Dudley Pope: Ramage's Devil

'Look,' Sarah said, 'I can see masts. Like trees that have lost their leaves.'

'Yes, there's just one more village, Laninon, before we reach the port. Ah, over to the right you can now see the ships at anchor in the Roads in front of the port. Yards crossed, sails bent on - why, it really does look as if Bonaparte is preparing a fleet. To send to India, the West Indies, the Cape ...? Eight... nine ... eleven ships of the line. Thirteen ... fifteen ... sixteen frigates. Four transports. And various others - corvettes, frigates en flûte -'

'What are they?' she interrupted.

'Frigates with most of the guns removed and fitted out as transports. And,' he continued, listing what he saw, 'they're anchored out in the Roads, ready to sail. I wonder what we will see along the quays once we get into the port...'

She shivered. 'I don't like this, Nicholas. Supposing they stop us in the port and want to see your documents? You captured and sank enough French ships for them to know your name only too well. They could accuse you of being a spy.'

'Hardly a spy,' he protested. 'My papers give my full name. There's nothing secret about our visit - we're on our honeymoon. I'm not writing down lists of ships ... And remember, there's nothing to prevent a French naval officer visiting Portsmouth, or Plymouth - nor anywhere he wants in England. He could probably set up an easel in front of Southsea Castle and paint all the ships he saw riding at anchor at Spithead, and with half a dozen small boys and a sergeant of fusiliers watching him admiringly.'

'Yes, but remember what Jean-Jacques said,' Sarah reminded him.

'Dearest, poor Jean-Jacques is a stranger in his own country. He's lived in England as an exile since 1793. Nine years. A long time.'

'He realizes that. Imagine leaving a château empty, except for vandals, for nine years ... Still, I must say he's done everything to make us comfortable. Thank goodness he brought linen, crockery and cutlery with him from England. The place might be short of furniture but it's still more comfortable than the back of this horse!'

As they jogged along the lane skirting the coast and passing through the village of Laninon before reaching the Penfeld river, Ramage noted the state of the road. Apart from its width it was little more than a deserted track pocked every couple of yards with large potholes. Yet it was obviously the most important road for the defence of Brest because it was the only link (without going miles inland and swinging out again) with the three forts and the Lion Battery. The defences of Brest were between the port and Pointe St Mathieu, but quite apart from rushing out field artillery or cavalry, it was unlikely a company of soldiers could hurry along here on a dark night without a quarter of them spraining ankles in potholes. Yet summer was the time to fill potholes so that cartwheels and horses' hooves packed down the earth.

By the time they returned to the château, to be greeted by Jean-Jacques, they were weary, feeling almost stunned by the monotonous trotting of the horses. Jean-Jacques' valet, Gilbert, busied himself with buckets of water, filling the only bath in the house. This, a large circular basin about twelve inches deep, had been found outside - the Revolutionaries had used it for watering their horses. Now, with it sitting on a thick bath mat on the dressing room floor Gilbert walked back and forth from the kitchen stove with buckets and jugs of hot water. Finally, with six inches of hot water in the bath and some jugs of cold left beside it, he reported all was ready and left.

Those buttons! Being constantly in the company of a woman with a beautiful body (with a body, he told himself proudly, which delighted a French dressmaker who took pride in cutting and stitching her material to emphasize or take advantage of every nuance of breast and thigh), buttons took on a new meaning for him. Previously they were devices for holding together pieces of cloth; now they could be a gateway to ecstasies.

Slowly she undid the buttons of her dress, starting at the bottom so that finally with a quick shrug of her arms the whole dress slid to the floor, and as he started up from the armchair she said: 'No, dearest: poor Gilbert has spent the whole afternoon boiling this water - let's use it while it is hot.' More buttons, more shrugs, and she stood naked, pleased at his obvious pleasure in watching her. Yes, her breasts were firm; yes, her hips were generous without being plump. Yes, her buttocks had that pleasing fullness: so many Frenchwomen, she noticed, had the flatness of young boys.

She turned slowly, and then picked up the towel. 'You bring the soap,' she said, and he stood up and began to undress, thankful that while in France he found it easier to forget breeches, which the French seemed to associate entirely with the aristocracy, and wore the trousers which the sans-culottes had adopted as a garment and a slogan.

By the time they had bathed and dressed, Sarah wearing a pale yellow dress which was low cut in the latest fashion, Ramage was sure he would doze off at the dinner table. However, in the high-ceilinged dining room, sparsely furnished with a table and five chairs, they found Jean-Jacques in high spirits. He had, he told them, just been able to trace some more of the furniture left behind and stolen by looters when he fled the Revolution.

Stocky, with crinkly black hair, a nose so hooked that in some lights he looked like a contented puffin, and dressed as though Louis XVI was still on the throne, instead of long ago executed by a revolutionary mob, Jean-Jacques wiped his mouth with a napkin. 'Landerneau, out on the Paris road, that's where I found them,' he said. 'A dining table, twelve chairs, the sideboard and wine cooler.'

'Who had them?'

'The mayor. He was using the table and four chairs; the rest were stored in his stable. Luckily his wife was proud of the table and kept it well polished.'

'What happens now?' Sarah asked.

'Tomorrow I am sending my bailiff and a couple of carts tc collect everything. With plenty of straw to protect the wood.'

'The mayor doesn't claim they're his?' Ramage asked.

'Oh yes, although of course he doesn't deny they were once mine. He claims the Revolution put an end to all private property.'

'You had an answer ready for that!' Ramage could imagine the conversation.

'Oh yes. He had half a dozen silver tankards on the sideboard with someone's crest on them, so I said in that case I'd take three since he had no claim to them. His wife nearly had hysterics!'

'But you haven't made a friend - a mayor can be a dangerous enemy,' Sarah said.

'The Count of Rennes has few friends in Brittany after the Revolution,' Jean-Jacques said grimly. 'My real enemy is Bonaparte, so I need hardly care about the mayor of little more than a hamlet. And since Héloïse - well, stayed behind - when I went to England I have no sons to inherit the title or this château. Rennes,' he said quietly, as though talking to himself while he stared back through the centuries, 'the ancient capital of Brittany. Two hundred years ago we were one of the half dozen most powerful families in the country. Now the last survivor is reduced to retrieving sticks of his furniture from the local thieves. Where are all my paintings, my silver, my gorgeous carpets, the Gobelins tapestry which ran the length of that wall?' - he gestured to one side of the long dining room - 'the Venetian glassware which has been handed down from father to son for generations? Being used by oafs.

'I don't begrudge oafs their possessions, but they are just as content swilling rough wine from pottery mugs. They get no pleasure from looking at and using a Venetian goblet; indeed, it just means they get short measure. To them, a Gobelins is a piece of cloth that keeps out a draught, or makes a good tarpaulin to prevent hay blowing off a rick. I could accept the local people stripping this château when the Revolution began if I thought they'd appreciate the treasures they stole. But...'