Ramage and the Guillotine

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 chimney 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 oolumn 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 dispatch 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 northeastward 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 Abbeville?'

'About forty-five - that's about twenty-eight miles.'

'And on to Le Tréport?'

'About eighteen miles by road, but we shall be riding crosscountry from Abbeville.' Louis saw that Ramage was looking worried and said reassuringly, 'We march on to Abbeville 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 Abbeville 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.'

'Three? So you are coming back with us?'

Louis nodded. 'I would like to stay behind, but my friends in Boulogne think it would be a good idea if I went on a holiday until they are absolutely sure that I was not identified at Amiens or at the inn you used at Boulogne. They can deal with the Corporal at the Chapeau Rouge - no, not kill him!' Louis said hastily when he saw Ramage's expression. They'll just explain what he has to gain by having a bad memory for names and faces —but he may have gossiped already . ..'

'You'll have nothing to fear from the British authorities,' Ramage said. 'I will make sure you are given - well, whatever you need.'

Louis held up a hand and grinned. 'You don't have to reassure me! But I have friends over there, you know . . .'

Ramage thought a moment, and then said: 'Louis, I want to help you with papers because - no, wait a moment, let me explain - if you rely on your friends, you are relying on men who are outside the law. Oh yes, I know some of the smugglers' leaders are important men, but there is no need for you to enter the country as a smuggler on the run. With me, you enter the country as someone who has helped a British naval officer. I shall write a report for Lord St Vincent, and you'll be given any papers you need to live in England legally, so that -'

'No, please no,' Louis interrupted. 'I am grateful, and I know there would be no problems. I'll go further - you have already thought what you would do if the Admiralty will not pay a reward, haven't you ...?'

Once again Ramage was startled how easily the Frenchman read his thoughts, for he had been thinking that his father would be only too anxious to reward any man who saved his son's life: a lump sum, an allowance, a house on the estate, work if he wished for it ... 'Yes,' he said, 'I've learned not to place too much reliance on the official mind!'

'Well, it does not matter. You see, I want to stay only until I hear from Boulogne that it is all right for me to come back. Although I am a man without an allegiance, I am not a man without a country. I am a true Norman - although I seem to spend a lot of my time in Picardy!'

'Very well,' Ramage said, 'but if you ever need a hand, get in touch with Dyson: I'll leave my father's address with him. My father would know what to do.'

'Thank you,' Louis said, 'and I will if necessary. Now,' he looked round at the rest of the men and said in French, 'if everyone has had enough to eat, it is time we marched on again.'

The man who had been tending the bonfire when they arrived kicked the charred embers until he was sure all were extinguished. The rest of them picked up their muskets, and the march began again.

They left their escort beyond Abbeville and the night ride to Mers was alternately alarming and hilarious: Stafford, who had never ridden before but did not bother to mention the fact, mounted the horse in the wood where they had been hidden and immediately jerked the reins and shouted, 'Giddy-yup!' No one was quite sure whether the horse objected to Stafford's accent or the jerk on the bit, but it promptly cantered off the track and among the trees, passing under a branch sticking out at the height of Stafford's chest. The startled seaman, as he related it afterwards, suddenly found himself shoved aft along the horse's back 'and dropped over 'is transom on to me 'ead!' In the half an hour it took to retrieve the horse, Stafford had recovered from his fall and been shown the rudiments of riding. Ramage and Louis decided the horse originally given to Stafford was too skittish, so Ramage took it and a chastened Stafford agreed to let Louis lead on his horse, holding the reins of Stafford's.

It seemed almost impossible to ride cross-country at night without causing a lot of noise: startled birds flew out of hedges and trees, squawking in alarm, while the thud of the horses' hooves seemed to echo across the fields and were punctuated by the jingle of harness. Occasionally an owl glided past, while bats darted overhead. A heavy dew gradually made their clothes damp.

They had left Abbeville behind and were just skirting the village of Cambron, with a moon in its first quarter giving enough light for them to distinguish hedges and ditches, when suddenly the yell of a frightened man right in front of them, followed by the excited barking of a dog, made Ramage's horse rear in alarm and Louis's horse back a few steps so that Stafford ran into it, pitching the Cockney over its head. Stafford managed to roll clear of the hooves and Ramage, seeing Louis slipping from the saddle and running towards the noise, grabbed both sets of reins.

Expecting any moment to hear the sound of shots, Ramage had calmed his own horse and seen Stafford remounted by the time Louis returned. 'A poacher,' he said contemptuously. 'He thought we were gendarmes deliberately riding him down.'

'Is he likely to raise —'

'No, he still thinks we are gendarmes. I told him to go home to his wife and stop poaching ...'

A few miles farther on Louis slowed down and then stopped. 'This is the road between Beauchamps and St Valery - we're near a village called Woincourt. How are you getting on, Stafford?'

The Cockney groaned. 'Must 'ave worn the seat out o' these trousers and it's chafing 'ard on wot was in 'em. Much farver ter go, Louis?'

'Five or six miles. Can you manage it?'

'Not much choice, eh mate?'

Ramage smiled to himself in the darkness: the expression was typically Stafford; cheerfully grumbling yet remarkably stoical.

They reached the village of Mers at three o'clock in the morning, lucky not to have had a horse break a fetlock, but they seemed to see better in the darkness than their riders. Ramage could hear the dull swish of the waves as they rode slowly towards half a dozen houses scattered along a mile of road only fifty yards back from the beach. The last house - which was also the nearest to Le Tréport - had a dim light at a window, and Louis rode towards it, making no attempt to hide his appearance from anyone who might be watching from the other houses.

They reached the door and Louis dismounted, walked up to it and knocked loudly. For several moments nothing happened, and then a voice to the right - was there a man standing at the entrance to the outhouse? - said 'Picardy,' to which Louis promptly replied 'Normandy,' Ramage recognized it as a challenge and reply, and at once the man went to the door of the house, opened it and invited them in.

The atmosphere in the large room was typical of a fisherman's home: the clean, sharp smell of tarred nets and ropes hanging from the rafters fought with the stench of fish; the sooty smell of a badly-trimmed oil-lamp standing on the table mingled with that of boiled vegetables. A kettle was humming on the stove, and while the man tied up the horses, his wife bustled round making room for them to sit down.

'Were you responsible for the challenge?' Ramage asked Louis, and the Frenchman gave a dry laugh.

'I was responsible for it, but I didn't think of it. These people know I am a Norman, and the River Bresle - which is only a few hundred yards down the road from here - marks the boundary. This side is Picardy, the other side Normandy.'

As they talked, the woman was placing mugs on the table, and when the man came in to report that the horses were tethered, she handed him a bottle. He poured and gave mugs to Ramage and Stafford.

'Calvados - the blood of the true Norman,' he said with a wink, and pushed a third mug across to Louis while Ramage translated for Stafford.

'What we call applejack, ain't it, sir?'

'It is, and very potent,' Ramage said pointedly.

'Aye aye, sir,' the Cockney said. 'I'll go carefully. When do we start lookin' fer Slushy an' the Marie?’

'You have a whole day's rest ahead of you. We go out after dark tonight.' Ramage looked across at Louis and said in French, 'Does our friend here have any news of the Marie?’

The two men spoke for a few minutes and the fisherman's report was noncommittal: he had received instructions from Boulogne to expect Louis and two friends by road, been told the password, and warned that he would have to dispose of three horses: all that he had arranged. But no one had mentioned the Marie by name and he had not been to Le Tréport for several days, so he did not know if she was in the harbour. The Marie had not been fishing within sight of Mers the previous day, he said, because he could recognize her - he grinned as he said that, and Ramage guessed that Mers was one of the places used for landing contraband.

'She won't be here before tonight, anyway,' Louis said. 'Dyson won't waste a day hanging about out there - that would be taking an unnecessary risk. It wouldn't surprise me if you see a Royal Navy cutter come close in and have a look; even a frigate. They keep a sharp watch along this coast!'

'We ought to stand by and row out,' Ramage joked.

'Wait until one comes in sight!' Louis said. 'You'll see a patrol of cavalry galloping along the road, keeping abreast of her. The soldiers seem worried that one day a cutter is going to land an army to march on Paris!'

The fisherman had been whispering with his wife, and as soon as Louis stopped talking he said: 'Supper is ready, and mattresses and blankets are prepared. After you've eaten I suggest you have a good sleep. I’ll deal with the horses and then go into Le Tréport to see if the Marie is there. Is there a message for Dyson?'

Louis shook his head. 'Don't take any risks. If you can tell him that all is well, do so; but he has his instructions, and everything so far is going according to plan - for once!'

As the setting sun balanced like a red-hot coin standing on the western horizon, Ramage rested his arms on the window ledge and looked seaward through the fisherman's battered telescope. The horizon was clear except for a distant frigate whose hull was hidden below the curvature of the earth: only her sails were still in sight, tiny squares darkened by shadow. A routine patrol - one of Lord Nelson's squadron 'on a Particular Service,' running up and down this end of the Channel, making sure the French Army of England had not put to sea. She had probably just looked into Havre de Grace, fifty miles away along the coast to the south. The Marie would have slipped past such frigates in the darkness, on her way with Ramage's dispatches which told Lord Nelson that no Army of England could sail for many months.

'No sign of her?' Louis asked.

'No, just that frigate we saw earlier. Still, with this west wind she'll make a fast passage. But I must admit I'm getting nervous. Ah -' he looked round as the fisherman's wife came in and began setting plates and cutlery on the table, 'well, it makes me hungry too.'

They ate a leisurely supper, the fisherman and Louis telling stories of smuggling and shipwreck along the Normandy coast. When they had finished Ramage looked at his watch, He was not particularly tired but several years at sea had taught him to take advantage of any opportunity for a nap. After a word to the fisherman, Ramage stretched out on a mattress.

It seemed only a moment later that the fisherman was waking him, and as he rubbed his eyes he saw that Stafford and Louis were crouched over a bucket, washing their faces.

'Midnight,' the man said, 'and time for fishing . . .'

The boat was heavily built, beamy with what seemed a low freeboard to anyone used to a ship of war's boats. The fisherman put a small lantern and a bucket abaft the centre thwart. 'There's the bait,' he told Louis. 'Look - lines here, and watch out for the hooks. And here is the grapnel with plenty of line, more than enough to anchor inside the three-fathom line. Don't forget -'

'Yes, yes,' Louis interrupted impatiently, 'we've been over all that before and you're coming with us anyway; let's get her launched!'

The boat was hauled up well above the high-water mark, and heavy wooden beams had been sunk into the beach down as far as the line of seaweed. Below that, planks had just been laid so that the boat could be slid down to the water's edge.

Ramage checked the oars: there were six in the boat, but they were large and heavy with balanced looms. Stafford was fitting the thole pins - the waves breaking on the beach were just large enough so that once the boat began to float it would need some vigorous rowing for a few minutes to prevent her broaching and tipping them all out.

Both Stafford and Ramage were looking at the bulk of the boat and wondering how four of them were going to get her started - once she began sliding it would be easy - when the fisherman stuck a finger and thumb in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. A minute or two later Ramage saw men coming from the nearby houses, shadowy figures in the moonlight.

Without a word they positioned themselves round the boat and, joined by Ramage, Louis, Stafford and the fisherman, ran her down into the water, wading to hold her while the four men climbed in, dropped the oars into position and began rowing.

The boat rowed well, and Ramage looked along the shore, watching the sea breaking on the rocky ledges which ran out for a couple of hundred yards from the beach to the north. Although the broken water sparkled and danced in the faint moonlight, the rocks themselves were grey and evil-looking, as though waiting patiently yet hungrily for a ship to be caught in a storm and driven on to them.

Soon they were far enough out to see the saddle-like gap in the cliffs in which both Le Tréport and Mers nestled, and the fisherman grunted, shipping his oar. They had rowed perhaps a thousand yards, and already Ramage felt the muscles across his shoulders tightening uncomfortably and others in the lower part of his back giving a hint that they would soon start aching.

The fisherman shifted the lantern and began coiling up a line along which pieces of cloth and twists of leather marked distances. Finally he had it coiled, and lifted up the small lead weight attached to the end and shaped like the weight in a grandfather clock. He leaned over the side and let the weight go, the line rushing out from the coil in his right hand. Suddenly it slowed down and stopped, and he seized it, dropping the coil and pulling in the weight end until he felt it just lifting off the bottom with the line taut. He felt the nearest marker on the line and muttered the depth. Three and a half fathoms.

'We'll start here,' he said, hauling in the leadline. 'Louis, begin baiting the hooks.'

Three hours later there was still no sign of the Marie although, the fisherman commented enthusiastically, the fishing was very good despite the moon. Ramage fervently wished the fish would stop biting but, knowing how the families at Mers depended on fish for their food, he thought it would be churlish to suggest they just sat there quietly without the lines over the side, either lying to the grapnel or rowing up to the west for half an hour and letting the wind and current carry them back parallel with the coast.

As more fish were hauled into the boat, twisting and thumping, covering everything with scales and slime, Ramage looked wistfully at the grapnel and line. He remembered all the boats he had seen in various parts of the world, comfortably anchored, with the men in them fishing by dangling lines over bow and stern, occasionally hauling in a line to find the bait had been taken. Three hours of rowing and drifting seemed to have knotted most of his muscles. It was unlikely - though pride prevented him from inspecting them in the light of the lantern - that his palms had any skin left on them; the sharpness of the pain when a dollop of spray soaked them again indicated that blisters had burst.

They were just rowing the boat round to get back to the westward again when Stafford said, almost as though it was of no consequence, "There she is.'

Ramage glanced round and saw a darker shape: the Marie reaching down towards them, perhaps five hundred yards away and down moon. The fisherman hurriedly shipped his oar, tipped the bait out of the bucket and shook it to make sure no water was left inside, and put it over the lantern. The light had not been bright, but suddenly dousing it made Ramage realize just how much it had affected their night vision and allowed the Marie to get so close.

'We hide the light now in case someone watches from the shore with night-glasses,' he explained to Ramage. 'It is best, eh?' he asked, and Ramage suddenly realized how determined the man was to make a good impression on the two Britons.

Ramage rested on his oar and leaned over to the fisherman. 'While there is time -' he held out his hand, and winced as the fisherman shook it enthusiastically, 'thank you.' There was nothing more than could be put into words and the fisherman seemed to understand.

'You will be all right with Dyson,' the fisherman said reassuringly, 'he is a good man.'

Ramage sat and watched the approaching fishing-boat. Dyson was bringing her along thirty yards or so to leeward of the rowing-boat, obviously intending to luff up and then heave-to, leaving them a few yards to row to get alongside.

Ramage glanced towards the beach: the odd patches of cloud crossing the moon, combined with the fact the moon was now low in the sky, made it impossible to distinguish the cluster of houses at Mers, nor could he see the large tower of the church in Le Tréport, St Jacques tower, according to Louis. Even using a good night-glass it would be impossible to spot the rendezvous between the rowing-boat and the Marie.

There was a sudden hiss of water and flapping of canvas and Ramage turned to see the Marie coming up into the wind, her jib flapping and the blocks squeaking as the main-sheet was hurriedly hauled in. The fishing-boat lost way as she turned north-west, the jib stopped flapping as the wind caught it aback, and a man was leaning on the tiller, keeping the helm over, so the rudder tried to push the bow round to larboard against the thrust of the backed jib trying to force it over to starboard,

The fisherman snapped an order, they bent to the oars, and a couple of minutes later Louis was standing in the bow throwing a line to a man on the stern of the Marie. The nearness of the two boats emphasized the height of the waves: it was far safer to board the Marie over her stern rather than risk the two vessels crashing together if the rowing boat went alongside.

With the line secured, Ramage and Stafford stowed the oars neatly, despite the protests of the fisherman that he would do that later. Ramage told the Cockney to board first and Louis waited for a smooth patch, then hauled on the line to bring the bow close. Stafford leapt up, and a moment later Ramage followed him. The Marie's stern began to lift as she seesawed over a crest and Louis waited a minute or two. By the time he had jumped on board Ramage had recognized the dark figures on the Marie's deck as Jackson and Rossi. A hurried question thrown at Jackson as they shouted goodbye to the fisherman and began to sheet in the backed jib brought the reply that all the dispatches had been delivered to Lord Nelson, who was on board a frigate at anchor in the Downs.

Five minutes later the Marie was reaching up to the nor'-nor'-west on the larboard tack with Dyson explaining that he wanted to get into the deep bay between Dungeness and Hythe and then bear away for the Downs, so that as far as any nosey Revenue cutter was concerned they had been fishing off the 'Ness.

Then, sitting in the little cockpit with Dyson crouched over the compass and Louis, Stafford and Rossi down in the cuddy, Ramage was able to extract from a Jackson obviously impatient to hear of his captain's adventures a full report on the delivery of the dispatches to Lord Nelson. The last courier had arrived in Boulogne on Sunday evening, Jackson said, with the news that 'the Italian gentleman' had been arrested by the gendarmes, although at the time he left Amiens both Louis and Stafford were still free. He had emphasized to Jackson that the dispatch he was delivering was of enormous importance.

Jackson said that as soon as he told Dyson they prepared to sail. By nightfall they were a mile off Boulogne and heading for the rendezvous. Fortunately the other Marie was fishing near the rendezvous, and leaving Dyson and Rossi to return to Boulogne, he went direct to Lord Nelson's frigate in the Downs. Fifteen minutes after handing over the dispatch he had been hurried below to the Admiral's cabin and ordered to tell him everything he knew.

'I tried to avoid saying anything about the smugglers, sir, apart from the name of the smack,' Jackson said defensively, as if anticipating Ramage's wrath, 'but His Lordship said he wasn't interested in people breaking a few laws, he was concerned about what had happened to you.

'So I just told him the bare bones of it, about how you'd been arrested in Amiens, but he saw through me: he might only have one eye, sir, but he can see through a six-inch plank. He got angry and told me you'd probably be guillotined, and the only chance of saving you depended on him knowing all the details.

'Well, I may have done the wrong thing, sir, but I then told him all I know - about the Corporal's brother, and how you and Staff had gone off to Amiens with Louis, and how you'd passed the dispatches back to Boulogne. At the end of it all he seemed very upset; he turned to the captain of the frigate and said, "We've got what we wanted, but it's cost us young Ramage: those damned French will chop his head off - probably have already. Damme, we can't afford to lose young men like him!"

'Well, sir, I hadn't much hope for you when we left Boulogne, and hearing His Lordship say that put the seal on it. When I got back on board the Boulogne Marie that night and told Slushy, he wouldn't believe it though - credit where credit's due. He reckoned that Louis was a match for them French policemen. Seems he was right!'

The hiss of a bow wave, the rattle of blocks and the flap of a sail high overhead made Ramage realize with a sudden shock which turned his stomach to water that the dark patch on the Marie's larboard bow was a large ship steering north. A blinding flash and thud warned him that she had opened fire.

'Wear round and run inshore!' Ramage shouted at Dyson. That was only a warning shot!'

Dyson thrust the tiller over and Jackson leapt to overhaul the mainsheet. Rossi, Louis and Stafford scrambled up out of the cuddy as the Marie's bow began to swing.

The jib flapped and a moment later the big boom slammed over and the Marie heeled in response. Hurriedly the jib was sheeted in and Ramage looked astern. She was a frigate - that much was clear in the darkness - and the Marie's sudden right-angled jink had taken her by surprise: already she had ploughed on to the north and the fishing-boat was safe from her broadside guns, though alert men at the stern-chasers might get in a shot.

As the frigate disappeared in the darkness, occasional shafts of moonlight through the clouds lit up her sails. No, she wasn't wearing round after the Marie. Ramage looked round warily to the south: no, she wasn't leaving the Marie to a consort following along astern.

'Sleepy lot over there,' Jackson commented to Stafford. They left it too late to fire that warning shot.'

'I ain't complaining,' the Cockney said. 'So 'elp me, 'ow the 'ell are we going to tell 'em we're reelly friends?'

Ramage strained his eyes in the darkness as a cloud across the moon hid the frigate's sails. There was something damned strange about the whole episode. Her captain was not sleepy - he was wide awake and probably standing on the quarterdeck with his night-glass: no one patrolling close inshore, watching for French ships trying to run the blockade, was anything but alert, and all his officers and lookouts too. There would be six lookouts - two on each bow, beam and quarter, and with a moon like this probably a man aloft as well.

Yet that warning shot had been fired astern of the Marie and much too late. It was fired when the frigate was in no position to cut her off and almost too far past to loose off a broadside. Given that she could not stop the Marie escaping, why fire a warning shot? Why fire when there was no time to wait for a response and, if none was forthcoming, follow it up with a broadside?

Ramage shrugged his shoulders: perhaps he was making too much of it: the frigate may have just fired a random shot to frighten a French fishing smack back into port, having spotted her at the last moment against the land and decided not to bother with a broadside. For the moment he was thankful that they were all still alive. But it was a long way to the English coast and that frigate might well turn south again, and she was certainly not the only one out patrolling that night.

They must assume that the Marie would meet her again. They could try to sneak out and hope for the best, risking the frigate thundering down and firing a broadside that would lift the Marie out of the water and scatter the pieces like driftwood. Or they could try getting close enough - waving a lantern, perhaps - and hailing her, explaining that the Marie was English. British, rather. He put himself in a frigate captain's position and knew it would not work until they were within a few miles of the English coast. No frigate captain would believe a British fishing-boat could be sailing close along the French coast: he would immediately assume it was some sort of trick and open fire - and who could blame him: why risk a frigate for the sake of some wild shouts from a fishing smack?

One thing was certain: the Marie couldn't spend the rest of the night sailing up and down the coast off Le Tréport. Of the alternatives, trying to sneak across the Channel was the most likely to succeed. Once again Ramage was puzzled by the frigate's last-minute warning shot. It was as if she had been expecting to find a ship to seaward of her, and had only spotted the Marie inshore at the last moment . . .

'We're getting close to the beach, sir,' Dyson murmured. 'Water gets a bit shallow!'

'Very well, bear up and run south, parallel with the shore. Jackson, Stafford - stand by the mainsheet; Rossi and Louis - jib sheet!'

Dyson leaned on the tiller and the seamen heaved in the sheets until both jib and mainsail were trimmed to the wind now on their starboard beam. The clouds, still broken up, let patches of moonlight skim across the surface of the sea, but there was no sign now of the frigate's sails over on the starboard quarter: she must have carried on northwards, probably intending to go up as far as Boulogne before turning south again. It was idle to speculate; all that mattered for the moment was that she had not turned back to investigate the Marie. No doubt her captain assumed that she was a French fishing-boat and had scurried back into port.

Scurry back into port! Yes, the last thing the frigate captain would expect was that she would go boldly offshore, heading for the middle of the Channel. Do the unexpected: surprise won battles. Ramage knew that most of his successful actions in the past owed more to achieving surprise than to clever planning.

'Stand by at the sheets! Dyson, we're going to bear up again: I want to get well out into the Channel. Forget that damned compass; just get her bowling along hard on the wind. South-west on the starboard tack should keep us clear of the frigate.'

'Aye aye, sir,' Dyson said crisply as the other four men made sure the sheets were clear.

For the first time in many days (weeks, in fact) Ramage felt exhilarated: he was back at sea, making his own decisions and with a good crew. Admittedly the vessel he commanded was very small, but it was only a matter of scale: a fishing-boat escaping from a frigate; a frigate escaping from a ship of the line . . . The problem was the same.

The men were ready and he gave Dyson the order. The Marie slowly edged round to starboard and the men grunted and swore as they hardened in the sheets, while Dyson edged her closer and closer to the wind. With the sheets turned up on the cleats, Ramage looked questioningly at Dyson: the Marie seemed a little sluggish.

'She likes a bit more jib, sir,' he said almost apologetically. 'Bit 'ard-mouthed she is, at the moment.'

'Rossi, give him a couple of feet on that jib sheet,' Ramage said. 'Easy now, mind it doesn't run away with you. Here, Stafford, tail on the end!'

Almost at once the Marie came to life; the sluggishness vanished and she was as skittish as a fresh horse, her bow rising and falling gracefully as she drove to windward across the crests and troughs, her stem bursting random wavetops into sheets of spray.

Ramage tapped Dyson on the shoulder as he hunched to one side of the tiller. 'I didn't know she had it in her; she's a real thoroughbred!' And Dyson knew how to get the best out of her, that was clear enough. Not only get the best out of her, Ramage suddenly realized, but how to sneak her past the frigates! He had probably been doing it once a week for several years! Ramage felt a bit sheepish at his earlier fears and was thankful he had kept them to himself. Not that this was the time to relax - the frigates would be patrolling very close in to Boulogne, since that was nearly every blockade-runner's destination. Down here, where the coast was a series of bays and headlands, they would be patrolling a much wider band, since blockade-runners might try to stand several miles out or creep along a mile off the beach.

Ramage gestured to the seamen. 'Stafford and Rossi - you keep a sharp lookout to larboard; Jackson and Louis - take the starboard side. We're small enough to stand a chance of spotting someone else before they see us, so we'll be able to dodge.'

The jail cell at Amiens seemed a lifetime away now; the time he and Stafford had spent hunched over the candle in the hotel room opening those seals was so remote that it might have happened to someone else. Soon, all being well, they would be working their way into Folkestone. No, not Folkestone! It would be too complicated trying to explain to the Revenue men why there were two identical smacks called Marie in the same port! If they made for the Downs, it would give him time to explain things to Lord Nelson. Then, perhaps, the Admiralty would write a discreet letter to the Board of Customs, and after a few expressions of outraged indignation, the Customs might agree ...

'Fine on the larboard bow, sir!' Stafford hissed. 'A schooner or summat: hundred yards away an' convergin'.'

'Bear away!' Ramage snapped. 'Let the sheets run, lads!'

Rakish hull, two masts, fore-and-aft rig - that much Ramage could see as the Marie began to turn away and then he was momentarily blinded by a ripple of flashes along the stranger's bulwarks. Above the squealing of the sheets running through the blocks, the flogging of the heavy sails and the creak of the gaff jaws on the Marie's mast, he could hear the dull popping of muskets.

Thank goodness the Marie turned on her heel like a dancer. A French chasse-marée! Damnation, that was what the frigate had been hunting! He dodged across the Marie's deck to keep her in sight as the fishing-boat headed inshore again, and saw that both hull and sails were shortening: she was turning after them: any moment she would wear and, with the wind right aft, she would be down on them long before they could get into shallow water.

Where the devil was that frigate now, he thought bitterly as he watched first the big mainsail and then the foresail swing over on the chasse-marée. They were in no hurry because they had their quarry in sight and knew they had the legs of her. The Marie had only one advantage, and that slight enough: she could tack and wear more swiftly, jinking like a snipe in front of a sportsman's gun.

If the Marie waited until she was nearly on her, until the chasse-marée'sdamnably long bowsprit was almost poking down their collars, then wore right across her bow at the last moment, risking a collision? It might catch the French ruffians unawares because they would expect the Marie to turn the other way. Not much of a surprise really, except that the men with the muskets would be waiting on the starboard side, and would have to dash over to the larboard as the Marie suddenly ducked under her bow.

The chasse-marée captain must be out of his mind, risking revealing his position to a British frigate by firing a lot of muskets at a fishing smack, for the flashes could be seen a long way off. Unless the Frenchman did not know the frigate was around . . . But surely he must have seen the flash of her warning shot at the Marie!

There's a battery on the coast just north of Mers,' Dyson said, as though reading Ramage's thoughts. 'That chasse-marée probably thought they fired the shot, not the frigate, and came up to have a look. Not our night, it ain't . . .'

Ramage guessed that that explained why a chasse-marée had opened fire on what was apparently a French smack: a shot from a shore battery would tell her that an enemy vessel was around. But there was no more time for idle thoughts: the chasse-marée was now racing up astern, her bow wave showing clearly in the patches of moonlight. She was slightly to larboard of the Marie's wake and fifty yards away: any minute now those muskets would start popping, trying the range.

'Dyson,' Ramage snapped, 'we're going to wear right across this fellow's bow at the very last moment. Just shave his stem. I’ll give the word, but be ready. The rest of you, stand by at the sheets. One kinked rope jamming in a block and she'll cut us in half, so have a care!'

He looked back over the Marie's larboard quarter but, as he turned his head, he caught sight of a large, dark shape: a dark shape topped by a series of rectangles that glowed in the moonlight like distant phosphorescence - the frigate was back, reaching south along the coast and steering to intercept the chasse-marée, which seemed to have not yet sighted her.

'Belay all that,' he told Dyson hastily, 'here comes the frigate!'

At that moment the chasse-marée sighted her and immediately wore round to larboard, her booms and gaffs crashing across with a noise that could be heard from the Marie, hardening in sheets at the run and obviously hoping to claw up to windward of the frigate. But it was going to be close. It was the Frenchmen's only chance, and a desperate one, with the chasse-marée's captain gambling that he could pass the frigate so fast on an almost opposite course that their combined speeds would spoil the British gunners' aim.

The frigate's starboard side suddenly dissolved in a blinding flash. The roar and rumble of her whole broadside came across the water and moments later echoed back from the cliffs.

'Cor, that blinded me!' Stafford exclaimed.

'Likely to have done more than that to the Frenchies,' Dyson said. 'An 'ole broadside!'

'Dismasted her,' Jackson said quietly. 'I can just see her. She's lying -'

'I see her,' Ramage said, 'but that damned frigate's seen us: she's going to leave the Frenchman for a few minutes and deal with us.'

The frigate ploughed on towards the Marie and Ramage knew there was now no chance: she would be on them before they were close enough inshore to get her captain worried about the depth of water under her keel, and with her gunners alert the Marie's chances of tacking and wearing her way out of trouble were nil.

Surrender! The frigate would soon heave-to and hoist out boats to deal with the dismasted chasse-marée, so there was a chance they would accept the Marie's surrender, and that would give him time to identify himself.

'Jackson and Stafford - let go the main halyards! Watch your head, Dyson! Rossi, let the jib halyard run!'

At the same time Ramage jumped over and let the jib sheet fly: the sail started flogging immediately, and he jumped back to the weather side with Dyson as the heavy boom, mainsail and the gaff crashed down like a collapsed tent.

Slowly the Marie lost way and paid off with the wind and sea on her beam. A minute or two later the frigate was to windward and Ramage heard shouts and blocks squealing as she tacked, and a voice shouted in bad French: 'You surrender?'

'We're British,' Ramage bellowed. 'Yes, we'll wait here!'

'You surrender,' ordered the voice, magnified by a speaking-trumpet, in a disbelieving and uncompromising tone. 'We'll send a boat in a few minutes.'

With that the frigate bore away and headed back to the chasse-marée, now a wallowing hulk, and hove-to just to windward. Ramage could imagine the bustle as boats were hoisted out. One would be enough for the Frenchmen - they would have no fight left in them, and the frigate was perfectly placed to give them another broadside if necessary. And one boat would be enough for the little Marie!

'Dyson, see if you can get into the cuddy: we need a lantern. It might save a lot of misunderstanding when the boat gets here.'

With that they began hauling the heavy folds of sail away from the hatch. It was hard work, with both boom and gaff sliding a few inches one way and another as the Marie rolled. Several minutes later they had cleared enough space for Dyson to slide down into the cuddy while the five of them leaned hard against the boom in case it slipped and crushed him.

Suddenly Dyson vanished and a moment later began swearing violently. 'Me ankle!' he shouted. 'I slipped and wrenched it! I can't even stand up again!'

Ramage was nearest to the hatch. 'Hold tight,' he told the men, 'I'll go down and fetch him out.'

He lowered himself, carefully feeling with his feet so that he landed astride Dyson, who was lying on the cabin sole, groaning and cursing.

'Left leg, sir,' he muttered. ‘That's it - ow! Cor, I think it's busted. Oow,' he screeched, as Ramage ran his hand over it.

It was broken, and how the devil were they to hoist Dyson out of this mess?

'Where's the brandy?'

'Locker by the step,' Dyson grunted.

A few moments later Ramage pulled the cork out and gave Dyson the bottle.

Jackson was peering down into the cuddy. 'Is it broken, sir?'

'Afraid so,' Ramage said. 'Find some light line and take this locker lid: smash it up and give me a piece of wood for a splint.' The American disappeared and a few moments later Ramage heard thudding as he broke up the lid.

'You've had enough of that brandy, Dyson.'

'Just another sip, sir, it 'urts cruel 'ard.'

'I know it does, but I don't want you being sick over everything; it's difficult enough down here as it is.'

Dyson gave him the bottle and he corked it. 'Another tot when we get you up on deck.'

Jackson handed down a strip of wood and several lines. 'Shall I come down and give you a hand, sir?'

'There's no room; Dyson's lying here like a couple of sacks of potatoes.' Ramage braced himself, tucking all but one of the lines under a knee. 'Now, this is going to hurt, Dyson, but we can't move you until I've got a splint on it.'

Dyson grunted from time to time but he did not say a word. Ramage was not sure if the brandy was taking effect or whether the man realized that cursing and complaining would only cause delay. And time, he thought to himself as he gently knotted the first line, is getting short: the frigate's boarding party will soon be here.

The Marie was now rolling more violently: probably the water was getting shallower and the uneven bottom was kicking up an awkward swell with the wind against an ebb tide.

'How are you up there with that boom?' he shouted to Jackson.

'Trying to secure it with the mainsheet, sir. The topping lift's carried away. We've got to move it back across the hatch for a minute; we can't get at the bitter end: the boom's jamming the cleat.'

'Carry on but hurry; it's hot down here!'

The little cabin exaggerated every noise on deck; the boom being dragged a few feet sounded as if the hull was collapsing.

Ramage reached for another line and carefully slid it under Dyson's leg, trying to wedge his own body so that the rolling did not dislodge him. He tied a reef knot and took the third line. That passed round easily and he reached for the fourth, wishing Jackson would hurry and get the sail off the hatch.

Suddenly there was a heavy thud against the hull, a babble of voices, and a startled exclamation in French by Louis. Almost at once Jackson was shouting in English and Stafford joined in. The frigate's boat had got alongside without the men, busy securing the main boom, seeing them.

Many feet were pattering over the deck overhead; someone - he sounded like an excited midshipman - was giving shrill orders.

'Hold on a minute,' Ramage told Dyson and stood up, clawing at the canvas and finally thrusting his head and shoulders clear. There was at least a dozen men on board, all with cutlasses or boarding pikes pointing at Jackson and his men.

'Ahoy there!' Ramage bellowed, ‘we are -' he broke off as he sensed a movement above him, a swift movement which showed against the stars: it looked like the butt of a pistol coming –