Ramage & the Guillotine

by Dudley Pope

  “Any food on board, Slushy?” Stafford called. “If we gotter spend the day down ‘ere …”

  Dyson swore and leapt on to the quay, returning in two or three minutes. “Good job you remembered. Louis is going to buy some grub on the way back. There’s still some wine in the bilges.”

  “We need some water, too,” Ramage said sharply, using the opportunity to warn his men that they were not going to spend the day drinking wine as they waited for darkness.

  “Quite so, sir,” Dyson said. “There’s a full water breaker up forward there—somebody’ll have to climb over the athwartship seat and haul it out.”

  The day’s waiting in the Marie’s crowded cuddy was one of the longest and most tedious that Ramage could remember, and as the sun rose higher the atmosphere became stifling. The water was a good deal less fresh than Dyson thought, and the food brought back by Louis was the only bright spot in the day. The bread was coarse but the cheese excellent, the taste enhanced by the fact it had been a long time since Ramage had tasted fresh French cheese.

  Dyson produced a greasy pack of cards and began what seemed to Ramage interminable games with Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, most of which he lost with ill grace. When Louis returned after an absence of several hours and squatted at the top of the hatch, Ramage suggested that if he came on deck and hunched over some rope, pretending to be splicing it, prying eyes would assume it was Dyson. Louis readily agreed though, he said without a smile, the sight of Dyson working was more likely to arouse suspicion than allay it.

  As Ramage sat down, the bright sun on grey stone walls and slate roofs emphasized that this was France. In the distance fishermen walking along the quay wore the blue trousers and smocks that were almost a uniform, and the fishing-boats nearby all had the distinctive French transoms. For the moment it was hard to believe this was the enemy’s land, and he knew it would take a few hours for his mind to absorb the fact: the transition from Folkestone to here had been too swift.

  He talked to Louis for more than two hours, slowly building up the picture of how, in the past year, the tempo of shipbuilding had increased. For years before the Revolution the two local shipyards had built for local owners: anything from small fishing luggers to large chasse-marées, the two- and three-masted vessels that became privateers as soon as war began.

  The yards were family affairs, Louis explained; sons and nephews served their apprenticeships with fathers and uncles. And the brothers who owned the yard at any given time were building boats for owners whose fathers and grandfathers had had boats launched from the yards. Just as boatbuilding stayed in a family for generations, so did fishing—and smuggling.

  One of the yards had built one of the Maries, though Louis admitted that after all this time, with scores of Channel crossings, he could not remember which smack was which. He thought the one they were in was French-built, but he was far from sure. The idea for the identical ships, he explained, came originally from a wealthy Englishman. Not a milord, but not far from it. He had the first Marie built at Folkestone, and as soon as she had been launched and registered, and her number was carved in the main beam—”before the war, you understand”—he announced that he was going to visit France in her; go for a cruise, in fact. And what more natural than that she should spring a leak while in Boulogne harbour—Louis gave a broad wink—so that she had to be hauled out on one of the slipways for repairs.

  And what more natural than the yard foreman taking the lines off her while caulkers banged away with their mauls? Various internal dimensions were measured, the exact way the number was carved on the main beam—all these things were noted. And one night when it was dark a British-made compass was handed over, still in the maker’s box, and several bolts of British-made sailcloth. And while repairs were being done, what was more natural—again Louis winked—than the owner sending his sails round to the local Boulogne sailmaker while waiting for the caulkers to finish their work? Just a matter of some re-stitching. And what more natural than the sailmaker sewing a new suit of sails to the same pattern, including storm canvas, and storing them away in his loft?

  Anyway, the British smack Marie left, and everyone had forgotten her by the time the yard—which had been kept busy building many other boats of about the same size—launched a smack which had the name Marie carved on the transom. It was a common enough name, and because the French authorities used a different system of measuring and marking tonnage, and numbering, and anyway French officials are much more understanding—Louis winked for the third time—perhaps it was not surprising she had the same number and tonnage carved on her main beam as the Marie that once visited Boulogne from Folkestone. Indeed, by a curious coincidence the Boulogne-built Marie also had a copper tingle on the starboard side just forward of the chainplates, matching the one on the Folkestone Marie (she had sailed into the quay soon after being launched, and her builders had nailed on a piece of copper sheathing). So if both smacks had anchored near each other—not that they ever had, and very few people knew of the twins—it would have been impossible to tell them apart. And of course the French owner was a law-abiding citizen; naturally he had all the necessary papers providing that the Boulogne-built Marie was a regular Boulogne-based fishing-smack—just as the owner of the Folkestone-built Marie had papers proving she was a regular British smack.

  The only thing was—and now Louis tapped the side of his nose—the British Marie with French papers and the French Marie with British papers, could cross the Channel in opposite directions at the same time, meeting briefly in mid-Channel to exchange documents and the British skipper, and visit each other’s home ports without anyone being the wiser. The only physical difference was that the board on the transom showing the port of registry was changed—each smack carried both names. Regulations about having the abbreviation for the port of registry painted on the bow and sewn on the sail were ignored …

  Nor did the English Revenue men pay much attention. For years, in peace and war, they had seen the Marie sail late in the evening to go fishing and return at dawn, time enough for the early market, and everyone knew she could never sail to France and back in that time, so she couldn’t be carrying contraband. Maybe a cask or two occasionally, bought from a passing smuggler on a dark night—but certainly not bales of silk and lace lashed up in canvas, boxes of tobacco, cigars and tea, casks of brandy and pipes of wine. Obviously, the Revenue men thought, smuggling contraband on that scale could only be done by the bigger vessels which were away for several days; even the greenest young Customs searcher knew that. So no one ever bothered to see how thick was the layer of fish caught by the Marie; no one ever compared the probable amount—judging by the quantity in the fish hold—with the amount boxed and taken to Folkestone market …

  It was an ingenious system and, Ramage noted, like all good systems it was simple. Only one lot of bribes had to be paid—to the French officials in Boulogne. Since the French authorities did nothing to hinder smuggling to England, the only risk was from greediness rather than informers. In fact, from what Admiral Nelson had said, it was highly unlikely that bribes needed to be paid: with French currency worthless outside the country, Bonaparte needed foreign currency to pay for goods he bought abroad, and the guineas and shillings, paid by the English smugglers for the contraband would fetch a good rate of exchange …

  “Do you carry contraband only one way—to England?” he asked Louis.

  The Frenchman shook his head vigorously. “No, usually we bring back woollen things (very short of clothes here, unless you wear only silk and lace), rum—the only supply from Guadeloupe is very small these days—and often whisky.”

  When Ramage raised his eyebrows in surprise Louis laughed. “No, the French are not suddenly changing their taste—except to drink more gin from Holland. The British detenus—there are hundreds held at Verdun and such places—like whisky and still have the money to pay for it.”

  Ramage wondered if Bonaparte knew that one section of his British prisoners—the hundr
eds of civilians trapped in France when the war began and since treated as prisoners of war—had a regular supply of their favourite drink smuggled in through his main invasion port …

  Well, it was all very interesting, but smuggling was only indirectly involved with the job in hand. The question was how much could he trust Louis? The man must know Boulogne very well. If he did not know something, he would know where to find out. Ramage had to balance the need for secrecy with the fact that he had to start gleaning information from somewhere. He thought for a moment of Dyson, who already knew a certain amount and was probably shrewd enough to guess most of the rest of Ramage’s task. Anything Dyson knew or guessed must be regarded as information shared with Louis—although Ramage was doubtful if Louis shared much with Dyson.

  Thinking that he might one day have to justify his decision to enlist Louis’s help to the Admiralty, he realized that it would be almost impossible to put his reasons into words. Louis was rough, though clearly not uneducated, and officially the subject of an enemy nation. But he was a smuggler—and probably had been one for most of his life, and perhaps his father before him. Smuggling was an international calling or, rather, smugglers acknowledged no flag; their allegiance was to money.

  He found he could almost argue the smuggler’s case. In a Britain where almost everything was in short supply, what shopkeeper could refuse a lady a few yards of French lace for her new ball dress, a bolt of silk, pearls, mother-of-pearl? What shopkeeper could refuse to sell the lady’s husband a few pounds of choice tobacco or cigars? What wine merchant could refuse an old and valued customer a pipe of wine, a cask of brandy, a puncheon of port, a couple of dozen of fine sherry? The smuggler knew the answer only too well: shopkeepers, vintners, tobacconists and the like usually had to refuse because they could not get the items, but the smuggler could, and who was to blame him for supplying them at a price which rewarded his risk but was still far below the price when duty was added?

  Because of the war, these items could not be imported legally, since they came from the enemy’s country. Law-abiding businessmen could not import them even if they paid all the duties in hard cash and with a smile on their faces: that would be trading with the enemy and akin to treason.

  So, the smuggler would argue, who can blame me if I risk my life and liberty to go to France and get these items, and risk my life and liberty once again on my return to England? If I declared them so that I paid the regular duty, I’d be put in jail, so I land them on a dark night (thus adding more risk to the whole venture) and satisfy the ladies and gentlemen: the ladies can dress in beautiful clothes and cheer up the gentlemen; the gentlemen can puff a pipe or a cigar after a good dinner which was helped down with a fine wine topped off with a good port. The gentlemen were—however briefly—cheerful enough not to curse the government or bully their wives; the wives were so happy in their new finery they did not nag their husbands.

  Ramage chuckled to himself: there was an equally good case for arguing that smugglers should be honoured like other worthy citizens: he could just imagine the announcement that so-and-so had been created a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath “for distinguished services to smuggling.” One did not have to be very sophisticated to consider it better earned than the knighthoods, baronies and the like that were handed round like buns and ale at a cockfight in return for money paid to a political party. Better if a man earned a knighthood after risking his life than bought it in the same furtive way he would a puncheon of brandy …

  Anyway, there’s nothing like sitting on the deck of a smack in the sunshine in the middle of an enemy harbour for getting a fresh perspective. And not only a perspective—the hot sun was doing nothing to disperse the sickly smell of garbage, boiled cabbage and urine that seemed to lie over the quays in an invisible layer many feet thick.

  So a smuggler’s allegiance was to money rather than a flag, and he was lucky because Louis also had a deep and apparently genuine contempt for the Corsican who, to many Frenchmen, typified France even more than the Tricolour; who so believed in Liberté, égalité and fraternité that apparently he wanted to conquer and rule the whole world.

  The first move was to see if Louis was willing to help; after that the price could be settled. So much easier to deal with men whose consciences were uncluttered with complicated loyalties … “Has Slushy told you why I’ve come to France?” Ramage spoke in French, since there was no need to disguise the fact he spoke it.

  “No—all I know is what Thomas Smith said when he came over with the papers in the middle of the Channel: that there was no contraband this voyage, only four passengers!”

  “Do you often carry passengers?”

  Louis shook his head. “Not to France. Occasionally one of the leaders—one of the chief smugglers, you understand—visits France to check the accounts and pay or collect money. Twice a year, perhaps. To England? Very occasionally, and usually they are British prisoners of war who have escaped from Verdun or Bitche or one of the other fortresses. A very dangerous traffic for us: it’s asking a lot to risk having the authorities here in Boulogne forbid all smuggling to England just for the sake of helping an escaped prisoner.”

  “But they pay you well, surely?”

  “They offer to, but if we carry them, then they pay only for a small rowing-boat: we take them to within a mile or two of Dover and let them row the rest of the way in the boat. They tell the authorities in Dover they stole or bought the boat and rowed all the way. They say nothing of the Marie or anyone they met. That is the price of our help: silence!”

  “It’s a price anyone can afford!”

  “I have too much imagination,” Louis confessed unexpectedly. “I just think of myself escaping from a prison fortress, being hunted across two hundred miles of countryside, and then reaching the coast to find I can see my homeland but cannot get across. The fisherman or boatman that drives a hard bargain in such circumstances ought to have a taste of prison …”

  “What else did Smith tell you?” Ramage asked casually.

  “Just that a gentleman with three attendants was being taken to Boulogne.”

  “Attendants?”

  Louis laughed, explaining, “Thomas Smith is proud of his French and practises it on me. I think he liked the sound of ‘jonty-yomm’”—he made an exaggerated gesture as he imitated the Marsh man’s pronunciation—”whereas ‘lieutenant’ sounds more or less the same (the way Smith pronounces it) in either language. You are a lieutenant, I think?” When Ramage nodded he added: “I thought so, and these three men served with you?” Without waiting for Ramage’s answer he said: “One can tell there is a rapport between men who have faced death together, no matter what their rank. Well, the fact that the chief arranged your passage is enough for me to say, if I can be of service to you …”

  “Thank you, but was that the British chief or the French?”

  Louis chuckled, thought for a moment and then said:

  “There’s only one chief, and although I have never seen him, I am sure he regards himself as a citizen of both countries.”

  “A man of two worlds, eh?”

  Louis repeated the phrase, as though savouring it. “All of us concerned with contraband have to be. However, contraband is the least of your worries. When you go on shore tonight, have you lodgings arranged?”

  “Not yet. Will they be difficult to find?”

  “I’ll help you. The main difficulty is moving about after dark.”

  “Is there a curfew?”

  “Only for the soldiers, but there are patrols everywhere. Everyone challenged has to show a passport, unless he can prove he lives in Boulogne. A man without a passport or a home in Boulogne goes straight to jail …”

  Which shows, Ramage thought to himself, the dangers of not planning an operation carefully. But there had been no time to do more than get to France; there was no way of finding out what conditions were like. One day a government department might make itself responsible for collecting all that kind of inform
ation, so that it was available to the Admiralty and War Office, and even the Secretary of State’s office. But since captains were having difficulty in getting the Admiralty to agree to print charts because their Lordships expected captains and masters to have their own (though not specifying where they were to come from), it was unlikely that the Government would ever show any interest in what went on in an enemy country.

  “Such documents provide no problem,” the Frenchman said. “I’ll get them before you leave. I need to know what trades you follow though, and you must decide on your names—or what names you want to use, rather. One of the men is not English, I think.”

  “One is Italian, one British, and one American. The Italian speaks English and some Spanish. The American speaks a little Spanish—perhaps enough to fool a gendarme. I speak some Spanish, too. The American also speaks some Italian, and so do I.”

  “Your Spanish and Italian—is it as good as your French?”

  “Better—I’ve spoken both fairly recently. I haven’t used my French since I learned it, unfortunately.”

  “You have nothing to worry about. The accent of Paris—it shows. Your teachers made you work hard! But the Englishman—he speaks only English?”

  Ramage nodded. “His own particular brand of it!”

  “Then he must be the dumb one, while the two of you must be Italian or Spanish. Italian would be better—the Spanish are not popular in France at the moment, as you probably know.”

  “Yes, that gives us one native Italian—a Genovese—and I can pass for a Tuscan. If the American just grunts and the Englishman holds his tongue … But trades—what do you suggest?”

  “It depends on your task. I’m not prying,” Louis added hurriedly, “but one trade might be more suitable than another for your—” he broke off, embarrassed and obviously unable to find the right words.

  “My masters are worried that Bonaparte’s Army of England might suddenly arrive one morning …”