by Dudley Pope
“You’ll have to fight him at sea, then!” Sarah said cheerfully, and then could have bitten her tongue for the second time in less than twelve hours.
“I’m hiding here,” Ramage said bitterly, “and someone else is commissioning the Calypso in Chatham. He’s the luckiest captain in the navy if the men haven’t been paid off yet, because he gets the finest ship’s company.”
Suddenly she had an inspiration. “That means you are lucky. He will keep the men together, all ready for you to resume command when you escape.”
“Providing I escape and providing the Admiralty are prepared to turn out a captain for me,” he protested. “Neither seems very likely at the moment.”
“If you are captured—I’m sure we won’t be—they’ll release you on parole. Then you can make for the coast and steal a boat, or something.”
He laughed sourly. “My love, you have a simple approach to it all but the Admiralty doesn’t share it. Parole, for instance.”
“What is difficult about that?”
“Well, giving your parole means giving your word of honour not to escape, and you are freed to live outside the prison. You pay for your board and lodging, of course.”
“There’s bound to be a ‘but,’ though,” she said gloomily.
“There certainly is. If you break your parole and escape to England, the Admiralty doesn’t welcome you. In fact they might send you back. They certainly won’t employ you.”
“Why ever not?”
“Because you gave the French your word of honour and you broke it.”
“But there is a war on! The French killed their king. They guillotined thousands of innocent people.”
“True, and probably will go on executing more, but the Admiralty’s view is that you don’t have to give your parole. If you do, then you must keep your word.”
“So what on earth can a captured officer do?”
“Refuse parole. That means he stays in prison, but it also means that if he can escape and get to England, he really is free and can expect to be employed again.”
“Do the Admiralty actually check?”
“I presume so. There’s a French commissioner in London, you know.”
“Not when we’re at war, though.”
“Oh yes. He’s a fellow called M. Otto, Commissioner for the Exchange of Prisoners. Every now and again we exchange Frenchmen we’ve captured for an equal number of Britons that the French have taken.”
“Let’s not talk about prisoners,” Sarah said. “We’ll get out of this somehow. Gilbert—we can trust Gilbert. I fear for Jean-Jacques, though.”
He shook his head. “No, I think Gilbert is right: that damned wife, or whatever she is, won’t want him executed: it wouldn’t do her reputation any good. The widow of a traitor. Transportation—yes, he could be sent to Cayenne, and that’s one of the unhealthiest places in the world. But death there is not certain. Not as certain as being strapped down to the guillotine here.”
“And what about us? I don’t want to sound selfish but we are foreigners in the middle of the enemy camp!” Her smile was wry; he was pleased to see that his new wife neither showed fear nor attempted to blame him for the fact they were caught in a trap.
“When Gilbert comes back we’ll hear if the French authorities know we’re here and if they’re looking for us. I don’t think Jean-Jacques registered us anywhere or reported to the authorities that we were staying with him. I think he should have done—at the préfet’s office, perhaps—but he wouldn’t bother because he thought it was not the préfet’s business whom he chose to entertain.”
“That attitude is all right in England, but I can’t see Bonaparte and his merry men agreeing.”
“No, but although the French know the names of every foreigner who has entered the country, unless they have their present addresses, it doesn’t help. Remember,” he said bitterly, “if the French are arresting all the visitors, it means they are breaking their word.”
“In what way?”
“Well, everyone visiting France has to get a passeport from the French. That’s a guarantee, a document permitting the foreigner to pass through the ports of France and travel about the country. Now, having granted these passeports, it seems Bonaparte is breaking his word.”
Sarah nodded but said with casual sincerity: “Yes, that’s true, but anyone—and that includes us—who trusts a man like Bonaparte or the government of France cannot complain if he is cheated. ‘Honour’ is a word that the French deleted from their vocabulary when they executed the king. Any nation that cheerfully executes a whole class of its people for just being born into that class is wicked and mentally sick. A Frenchman could be born an aristocrat but be poorer than the local gravedigger, yet the aristocrat was dragged off to the guillotine, and the gravedigger went along to cheer the executioner.”
“We shouldn’t have come here on our honeymoon,” Ramage said wryly.
“Where else? Prussia isn’t very appealing. The Netherlands and Italy—Bonaparte will be arresting all foreigners there. Spain—who knows. Anyway, we are really learning something about the French.”
She sat down on one of the packing cases. “What happens if the French soldiers find our trunks in the suite?”
“Well, they won’t find us. Don’t forget they came at dawn, so they’ll assume we’ve escaped.”
“That seems too good to be true,” she warned.
“No, it’s obvious when you think about it.”
“Where do we go now? This storeroom is rather bare!”
“Back to our suite eventually, because it’ll probably be the safest hiding place in France.”
“Our suite? But …”
“‘It’s been searched by the cavalry, so the rosbif and his wife can’t be there,’” he said, imitating the precise speech of an officer reporting to a senior. “They’ll be searching everywhere else for miles around.”
There was a faint tapping at the door and Ramage opened it. Gilbert slid in, a reassuring smile on his face. He bowed to Sarah.
“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 way 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, although not wanting to betray impatience by asking a question, 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 53 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 dépor
tés 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 despatch a victim from him standing to his head rolling into a basket.
“We ought to find out exactly when L’Espoir intends to 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.”