by Dudley Pope
“The mutineers—they are Frenchmen now, eh?” Gilbert asked as he raised his mug in a toast to the bosun.
“Frenchmen?” The bosun was shocked. He considered the matter, taking hearty sips of his rum. “No, not Frenchmen. After all, if they mutinied against their own officers, they could mutiny against us. They have no loyalty to anyone, those buffoons.”
Ramage was startled to hear the man talk such reasonable sense. So, the mutineers were not welcome in Brest.
“But you are glad to have the ship!” he said.
The bosun shrugged. “For me, it is of no importance: we have enough ships now—you can see the fleet we are preparing. This brig I do not like. It goes to windward slowly.”
“Surely the mutineers will be rewarded?” Ramage persisted.
“Oh yes, they’ll be given a few livres each at the château, and thanked. Who knows, if the English navy hear that they get a good reception at Brest, perhaps they’ll bring in some frigates, or maybe even ships of the line!
“We’ll thank them for their ships,” the bosun continued, topping up his mug from the rum jar, “but I expect we’ll make sure the men leave the country after signing up in neutral ships. The Americans will be glad of them—they speak the same language. And the Dutch and the Danes are always glad to get prime seamen.”
“So these men that refused to join the mutiny,” Ramage persisted, managing to introduce a complaining whine into his voice, “they won’t be punished? Not executed or flogged?”
“Of course not,” the bosun said impatiently. “They’ll be taken off to the prison at Valenciennes or Verdun or wherever it is that they keep them. The first prisoners of the new war,” he added. “Come on now, let’s drink to thousands more!”
CHAPTER FIVE
THE Café des Pêcheurs, halfway along the Quai de la Douane and overlooking the entire anchorage, was aptly named: at least twenty fishermen, most of them in smocks as liberally coated with red ochre as Auguste’s, were playing cards, rolling dice or sipping wine at the tables outside. And arguing. Ramage listened to some of them and was amused by the vehemence that the most innocent of subjects could provoke among these bearded and rough-tongued men.
They eyed Sarah curiously: few women other than whores ever came to such a café, but because she was with Auguste she was accepted and spared any teasing or coarse remarks.
For the moment the three men and Sarah were sitting silently, looking across at the Murex over on their right hand and L’Espoir to their left. Boats were going out to the frigate, unloading casks, and returning empty to the Quai de Recouvrance, on the other side of the Penfeld river. It was from there, Auguste told them, that ships were supplied with fresh water and salt meat and fish.
The fishermen’s café was a good place to talk. The few people who did not want to play cards or dice naturally went to the tables along the edge of the quay, and Ramage had already noted that no one could get within a dozen feet of their table without being seen, so it was impossible to overhear their conversation. And that, Ramage thought to himself, is just as well …
“Alors, Charles,” Gilbert was saying, hesitating over the name because he was really addressing a formal question to Captain Lord Ramage of the Royal Navy. “What do you think about Auguste’s proposal?”
While Ramage had sat in the gig telling Sarah what he had learned from his visit to the Murex, Auguste and Gilbert had walked down the road and the fisherman had taken the opportunity to tell Gilbert that he wanted to escape to England: that he and his brother Albert were completely disillusioned by the Revolution and had heard enough from Gilbert to know that England was preferable. But, he had asked, knowing nothing of their plans, hopes and fears, how was he to get there?
Ramage knew that for the moment it boiled down to one single question: did he or did he not trust Auguste, whom he had met only two or three hours earlier?
Obviously Gilbert did—he had known the man from boyhood, long before the Revolution. But Gilbert had been in England for several years. Did he know what Auguste and his brother had been doing here in Brest during those bloody years following the Revolution?
“Tell me, Auguste, were you a fisherman during the Revolution?”
Auguste told him what he and his brother had done: they had smuggled out Royalists, taking them half a dozen at a time, concealed in their fishing-boat, southwards to Portugal and safety. They had continued to do that until a few months before Bonaparte signed the Treaty with England—then they had had a running fight with a cutter of the French navy, finally escaping. “That was when I collected this,” Auguste said, pointing to the scar on his face.
“Our fishing-boat was so badly damaged by gunfire that we guessed we would be betrayed the moment we put into a French port, so we landed our refugees safely on the coast and then we sank our fishing-boat and rowed ashore with our little skiff. We came back to Brest a few weeks later, and no one asked questions. But we could not fish any more; instead we grew vegetables on the piece of land our father left us.”
Ramage nodded. The story seemed both likely and straightforward. Sarah suddenly asked: “What makes you approach my husband because you and your brother want to go to England? Bonaparte’s men are hunting us, while you all have proper documents as French citizens. Surely you can steal a fishing-boat more easily than we can.”
Auguste looked first at Ramage, unused to having a woman enter a conversation in this way, and noting the nod said: “Obviously I know you are English and if you, m’sieu, are caught you will be made a prisoner of war. But you do not seem to me—nor you, madame—the sort of person to let yourselves be taken prisoner. I think you are planning to get back to England. Gilbert has said nothing—and his silence,” he added with a grin, “bears out what I think.”
The man looked a scoundrel: a once handsome rogue. The type of person you did not trust without a lot of checking. Auguste had trusted him and Gilbert and taken them with him out to the Murex, and while they were drinking with the French bosun, Auguste had spotted the trend of Ramage’s and Gilbert’s questions, and asked some of his own.
If a man trusts you without question, then you can trust him.
Ramage found himself thinking that with the same clarity as if he was reading a printed text. Auguste had got them out to the Murex and back safely: obviously he was a man of ingenuity. At this moment Ramage knew only too well he needed the help of a man of ingenuity who knew his way around Brest.
It was too risky telling Auguste and his brother to come out to Jean-Jacques’ château: gendarmes might be suspicious, and later might remember them passing the barrières. Anyway, this café was a good safe spot for what could be only a preliminary chat.
“I have no plans at the moment,” Ramage admitted. “I have come into Brest now simply to look, and hope to get some—well, inspiration.”
“You can speak freely; I shall not betray you,” Auguste said calmly.
Ramage smiled. “I would speak freely if I had anything to say. You could betray us in a few seconds by waving to those two gendarmes standing under the trees over there.”
“True, true,” Auguste said. “Well, let’s start by you saying what you want to do. How to do it can come later.”
“That is simple. First I would like to rescue the Count, then I would like to take him and Gilbert back to England.”
Auguste rubbed his nose as he looked carefully at Ramage. “I am sure you would. But with a force comprising yourself, your wife, Gilbert, Louis and now myself and my brother Albert, you are outnumbered by about three hundred men.”
“Only about two hundred and fifty,” Ramage said dryly. “But I was simply answering your question.”
“Yes, and I was teasing. But to be serious, your loyalty to the Count is admirable and what I would expect from an English aristo and from Gilbert. However, there is not a chance. The Count and fifty others (all of whom probably realize they are lucky to have escaped the guillotine and regard transportation to Cayenne as an acceptable a
lternative) are heavily guarded on board L’Espoir. This I can assure you. In fact, at the risk of distressing you, I can tell you that all of them are in irons and will remain so until L’Espoir sails in a few days’ time. In fact, you may have guessed that the French government is being particularly cautious about this first voyage to Cayenne in the new war.”
“Is that why boats are taking out water and provisions? I should have thought it would be quicker and easier to bring L’Espoir alongside at the Quai de Recouvrance so that they can load directly from carts,” Ramage said.
“The commandant of the port has orders from Paris to take no risks with these exiles, so he is keeping the frigate at anchor, with other frigates round her. I think he dreams of all the déportés leaping over the side and swimming to the shore, or a British fleet sailing up Le Goulet to rescue them.”
Ramage looked at Gilbert. “I think you realized there was no way,” he said gently. “Even with fifty men.”
The Frenchman nodded. “Yes, but one hopes for miracles. From what I know of you, citizen,” he said, a slight emphasis on the word to indicate he was really using Ramage’s title, “if any man could have done it, you could.”
“Who have we here?” Auguste asked Gilbert, who looked questioningly at Ramage and, when he nodded, leaned across and whispered the name.
The Frenchman turned and looked at Ramage, his eyes bright and his lean face creased into a grin. “Captain, you are famous in Brest. If only Bonaparte knew … he’d give me the province as a reward for betraying you.”
“You flatter me,” Ramage said.
“The thought does not seem to alarm you,” Auguste commented.
“You have only to shout to the gendarmes,” Ramage said. “Mind you, your brother would get the land, not you.”
Auguste raised his eyebrows. “My brother?”
“Yes, because I presume he is your heir. You could shout—but you’d never draw the breath to replace the one that you used. I have a heavy kitchen knife hidden in my right boot.”
Auguste gave a sudden bellow of laughter and slapped his knee. “Done!” he said, as though he had just concluded a business deal, and Ramage saw the performance was for the benefit of any curious onlooker, but “Done” meant he had given his word; he was part of whatever Ramage might plan.
“Your interest in the—er, the potato ship. Were you looking for ideas, and did you find any?”
“I was looking. Nothing very certain has come yet. Something is hovering over my head, like a sparrowhawk in the distance.”
“Fifteen prisoners on board her, if you include that rheumatic wreck of a captain. Seven French guards. Five of us, unless you include madame.”
“Include madame and exclude that captain,” Ramage said. “Five does not sound a very lucky number.”
The Murex, like the Triton and the other ten-gun brigs, was a handsome little ship, although too small to have a graceful sheer like the frigates. Anyway, the French always designed beautiful ships, so it was unfair to compare the Murex with the other vessels anchored in the Roads. He thought of the Calypso, a French frigate which he had captured and, by a stroke of luck, been given to command. In any anchorage she was always one of the handsomest ships.
Did Bonaparte ever wonder at the contradiction that the French built the best ships but could not fight ‘em? And how irritating it must be for the little Corsican that usually the British kept the original French names once they captured ships and put them into service! One of the biggest ships in the Royal Navy today was called the Ville de Paris! One could not imagine the French calling one of their flagships the City of London. And some of the best ships at present in service had been captured from the French and often the names kept—the frigates Perle, Aréthuse, Aurore, Lutine, Melpomène, Minerve, for instance. And the 80-gun Tonnant and the Franklin (which had been renamed Canopus), as well as the 74s Spartiate, Conquérant and Aquilon (now called the Aboukir, in honour of the battle in which Rear-Admiral Nelson had captured them). Then Le Hoche, 80 guns, had been a little too much for their Lordships at the Admiralty, who had renamed her Donegal, but Le Bellone, 36 guns, had been changed to Proserphine only to avoid confusion with the 74-gun Bellona. La Pallas, 40 guns, had been renamed La Pique, which showed their Lordships had no prejudice against French names! There were dozens more. And of course there were the Spanish and the Dutch …
He suddenly realized that the two men and Sarah were watching him. Obviously they thought his silence was because he was thinking of daring plans to get them all to England, whereas in fact he had been daydreaming over ships’ names.
“Yes,” he said lamely, “let’s say fourteen prisoners on board the Murex and half of them in irons during the day. All of them are put in irons for the night, so the guards can safely sleep.”
Sarah coughed as if asking permission to join in the planning, but she did not wait for anyone to nod encouragement. “M’sieu Auguste cannot get a fishing-boat—one large enough for us to sail to England?”
“No, madame, I regret I cannot. If I could, we would sail tonight. But now the commandant of the port has given fresh orders. All fishing-boats with a deck—even a small foredeck—(all except open boats, in other words) must have two armed soldiers guarding them if they are in port for the night. Apparently the order comes from Paris and is the result of the renewal of war.”
“Yes,” Gilbert said, “Bonaparte realizes that there are hundreds like the Count, and Charles here, who will be trying to escape if they are not already locked up.”
Ramage said: “But you could get a rowing boat?”
“Yes,” Auguste said cautiously, “but I do not wish to row to England in one!”
“No, but that means we can always go fishing in Le Goulet. I enjoy fishing and I am sure Gilbert does, too.”
“The port commandant disapproves, though,” Auguste said. “He hasn’t forbidden it yet, but the sentries on the men-of-war occasionally fire a musket if they think a fisherman is too close, just as a warning.”
“Any casualties?”
“Not yet.”
Ramage nodded. “At night a moving boat is a difficult target, and if the fishermen keep a respectable distance …”
“Yes, the sentries are really only warning. And I hear that many captains of ships dislike having their sleep disturbed by random musket shots!”
Ramage nodded again. Firing muskets at anchor would certainly disturb a captain’s rest, and half an hour would pass before he received an explanation and dozed off again.
“Gilbert, if you would pay for our wine, I think we had better buy some fruit and vegetables to satisfy the curiosity of the gendarmes at the barrières and bid our friend here au revoir.”
At the château, Louis met them with the news that a friendly neighbour of his wife’s parents had told them that L’Espoir would be sailing in three or four days for Cayenne. The Chef d’administration de la Marine at Brest, Citizen Moreau, was rushing everything apparently, because the British declaration of war had taken Paris unawares and the First Consul was anxious to get this group of Royalists and priests on their way to Cayenne before the Royal Navy re-established the blockade of Brest. There was also talk of L’Espoir’s decision to beat out directly to the south-westward after leaving Brest, hoping to hide herself in the wastes of the Atlantic once she was out of sight of Pointe St Mathieu.
Ramage thanked Louis for the information. Since they could do nothing about L’Espoir and her sad human cargo, he could only note that the frigate’s captain was intending to do what he would have done in the same situation. In fact, L’Espoir stood little risk of being intercepted because Cayenne was so far to the south round the bulge of South America that British ships of war and privateers bound for the West Indian islands would be crossing the Atlantic well to the north of her course. By staying far to the south, L’Espoir might risk getting beyond the belt of Trade winds and run into strong ocean currents, but she was embarking extra provisions and water, probably as an insurance
against a long passage. From memory, the Île du Diable, better known to the English as Devil’s Island and referred to by the French as “Cayenne,” the name of the nearest town on the mainland, sat precisely on the fifth parallel of latitude, only three hundred miles from the Equator, a hot and humid hell on earth.
Louis added, almost as an afterthought, that two gendarmes had called to ask if there had been any sign of the Englishman, but they had been told the agreed story: he had stayed a few days before the Count had been arrested and left, as far as anyone knew, to visit friends somewhere in Provence. Why had the Count not reported that he had strangers staying in the house, as required by State Ordinance number 532, dated 1st Vendémiaire year VI? Louis had shaken his head sadly and told the men that the Count, although a very law-abiding man, had not been living in France at the time of the Ordinance and probably knew nothing about it. But Louis had almost been trapped by his own inventiveness: had the Count had other visitors—not necessarily foreigners, but people “not normally inhabiting the place of habitation”—staying and whom he had not reported to the préfecture? Louis said he did not know what the Count reported. The gendarmes themselves had said he had not reported the Englishman but for all Louis knew the Count had reported them and the gendarmes had lost the record. At this, Louis related gleefully, the police had been so embarrassed that it was clear that losing papers was not unknown.
Gilbert’s comment had been brief and acute: clearly the authorities were not too concerned about the Englishman and accepted that he had moved on. Much more important, they did not realize that he was the Captain Ramage who had played such havoc with their ships in the previous war; if they thought he had been a guest of the Count, then strict precautions would be taken at Brest. This had not been the case, he said with a grin, at the barrières.