Ramage's Devil r-13

by Dudley Pope

  'Not all the French; only Bonaparte's men.'

  'About one in ten thousand are not Bonaparte's men. You won't collect a very big army in Brittany to overthrow him.'

  'No,' he admitted. 'But I need very few. I agree we can't save Jean-Jacques, so we have to save ourselves: you and me, Gilbert and Louis (and his wife if she wants to come) and now Auguste and his brother. Five men and one, perhaps two women.'

  'We are a long way from England. There always seems to be bad weather in the entrance to the Channel. Why don't we travel overland towards Calais? We'd have only twenty miles or so to row or sail to England, compared with - what, a hundred and fifty to Plymouth?'

  Ramage turned and pulled her towards him, and kissed her gently. 'My dear, you are right in one respect: it is a much shorter sea crossing from Calais. But that's what makes it dangerous. The French expect escapers to try to cross there. Every rowing boat is chained up at night. There are big rewards offered - big enough to overcome most scruples. Brest is so far away from England that the French are more casual in the way they guard boats.'

  'But they are putting soldiers on board the fishing boats here at night!' she protested.

  'Yes, but they are the large ones with fish holds, those large enough to make the voyage to England safely in almost any weather.'

  'Are you proposing we all go in a rowing boat?' She was not frightened at the idea but obviously surprised and dismayed.

  'No. I'm not proposing anything at the moment, beyond a couple of hours' fishing at night in the Gullet. Auguste is providing a boat for us.'

  'Why fishing? You hate fish and fishing. Why the sudden interest?' she asked suspiciously.

  'A romantic row in the moonlight so that you can see all the pretty ships at anchor.'

  'Most romantic,' she said with a rueful smile. 'We'll have four men as chaperones. Can we hire an orchestra, and perhaps a troupe of wandering minstrels?'

  CHAPTER SIX

  Auguste sighed in the darkness and admitted: 'The price is good at the moment, but in truth I hate the smell of potatoes.' He pulled fretfully at a couple of sacks, trying to find himself a more comfortable position in the little hut. 'And madame, you must be very uncomfortable?'

  'I had not realized potatoes could be so hard,' Sarah admitted, 'but if my husband is to be believed, we'll soon be sitting on the hard wooden seats of a boat and probably thinking of potatoes with nostalgia...'

  And how long would Nicholas be? He had talked for half an hour with Gilbert, Louis, Auguste and his brother Albert, and now he had gone for a walk along the quay. She saw now that he had been very clever. Although he had told her back at the château that he had no plans for their escape, in fact he had an idea. Certainly as he had explained it to the men, speaking softly in the darkness of Auguste's hut in the fruit and vegetable market, he had sounded diffident. Not nervous, but almost shy, so much so that first Auguste and then Gilbert had tried to reassure him. Then, as he explained his idea piece by piece, like stripping an artichoke, they had discussed it among themselves, exclaiming from time to time at its soundness, like antiquarians examining old china or an early edition of a book and agreeing on its authenticity.

  The more they had exclaimed, the more diffident Nicholas had become, putting up reasons why his idea would never work and declaring he did not want anyone to risk his life in such a stupid venture. 'Stupid venture', a phrase which translated well into French, was the one that definitely turned the tide, though whether a neap or a spring, she did not care. At that point, the four Frenchmen rallied together to persuade Nicholas that the plan - by now it had graduated from an idea - was not only possible but certain of success and Sarah sensed that in their own minds it had become their plan: one of which Captain Ramage had now to be convinced.

  Then she realized that as far as Nicholas was concerned it had been a plan all the time but was such a gamble that its only chance of success was to have it carried out by men who were convinced it would succeed. What was that phrase Nicholas had once used? 'Better one volunteer than three pressed men.' So with four volunteers he had the equivalent of a dozen. And, of course, his wife! Louis seemed to be bearing up bravely, she thought, to the fact that his wife had decided not to come. Louis said she would go to her parents as soon as she was sure he had escaped. Between them they had prepared a likely story of Louis throwing her out of the house - of the servants' quarters of Jean-Jacques' house, rather.

  Sarah sensed that both Louis and his wife had reached the stage where they bored each other. In another year it would be followed by dislike and that would turn to hatred. The wife missed life on the farm where she had been brought up, obviously preferring feeding the pigs and mucking out the cattle to feeding humans and making beds, and as she was the only child, she would inherit the farm on the death of her parents. Clearly, Sarah realized, each thought the parting had come amicably and at the right time. And, not surprisingly, the other servants had decided to stay behind.

  Where was Nicholas? This was worse than being a young girl waiting to grow up, or a pregnant woman waiting for her hour to come. Or, she thought bitterly, a sailor's wife waiting for her man to return ...

  Ramage looked in the darkness across the Brest Roads. 'Roads' - a strange name but one usually given to the anchorage in front of the port. Well, even though it was dark but cloudless, giving the stars a chance to prove themselves before the moon rose, there was plenty of traffic in the Roads; it seemed as busy as Piccadilly after the Newmarket Races, when winners wanted to celebrate and losers wanted to drown their sorrows, and the Duchess of Manston always gave a ball at which it was forbidden to talk about racehorses.

  Spanish Point over there, forming the south side of Le Goulet. the Château black and menacing, its walls now sharp-edged shadows. Somewhere over there in the Roads, L'Espoir was at anchor, and by now Jean-Jacques would be on board, a prisoner, probably awake and thinking of his home or his future in the tropical heat and sickness of the Île du Diable. Boats were going out to the frigates and ships of the line, many more than would normally be taking officers to and fro. There was no doubt that the ships were being prepared for sea in great haste.

  He paused against the trunk of a huge plane tree, hidden from the sharp eyes of any patrolling gendarmes. The masts of the distant ships were like leafless shrubs lining twisting paths. The ships of the line were easy to distinguish, while one, two, three frigates and more were over to the right, towards Pointe des Espagnols. Further round to the left, partly hidden by the cliffs rising up at Presqu'île de Plougastel, were more frigates. Where was L'Espoir?

  Ah, there was the Murex brig, much easier to spot because she had only two masts and was much closer. And it was near the top of the tide; almost slack now, and the ebb would start in half an hour or so.

  Anchored ships were something like weathervanes on church steeples. If the wind was strong and the current weak they indicated wind direction, but if the current was strong (as it would be at spring tides) and the wind weak they showed the direction from which the current was coming.

  On a calm night at slack water, when the current stopped flooding in and paused before ebbing like a bewildered man on a ballroom floor, ships headed in various directions, and those carelessly anchored and usually lying to single anchors would drift and foul neighbours.

  He cursed softly because at night distances were always hard to estimate, although by some good fortune the Murex brig had been anchored more than half a mile from the nearest ship, a frigate. And she was near enough to where he stood to see that only a single boat floated astern of her on its painter. Either the rest of her boats had been hoisted back on board or they were being kept in the dockyard. In other words, it was unlikely that the French guards had been reinforced and, more important, if they were not expecting visitors in the shape of senior officers, they would be keeping the rum jar tilted, with all the prisoners in irons.

  He shivered, but was not sure if the goosepimples came from the chill of the night or the
knowledge that he could no longer delay going back to the hut to start everyone moving. Sarah was the problem: she was his hostage unto fortune, although she must never realize it. When the Calypso went into action he had worried about Paolo, who was Gianna's heir and nephew; now it was Sarah. Would he ever go into action having given no hostages, with nothing to bother him but the fight itself? There was always something to stop him concentrating all his thoughts on the action. He shrugged and then smiled at the stupidity of such a movement alone in the darkness.

  Probably most captains of the King's ships were often in this same predicament - especially, he told himself, if they were married. Yet if you had a wife, and perhaps children, you thought of them whether they were in a house in the quiet countryside or if the wife was waiting nearby in a rowing boat: in one instance you were worrying about her being widowed and the children made fatherless; in the other you were worrying about her safety. Either way, you were worrying; either way you were preoccupied. So perhaps Earl St Vincent was right when he said that if an officer married, he was lost to the Service...

  Sarah and the four men waiting in the hut clearly expected to start off at once. He took out his watch. Yes, by now the French guards would have soaked up enough rum to ensure they were befuddled, if not in a stupefied sleep.

  He gestured towards the lantern and told Gilbert: 'Bring it with you, otherwise all of us stumbling along in the dark will arouse suspicion. Now, have we the fishing lines? Ah,' he nodded as Auguste and his brother held up coils of thin line. 'And bait?' Sarah rattled the bucket she was carrying.

  Two gendarmes passed them on their way to the jetty and one said cheerfully: 'Good fishing. It's a calm night!'

  'Too calm,' Auguste answered dourly. 'The fish prefer some wind to ruffle the water.'

  Once the gendarmes had passed, Auguste explained: 'Fishermen always grumble. I don't think the fish care about the waves; they have enough sense to stay below them.'

  'Unless they bite a hook,' Louis said.

  'Ah, no, they're biting the bait, not the hook.'

  'They cannot have so much sense: a meal hanging from a line is obviously bait.'

  'Yes,' Auguste agreed sarcastically, 'sensible fish eat only from a plate.'

  Ramage led them to the avenue of plane trees lining the quay but told Auguste to lead them on to the boat: a sentry might become suspicious of the leader of a group of fishermen who seemed uncertain which was his boat.

  He dropped back to walk with Sarah who, careful to act the role of the obedient fisherman's wife, even though it was late at night, had followed the menfolk.

  'Feeling nervous?'

  'No, not nervous. At the moment I'm thankful not to be smelling potatoes but not sure' - she rattled the bucket - 'if sliced fish is a welcome change. Do you enjoy fishing?'

  'This is my first experience,' Ramage admitted. 'I let the men tow a hook when they want, because fish makes a welcome change from salt horse. But towing a line from a rowing boat, or casting with a rod along a river bank - no.'

  'You've no patience, that's why,' she said.

  He was saved from admitting that by Auguste stopping above a boat moored stern to the quay. 'Well, my friends,' he said loudly, 'I hope your muscles are all working smoothly. Now, someone haul in the sternfast so that I can jump in and slack the anchor rope: then we can get her alongside and put our gear on board.'

  The boat's stern was four or five feet from the dock and Louis went down the narrow stone steps to untie the sternfast from a ring that slid up and down a metal rod let into the vertical face of the quay, allowing for the rise and fall of the tide. He cursed as he nearly slipped on the green weed.

  'Farmers,' Auguste's brother commented unexpectedly. "That's what we are, farmers going out for a night's fishing.'

  No one answered as he went down to help Louis, then called up to Auguste: 'All is ready for the real fishermen to step on board.'

  It took five minutes of hauling, pushing and banter for the four Frenchmen to get on board and hold the boat alongside the steps for Sarah and Ramage to climb in. The lantern set down on one of the thwarts revealed the inside of a hull which seemed to have been painted with dried fish scales and decorated with the sun-dried heads, tails and fins of past catches. The worst of the smell was for the moment masked by the sewage running into the Penfeld river from a large pipe a few feet upstream from the steps.

  With Sarah seated on a thwart, the wooden bucket of bait on her knees, Ramage and Auguste counted up the oars. Four, held down by a chain wound round them and secured by a padlock. 'I have the key, here,' Auguste said in answer to an unspoken question. 'Now, I want you two, Louis and Albert, to stand in front of the lantern: cast a shadow over the bow.'

  Ramage saw a pile of fishing lines and a coil of rope, and as soon as the lantern light was shadowed he saw Auguste pulling them aside and for a moment a flash of steel reflected a bright star.

  'They're here,' Auguste muttered. 'Six cutlasses ... two, three large daggers ... five pistols - no, six... a bag of shot... flask of powder, and another of priming powder... You said no muskets.'

  It was a remark which sounded like a reproach.

  'Believe me,' Ramage said, 'muskets are too clumsy for boarding a ship. If they're loaded, there's always the danger of the lock catching on clothing so the musket fires just when you're trying to be quiet. A pistol tucked in the top of the trousers - that is enough. Anyway, cutlasses or knives tonight: no shots except in an emergency.'

  'But we can carry pistols?' Auguste asked anxiously.

  'Yes, of course,' Ramage assured him. 'Now, let's get away from here and start fishing nearer the Murex. Bottle fishing - none of you ever heard of that, eh?'

  Both Auguste and Gilbert repeated the phrase, which certainly lost something in translation. 'No, never "bottle fishing",' Auguste finally admitted. 'For what kind of fish?'

  Ramage laughed and explained. 'In the West Indies, smuggling is even more common than in the Channel, only out there it is called "bottle fishing" when it involves liquor.'

  'What is it when it is silk for ladies?' Auguste asked slyly.

  'No need to smuggle silk out there: no customs or excise on that,' Ramage said.

  Auguste unlocked the padlock and unwound the chain securing the oars. 'We are ready,' he said. 'The fish are waiting for us.'

  The men took up their places on the rowing thwarts, leaving Sarah to sit at the aftermost one. They would use a tiller to avoid having to give orders to the oarsmen.

  Auguste boated his oar and then scrambled forward to the bow to begin hauling in the weed-covered rope and the anchor while his brother cast off the sternfast, leaving it dangling from its ring on the quay wall. Would the boat ever return to use it again? Ramage thought not.

  Gilbert tentatively pulled at his oar and nearly fell backwards off the thwart as the blade scooped air instead of digging into water.

  'Don't let go of the oar,' Auguste snapped. 'Dip the blade deeply and just try and keep time with the rest of us.'

  'I know how to do it.' Gilbert's voice had a determined ring. 'I'm out of practice.'

  'And the palms of your hands will soon be sore,' Auguste added unsympathetically.

  'I can see the Murex,' Sarah murmured. 'She's in line with the western end of the Château.'

  'Ah, a woman who knows the points of a compass,' Albert said.

  The oars creaked, the thwarts creaked from the men's weight and their exertions, and as Ramage crouched he was sure his spine was beginning to creak too. The smell of last week's fish was now almost overwhelming and seemed to be soaking into his clothes. Then he could just see the western edge of the Château, stark and black against the lower stars. The only lights over there were from a high window and a few gun loops, vertical slots that, because of the thickness of the wall and the changing bearing, soon cut off the light from the lanterns inside.

  Sarah put her bucket down beside the lantern as Ramage said: 'We are at the meeting point of the Penfeld and Le G
oulet.'

  'Stop rowing, men,' Auguste said, and then announced formally: 'Your fishing captain now hands over to your fighting captain.'

  Ramage laughed with the rest of them and looked forward at the Murex brig. She was a good half mile away and it was still slack water, with the ships heading in different directions. A frog's view of models on a pond. For a few moments the familiar shape of the brig once again brought back memories of the Triton. He remembered her best at anchor in some West Indian bay during a tropical night when her masts and yards cut sharp lines in a star-littered sky. Up here in northern latitudes fewer stars were visible, for reasons he could never understand, and they were not nearly so bright, as though the atmosphere was always more hazy.

  To fish or not to fish? He looked slowly round the horizon. No other boats were following them out of the Penfeld; the nearest ships to the Murex were half a dozen frigates and ships of the line at least half a mile beyond. Various boats moved under oars (and he could see one under sail making poor progress because of the light wind) taking officers and men out to the ships. None had that purposeful, marching sentry movement of a guard boat: the war, he guessed, was too new for the French to have started regular patrols in the Roads, and anyway lookouts along the coast (at Pointe St Mathieu, for instance) would most likely have reported that the English had not yet resumed the blockade; that no English ships were on the coast.

  He coughed to attract their attention and as a way of accepting the transition announced by Auguste. ' I think madame can throw that bait over the side; she must be tired of the smell of fish.'

  A clatter showed Sarah had not waited to hear if anyone disagreed.

  'Good, now let's get our oars on board, before someone lets go and we lose a quarter of our speed. Auguste, can you issue the weapons you have hidden up there?'

  The Frenchman scrambled forward, fumbled for a minute or two, and then stood up again, clutching several objects.