Ramage's Devil (7 page)

“The fishmongers,” Ramage said patiently.

“Ah yes, Estelle was discussing with them what to buy in place of the halibut. She had the sauce in mind, you understand. Well, the second fishmonger joined the discussion, and while Estelle was thinking, asked the first fishmonger if he had heard about the English brig arriving.

“The first fishmonger had not, and the second—his name is Henri, a Gascon, and he has trouble making people believe his stories: not for nothing do we have the word
‘gasconade.'
”

“And then …” Ramage prompted.

“Henri then told how this brig had been sighted in the Chenal du Four by the lookouts now stationed on Pointe St Mathieu. Then they noticed the strange business about her flag.”

Once more Gilbert came to a stop, like a murex (or a winkle, Ramage thought sourly) retreating into its shell after every few inches of progress. Dutifully Ramage encouraged him out again. “What about the flag, Gilbert?”

“She was flying a white flag above the English colours. Had she been captured? the sentries asked themselves. But why a
white
flag—one would have expected a
Tricolore
over the English.

“Anyway, they passed a message round to the château and a corvette which was anchored close by was sent out to investigate. She returned with the English brig following, only now the white flag had been replaced by the
Tricolore.

“If you want my opinion, milord”—he paused politely until Ramage nodded—”the brig had already surrendered, but the corvette met her before she started coming into
Le Goulet
and put men on board and claimed to have captured her. That way they get a reward.”

They must be optimists, Ramage thought. The British Admiralty courts were notoriously fussy and the agents corrupt when awarding prize-money, and he doubted if Bonaparte's navy even bothered with prize courts. The corvette had been sent out to check up on a vessel already flying a white flag which traditionally meant surrender or truce. He raised his eyebrows in another variation of prodding Gilbert to continue.

“This English brig now flying the
Tricolore
over the English colours, and with her guns still—how do you say, withdrawn, not in place for firing …”

“Not run out.”

“Ah, yes. This brig is anchored in front of the château and many important men—including the
préfet maritime
and Admiral Bruix, the
commandant de l'Armée navale—
are rowed out to the ship. They stay about an hour, and then after they return the crew of the
Murex—
her name can be read from the shore you understand—are brought on shore and given accommodation in the château, while French sailors are taken out to guard the rest.”

“The rest of what?”

“Well, the officers, and a few seamen,” Gilbert said, clearly surprised at Ramage's question.

“But why are the officers and a few seamen being left on board? Who were the men brought on shore and lodged in the château?”

“Why, they are the mutineers, of course!” Gilbert said. “The officers and the seamen who did not mutiny are kept on board as prisoners of war. That,” he amended cautiously, “is how Estelle understood it from Henri.”

The ship's company of the
Murex
brig mutinying within a few days—almost hours—of the resumption of war and carrying the ship into Brest to hand her over to the French? Ramage looked at Sarah, as if appealing to her to assure him that he had misheard. She stared at the floor, obviously stunned.

Who commanded the brig? He could be a lieutenant—almost certainly would be. The
Murex
would probably have left Plymouth or Portsmouth before war began. Most likely she was based on the Channel Islands.

But what caused a mutiny? The mutinies at the Nore and Spithead had brought better conditions for the navy and he had heard no murmurs of discontent since then. There was occasional loose talk of malcontents among Irish seamen; a few captains also complained of the activities of the London Corresponding Society, which some had blamed for the Nore and Spithead affairs, but the subsequent inquiry had produced no proof.

A mutiny in a single ship, Ramage felt instinctively, was the captain's fault. Either he was too harsh (like the late and unlamented Hugh Pigot, commanding the
Hermione
) or he was too slack, failing to notice troublemakers at work among the ship's company. The troublemakers did not have to be revolutionaries: far from it. There were always men who genuinely enjoyed stirring up trouble without a cause and without a purpose, and they usually became seamen or Members of Parliament, depending on their background. Either way, they talked shrilly without any sense of responsibility, like truculent whores at a window.

The
Murex.
Ideas drifted through his mind like snowflakes across a window—and, he admitted sourly, they had about as much weight. He looked up at Gilbert and smiled. “Don't look so sad: now's the time to plot and scheme, not despair!”

The Frenchman shook his head sadly. “We need a company of
chasseurs
or an English ship of the line, milord,” he said. “Three or four of us against Bonaparte …”

“Don't forget Bonaparte was alone when he sent the Directory packing! From being a young Corsican cadet at the artillery school he rose to be the ruler of most of Europe … Don't despair, Gilbert; come back in half an hour and we'll talk again. First, though, tell me who we can count on among the staff.”

“All are loyal, sir. I mean that none will betray us. For active help: well, Edouard, Estelle and her husband Louis—who was a fisherman before becoming a gardener when the authorities confiscated his boat—will actively help. The others may not care to risk their lives.”

“But those two men and the woman would?”

“Yes, because they all hate the new régime. Not that it's very new now, but they have all suffered. Estelle and Louis lost their fishing-boat and then had to sell their little cottage in Douarnenez: Edouard's father should be buried in the cemetery at Landerneau,

on the Paris road, but instead the body is in a mass grave near the guillotine they set up in Brest.”

“What did the father do?”

“A terrible crime,” Gilbert almost whispered. “He was the Count's butler. He decided to stay here in France when the Count escaped to England because he could not see any danger from his own people for a butler. But he was denounced to the Committee of Public Safety as a Royalist.”

“On what evidence? That he worked for the Count?”

“Milord, you do not understand. If you are denounced, you are not brought before the kind of court you are accustomed to in England. You are first locked up, and next day, next week, next month—even next year—you are brought before a tribunal, the denunciation is read out, and you are sentenced. You might be asked for your explanation, but no one will be listening to it. The sentence is the same, whatever you say—the guillotine.”

“Does Edouard know who denounced his father?”

“No, but he knows the names of the three members of the tribunal.”

“What does he intend to do?”

“We Bretons are like your Cornishmen, milord: we have long memories and much patience. Edouard is prepared to wait for his revenge. Nor is he alone: there have been many unexplained accidents in the last year or two, so I hear: farms catch fire, the wheel comes off a
cabriolet
and the driver is killed or badly hurt … it seems that a band of assassins occasionally prowl the countryside. It was only six months ago that members of tribunals stopped having armed guards at their houses. But now, milord, I will leave you for half an hour.”

When the door had shut, Sarah patted the bed beside her.

“Come and sit with me—I suddenly feel very lonely.” She leaned over and kissed him. “If I said what I felt about that, you'd blush.”

“I'd like to blush. For the last few hours I've felt pale and wan.”

“If you'd told Gilbert to come back in two hours, I'd lure you to other things.”

“I had thought of that, but Gilbert will be expecting to hear of a plan worthy of Captain the Lord Ramage—one that frees Jean-Jacques and gets us all safely back to England.”

She looked at him carefully, as though inspecting a thoroughbred horse at a sale. “A slight turning up at the corners of the mouth … a brightness in at least one eye … a jauntiness about the ears … Or am I mistaken?”

“You're in love,” he said solemnly. “I can produce plans as a cow gives milk, but they curdle as soon as you look at them.”

“What are the chances of rescuing Jean-Jacques?”

“You know the answer to that question.”

“Yes, I suppose I do. What are the chances of us escaping?” He paused a minute or two. “Better than they were, I think. It depends on how the French authorities regard the mutineers from the
Murex.
Yes, and what they intend to do with the officers and the seamen who did not join the mutiny and are still on board as prisoners of war.”

“Why is all that important?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don't know. That's the worst of plans. Most of the time they're just ideas. Occasionally, if you're lucky, you can throw an idea at a problem and it solves it. That's how swallows make those nests of mud in odd places.”

“And was doing that what made Captain Ramage famous in the navy for his skill and daring?”

“Captain Ramage is famous at the Admiralty for disobeying orders!”

“They do say,” Sarah said, “that being too modest is another way of bragging.”

“Well, skill and daring have landed Captain Ramage with a wife in a château a few miles from Brest while his ship is at Chatham, which is only a war away.”

“You make it sound as though you're sorry you married me.”

He took her in his arms. “No, my dear, I'm blaming myself for not having married you sooner: then I'd be taking the
Calypso
out of the Medway and you'd be safe in London or St Kew, starting to write a passionate letter to me saying how you miss me.”

Sarah sat up and patted her hair as there was a gentle knock at the door. Ramage realized with a guilty feeling that he had nothing to say to Gilbert. Well, maybe he could think aloud, but that seemed like cheating a man who trusted you.

S
ARAH put the triangular red scarf round her head and knotted the ends under her chin. Then coquettishly she spun round a couple of times so that her heavy black skirt swirled out and up, revealing knee-length and lace-edged white cotton drawers.

Ramage frowned and then said judiciously: “Yes, there's a certain rustic charm, despite the revolutionary scarf. Your complexion is just right: you have the tan of a country wench who helps with the harvesting.”

“You are a beast! You know very well this is the remnants of a tropical tan!”

“I do, yes,” Ramage teased, “but I was thinking of the
gendarmes
you might have to charm.”

“You don't think my accent is adequate?”

“Oh yes—thanks to Gilbert's coaching you are a true Norman from Falaise. Just remember, in case they question you, that William the Conqueror was born in the castle there, his wife was Matilda, and the Bayeux tapestry is very long!”

She walked round him. “You don't look right, Nicholas. That hooked nose looks far too aristocratic for you to have survived the guillotine, although I admit your hair looks untidy enough for a gardener. Those trousers! I'm so used to seeing you in breeches. Isn't it curious how the revolutionaries associated breeches with the monarchists? Personally I should have thought trousers are much more comfortable than
culottes.
If I was a man I think my sympathies would be with the
sans-culottes.
I'd cry ‘
vive les pantalons!
To the bonfires with the
culottes!
'”

She inspected his hands. “You have worked enough earth into the skin, my dear, but they still don't look as if they've done a good day's hoeing or digging in their entire existence. And there's something missing … Ah, I have it! Slouch, don't stand so upright! When you stand up stiffly peering out from under those fierce eyebrows, you look just like a naval officer dressed for a rustic
fête.
Ah, that's better.”

“Now surely I must look like the henpecked husband of a Norman shrew.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “why don't you bear that in mind. Think of me as
la mégère.
With this red scarf round my head, I must say I feel the part!”

Gilbert slipped into the room after his usual discreet knock on the door. He excused himself and inspected Sarah closely. Finally he said: “The shoes, milady … they are most important.”

Sarah gestured to the pair of wooden clogs. “And they are most uncomfortable!”

“Yes, milady, but you must wear them so that they seem natural. We are extremely lucky that Estelle had a pair which fitted you, even if those that Louis found for …”

“Even if Louis has enormous feet and I feel as though I'm wearing a couple of boats,” Ramage grumbled.

“Yes, sir, but the socks?”

“The extra socks do help,” he admitted. “I had to put on three pairs, though.”

“But the coat and
pantalons—
perfect. You have adopted to perfection the, how do you say, the
stance,
of a man of the fields.”

Ramage glared, defying Sarah to make a facetious comment.

Gilbert himself was dressed in black. The material of the trousers was rough, a type of serge; the coat had the rusty sheen denoting age and too much attention from a smoothing iron. He looked perfect for the role he was to play, the employer of a young couple who was taking them to market.

He was carrying a flat canvas wallet, which he unbuttoned as he walked over to the table. “Will you check through the documents with me, sir? From what Louis reports, we might have to show them half a dozen times before we get back here.”