest of the staff are harbouring enemies of the Republic. You could be guillotined. We must go.'

  'I assure you Edouard and I are true patriots, milord; we are not harbouring enemies of the state because this house has already been searched carefully by a company of cavalry which had ridden specially from Rennes.'

  Ramage held the man's shoulders. 'Gilbert, thank you. But there is too much risk for you.'

  'Sir, please stay. The Count would wish it. England gave me a home, as well as the Count, when we were refugees. And there is no risk now for you or us: the house has been searched. And we are already making inquiries about their intentions for the Count and to see if it is possible to hire a fishing boat to get you to England, or even the Channel Islands.'

  'Who is making inquiries?' Ramage asked.

  "The second cook and her husband, Louis, a gardener, always take a cabriolet, how do you call it -?'

  'A gig.'

  '- ah yes, a gig. Well, they go into Brest each week to buy fish and other things. The gendarmes at the Landerneau Gate - that's where everyone has to show papers when entering or leaving Brest -'

  Ramage was curious and interrupted: 'Is it possible to get into Brest without papers? No one asked us.'

  'But of course, milord. You rode across the fields without knowing. Otherwise you simply leave the road half a mile before the town gates and go round them through the fields. There are gates on the road but no wall round the town. The risk now the war has begun is being stopped later somewhere in the town by a patrol of gendarmes.'

  Ramage nodded and glanced at Sarah, a glance noticed, by Gilbert. 'Ah yes, when it comes to getting you to the fishing boat, you dress as a French married couple going to market - or travelling to visit relatives or looking for work. You will have documents -'

  'What documents?' Ramage asked.

  'Genuine documents, I assure you, milord. You will have French names of course, and your French accent, of Paris, will need modifying. Thickening, to that of the Roussillon or Languedoc, for instance: you know both areas. We need to choose somewhere specific, a long distance from here - where if the préfet in Brest wants to check, he knows it would take three or four weeks, so he is unlikely to bother. But if it was Paris' - he shrugged his shoulders expressively - 'a courier leaves for there daily.'

  'You have been giving it all careful thought!'

  'When we returned from England,' the valet admitted, 'I did not share the Count's optimism for the future in France. The Count thought we would have many years of peace. For myself, I thought the Treaty was like two prize fighters having a rest during a bout. I advised the Count not to leave England, but alas, the nostalgia for this château overcame the love he had developed for the house in Kent. Now I fear the Count will travel the road to Cayenne...'

  'And you - what will happen to you?' Sarah asked anxiously.

  'I took the precaution of supplying myself with papers - and of course, like Edouard and Louis and the rest of the Count's staff, it is well known how deeply we hate the aristos!We work for them in order to eat!'

  'And your stay in England - how will you explain that?'

  'Oh yes, the Count threatened me so I had to go with him. The gendarmes are always most sympathetic with those who have suffered at the hands of the aristos... They even congratulated me on persuading the Count to return to France at the peace...I think even then the préfet knew the Count (with many scores of other exiles) was walking into Bonaparte's trap.'

  Gilbert then struck the palms of his hands together like a pastry-cook dusting off flour. 'We must cheer ourselves. I think it is safe for you to return to your suite and I will serve you breakfast. It will be safer if you eat there - not all my plans have worked.'

  Intrigued, Ramage asked: 'What went wrong?'

  'The cavalry suddenly arriving. I had paid out a good deal of money to make sure we had enough warning to allow the Count to escape.'

  'I should think the préfet received the orders about the Count from Paris during the night,' Ramage said. 'As soon as he read them he sent out the cavalry and at the same time hoped to pick us up.'

  Gilbert nodded slowly, considering the idea and finally agreed. 'That would account for it. I do not like to think that I was cheated - or betrayed.'

  CHAPTER THREE

  The meals, Sarah commented, were superbly cooked, and although the choice was limited, the food was plentiful; their suite was large and airy, even though the furniture was sparse. The view from the windows was spectacular, if you liked the Breton landscape, harsh to English eyes accustomed to rich greens and unused to the great jagged boulders scattered here and there like distorted hay ricks. Her only complaint was that they had not been able to leave the rooms for three days.

  Ramage pointed out that their plight hardly compared with that of Jean-Jacques: he would be in a cell at the Château in Brest, a huge citadel both had agreed was cold and grim even when they saw it on a sunny afternoon only a few days ago (although it seemed a lifetime). Whereas Jean-Jacques at best could look forward to confinement for years in one of the unhealthiest places in the Tropics, the worst that could happen to them would be for Nicholas to be taken off to Valenciennes, where prisoners of war were held, while Sarah had to live with a French family for the rest of the war.

  Sarah had declared that she would stay as near as possible to wherever her husband was incarcerated - they had
all agreed that he would not give his parole. The unspoken agreement was that if they were discovered and captured, Nicholas would try to escape to England while Sarah would, if necessary, be left behind. She refused to consider that the French might punish her as a reprisal for her husband's escape.

  The knock on the door was gentle but at the wrong time: Gilbert had taken away the dirty dishes only half an hour ago, and was not due to bring the first course of the next meal - Ramage took out his watch - for another four hours.

  Gilbert slipped in and gave a dismissive wave with his hand as he shut the door and saw the look of alarm on their faces.

  'The cook and gardener are back, milord. You would not have heard the horse's hooves because of course they came to the servants' entrance.'

  Sarah sat down again, realizing that the sudden tension made her feel faint and that Gilbert would be quick to notice if she went white.

  Ramage raised his eyebrows, not wanting to betray impatience by asking a question, but he noticed a curious tension in the Frenchman.

  'You understand the word "brig", milord?'

  'In English? Yes, it is a type of warship.'

  'Ah, so they did get it right,' he said. 'Now, the news of the Count is bad, but no worse than we expected: he has been sentenced to transportation to Cayenne: he and fifty-three other déportés are being held in the Château and will sail in a frigate which is being prepared. The ship sails in about a week, the gardener believes: some of her guns, powder and shot are being unloaded to make room for prisoners.'

  'What is the name of the frigate?' Ramage asked.

  'L'Espoir, so the gardener understands. She was pointed out to him. Boats are taking out provisions, and it was said that carpenters are building special cells. Not to imprison the déportés all the time; only when they are punished.'

  Ramage noticed that 'when': Gilbert knew enough of the Republican way to know that no monarchist would reach Cayenne without being punished for something, however minor; an important part of being a staunch Republican was to show that one was a staunch anti-Royalist, and the most effective methods were to betray someone (an easy way of settling monetary debts in the early days of the Revolution was to accuse your creditor of being a secret Royalist: the guillotine quickly closed that account) and to cheer lustily every time the guillotine blade crashed down. A woman had become famous in Paris because she sat quietly knitting beside the guillotine day after day - in three minutes it could dispatch a victim from him standing to his head rolling into a basket.

  'We ought to find out exactly when L'Espoir intendsto sail,' Ramage said.

  'You hope we can make an attempt to rescue the Count?' Gilbert asked hopefully.

  Ramage shook his head. 'You, Edouard, the gardener and me to capture a frigate? Four against at least a hundred, and the garrison of the Château as well if you tried it in Brest?'

  Gilbert nodded. 'I grasp at straws, milord.'

  'It's all we have to grasp,' Ramage said. 'I had in mind only that if we can escape to England before L'Espoir sails, perhaps I might be able to warn the Admiralty so that a watch is kept for her. But Gilbert, you mentioned a brig. What brig?'

  'Ah yes, that was just some gossip the gardener's wife heard. Not the gardener,' Gilbert said tactfully, as though not wanting to cast any doubt on the intelligence of womanhood in Sarah's hearing, 'he was at the meat market, and she heard about this at the fish market.'

  Gilbert was a splendid fellow, Ramage told himself, and his only fault is that for him the shortest distance between two points is a well embroidered story. His listeners needed patience, and it was a defect in Ramage's own character, he admitted, that he had been born with little or none.

  'Yes, the gardener's wife - her name is Estelle, by the way - overheard two fishmongers discussing a brig which had arrived in Le Goulet the evening before, escorted by a French corvette.'

  'Why "escorted"?' Ramage asked.

  'Oh, because the brig is English, milord, and with the war now resumed one would expect an escort, no?'

  Ramage nodded and managed to avoid looking across at Sarah: he knew she would be hard put to avoid laughing as she saw him struggling not to snap at Gilbert, swiftly drawing the story from him like a fishmonger filleting fish.

  'Anyway, this brig has a name like Murex. It seems a strange name, but Estelle was sure because one fishmonger spelled it to the other.'

  'Yes, it would be Murex,' Ramage said, and remembered another 10-gun brig of the same class, the Triton, also named after a seashell (not the sea god, as many thought). She had been his second command, and she had stayed afloat during a hurricane in the West Indies but, dismasted, then drifted on to the island of Culebra. By now there would be very little of her skeleton left: the teredo worm would have devoured her timbers and coral would be growing on any ironwork while gaudy tropical fish swam through whatever was left of the skeleton.

  'Were many killed and wounded when the Murex was captured?' Sarah asked.

  'Killed and wounded, milady?' a puzzled Gilbert asked. 'I don't think anyone was hurt. The captain and the officers, perhaps, but I doubt it.'

  Ramage had a curious feeling that he was dreaming the whole conversation: that he was dreaming about a fairy tale entitled 'The Two Fishmongers'. The time had come to be firm with Gilbert.

  'Start at the beginning and tell us what Estelle overheard in the fish market. Now, she is in the fish market and she hears two fishmongers talking.'

  'Well, she was to buy salt cod. There was plenty of that. Then she wanted some halibut - but she could find none. What, she asked herself, could replace the missing halibut? Bear in mind she would be cooking it: the first cook, Mirabelle, refuses to cook fish: she says that a woman with her delicate pastry should not be asked to meddle with scaly reptiles - that's what Mirabelle calls them, milord, "reptiles".'

  'The fishmongers,' Ramage said patiently.

  'Ah yes, Estelle was discussing with them what to buy in place of the halibut. She had the sauce in mind, you understand. Well, the second fishmonger joined the discussion, and while Estelle was thinking, asked the first fishmonger if he had heard about the English brig arriving.

  'The first fishmonger had not, and the second - his name is Henri, a Gascon, and he has trouble making people believe his stories: not for nothing do we have the word "gasconade".'

  'And then...' Ramage prompted.

  'Henri then told how this brig had been sighted in the Chenal du Four by the lookouts now stationed on Pointe St Mathieu. Then they noticed the strange business about her flag.'

  Once more Gilbert came to a stop, like a murex (or a winkle, Ramage thought sourly) retreating into its shell after every few inches of progress. Dutifully Ramage encouraged him out again. 'What about the flag, Gilbert?'

  'She was flying a white flag above the English colours. Had she been captured? the sentries asked themselves. But why a white flag - one would have expected a Tricolore over the English.

  'Anyway, they passed a message round to the Château and a corvette which was anchored close by was sent out to investigate. She returned with the English brig following, only now the white flag had been replaced by the Tricolore.

  'If you want my opinion, milord' - he paused politely until Ramage nodded - 'the brig had already surrendered, but the corvette met her before she started coming into Le Goulet and put men on board and claimed to have captured her. That way they get a reward.'

  They must be optimists, Ramage thought. The British Admiralty courts were notoriously fussy and the agents corrupt when awarding prize money, and he doubted if Bonaparte's Navy even bothered with prize courts. The corvette had been sent out to check up on a vessel already flying a white flag which traditionally meant surrender or truce. He raised his eyebrows in another variation of prodding Gilbert to continue.

  'This English brig now flying the Tricolore over the English colours, and with her guns still - how do you say, withdrawn, not in place for firing...'

  'Not run out.'


  'Ah, yes. This brig is anchored in front of the Château and many important men - including the préfet maritime and Admiral Bruix, the commandant de l'Armée navale - are rowed out to the ship. They stay about an hour, and then after they return the crew of the Murex - her name can be read from the shore you understand - are brought on shore and given accommodation in the Château, while French sailors are taken out to guard the rest.'

  'The rest of what?'

  'Well, the officers, and a few seamen,' Gilbert said, clearly surprised at Ramage's question.

  'But why are the officers and a few seamen being left on board? Who were the men brought on shore and lodged in the Château?'

  'Why, they are the mutineers, of course!' Gilbert said. 'The officers and the seamen who did not mutiny are kept on board as prisoners of war. That,' he amended cautiously, 'is how Estelle understood it from Henri.'

  The ship's company of the Murex brig mutinying within a few days - almost hours - of the resumption of war and carrying the ship into Brest to hand her over to the French? Ramage looked at Sarah, as if appealing to her to assure him that he had misheard. She stared at the floor, obviously stunned.

  Who commanded the brig? He could be a lieutenant - almost certainly would be. The Murex would probably have left Plymouth or Portsmouth before war began. Most likely she was based on the Channel Islands.

  But what caused a mutiny? The mutinies at the Nore and Spithead had brought better conditions for the Navy and he had never heard any murmurs of discontent since then. There was occasional loose talk of malcontents among Irish seamen; a few captains also complained of the activities of the London Corresponding Society, which some had blamed for the Nore and Spithead affairs, but the subsequent inquiry had produced no proof.

  A mutiny in a single ship, Ramage felt instinctively, was the captain's fault. Either he was too harsh (like the late and unlamented Hugh Pigot, commanding the Hermione) or he was too slack, failing to notice troublemakers at work among the ship's company. The troublemakers did not have to be revolutionaries: far from it. There were always men who genuinely enjoyed stirring up trouble without a cause and without a purpose, and they usually became seamen or Members of Parliament, depending on their background. Either way, they talked shrilly without any sense of responsibility, like truculent whores at a window.