by Dudley Pope
For Lieutenant Ramage, there was no difference between having his head knocked off by roundshot or lopped off by guillotine. Yet, in a bizarre sort of way, there was. If the copy of Bruix’s despatch reached Lord Nelson safely, there could be nothing more in his career (even if he lived to become an admiral) that could match it in importance. The sort of things that involved the risk of having your head knocked off by a roundshot were relatively trivial: it is only when you play for the very highest stakes that you risk “marrying the Widow.”
The officer was staring at him and when he caught Ramage’s eye he asked curiously: “What were you thinking about?”
“That if my foreman did have an assignation with the landlord’s daughter, I envied him. Pretty girl—have you seen her?”
The officer flushed, a redness that stained his lined and wrinkled face like wine soaking through lasagna, and Ramage realized that the man must have been speculating about her.
“The other man you were with—the Frenchman: who is he?”
“You mean to say you don’t know?” Ramage was scornful.
“Why should I?” the officer asked defensively.
“One of your ministries sent him along to spy on me wherever I go, that’s all I know!” As soon as he saw the officer nodding, as though the information was credible, Ramage decided to embellish it. “I can tell you, I’ve had enough of his company. ‘Won’t you have another bottle of wine, M’sieur?’ he says … And I have half a glass and he finishes the whole bottle. Who pays, eh? I do. Liqueurs—you tell me why all the liqueurs go on my bill? And the brandy—Mama mia, how much that man can drink! I pay for it, every drop. Not—” Ramage added hastily, as though suddenly nervous, “that I’m saying anything against him, you understand.”
The police officer nodded sympathetically. “He was sent from Paris, no doubt.”
“Yes, he joined me in Paris after my visit to Boulogne was arranged.”
Nothing said about Louis up to now could incriminate either of them. This local police officer might accept that Louis was working for some ministry or committee—he would be used in secrecy—without checking up. He might well think that arresting a foreigner who was being supervised by the employee of a ministry or committee would leave him open to an accusation of interfering … it was a faint hope.
“Where is he, anyway?” Ramage asked crossly. “Let him speak for himself—he’s always very secretive, although he keeps a sharp enough watch on me.”
“Probably writing a report on this affair for his superiors,” the officer said. “I expect he’ll be in to see me later.”
“Well,” Ramage said calmly, “he can tell you all about everything, so there’s no need for me to stay. You’ll find me at the hotel.”
He had not walked two paces before the officer was shouting. Ramage turned to find himself covered by the pistols of the two gendarmes.
“You are going to a cell!” the officer said angrily. He pulled a large book towards him, a book that reminded Ramage of a ledger in a counting-house. “Now, I want your full name and address, and all the details of why you are in France …”
The cell was square, five paces along one side and five paces along the other. It had a chill of its own, something which had nothing to do with the outside temperature, for it was a warm night. Ramage only saw the inside for a brief moment, in the light of the guard’s lantern, before being pushed in and having the door slammed behind him. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he saw that there was a single small window high in one wall, and although it was barely large enough for a man to put his head through, there were iron bars.
He had seen a low wooden cot but in the darkness misjudged the distance, finding it by banging his shin painfully on a corner. A moment later he kicked over a bucket, and from the smell guessed its purpose. There was a thin palliasse of sacking and straw on the cot, and he thought momentarily of all the bedbugs lurking in there, waiting for the majesty of French law to provide them with their next meal.
He sat down on the cot and realized how tired he was. The strain of the last hour had drained his energy, and he hoped he was tired enough to drop off to sleep quickly, instead of finding his mind invaded by a dozen worries which tightened his muscles and chased sleep away. Having already been caught once in his nightshirt he decided that undressing would be confined to his boots.
The interview had not gone too badly. The officer was suspicious but not more so than was to be expected. His main interest obviously centred on Stafford, and Ramage was sure he had accepted the story of Louis being the representative from some ministry or committee in Paris.
As he stretched out on the cot he reflected that whatever happened—and for the moment there was no need to be too pessimistic—Louis had almost certainly had time to get the report out of his room and into the courier’s hands. Sleep, that was what he needed; worrying could achieve nothing, since once again everything was in Louis’s hands.
Dawn was a pale grey square at the window when he was woken by the rasp of bolts being pulled back. A moment later the door creaked open and a wedge of yellow lantern light on the floor showed a small bowl being put down on the floor just inside the cell. The door slammed shut, cutting off the light, and the bolts rasped again, all without anyone saying a word.
Ramage rubbed his eyes and heard the faint rasp of other bolts: presumably the inmate of another cell was also receiving his breakfast. He walked carefully over to the door and picked up the bowl. It was a watery gruel which had a vague smell of dried peas, and he saw something he had not noticed at first, a large crust of bread, the end of a long loaf.
There was no spoon—presumably they were afraid of a prisoner using it to beat in the guard’s head, although heaving the bread like a half brick would do more damage. He tilted the bowl and began drinking, and was reminded immediately of the landlady’s medicine. The taste was not the same; the prison gruel had far less body but hinted at the same strange origins. Certainly the gruel owed most of its substance to cabbage water, although the peas floating around in it might well have been rabbit droppings for all the taste or sustenance they offered.
Birds began to chatter outside the window as it grew lighter. There were a few high clouds and the wind seemed to be from the south-west. With luck it would hold there long enough to give Jackson a fast reach over to Folkestone tonight. Was Louis’s courier already heading towards the coast from Amiens? Already through Picquigny, Abbéville and Montreuil? In his imagination Ramage travelled the road back to Boulogne, crossed the Channel, hired a horse at Folkestone and rode to Aldington, where his clothes and perhaps Gianna, were waiting …
He put the bowl down angrily: of all the thoughts that had tried to fight their way into his mind in the past week, the one he had resisted most successfully until this moment was of Gianna, and he knew he had to continue to shut her out. Men were supposed to be spurred on to great feats of daring and bravery by the thought of beautiful women, but he was damned if it worked for him. He had often thought of Gianna just before going into action, but all that happened was that the prospect of getting his head knocked off became even less attractive. Now there was a possibility of getting it lopped off by the guillotine he found even this brief glimpse of her painful. Next week, he whispered to himself, she must go away now and come back next week …
There was no sign of life inside the police station although outside the window the occasional clatter of hooves showed that the people of Amiens were beginning to stir. He felt grubby and greasy; his chin and cheeks were ready for a shave, though presumably prisoners were not trusted with a razor.
It was Sunday morning, and in London it would be another couple of hours before the family came down to breakfast. Then—he stood up abruptly to shake off the thought and began pacing up and down the cell. Five paces to the window, turn, five paces back. The floor was made of stone blocks: the same stone as the walls. He passed by the door and noted that it was made of four thick baulks of timber, braced and strengthened by i
ron crossbars, with the whole surface closely studded with iron bolts which would presumably deflect the blade of an axe, whether wielded from inside or outside the cell.
For the moment the question of escaping did not arise, he decided, but to give himself something to do he began going over every inch of the cell. The window was so small he would have difficulty getting his head through it, let alone his shoulders, so there was no point in testing the bars. The outside wall—stone blocks, each four feet wide by a foot thick, with the bars of the window set in the middle. The inner walls—again solid granite blocks, probably a foot or more thick. The ceiling was a good nine feet high, and rust marks in the plaster showed him that it was made up of iron rods spaced about six inches apart. A woodsman’s axe would make no impression on the door itself and the hinges were outside in the corridor. Whoever designed and built this cell knew his job. Despite all the stories of daring escapes from barred cells, the fact was that the only way out of this, without the key to the door, would be by igniting a barrel of powder …
Supposing things did go wrong, and it came to escaping? He shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the cot. The only way out was through the door, and the only way of opening the door was by sliding back the bolts and turning the key in the lock from outside. If Stafford had been there he might have been able to pick the lock from inside, but even he could not slide back those big bolts.
Which left no alternative but to overpower the jailer. Get the man inside the cell under some pretext or other, knock him out, walk blithely out of the building and hope to vanish down the side streets. It would be wise to watch the habits of the jailers. The one on duty at the moment was a cautious beggar who opened the door just enough to push the bowl in and then slammed it shut. Habit or orders? Was one jailer on duty at a time, or was there another one sitting or standing out there as well? He needed to know that before he made any move.
Then he pushed the thoughts away: it was still early on Sunday, and the courier would not yet have reached Boulogne. All being well, Dyson, Jackson and Rossi would sail tonight for the rendezvous and Jackson would transfer to the Folkestone Marie to arrive in England tomorrow morning. He would deliver the report and be back in the Folkestone boat ready to sail for the rendezvous on Monday night, meet the French Marie, and be back in Boulogne on Tuesday.
There could be a delay of course—the courier for Amiens might be a day late getting to Boulogne; the Marie might lose 24 hours if she could not leave Boulogne early enough to reach the rendezvous that night. Hellfire and damnation, it was hard to guess … All right, say the courier reaches Boulogne too late for the Marie to sail tonight to get to the rendezvous, Dyson would sail on Monday night instead, and Jackson deliver the despatch on Tuesday and get back to Boulogne soon after dawn on Wednesday.
Say Louis and Stafford managed to escape from Amiens and made their way to Boulogne, they would miss the Marie sailing with the despatch, so they would have to wait for her to return on Tuesday or possibly not until Wednesday. They would be safe enough hidden on board her all day Wednesday, until they could sail on Wednesday night.
This meant that to give them all a chance of getting away—which was the least he owed the men—he needed to keep his secret until dawn on Wednesday. After that he could confess, tell blatant lies, bait the gendarmes or do whatever he wanted, knowing that he would not endanger the men or the despatch. It was a long time to wait; today, Monday and Tuesday: 72 hours.
He stood up suddenly, as if to drive away the hours. It might not arise; Louis might convince the officer that all the trouble had been caused by a foreman with a roving eye. I’ll be back at the hotel by this afternoon, he told himself, and began pacing up and down the cell.
He was used to walking in a confined space—the quarterdeck of his last two ships had not allowed more than a dozen uninterrupted paces—but this cell was even smaller and the constant turning made him feel dizzy. Queasy, perhaps; the turning was swilling the gruel around in his protesting stomach, and the few pieces of stale bread he managed to swallow did nothing to ballast it down.
He flopped down on the cot and shut his eyes. He had felt trapped in the hotel room, but it had not really given him the slightest idea of what it was like to be locked in a cell. Once when he was a boy he had nearly drowned, and he remembered the terrible feeling of being utterly trapped, and the desperate way he had kicked his legs and flailed his arms to escape from the water which enclosed him like glue … A few days in this cell could drive a man mad. How did anyone endure being jailed for years? That’s something I’ll never know, he thought grimly; I’ll have been freed, escaped, or they’ll be leading me across the square to the guillotine long before a week has passed.
An hour later he heard the bolts being pulled back and the key turning in the lock. The door swung open and a gendarme with a pistol walked into the room, motioning him to remain sitting on the bed. He was followed by the gaunt officer, who nodded briefly.
“I trust you slept well,” Ramage said sarcastically. “I’m sorry to be the cause of you getting to bed rather late.”
“I have my duty,” the man said, his right shoulder twitching. “We guardians of the Republic’s safety must always be alert.”
Ramage avoided saying “Amen” and looked at the floor, waiting for the officer to start questioning him. Instead, the man said nothing. He stood and stared down at Ramage who, able to see what the man was doing out of the corner of his eye, was thankful he had begun looking at the floor before the officer began his curious vigil.
Ramage started counting the seconds, and had reached three and a half minutes before the man said: “Are you ready to confess?”
Ramage was so startled that, without thinking, he said: “Why, is there a priest here?”
The gendarme shook his head impatiently. “Don’t be ridiculous,” he said sternly, “I mean, are you ready to confess what you and your foreman have been doing?”
“Doing!” Ramage said angrily. “Well, all the time we have been in Amiens we have been sick—thanks to the bad food we were served. We shall be glad to say goodbye to Amiens, I can tell you.”
“The Lieutenant-de-vaisseau—do you know what his orders are?”
“Of course I don’t. Hardly to sail a ship, though; he seems to be a horseman rather than a seaman.”
“He is Admiral Bruix’s personal courier,” the officer said, emphasizing each word.
“Indeed?” Ramage raised his eyebrows. “What does he do, ride to Paris once a week and bring back the Admiral’s truffles?”
The officer ignored the gibe. “He carries the Admiral’s despatches to Paris, and brings back the orders from the Minister.”
“And … ?” Ramage prompted.
“And nothing!” he snapped. “It is a very important task; surely you realize that, don’t you? Admiral Bruix commands the Channel coast.”
“He must be kept busy; all I heard in Boulogne were complaints about the British frigates capturing ships, so that supplies never arrived.”
“Your words sound very much like treason,” the officer said coldly.
Ramage stood up with a suddenness that made the gendarme with the pistol swing the muzzle up towards him. “Treason!” Ramage yelled angrily, deciding that the moment had come for outraged indignation. “You dare accuse me of talking treason! Mama mia! I, an Italian, come all the way from Genoa to Boulogne—right across the Alps and the Juras, no less, and all at my own expense, because your own shipbuilders can’t launch vessels for the Invasion Flotilla fast enough! You are so behind with construction that unless something is done quickly, you will not be able to invade England for another two years.
“Your Admiral Bruix knows that—though,” he dropped his voice confidentially, “he may not tell the First Consul, that is something only those two know, but I do know the Admiral found it necessary to send a thousand kilometres for a particular man. And who was that man?” He let his voice rise indignantly. “Come on, name him! Who was this Italian shi
pbuilder that Admiral Bruix decided could help speed up the building of his Invasion Flotilla? You don’t know perhaps, but I’ll tell you—it was me. Gianfranco di Stefano, shipbuilder and master shipwright—master shipwright at my age, that surprises you, doesn’t it—and loyal subject of the Ligurian Republic. That is the man you accuse of treason!”
The officer was now looking worried. Ramage saw that his outburst had impressed him, but he feared that the fellow was plodding and tenacious, a man who would carry out an investigation like a keen chess player analysing all the possible moves.
“I did not accuse you of treason, M’sieur; I merely said your words sounded very much like treason, which—”
“That is just as insulting as a direct accusation,” Ramage said huffily.
“I assure you that it isn’t, M’sieur. If I accused you directly, you would be charged with treason. Now tell me, where is your foreman?”
Ramage sighed and sat down. “You might just as well accuse me of witchcraft to ask me where that thrice-damned foreman is! How can I possibly know? You have kept me locked up all night, so how can I look for him? In some bordello, if I know him, and better a bordello than a cell, I assure you, since I now have experience of both.”
“The Frenchman,” the officer persisted, “this Louis Peyrachon: where is he?”
“In his room at the Hotel de la Poste, I imagine,” Ramage said, playing for time as he absorbed the good news that the police officer had just revealed. “Or with my foreman in the bordello. How else to spend a Saturday night in a town like Amiens? You French do not know how to live! Everyone seems to go to bed as soon as the sun goes down!”
“What did you arrange with him?”
“Arrange? What do you mean by that? After we had supper he went downstairs to play cards with your precious Lieutenant, and I did not see him again until he came upstairs with the Lieutenant after that silly girl started screaming.”
The police officer nodded, as though what Ramage had just said fitted in with information received from other sources. “Where did you meet this man?”