by Dudley Pope
Houdan was shaking his head, unbelievingly, and Ramage could not resist giving the knife yet another twist.
“The crowd watching and jeering yesterday—I suppose they’ll clap and cheer round the guillotine as the blade drops, too. But a crowd is fickle, Prisoner Houdan; it doesn’t mind who dies, man or woman, young or old, Royalist or Republican, Breton or Burgundian. It would find it amusing to watch the prosecutor being decapitated.” The phrase in French did not have the same ring as in English, but Houdan’s mouth was now hanging slack and he was obviously staring into some private hell about which he had never before dared even to think.
A full minute passed, during which time the sentry started moving uncomfortably, as though he too was considering the pendulum and his own position. Then Houdan pulled his eyes back into focus, braced his back and repeated, as though they were his first words since he came into the cell: “Prisoner di Stefano, your appeal for clemency has been rejected!”
“You are mistaking me for someone else,” Ramage said coldly. “I made no appeal, nor shall I.”
“An appeal is routine after the sentence of death,” Houdan said.
“And its rejection is equally routine?” Ramage inquired.
“Not necessarily. Now, I have one last question. You are not Gianfranco di Stefano. Who are you?”
“Ah—so you have found me out,” Ramage said sadly, and noted the triumphant look on Houdan’s face: the Frenchman was obviously enjoying the thought of getting his revenge for all the baiting he had received.
“Who are you, then?”
“Ah,” Ramage lowered his head sorrowfully, “the last in an ancient line; when the blade drops, a noble family vanishes, as though it never existed. A few tombstones, a mausoleum here and a palace there … a sad thought.”
“Your name,” Houdan persisted.
“The Duca di Noia.”
The Frenchman’s eyes widened and then his face became animated: a Royalist! He plunged a hand into his pocket and fished out a piece of paper and pencil. “Spell it!” he demanded. As soon as he had it written down he asked: “Where is that?”
“Where is what?” Ramage asked innocently.
“Noia—the place of which you are the Duke. Were the Duke,” he corrected himself.
“Oh, Noia isn’t a place, it is a—how should I say, the translation is a little difficult. Now, in French, it would be ‘Le Duc d’Ennui.’”
Houdan stared at him suspiciously. “Ennui? Are you sure you have not make a mistake? Are you saying there is no such place as Noia?”
“‘Noia’ is an Italian word,” Ramage said patronizingly. “It means—well, boredom, tedium … I assure you that after a few hours locked up in a cell, anyone becomes the Duca di Noia. After a week or two in a French cell I dare say he becomes Le Grand Duc d’Ennui.”
Houdan looked at him with narrowed eyes, his face revealing hatred. “Your execution is arranged for ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you,” Ramage said. “It’s a civilized hour: I was afraid you would make it dawn.”
Houdan left the cell and the door slammed shut. Ramage sat down on the cot and felt violently sick. You needed the continued presence of someone like Houdan to play the role of the blasé cynic: the moment you were left alone it all seemed so empty and useless. But, he thought sourly, hurrah for the Duca di Noia; he made sure that long after Gianfranco di Stefano or Lieutenant Ramage had escaped or shuffled off this mortal coil, Houdan will wake up in the early hours of the morning and think of the pendulum.
It would be the devil of a gesture (one that would leave not just Houdan but the tribunal looking stupid) if just before they shoved him against the bascule, he said casually, “By the way, I am not an Italian shipbuilder, I’m a British naval officer, and I did read that despatch …” But it would be a pointless gesture; far better to let the French remain unaware that the British knew the details of their Invasion Flotilla.
Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. He pulled out his watch and saw that it was a few minutes past eleven o’clock. Twenty-three hours was not a long time—yet before the guards came to fetch him it might seem endless. He was disappointed that there had been no word from Louis; that neither he nor his friends had smuggled in a weapon of some sort—even a long hatpin in a loaf of bread might have done some good. He needed something more than a bowl or a mug to attack two jailers, one of whom always had a pistol. Nor had the French authorities been much help: the trial one day and sentencing the next hardly gave a man time to plan an escape! But time was running out: he had better start thinking hard …
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
AT seven o’clock next morning Ramage was just finishing a cup of cold acorn coffee when he heard boots marching in the corridor outside the cell. It was the regular thud made by men who had been drilled. Halt, one, two! They had stopped at his door. A firing-squad? No, here in France they use guillotines … The key turned, the top bolt slid back, then the bottom, and the door swung open.
Houdan was standing there, a smirk on his face, with a gendarme on either side and several soldiers drawn up in single file behind him, along the wall of the corridor.
“Prisoner di Stefano,” he said in a voice which matched his expression, “your fame has spread to Boulogne: the naval authorities want to question you. Apparently there is a suspicion that you saw more than was realized in Paris. You are being taken to Boulogne for interrogation and I should warn you that the naval authorities will not treat you as gently as we have here in Amiens.”
“Travel broadens the mind,” Ramage said casually. “Don’t you find that?”
“In your case it also lengthens your life by two or three days. The sergeant of the guard has the warrant for your execution and after handing you over to the naval authorities he will deliver it to the police station in Boulogne. They have a guillotine there …”
“I am sure they have, but you have put yours in such an attractive position: the plane trees make a colourful contrast with the shiny blade against the green of the leaves and the bark of the trees. I hope you will appreciate it—” he paused for a moment, “yes, I am sure you’ll appreciate it … when your time comes.”
Houdan stepped back as though he had been slapped in the face, and turned to the sergeant. “Here is your prisoner; guard him well. You have the warrant, and you have your instructions. You’ve signed my receipt—ah yes, I have it here; a receipt for the body of Gianfranco di Stefano.”
The sergeant, a burly and red-faced man who looked as though he enjoyed his Calvados, grunted and jerked a thumb at Ramage. “Come out here—that’s right—stand there. Four men in front—hurry, there! And you four behind. Right now, attention! Quick march!”
The sergeant marched them down the corridor, boots booming like drum rolls, and halted them in front of the large double doors leading to the square. He then marched to the head of the file, made a flourish towards the gendarme to open both doors, and led the file of men out into the early morning sunshine, down the steps and into the place.
“Shoulders back!” he shouted when he saw a group of women on the corner of the square, and he increased his stride. It is many miles to Boulogne, Ramage thought to himself gleefully: many miles and at least a couple of night stops. There should be several opportunities to escape. A chance to make a bolt for it in open country was what he needed; open country just before darkness. He would march like a particularly docile prisoner all the first day. A day and a night would be enough to make these soldiers regard their prisoner as a well-behaved fellow.
By tomorrow they would be near the coast, with the guards bored and weary. Tomorrow evening he would make a bolt for it, no matter what the risk. He braced his shoulders back and swung his arms: he was beginning to feel more cheerful; at last he had a sporting chance!
It was a pleasant summer’s morning: the sun, still weak, presented the city of Amiens in a friendly light. Only a few people were about, although from the smell of bread and the smoke from the chimne
y the baker had nearly finished his work. Past the shops and the last of the houses was the barricade. The sergeant produced a handful of papers, waved airily towards his prisoner and said something that provoked a snigger among the gendarmes, and the march began in earnest … Soon there were open fields stretching into the distance all round, except for a small wood half a mile ahead.
The soldiers dropped into an easier step and two or three of them started talking among themselves. The sergeant still strode ahead but at a comfortable pace, knowing that there were many miles to cover before sunset. Insects buzzed, and occasionally a startled bird flew overhead. The sound of marching feet had been replaced by a sort of prolonged scuffling noise, with the occasional curse as a man had to lengthen or shorten a step to avoid twisting his ankle in a pothole.
Ramage suddenly saw two more soldiers standing beside a tree forty or fifty yards ahead: obviously stragglers who had fallen out of the column on its way into the city, and now meant to catch up after their rest. At that moment one of the waiting soldiers began walking into the middle of the road, and his gait seemed curiously familiar. Then the second one joined him. A minute or two later his escort had stopped and he was staring at Stafford’s grinning face. Beside him was Louis—they both looked incongruous in the uniform of soldiers of France.
“Mornin’, sir,” Stafford said, “wotcher fink of this rig?”
The shock of hearing not just English, but Stafford’s unique version of it, spoken again left Ramage feeling faint from the mixture of relief and shock, and unsure whether it was easier to laugh or cry.
“Good morning, Stafford,” he managed to say in an even voice, and then broke off suddenly, realizing that whatever else he said would be repeated with glee to the rest of Stafford’s shipmates, men who had sailed with Ramage for upwards of a couple of years. “You are late, Stafford,” he said with mock harshness. “What were you doing, paying another call on the landlord’s daughter?”
But Stafford had served with him too long to be fooled. “Me and Louis did think of waiting until you was being led up to the Widder, sir, but we reckoned the crowd might fink they was being cheated, once they got a sight of yer.”
Louis’s ugly face was as cheerful as Ramage had ever seen it. “Good morning, Lieutenant, I’m sorry we could not let you know in time for you to have shaved, but I have breakfast almost ready—in the wood just ahead.”
Ramage giggled. It was a brief giggle and he managed to stifle it before it ran away with him, but he knew that, after the events of the past few days, his self-control was very weak. “Fresh eggs, eh?”
“As many as you want; I’ll make you a fine omelette,” Louis said, and went on as though still discussing a menu. “I’m sorry we could not get you out yesterday evening, but I decided that it was better to leave you to a miserable night rather than risk a slip-up in our plans by rushing things.”
“Where did you recruit your army?”
“Nine men are not too difficult, really, although rather expensive: we will have to hold a pay parade before we dismiss them. They are—although you’d hardly think so to look at them—some of the cream of the Channel smugglers. They are all,” he added quietly, “men who have as little affection for the Republic as I have. It took me a little time to find ones who were not known by sight in Amiens.”
“But the uniforms …”
“I’ll tell you all about it as we eat breakfast,” Louis said.
They reached the wood and turned off the road, following a track among the trees. After a hundred yards they reached a glade where a man in fisherman’s clothes was prodding a small bonfire over which hung a kettle. The soldiers split up and sat down around the fire, joking with the fisherman who began breaking eggs into a large pan.
Ramage beckoned to Stafford and sat down with Louis on a fallen tree trunk. “Tell me what happened,” Ramage said, “from the beginning.”
“That screaming,” Louis said in English, “the moment I heard it I guessed that the daughter or the mother had gone to the Lieutenant’s room, and as we all ran up the stairs I had time to think. I was hoping you were still in your room, and you were. So I listened to what was going on for a moment or two, slipped into my room to get the loaf with your papers in it—and found Stafford already there.” He gestured to the Cockney to carry on.
“Yus, well, that there screaming at the door froze me fer a moment or two. Then when she ran, I ‘opped out of the window an’ managed to work meself along a ledge to Louis’s room ter try an’ get ‘old o’ the bread. I just reached the drawer when the door opens an’ Louis an’ me finds ourselves starin’ at each uvver. We just had time to arrange a rendy voo an’ then out the winder I goes and Louis marches out wiv the loaf stuffed darn ‘is trouser leg.”
Louis laughed at the memory. “After I pretended to inspect my room and you were arrested, I delivered the loaf to the courier and told him what had happened. I knew our main job was done, so I then had to sit down quietly and work out a plan to rescue you—it wasn’t too difficult since I knew what the gendarmes would do—and before the courier left for Boulogne at dawn I was able to give him some instructions.
“I guessed we had until Wednesday to arrange things, because the regular sentencings are always on Wednesdays, and the gendarmes like to keep to a schedule—trials on Tuesdays, sentencing on Wednesdays and executions on Thursdays. Well, certain isolated Army camps in the Boulogne-Calais area lost various pieces of uniform on Monday, while other camps lost a few muskets. The losses were so scattered that no one would connect them, and the booty arrived in Amiens late on Tuesday. On Tuesday and Wednesday various men arrived at Amiens, though few of them passed through the police barricades: fortunately the police have the quaint idea that all visitors to a city come in by road.
“I had a friend at the police station who was able to keep me informed about your trial—what did you say that so infuriated the court?—and I was sitting in the back of the hall at the Mairie when you were sentenced, although you would not have recognized me. I was proud of you, by the way! You created quite an impression.
“The rest you can guess: all these men met me here during the night, we put on our uniforms, and the sergeant marched them into the city. Stafford and I stayed here because we might have been recognized.”
“What about the documents that the sergeant showed to the prosecutor, and those for the police at the barricade?” Ramage asked.
“They came up from Boulogne. There’s a standard wording for most of these official documents, you know. The important thing is to have a supply of the correct stationery with the appropriate heading printed at the top, and some wax and a seal. Most ministries and committees use the same seal … I think that omelette is done. By the way, your last despatch was delivered safely.”
As Ramage listened to Louis describing the arrangements for getting him back to England, he was thankful for the Frenchman’s clear, practical mind. Louis had done his best to eliminate chance: tomorrow night the Marie would be fishing along the three-fathom line off Le Tréport, which was not only the nearest fishing port to Amiens but easily spotted from the sea. The great white and grey chalk cliffs of the coast of Normandy flattened out as they stretched north-eastward to curve inland and vanish altogether three or four miles beyond Le Tréport. The little fishing port itself was built at the foot of Mount Huon, at the entrance to a valley through which flowed the River Bresle.
If the weather was bad, Louis said, Slushy Dyson would bring the Marie into the actual harbour, small as it was, and let her dry out in the mud at low water, along with the other boats belonging to the port. Le Tréport was about the southern limit for boats fishing from Boulogne, but since bad weather would be the only reason why Dyson would come in, it also provided its own good excuse. A jib stowed below in the cuddy, Louis explained, was held together only by the boltropes, two seams having ripped once in a squall so that a complete panel was missing. “Our alibi,” Louis said with a wink. “It gives us a reason for going
into anywhere. ‘Stress of weather,’ you know. Then we sail direct to England: there will be no time to get to the rendezvous with the Folkestone Marie.”
Ramage, thinking of the thin soles of his boots, asked: “How many kilometres to Abbéville?”
“About 45—that’s about 28 miles.”
“And on to Le Tréport?”
“About eighteen miles by road, but we shall be riding crosscountry from Abbéville.” Louis saw that Ramage was looking worried and said reassuringly, “We march on to Abbéville at a reasonable pace. We go through the town and continue on the road to Boulogne, explaining to the guards at the barricades that we have orders to get you to Boulogne as quickly as possible.
“Once we are clear of Abbéville we leave the road, wait until it is dark, say goodbye to our friends, and climb on board some horses which will be waiting for us. A pleasant night ride to Le Tréport, keeping a mile or two north of the road. We reach a particular house at a village called Mers, on the coast just north of Le Tréport, where we are assured of a welcome and a chance to sleep. We’ll then find out if the Marie is in the harbour or out fishing.”
“And if she’s out fishing?”
“Then—after resting all day Thursday—we have to haul a small boat down the beach, launch it, and row out to the three-fathom line.”
“But if we’re seen?”
“We shall be seen: we’ll have a lantern, and anyone sufficiently interested in our activities will see that we are busy fishing. If a fishing-boat called Marie from Boulogne happens to see a boat out fishing on the three-fathom line and sails over towards it, well, we shall be half a mile or so offshore and it won’t take long for three men to get on board.”