[Marianne 3] - Marianne and the Privateer

by Juliette Benzoni

  'You're just in time,' Ledru grunted. 'You go down below, Marianne, and wait for us. Monsieur, your uncle, will stay with you.'

  With one accord, the two persons addressed opened their mouths to protest.

  'No!' Arcadius said. 'I'm going with you.'

  'Me, too!' echoed Marianne.

  It was one of the men, a big, red-headed fellow with something of the look of a large, reddish bear, who voiced immediate opposition to this suggestion:

  'It's bad enough, Cap'n, having a woman aboard! If we've got to cart her along with us!'

  'You'll not be obliged to cart me, as you put it,' Marianne exclaimed indignantly. 'And if I go with you, I shall be the less time aboard your boat. It is my man you are going to rescue and I want to share the risk with you.'

  'And climb the wall, in your petticoats?'

  'I can wait at the bottom. I'll keep watch. And I know how to use this, as well…' she added, putting aside the folds of her cloak and showing one of the pistols Napoleon had given her tucked into her belt.

  The red-headed seaman gave a shout of laughter:

  'By God! If that's the way of it, come you shall! You're a brave lass, after all, and an extra hand is always welcome.'

  Jean Ledru, who had disappeared for a moment during this exchange, now reappeared, closing the cabin door behind him. As he did so, Marianne's sharp eyes caught sight of the length of rope coiled neatly about his chest. He glanced quickly round his crew.

  'Is everyone ready? Joel, got the rope? You, Thomas and Goulven, the grapnels?'

  Three men, the redhead among them, opened their thick jackets simultaneously. One was wrapped about in hemp, like Jean himself, the other two, one of whom was the redhead, who seemed to be called Thomas, had stuck into their belts the long grappling irons which were to be thrown up over the wall.

  'We'll be on our way then,' the young leader declared. 'In small groups, if you please, and try and look as natural as you can. You three' – once again he addressed the newcomers – 'you three follow at a little distance, as if you were on your way to spend the evening with friends. And try not to get lost.'

  'No fear of that,' Gracchus muttered. 'I know Keravel like the back of my hand. I could get about the place with my eyes shut.'

  'Better keep them open, all the same! Otherwise you might run into things you don't expect.'

  In small groups, two or three at a time, they left the boat, until the only people left on board were an old man, who answered to the name of Nolff and the cabin boy, Nicolas. Marianne and her escort were the last to leave. The girl's fingers tightened nervously on Jolival's arm. In spite of the cold, she felt as if she were stifling. When they plunged into the unsavoury streets of Keravel, she had the impression that the houses, their overhanging upper stories all crooked and reared up at strange angles, were only waiting to spring on her. This was the first time she had ventured into this area of the town, a place forsaken by God but not by men, and the maze of squalid, twisting alleyways where now and then the red light of a tavern shone through greasy curtains, were obscurely terrifying. Far ahead, as though at the end of a tunnel, a lantern hung, creaking, on a chain stretched between two crumbling buildings, but every dark, shadowy hole and corner in between was filled, she saw with a sick feeling of disgust, with a squeaking, scampering colony of rats, scurrying to and fro among the refuse on the ground. The slender ribbon of sky seemed so far away that there was no hope of even the smallest star.

  'You ought to have stayed on the boat,' Jolival said, feeling her shiver, but Marianne pulled herself together instantly:

  'No, not for anything!'

  They were obliged to make a detour to avoid passing directly in front of the big gates of the prison and the guards on duty there but not long afterwards the little band was stretched out in the shelter of the great, dark walls, hearing the steady tramp of the sentry going his rounds on the footway above. One by one, they passed between the prison and the rope-walks, deserted at this late hour, and, rounding a corner to the right, saw before them a series of barred windows on the far side of a wall distinctly lower than the rest. This was the prison hospital. There was light in the windows, a feeble, reddish glow that probably came from a night light.

  On a level with the first of these windows, Jean Ledru assembled his party. Taking off his coat, he began unwinding the rope from his middle. Joel did the same, while Thomas and Goulven unfastened their grapnels. Marianne pointed a little timidly at the window:

  'There are bars… How will you manage?'

  'You don't think we'll be going in that way?' the Breton said, on a smothered chuckle. 'There's a door on the other side of the wall. We can jump the sentry from the top and flatten him!'

  The grapnels were made fast in a moment. The sailors stood back, drawing Marianne and Jolival with them. Jean Ledru and Thomas measured their distances and then, standing with legs well apart for balance, they began to swing the grapnels with the same easy motion.

  They were just about to let go when, suddenly, Jean let his go slack and signed to Thomas to do the same. There had come a sound from above. They heard a noise of running footsteps, then lights sprang up in one window after another. Then, without warning, and so close that it felt to Marianne as if the entire wall had exploded, came the report of a cannon being fired, followed by a second and a third.

  Throwing caution to the winds, Jean Ledru swore comprehensively and snatched up his equipment:

  'There's been an escape! They'll search the prison, then the town. After that the coast and country around. Back to the boat, all of you, fast as you can make it!'

  Marianne's cry came like an echo: 'But we can't! We can't go and leave Jason!'

  But already the men had scattered, making their own way through the dismal lanes of the old quarter. Seizing Marianne swiftly by the arm, Jean began dragging her firmly away, ignoring her protests:

  'It's all off for the present. If we stay here, we'll only get ourselves caught.'

  Marianne made desperate efforts to resist, still looking back frantically at the windows, behind which figures were already moving about. The whole prison was awake now. There were sounds of nailed boots running and the dick of weapons being cocked. Someone had got to the bell and was hauling on it like a madman, sending its ominous strokes booming and clanging out over the festive town.

  With Ledru on one side of her and Jolival gripping her just as firmly on the other, Marianne was forced to run with them, although her heart was thudding painfully in her chest and her feet were bruised and tender from stubbing them on the slippery cobbles. She raised her tear-filled eyes to the sky and smothered a groan. It was all clouded over and there were no stars at all.

  'Faster!' Ledru said gaspingly. 'Faster! They can still see us.'

  The black streets of Keravel swallowed them up and, once in darkness, Arcadius halted, still holding Marianne, forcing the younger man to do the same.

  'Now what's the matter?' Ledru barked at him. 'We are not there yet.'

  'No,' the Vicomte agreed calmly. 'But can you tell me where the danger is now? It is not written on our faces that we have been intending to help a prisoner to escape. Do we look any less like honest folk out to enjoy ourselves than we did on the way here?'

  Ledru's panic left him in an instant. He took off his woollen cap and ran his fingers like a comb through his sweat-streaked hair.

  'You're quite right. It was the cannon – I think it must have sent me off my head. Of course, we'd much better just walk back quietly. We've had it for tonight, anyway…' He paused, seeing Marianne burst into gasping sobs on Jolival's shoulder. 'I'm truly sorry, Marianne. Maybe we'll have more luck next time.'

  'Next time! He'll be dead before then. They'll have killed him!'

  'Never think that! We may be luckier than you expect. And it's nobody's fault if some other poor devil had the same idea as us and chose Christmas Eve to show a clean pair of heels.'

  He was trying, in his clumsy way, to comfort her, but Ma
rianne refused to be comforted. She pictured Jason, lying on his hospital bed with his chains sawn through, waiting for a rescue that never came. What would they do to him tomorrow when they found his fetters loose? Would the man Vidocq, perhaps, manage somehow to prevent the worst?

  The little group had moved on again. Jean Ledru went ahead now, hands in his coat pockets, cap pulled down over his eyes and back hunched forward, eager to have the deck of his ship beneath him again. Marianne followed, more slowly, clinging to Jolival's compassionate arm, her mind still searching feverishly for a way to achieve the impossible and rescue Jason after all. She felt as if every step she took was carrying her inexorably farther away not only from the prison, but also from the man she loved. In the privacy of her hood, she wept, in small, hard sobs that hurt her throat.

  When they reached the waterfront, Jean hurried straight to his boat, not without an uneasy sidelong glance at the gendarme who was strolling up and down with hands behind his back with every appearance of a man waiting for something. Jolival bent and spoke quietly in Marianne's ear:

  'We had better go back to Recouvrance, child. Wait here, while I go and fetch our bags and find out what has become of Gracchus. He must have gone with the sailors.'

  Marianne nodded to show that she had understood and while he made his way to the boat she remained where she was, her arms hanging at her sides, drained alike of all her courage and all capacity for thought. Then, without warning, the gendarme who had been walking towards Jolival had rushed up to her instead and grabbed her by the arm, paying not the least attention to her feeble cry of fright.

  'Good God! What are you dawdling here for? As if we weren't in enough danger already. For the lord's sake, get on board! We've been sitting here gnawing our fingers' ends for half an hour waiting for you!'

  For a second, Marianne very nearly fainted from shock for underneath the gendarme's cocked hat she had recognized the face of Vidocq. It was Vidocq himself, although scarcely recognizable as the same man. Then all other feelings were swept away in a sudden burst of anger:

  'You? You were the one who got away? It is you they are looking for – and meanwhile Jason—'

  'Jason is already aboard, you brainless idiot! Up with you, now, and get aboard!'

  He half-lifted and half-threw her up on to the deck where the crew was already busy about the business of casting off. Then, while she practically fell into Jolival's arms, he vaulted lightly on to the gunwale and strolled forward to the mainmast where he posted himself conspicuously with one foot on a coil of rope, so as to give the port officers the full opportunity of observing his uniform.

  All around them, the agitation in the town seemed to have subsided for the present. The bells were ringing for mass and the good people of Brest, in this instance, were putting God before man.

  Just then, the figure of another gendarme hoisted itself out of the cabin. The face was thin, haggard and unshaven under the cocked hat but the eyes were full of laughter.

  'Marianne!' he called softly. 'Come! I'm over here!'

  She tried to speak, tried to express her joy, but her recent alternations of hope and fear, terror, grief and shock had used up all her resistance. She had just strength to tumble headlong into his arms and he, although barely able to stand upright himself, found somehow the strength to hold her to him. For a long moment, they clung to each other in silence, too happy and too deeply moved for speech. Sails flapped around them, climbing rapidly up the mast. Barefooted sailors ran noiselessly about the deck. Jean Ledru at the tiller gave the faintest shrug and turned his eyes away from the couple who seemed to have forgotten that the world existed.

  Vidocq, however, remarked from his observation post: 'If I were you, I should go and sit down under the gunwale where you can't be seen. Even a fool of an exciseman or a drunken soldier might think there was something odd about a policeman going hunting escaped convicts with a woman in his arms!'

  Without a word, they did as he suggested and found a sheltered corner where they settled like a pair of lovebirds in a nest. Gently, Marianne took off the ridiculous cocked hat and let the salt wind ruffle Jason's hair. As she did so, she glanced up, automatically, at the sky. All the stars were out, and they were many more than nine.

  The night of miracles had kept its promise.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  That Justice be Done

  While the Salnt-Guénolé with Jean Ledru's skilled hand on the tiller ran with the wind on her quarter for Cape St Mathieu and Le Conquet and the coast of Brittany slipped by like a ragged ghost in the darkness, François Vidocq explained:

  'Late that afternoon, there had been a serious accident in the prison shipyards. A mast which was undergoing repairs in the dry dock had come crashing down on a group of prisoners stacking timber on the quayside. One man had been killed and a number seriously injured. The prison sick bay, somewhat grandly styled the hospital, had been full in a moment, so that Jason Beaufort who was now considered pretty well recovered had been returned at once to the communal dormitories. Fortunately, owing to the haste with which the move was accomplished, the business of chaining him to another prisoner had been put off until the next day and he had merely been fastened to the bail with the rest.

  'Knowing what your plans were, I had to get to you fast and warn you that it was all changed, and at the same time not let slip the wonderful chance offered by your vessel. Sawing through Beaufort's chain was a matter of minutes – I'm not without experience at that game.' He grinned. 'My own were done already. The next thing we had to do was to find a way of getting out by the front door. Beaufort could walk. He was sufficiently recovered for that, but not to go climbing walls. So I did the only possible thing – knocked out two gendarmes and stole their uniforms, putting them carefully out of harm's way in a nice quiet place, all neatly gagged and bound.'

  'Not as quiet as all that,' Jolival commented sourly. 'It didn't take them long to discover them, to judge by how soon they sounded the alarm!'

  The Vicomte was suffering from sea sickness. Stretched at full length alongside a heap of ropes, as much to be out of the way of the boom which swept low across the deck at the end of every tack as to spare himself any unnecessary movement, he lay staring in a determined way at the dark sky, knowing full well that the mere sight of the sea would only make matters worse.

  'I'm quite sure they've not been discovered yet,' Vidocq stated categorically. 'They are in the rope loft and no one will set foot there until the morning. And, believe me, I know the way to bind and gag a man.'

  'Yes, but the alarm was given—'

  'Yes… but not for us! Someone else must have decided to try Christmas Eve to make his escape. It's not something we thought of – he paused – 'but then I suppose we can't claim a monopoly where escape's concerned.'

  Marianne cried out at that: 'But then, perhaps they may not be looking for you at all?'

  'Oh, yes, they will. Even if they've not discovered the gendarmes yet, they're bound to have noticed our absence very soon. Once the alarm had been given, there was no reason for the others to keep mum. Our best hope is in the fact that they'll probably be looking for us along the coast and in the open country. It's practically impossible for a convict to get hold of a boat, especially one like this, even with outside help. Most of them aren't rich, you know…'

  He continued to expatiate for a little while on his private philosophy of escape, its techniques and the various opportunities which could arise, but Marianne soon ceased to listen. She leaned back against the side of the boat, feeling the wind in her hair, with Jason's head in her lap. He was still very weak, and his weakness touched Marianne and gave her at the same time a secret source of joy, for like this he belonged to her completely, he was hers, a part of her, flesh of her flesh like the child she had lost, like the children she would give him…

  Neither of them had spoken very much since leaving Brest, perhaps because they had too much to say and also because from now on they had all of life before them. It
stretched ahead, limitless as the ocean which was all around them, leaping and jumping at their heels and making deep, moist panting sounds, like a pet animal whose master had returned after a long absence. At one point Marianne had thought that Jason was asleep, but when she bent over him she saw his eyes wide open and very bright and she knew that he was smiling.

  'I had forgotten the sea smelled so good,' he murmured, holding the hand which he had not let go for a moment against his rough, unshaven cheek.

  He had spoken very quietly, but Vidocq had heard and laughed:

  'Particularly after the reek of the last few weeks. Human dirt and human wretchedness – it's the worst stench I know. Worse even than the stink of corruption because corruption is at least new life beginning. Try and forget – put it out of your mind. For you, it's all done with.'

  'For you also, François.'

  'Who can tell? I was not made for the wide open spaces but for the small world of men's thoughts and instincts. The elements may do very well for you. For myself, I prefer my fellow men. It's not as beautiful, but a lot more varied.'

  'And more dangerous. Don't try to be too independent, François. Freedom is the one thing you have always lived for. You would find it in my country.'

  'It depends what you mean by freedom…' Changing his tone abruptly, he asked: 'How long before we make Le Conquet?'

  Jean Ledru answered him:

  'We've a fair wind. In an hour, I'd say. It's not much above fifteen mile.'

  They had run up a topsail and a flying jib to the bowsprit and the little craft was now carrying all her canvas, skimming the waves like a gull. On their starboard side, the coast fled past with now and then the squat belfry and roof of a church just visible, or the curious, angular shape of a dolmen. Pointing to one of these, Jean Ledru told Marianne: 'The legend has it that on Christmas Eve, when the clocks strike twelve, the dolmens and the menhirs go down to the sea to drink, leaving all their fabulous treasures uncovered. But woe betide anyone who tries to rob them if he is not quick enough, for on the last stroke they all return to their places, crushing the thief who may be caught inside.'