Ramage and the Guillotine

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The police headquarters were on the south side of the square, looking out across the pavé to the guillotine under the plane trees on the far side. The two gendarmes pushed Ramage through the open door with a series of oaths and one of them kept him covered with a pistol while the other went along a corridor and knocked on a door. A minute or two later he called and the man with the pistol gestured to Ramage to follow.

Sitting at the desk in the middle of the room was a man in an officer's uniform whose thin face was heavily lined. Every few moments his right eye suddenly closed momentarily, as though he was winking, followed by a spasmodic jerk of his right shoulder. For a moment Ramage was reminded of a puppet, some of whose strings were broken.

The man pulled his lips back, as though about to bite something juicy, and exposing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. 'Passport,' he hissed.

Ramage dug into his coat pocket and then handed it over.

'Gianfranco di Stefano, eh? You speak French? You are Italian?'

Ramage nodded.

'What are you doing in Amiens?'

'Travelling to Paris. I was taken ill.’

One of the gendarmes whispered to the officer.

'Paris? You were travelling to Boulogne. You have a carriage ordered for tomorrow. You and two other men.'

T have been to Boulogne and was going back to Paris when I was taken ill,' Ramage explained with a nervousness far from feigned. 'Before I recovered, word came from Boulogne that there was still some unfinished business there and asking me to return.'

'What business? Who asked you?'

Ramage guessed that he was trapped if this man was thorough. He could bluff it out for a few days, but the moment the police checked with the Port Captain in Boulogne, they would find out that there was no such person as Signor di Stefano; that his documents were genuine but the blank spaces had been filled in with a false name. And then the fun would start: they would set to work on him to find out what it was all about. 'Set to work' —he was avoiding using the word 'torture,' but that was what he meant.

‘I have nothing to say,' Ramage said crossly. 'Why am I under arrest?'

He had to keep his mouth shut for long enough for Louis to get the dispatch to Boulogne, and be sure the Marie had sailed for the rendezvous. Once he could be sure that the dispatches were in Lord Nelson's hands, his job was done. Then he could talk as freely as he wanted - making sure not to incriminate Louis and his comrades - or remain silent. The final result was likely to be the same: he would swing over on the bascule and the executioner would let the blade drop. Le Moniteur would probably print some florid announcement that an English spy had been executed at Amiens (or an Italian one, if he stayed silent), and eventually someone in the Admiralty in London might connect the execution with the fact that Lieutenant Ramage had disappeared after sending a final report from Amiens ...

'You have nothing to say, eh? Well, I have,' the officer said. 'You are under arrest because your man - your foreman, I believe? - was seen by the daughter of the landlord in the room of another guest. An officer of the Republic,' he added ominously.

'I thought she said she saw several men.' It was a glimmer of hope but no more.

'She may have done; what concerns you is that your foreman is the one she definitely recognized.'

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. ‘That's what she says. I was asleep and have no idea what was going on. Was she in the room with my foreman? Did they have an assignation?'

It was a weak enough answer, but for the moment he was trying to gain time to think. Where the devil was Stafford now - obviously he had escaped out of the window, but how long could he avoid recapture? He did not speak a word of French, had no money and no map to help him get back to Boulogne. The only thing on his side was a natural Cockney shrewdness.

'What was your foreman doing?'

'Seducing her, perhaps? How should I know - I told you, I was asleep.'

Where was Louis now? Had he escaped before anyone checked up on his story that he was acting as the spy-cum-guard to the Italian travellers? Ramage could not remember seeing him from the moment the gendarmes said, 'Get dressed ...' On the other hand he might still be at the hotel, pretending to be as puzzled over Stafford's behaviour as the gendarmes. That would make sense! At the moment the only thing the gendarmes knew was that Stafford had been seen in the lieutenant's room. Nothing had been stolen so there was nothing to incriminate either Signor di Stefano or Louis. If Louis suddenly vanished it would be taken as proof of complicity.

In fact he and Louis would be cleared completely if the gendarmes accepted that whatever Stafford was doing had nothing to do with his employer or Louis. Let's see what happens, Ramage thought. For the moment I remain the Italian shipbuilder outraged that he should be lodged in jail for the night . . . All that gaunt-faced policeman knows is that my foreman was in someone else's room: no one has challenged my story that I was asleep at the time. With a bit of luck they'll release me tomorrow with suitable apologies!

Ramage thought of asking to be allowed to write to his own country's ambassador in Paris protesting at his arrest, but he remembered, just in time, that the Republic of Genoa, whence he allegedly came, was now Bonaparte's Ligurian Republic. Then the officer, who had been staring at the top of his desk for several moments, looked up.

'If he was trying to seduce her with her consent,' he said coldly, his voice sounding to Ramage like that of every outraged father or cuckolded husband, 'why did she scream?'

Ramage shrugged his shoulders expressively. 'How should I know? Perhaps she changed her mind.'

'She is in love with the lieutenant,' the officer said doggedly. 'It is impossible that she went to the room to meet your foreman.'

'Very well,' Ramage said in a bored voice, 'she had an assignation with the lieutenant in his room. Clearly not a very virtuous young lady, eh?'

'She did not have an assignation with the lieutenant in his room,' the officer said angrily, his right eye winking and his shoulder jerking.

'What was she doing in the room, then? Meeting my foreman instead?'

'She had written a note for the lieutenant and was leaving it in his room. Where is your foreman now?' Again the wink and shoulder twitch.

'I don't know,' Ramage said impatiently. 'Perhaps he has an assignation with the young lady's mother - have you inquired? '

It must be midnight by now. Had Louis managed to get that damned loaf to the courier? If Ramage could be sure that the report - he found himself trying to avoid even thinking of the name Bruix, as if the police officer might read his thoughts - reached Jackson on board the Marie, it would make it worthwhile. What worthwhile, he found himself asking. Stop thinking in euphemisms. If I know that my copy of Vice-Admiral Bruix's report on the state of the Flotille de Grande Espèce has reached Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson safely, then tipping over on the bascule, and staring down into the basket which will catch my head a fraction of a second after the guillotine blade lops it off, will be a little easier to bear.

It must be easier to die when you know you have achieved something. On the average, Ramage had gone into action four times a year, for the past three years, never expecting to come out of it alive. There had been a good chance that a French or Spanish roundshot would knock his head off or - involuntarily he reached up and rubbed the scars on the right side of his brow - he would be cut down by a cutlass or skewered on a boarding-pike.

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 dispatch 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 comer. 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, Abbeville 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 iron 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 twenty-four 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 dispatch 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 dispatch, 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 dispatch. It was a long time to wait; today, Monday and Tuesday: seventy-two 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 dispatches 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 shipbuilder 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?'

'I told you that last night. I didn't "meet" him; he was ordered to travel with me. Which ministry he works for I do not know - he did not tell me, and I did not ask. I resented - and still resent - having someone escorting me everywhere, as though I was a dog on a leash.'

'Is it not strange, M'sieur, that the moment a young woman screams because she finds a man in the room of a naval courier, two men in your suite suddenly vanish?'

'Two men vanish?' Ramage exclaimed, his surprise unfeigned. 'Are you referring to the Frenchman? How can you say he vanished when I saw him - the lieutenant and the landlord can confirm that - in the corridor afterwards? I did not see my foreman from the time I went to bed, but the Frenchman, Louis, I did see. And don't refer to him as being in my "suite"; he was a thoroughly unwelcome addition, I assure you; as unwelcome as the grippe my foreman and I caught here in Amiens.'

'The Frenchman was not in his room this morning . . .’

'So?'

The room was completely empty,' the officers said.

'You mean he left with all the furniture?' Ramage asked sarcastically, still trying to gauge whether the policeman was setting some sort of trap.

'Of course not!' He was getting impatient at last, Ramage noted, with eye winking and shoulder twitching. 'I mean he packed his bag and vanished.'

‘I hope he has gone to Paris to report to his masters that you have locked Signor Gianfranco di Stefano in your stinking prison.'

'We shall know in good time,' the officer said, obviously unperturbed at the prospect. 'In the meantime one of my men is riding to Boulogne. He has instructions to see if you are known at Admiral Bruix's headquarters, and to inquire into your passport and travel documents. What answers will he get, M'sieur?'

'You make a habit of asking questions that no one could possibly answer!'

'I'll ask you one that you can answer, then. In Paris, at the Ministry of Marine, what was the name of the official who arranged your visit to Boulogne?'

'Official? I saw at least a dozen. I asked to see the Minister, but I was passed from one man to another. I told one of them that the way they were treating me, anyone would think I was going to try to steal the Invasion Flotilla, instead of help to build it!'

'Surely you can remember at least one name?' 'Well, I can't; why should I remember the names of petty officials?' he said arrogantly. 'Imbeciles, most of them -' he suddenly had an inspiration, 'and so obsessed with secrecy they must regard their names as State secrets, judging from the way they behave. They all talk out of the sides of their mouths, like this.' Ramage pulled a face. 'Who do they suspect - their colleagues in the ministries? Who do they suspect of being spies - those same colleagues?'

'I neither know nor care what goes on in Paris,' the officer said obstinately. 'I am only concerned with what goes on here in Amiens.'

'But why are you keeping me in prison?'

'Because I have inquiries to make in Boulogne.'

'Why cannot I stay at the Hotel? No one can travel in France without documents.'

'The two men travelling with you have just vanished,' the policeman said coldly. ‘If I release you, what is to stop you vanishing as well?'

‘I don't know what has been going on,' Ramage said angrily, 'but if I had anything to do with it, surely I would have vanished too, instead of going to bed!'

'Perhaps - who knows?' the policeman said, shrugging his shoulders. ‘The whole thing is a puzzle.'

'What was stolen from the lieutenant's room?'

'Nothing as far as we know, but —'

'There you are!' Ramage interrupted crossly. 'Nothing has been stolen; all that seems to have happened is my foreman and the landlord's daughter had an assignation in the lieutenant's room. For that I am locked up!'

'I was going to say that the lieutenant was carrying a satchel full of letters and dispatches from Admiral Bruix's headquarters to the Ministry of Marine. Until the lieutenant arrives in Paris we do not know if any of those letters and dispatches were stolen.'

'Why on earth should anyone want to steal a few letters?'

'They are State secrets!'

'In that case,' Ramage pointed out sourly, 'why would anyone steal just one or two? Why not the whole satchel?'

'Be patient,' the policeman said. 'As soon as the inquiries are complete . . .' He left the sentence unfinished and went to the door. 'If you want anything better than prison fare, you can send out to the hotel. You pay for it, of course.'

Ramage found the rest of Sunday the longest day he had ever experienced, but Monday was far worse. The walls of the cell were so thick that apart from a few street noises coming through the tiny window and an occasional sound from inside the building which managed to penetrate the thick wooden door, he might have been sitting on a raft in the middle of the Western Ocean: his sense of isolation was almost overwhelming.

He could do nothing about trying to escape until Wednesday . . . He found himself looking forward to the arrival of the turnkey who brought his meals from the hotel, even though the man was a sullen brute who took an obvious delight in slamming the tray down on the floor so hard that soup slopped over the edge of the bowl and meat slid off the plate on to the dusty flagstones.

The turnkey was his only visitor on Monday, and he spent most of the day wondering what has happened to Louis and Stafford and speculating whether, if he could not escape, he would eventually be given a trial or simply marched out and executed. The inquiries in Boulogne ruled out any chance of his being released. In an otherwise uncertain world, that much was sure enough.

Even as he sat on the wooden cot he imagined a gendarme visiting various offices in Boulogne - no doubt he had been given a list - and systematically asking if they had had any discussions with an Italian named Gianfranco di Stefano, shipbuilder. One after another the officials would say no ... and, with the last office visited, and the last official questioned, the man would return to Amiens and report.

By then the lieutenant would be back after delivering his satchel to the Ministry in Paris. All the seals would have been examined closely. Had Stafford been a little careless this time, a little too confident? Ramage cursed himself for not examining the seal after the dispatch had been done up again. Would it stand comparison with a new seal? Had the wax sagged slightly? Not obvious if you compared it with another one that had not been opened and re-sealed?

They had thought of a clerk - or even the Minister - picking up the dispatch and breaking the seal: unless there was something radically wrong about the impression, it would not arouse suspicion. He had not thought - though perhaps he was being unfair to Stafford, who was a shrewd enough fellow - in terms of the seal being closely compared with others.

The net was gradually tightening; there was no escaping that fact. Evidence would soon be on its way to Amiens from Boulogne that would show that Signor di Stefano was not the man he claimed to be. That evidence would be damning enough, and anyway the police officer would soon hear from Paris. If the report from the Ministry of Marine said that the seal of the dispatch from Admiral Bruix had been tampered with, then Signor di Stefano had an appointment with the Widow across the place without delay. If they found nothing wrong with the seal there might be a respite.

He shivered as he thought that his life might depend on a piece of wax; on whether or not suspicious men in Paris could detect that a wax seal had been opened and stuck down again. His life was balanced, not on a knife edge but on a piece of sealing-wax,

The landlord of the Hotel de la Poste had obviously made up his mind that Signor di Stefano would not be a guest at his establishment again: he was charging exactly double the normal price for each meal, and insisting on a large deposit against the bowl, plate, mug, and tray. Some of the meat was so tough that Ramage had difficulty in tearing it apart with his fingers and, even worse, the tray was too flimsy to use as a weapon.

By two o'clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, Ramage was counting the hours to Wednesday morning, when he could begin to watch for an opportunity to escape. Then the door of the cell swung open unexpectedly. A gendarme walked in with a pistol, motioning Ramage to stand in a corner. A moment later two more gendarmes came in and one of them tossed a pair of irons on the floor by Ramage's feet. 'Put them on your wrists,' he ordered.

As soon as Ramage had fitted them, the man slid a padlock through the slot and locked it. He gave Ramage a push towards the door. 'Come this way.'

Ramage, expecting another interrogation by the police officer, was startled to find himself escorted into a large room in the centre of which was a long table. Three men sat at the table, one in the middle of the far side and one at each end. Halfway between the door and the table was a chair, and the escorts marched him up to it.

The man sitting at the end of the table on Ramage's right was the gaunt police officer, now freshly shaven, with his uniform newly pressed and his cocked hat resting on the table in front of him, as though it was a symbol of authority.

Sitting at the middle of the table was a plump, sharp-eyed man who was not in uniform. His hair was iron-grey and he was watching every move that Ramage made. The third man wore a uniform Ramage did not recognize, but he had similar gaunt features to the police officer at the other end of the table: their eyes were sunken and they reminded Ramage of the paintings he had seen of the Inquisition at work: ruthless men, burning with zeal but cold and detached, who put no value on human life as they sought out heretics with the tenacity of sharks round a piece of bloody meat.

The police officer turned towards Ramage and said: 'This is a tribunal set up under the relevant section of the military code. Sit down and -J

'What am I –‘

‘- sit down and remain silent while the preliminaries are completed.'

Ramage sat down and tried to compose himself: he was an Italian shipbuilder, unwashed and unshaven but on his dignity. He would keep up the pretence for as long as possible, and after that remain silent. Well, perhaps not silent; he would be able to give them a few jabs with his tongue. It was the only satisfaction he was likely to get since they had the guillotine to ensure the last laugh.

'Gianfranco di Stefano?'

Ramage glanced up: it was the man in the centre of the table who had spoken. Now was as good a time as any to start prodding. ‘Yes, but you have the advantage of me.' It did not translate well into French and he suddenly remembered that it was an English phrase. Anyone who spoke English well enough would be suspicious at hearing it said in French by an alleged Italian. The Frenchman smiled; an amiable smile, but also the smile of a man who knew he had all the advantages.

'Signor di Stefano, this tribunal has assembled by the order of the Military Governor of the district of Amiens, and I am appointed its judge. Citoyen Houdan -' he gestured to the police officer, 'is the prosecutor and Citoyen Garlin will present your defence.' Both men nodded at Ramage; cold and distant nods, the kind of nods a farmer gives when selecting particular animals to go to the slaughterhouse.

'I will read the charges,' the judge said, picking up the top sheet from a small pile of papers in front of him. ' "That the said Gianfranco di Stefano did illegally enter the Republic of France for the purpose of spying; that the said Gianfranco di Stefano, using stolen and forged passports and travel documents, did travel to Boulogne for the purpose of spying on the Invasion Flotilla and on the encampments of the Army of England; that the said Gianfranco di Stefano did stay in Amiens for the purpose of spying on the courier carrying State documents between the headquarters of Vice-Admiral Bruix at Boulogne and the Ministry of Marine and Colonies in Paris; that the said Gianfranco di Stefano and two accomplices did attempt to intercept the said documents; and that the crimes listed above, each and every one, are punishable by death under the military and civil codes of the Republic."'

The judge looked up at Ramage. 'You understand the charges?'

'I am an Italian subject; I request a translator.'

'Request refused,' the judge said brusquely. 'How do you plead?1

'Does it make any difference?' Ramage asked sarcastically.

'Yes, it makes a considerable difference,' the judge said, missing the sarcasm. 'If you confess, it will save the tribunal's time.'

'Confess to what?'

'To the crimes with which you are charged, of course,' the judge said impatiently.

'The charges are very flattering seen through the eyes of a simple Italian shipbuilder; but I would be boasting if I confessed to such things.'

'Oh, we have no objection to you boasting,' the judge said quickly. 'If you wish to confess ...'

'No, no,' Ramage said modestly, 'apart from boasting, I should also be telling lies if I confessed.'

'Very well, Citoyen Prosecutor, let us hear the evidence against this traitor!'

Ramage jumped up, the irons on his wrists clanking. 'Don't call me a traitor! Why, you haven't heard a word of evidence yet!'

'You are unduly sensitive, M'sieur,' the judge said calmly. "You are a traitor - we know it and you know it, but there are certain formalities we have to go through. Continue, Citoyen Houdan, and ignore this traitor's interruptions.'

'When arrested at the Hotel de la Poste by members of the Committee of Public Safety,' Houdan said, 'the accused di Stefano was unable to account for the whereabouts of his accomplice, who had a few moments earlier been detected in the room of a naval officer carrying dispatches to the Ministry of Marine. The said accomplice was denounced by the daughter of the landlord of the Hotel de la Poste, who saw him.

'The accused di Stefano claimed to be an Italian citizen and a shipbuilder concerned with the Invasion Flotilla at Boulogne. He produced a passport and travel documents to prove this assertion and claimed that he had been recalled to Boulogne for further talks with the naval authorities there.

'I produce exhibits A, B and C which disprove these claims.

'Exhibit A is a letter from the Port Captain of Boulogne, duly notarized, which says that the accused has never had any discussions with the naval administration whatsoever. Exhibit B is an affidavit from Admiral Bruix saying that the naval lieutenant in whose room di Stefano's accomplice was found is the regular courier carrying highly secret documents between the Ministry of Marine in Paris and the naval headquarters in Boulogne.

'Exhibit C -,' he waved a sheet of paper which was liberally covered with red seals, 'is an affidavit from the Ministry of Marine which says that among the dispatches carried by the courier on this particular day was one from Admiral Bruix giving information upon which the whole future of the war depends. Information,' Houdan said, raising his voice aggressively, 'whose value to the English would be beyond price.'

With that, Houdan passed the papers to the judge, who turned to the man on the right. 'Citoyen Garlin, you will put forward the defence.'

For a few moments Ramage was dumbfounded: he had heard enough from Louis to know that the administration of justice in France was crude, but he had not expected this. He stood up. 'Surely the court will not hear my defence until it has heard the prosecution's attempt to prove the charges against me?'

Again the judge smiled. 'You were not paying attention. The charges have been read and the prosecution has proved their truth. You -'

'Witnesses,' Ramage said angrily, 'why, not even the landlord's daughter -'

'The witnesses have been heard,' the judge said, picking up the papers which Houdan had passed over to him. 'Who can doubt the word of the Port Captain of Boulogne, Admiral Bruix, and a senior official of the Ministry of Marine? And do you deny that the landlord's daughter saw your man in the lieutenant's room?'

'But no one's proved I had anything to do with it! The prosecution has to prove I was trying to read the dispatches!'

'Weren't you?' the judge asked quizzically.

'Of course I was not. I would have needed supernatural powers to know that the lieutenant was carrying papers of any sort, and considerably more than supernatural powers to have known that on Saturday night he was carrying a dispatch which you say is "beyond price". Apart from all that I have absolutely no interest in such things.'

The judge rapped the table impatiently with a gavel. 'You must not interrupt the court's proceedings with all these irrelevancies: Citoyen Garlin will make your defence.'

'But I haven't spoken a word to this man!' Ramage exclaimed. 'He knows nothing about me - why, he has never seen me before!'

Garlin smiled slyly. 'The accused has little understanding of the judicial process,' he said to the judge, who nodded and turned to Ramage.

'Your defence counsel is correct, and for your information Citoyen Garlin has defended hundreds of criminals who -'

'Has he ever defended an innocent man?'

The judge looked embarrassed and then angry. 'Of course,' he said peremptorily. 'Now be silent and listen to your defence.'

'Ah yes,' Garlin said. The defence acknowledges the impossibility of providing a translator into the Italian language at such short notice. Regarding the charges, the accused accepts that he is unable to explain the whereabouts of his accomplice, and he further admits he was in possession of a forged passport and travel documents ...'

Ramage knew he was trapped so completely that any protest would be a waste of breath. Providing there had been no hitch, Jackson would have arrived in Folkestone by now, found Lord Nelson and delivered the report. After dawn tomorrow there would be no need to play for more time. On the other hand, there was no need to rush things today: although he was understandably anxious to hurry through all this nonsense, saving ten minutes here only brought him ten minutes nearer the guillotine ...

Garlin coughed, as if he realized that Ramage's attention was wandering. 'The accused admits that in the absence of his foreman it is impossible to prove his innocence as far as entering the room of the lieutenant is concerned -' he waited, as if expecting an interruption from Ramage, but none came. 'The prosecution has proved the charges concerning the passport and travel documents, so the accused can only ask for the court's clemency. As to the third charge, the accused can only state that, since the seal on the Admiral's dispatch was intact when it arrived in Paris, obviously he did not open it.' Ramage looked up and stared at the judge, who looked back at him with unblinking eyes and said: 'The court will adjourn until tomorrow morning to consider the verdict.' Ramage stood up and bowed. 'I assume it is customary to consider an accused man's guilt without hearing his defence.'

The court has just heard your defence,' the judge said. 'It was very ably stated by Citoyen Garlin.'

'Citoyen Garlin made an interesting statement,' Ramage said contemptuously. 'He was obviously speaking for himself, since what he said had nothing to do with my case and was certainly made without consultation with me.'

"The court is satisfied,' the judge said, unperturbed, and signalled to the guards, each of whom took an arm and swung Ramage round and marched him out. Before the door shut behind him, Ramage heard the three men laughing among themselves.

Ramage woke next morning with a curious sense of relief: Wednesday had arrived at long last, the day by which Louis and the rest of them should be safely out of the way. Now he could seize the first opportunity to escape that offered itself. That opportunity could only arise outside the cell, or at least at a time when the door was open. He had already missed his first chance - he had been sound asleep when the jailer slid the breakfast tray on to the floor.

He rubbed his chin: four days' growth and it was beginning to feel like a scrubbing brush: all appeals for water to wash in had been brushed aside and he felt filthy. He ate the food and left the tray beside the cot: that meant the jailer had to open the door wide enough to shout at him to bring the tray to the doorway. That might lead to something . . .

He was still daydreaming, imagining Lord Nelson in his cabin reading the copy of Admiral Bruix's report, when suddenly the bolts slammed back and the door was flung open. One guard came in and covered him with the pistol while two more once again locked irons on to his wrists. They were the same guards as the day before but, Ramage noted sourly, they were now clean-shaven and their uniforms were much smarter, as though it was Sunday. They waited a minute or two and then called down the corridor. A fourth man appeared, holding a musket. 'We're ready,' one of them said and, preceded by the musket, Ramage was marched out of the cell.

After going along the corridors and past the room where his so-called trial had been held, Ramage was surprised to see that they had reached the front door of the police station. As a sentry swung the doors open to allow them through Ramage looked right across the square to the guillotine. Suddenly he was frightened. Would they continue marching to the guillotine platform? Was that why the court had laughed?

The idea was so strong in Ramage's mind that he was startled when one of the guards bumped into him and then swung him round, so that they marched to the left, along the side of the square. He just had time to see the word mairie carved in the keystone of the doorway of the next building before he was bundled inside and along a corridor.

The building smelled musty, and he was just cursing that any attempt to bolt from his guards while in the street outside would have resulted in a pistol ball between the shoulder blades when he realized that he could hear the distant murmur of many voices. Suddenly the leading guard with the musket stopped and flung open a door.

The murmur became louder, and then he was being marched into a large hall in which a hundred or more people sat on forms. Like the audience at a theatre, they were all facing a raised platform where three men - the trio who had formed yesterday's tribunal - sat at a table covered by a large but faded Tricolour. In front of the table was a box on which a raggedly dressed, unshaven man was balanced, his hands manacled, a gendarme at either side.

Ramage's escort jerked him to a stop and, as he realized that he had been brought to some sort of ceremony, the man on the box, with a suddenness which took the gendarmes by surprise, knelt with his manacled hands held upwards in a gesture of supplication, and almost immediately began a terrible wail.

As the audience began to jeer, the judge in the centre of the trio at the table made a contemptuous gesture of dismissal, and the guard on either side of the prisoner tugged at his arms.

'Mercy!' the man shrieked. 'In the name of God, mercy - my wife -'

'You appeal to God, do you!' the judge bellowed angrily. 'Very well, let's see if He shows you mercy, because no traitor deserves any from the Republic!'

The man, knees sagging and barely able to support himself, was dragged out through a door on the far side of the hall. Ramage was just bracing himself to be marched to the box when he saw another prisoner, who had been kept against the wall farther down the hall, being pushed towards the table.

The man was so frightened that, unbalanced by having his hands manacled, the gendarmes had to hoist him up and then hold him in position.

'Jean-Baptiste le Brun!' the judge thundered, and Ramage watched the audience. Most of them were grinning, teeth bared and sitting forward on their forms. All of them were enjoying it - with the exception of a white-faced woman sitting near the back: she was now standing, tears streaming down her face, gripping her hands and moving her head from side to side.

'The court has heard the charges against you, and your defence, and the sentence of this court is - death.'

The audience waited a moment - to Ramage it seemed they wanted the man to scream, or collapse - and when they saw him turn to get down from the box they lost interest and began gossiping. The wretched man had disappointed them; Ramage sensed that if there were many more performances like that they would leave and go to the nearest café.

Once down from the box the man braced himself, shaking off the hands of the gendarmes. Then he stopped and turned to the crowd and waved to the weeping woman. It was a poignant gesture; all a condemned man could say to the woman he loved. Ramage knew it was all he would want to signal to Gianna if she was there. And perhaps he would wave to her when his time came; it would puzzle all the ghouls - there would be scores of people round the platform of the guillotine - and they would glance over their shoulders to see who he was waving at, never guessing that she was on the other side of the Channel.

The gendarmes were pushing him now, and he braced himself and strode down towards the box, at the last moment walking a little faster than the guards so that he could jump on to the box without their help.

He held the judge's eyes and the man's lips curled into a sneer.

'Gianfranco di Stefano,' he said softly, as though savouring the words, 'the court has heard the charges against you, and your defence -' he lingered over the words, as if to provoke an outburst from Ramage, 'and the sentence of this court is - death.'

Still Ramage held the man's eyes, thinking to himself: so this is what it is like ... far less frightening than staring into the muzzles of the enemy's guns.

A moment before the guards tugged at his arms, he jumped sideways and down, turned to the door and walked out, shoulders back, head erect, not too quickly, but just fast enough for his guards, all of whom were short men, to have to scurry to keep up with him.

As the door was shut behind him he realized that there had been no jeering. He almost laughed when he reflected that every one of them in that hall, judge, prosecutor, defence counsel and audience, had been cheated: they thought they had sentenced to death an Italian shipbuilder (indeed, the audience did not know even that much: to them a man with an Italian name had been sentenced to death), whereas in fact they had caught a British naval officer, who, despite the affidavit from their own Ministry of Marine that the seal on Admiral Bruix's dispatch was untouched, had read the dispatch and passed the information it contained to Lord Nelson.

There seemed to be a certain cachet about being condemned to death. For a start, two guards now brought each meal, one covering him with a pistol while the other carried the tray. It was as though they too knew that the only way of getting out of the cell was by overpowering a guard. Yet they put the tray down carefully, instead of giving it the bang that spilled the soup.

The improvement did not spread to the Hotel de la Poste: on the contrary, the landlord obviously took the view that selling good food to a condemned man was a wicked waste, and Ramage found himself eating little more than kitchen scraps.

There was a subtle change in the cell, too: previously it was just the cell in which he was locked; now it was a condemned cell. He told himself the cell had not changed; only his attitude to it had altered. Maybe that was so - being sentenced to death certainly required some adjustment on the part of the condemned man. Apart from anything else, he thought grimly, unless he found a way of escaping within a few hours, he was measuring time with a clock rather than a calendar.

The more he thought about it, the more he realized that certain quaint phrases took on a fresh significance. 'Composing himself for death,' for instance: in England priests and parsons were nearly always on hand to help a dying man to do that. Previously he had never quite understood what it entailed, but now that he had nothing else to think about, it made more sense.

An old man would naturally be more composed. His active life was past, and the physical restrictions of age plus the knowledge that no matter what he did, life held no more challenges (at least, no more challenges to which he could respond), probably meant that he could resign himself to the inevitability of death. If it was preceded by a long or painful illness, or perhaps poverty or loneliness, it might even come as a relief.

But a young man faced death with so much of life to lose - he had to fight not just the fear of the unknown (everyone faced that, no matter what their age!) but the feeling of being cheated out of so many years, so many experiences, so many sights. Looking back on the various times he had previously faced death, there was a consistent pattern: on each occasion there had been very little time to think about being killed. The longest period when he had been convinced he would die had been the dozen or so hours in the middle of the hurricane with the Triton brig, but the raw power of the hurricane, the shrieking wind which numbed the brain, the sheer weariness, had meant that he gave little thought to what death really was; he thought of it as the next huge wave, or the next increase in the strength of the wind.

Death had a different face when you were going into action: it was a sudden threat - usually the guns were firing within less than an hour of the first hint of battle, and you were so damned busy that it was only during those awful moments as the enemy came in range and you found yourself staring at the muzzles of his guns that fear suddenly reminded you of death. Then the muzzles would give that dull red wink and spout smoke, and there was no more time to think; all your efforts went into handling the ship well. When the battle was over, relief at still being alive brushed aside the thought of death.

Sitting in a condemned cell made a man realize that most people's attitude towards bravery was entirely wrong: to them heroes were men who climbed on board an enemy ship, cutlass in hand, and slashed and sliced their way to victory, or led a cavalry charge, or at least did something active to defeat an enemy. But really (in Ramage's experience, anyway) apart from a few moments' doubts and fear right at the beginning, once it all started you were carried along by an almost hysterical exhilaration and the knowledge that if you stopped to think you would probably be killed.

No matter how many times you gave the order to fire, or raced across an enemy's deck like a run-amok butcher in a slaughterhouse, you learned nothing about facing death that was of the slightest help in a condemned cell. Death might come at the end of a year's painful sickness or it might come as the red-eyed wink of a gun muzzle, but the sick man would no more recognize the death dealt out by the gun than the fighting man would recognize the drawn-out death from sickness. The label on the bottle might be the same but the contents were different.

Now Ramage had two alternatives: either he managed to escape, or one morning soon they would march him across the place to the guillotine. It was only a hundred yards, but would it seem a long walk or a short one? He found he was far from sure. How did a man who had only a few more minutes to live measure distance? The question had a horrible fascination, and the more he considered it the less sure he was. Knowing that the walk from the police station door to the guillotine was the last he would make, the condemned man (Ramage carefully avoided identifying himself with the victim; he would have escaped by then) might find it all too short: walking a mile might give him time to compose himself. On the other hand, walking a hundred yards to meet the executioner might seem an enormous distance; the condemned man might well prefer to walk out through the cell door and meet him three paces down the corridor, and get it over quickly.

He suddenly stood up to shake off the thoughts: in an hour or so - if he was not very careful - he would be screaming and hammering at that damned door.

Instead he thought of Louis and Stafford and hoped that they were safe. At least they had not been caught - he was sure of that, since the prosecutor would have been quick to confront him with either of them. For Louis, death at the guillotine might well be something of a release: it had claimed his family, and looking back on the brief time he had known the man, Ramage thought that he was lost, a ship without sails or compass, a man deprived of any purpose in life except revenge. The Cockney Stafford would meet death with the same jauntiness that he had faced life. If they caught Stafford, Ramage only wanted to say one thing to him - it was bad luck that led to their discovery. Even when warned that Admiral Bruix's dispatch might have been opened, the Ministry officials in Paris had found nothing wrong with the seal. Stafford would want to know that.

What about Jackson, Rossi and Slushy Dyson? If Jackson had received the dispatch for Lord Nelson, only death would prevent the three men from delivering it. Curious that he was sure that even if Dyson was the only survivor he would still do his best, as though it would give him some sort of absolution for having planned a mutiny and then deserted.

He finally thought of Gianna, though he had been trying to keep her out of his mind. As there seemed little future for the two of them, why not think of the past? Be thankful for what had been, rather than bitter at the thought of what might have been. For her sake, it would have been better if she had never met him - she might be left to live her life long after his head dropped into that damned basket, and it was always worse for those left behind.

She loved him - there was no doubt about that. Yet even if he lived, their future might not lie together. Everyone avoided facing up to it - his own fault, since he dodged it as a topic of conversation - but there were many obstacles in the way of them getting married. For a start, as ruler of the state of Volterra she had to be prepared for her return after Bonaparte's troops had been driven out. She would probably find chaos there, with bitter quarrels between those who had collaborated with Bonaparte and those who had not. It would require real statesmanship to resolve those quarrels between leading families. Was Gianna capable of managing it? He was doubtful: she was too headstrong, too impatient, and perhaps even too demanding. She saw things in black and white rather than in shades of grey, and she would find it hard to understand why people had collaborated with Bonaparte, assuming that it was to gain some advantage, whereas Ramage knew that in at least some instances it would have been from an instinct for survival.

Anyway, whatever happened and whatever the problems, it would be of no help for her to arrive back in Volterra with a foreigner for a husband. Not that the word 'foreigner' existed in the Italian language, but for a citizen of the state of Volterra a straniero, a stranger, was someone who came from somewhere else, be it Venice, England or the land of the Laps.

It was all very sad and all very interesting, and it helped to pass away the time, but it had no relevance for Lieutenant Ramage. By the time the watch in his pocket had run down, he would either have escaped or he would be dead. Curious that they had forgotten to search him. He decided that if he could not escape, the last thing he would do before they marched out of the cell to the place (call it the guillotine, he told himself; using euphemisms does not help) would be to stamp on his watch, just to avoid a gendarme stealing it from his corpse.

He was just going to sit down on the cot again when he heard the key turn and the bolts being slid back, and a moment later the door swung open and the prosecutor came in, preceded by a guard holding a pistol.

'Prisoner di Stefano . . .' Houdan paused, obviously to give the maximum effect to whatever he was going to say.

'Prisoner Houdan,' Ramage said sarcastically.

The effect on the Frenchman was remarkable. Instead of his face flushing with anger, it went pale, and the muscles pulled down the corners of his mouth. 'Why do you call me that?' he demanded tightly.

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'You are as much a prisoner as I...’

'Don't be absurd! Why, within four or five hours you will be marched to the guillotine!'

Ramage was surprised at the way he was able to nod so casually, as though Houdan was relaying old news. 'Yes, I go in a few hours, and you? You'll follow - in a few weeks, or a few months; even in a year or two. But you'll follow, Prisoner Houdan . . .' He was delighted at the way he had pitched his voice: no lamenting priest could have spoken more dolefully.

Certainly it was having an effect on Houdan who, instead of hitting him, whispered: 'Why do you say that?'

'The swing of the pendulum, my friend; at the moment it is swung all the way over to your side, and you and your friends just snap your fingers and send your enemies to the guillotine. But one day the pendulum will swing back the other way. All the relatives and friends of those you have murdered have been waiting patiently, and they'll snap their fingers, and then you and your friends will know what it is like to swing over on the bascule and lie there staring into the basket.'

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 "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 dispatch . . .' 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 ...