Dudley Pope: Ramage's Devil

'What do you suggest we do now? Obviously we want to get back to England.'

Gilbert nodded cautiously. 'The first priority is to avoid you falling into the Republic's hands. The second is to get you back to England. If you will excuse me, I will go to see what news Edouard has. The soldiers will have been talking freely to him, I am sure; a good revolutionary always assumes a servant is downtrodden and sympathizes with him.'

With that Gilbert seemed to vanish through the door, but Ramage realized the man was so deft and light-footed he could open a door, go through and close it again, with less fuss than most people reach for the knob.

Once they were alone, Sarah smiled affectionately and took his hand. 'We should have been married a month or so earlier, then we would have been back home by now,' she said. 'Or had a shorter honeymoon. Anyway, now you don't have to worry about convincing Lord St Vincent not to pay off any more ships.'

'No, it looks as though the Cabinet at last became suspicious of Bonaparte. Withdrawing our ambassador from Paris must have startled Bonaparte, who will have been full of his own cleverness in getting us to sign that absurd treaty last year. Now we've suddenly slapped his hand. No more than that, though, considering the size of his Army.'

'You'll have to fight him at sea, then!' Sarah said cheerfully, and then could have bitten her tongue for the second time in less than twelve hours.

'I'm hiding here,' Ramage said bitterly, 'and someone else is commissioning the Calypso in Chatham. He's the luckiest captain in the Navy if the men haven't been paid off yet, because he gets the finest ship's company.'

Suddenly she had an inspiration. 'That means you are lucky. He will keep the men together, all ready for you to resume command when you escape.'

'Providing I escape and providing the Admiralty are prepared to turn out a captain for me,' he protested. 'Neither seems very likely at the moment.'

'If you are captured - I'm sure we won't be - they'll release you on parole. Then you can make for the coast and steal a boat, or something.'

He laughed sourly. 'My love, you have a simple approach to it all but the Admiralty don't share it. Parole, for instance.'

'What is difficult about that?'

'Well, giving your parole means giving your word of honour not to escape, and you are freed to live outside the prison. You pay for your board and lodging, of course.'

'There's bound to be a "but", though,' she said gloomily.

'There certainly is. If you break your parole and escape to England, the Admiralty don't welcome you. In fact they might send you back. They certainly won't employ you.'

'Why ever not?'

'Because you gave the French your word of honour and you broke it.'

'But there is a war on! The French killed their king. They guillotined thousands of innocent people.'

'True, and probably will go on executing more, but the Admiralty's view is that you don't have to give your parole. If you do, then you must keep your word.'

'So what on earth can a captured officer do?'

'Refuse parole. That means he stays in prison, but it also means that if he can escape and get to England, he really is free and can expect to be employed again.'

'Do the Admiralty actually check?'

'I presume so. There's a French commissioner in London, you know.'

'Not when we're at war, though.'

'Oh yes. He's a fellow called M. Otto, Commissioner for the Exchange of Prisoners. Every now and again we exchange Frenchmen we've captured for an equal number of Britons that the French have taken.'

'Let's not talk about prisoners,' Sarah said. 'We'll get out of this somehow. Gilbert - we can trust Gilbert. I fear for Jean-Jacques, though.'

He shook his head. 'No, I think Gilbert is right: that damned wife, or whatever she is, won't want him executed: it wouldn't do her reputation any good. The widow of a traitor. Transportation - yes, he could be sent to Cayenne, and that's one of the unhealthiest places in the world. But death there is not certain. Not as certain as being strapped down to the guillotine here.'

'And what about us? I don't want to sound selfish but we are foreigners in the middle of the enemy camp!' Her smile was wry; he was pleased to see that his new wife neither showed fear nor attempted to blame him for the fact they were caught in a trap.

'When Gilbert comes back we'll hear if the French authorities know we're here and if they're looking for us. I don't think Jean-Jacques registered us anywhere or reported to the authorities that we were staying with him. I think he should have done - at the préfet's office, perhaps - but he wouldn't bother because he thought it was not the préfet's business whom he chose to entertain.'

'That attitude is all right in England, but I can't see Bonaparte and his merry men agreeing.'

'No, but although the French know the names of every foreigner who has entered the country, unless they have their present addresses, it doesn't help. Remember,' he said bitterly, 'if the French are arresting all the visitors, it means they are breaking their word.'

'In what way?'

'Well, everyone visiting France has to get a passeport from the French. That's a guarantee, a document permitting the foreigner to pass through the ports of France and travel about the country. Now, having granted these passeports, it seems Bonaparte is breaking his word.'

Sarah nodded but said with casual sincerity: 'Yes, that's true, but anyone - and that includes us - who trusts a man like Bonaparte or the government of France cannot complain if he is cheated. "Honour" is a word that the French deleted from their vocabulary when they executed the king. Any nation that cheerfully executes a whole class of its people for just being born into that class is wicked and mentally sick. A Frenchman could be born an aristocrat but be poorer than the local gravedigger, yet the aristocrat was dragged off to the guillotine, and the gravedigger went along to cheer the executioner.'

'We shouldn't have come here on our honeymoon,' Ramage said wryly.

'Where else? Prussia isn't very appealing. The Netherlands and Italy - Bonaparte will be arresting all foreigners there. Spain - who knows. Anyway, we are really learning something about the French.'

She sat down on one of the packing cases. 'What happens if the French soldiers find our trunks in the suite?'

' Well, they won't find us. Don't forget they came at dawn, so they'll assume we've escaped.'

'That seems too good to be true,' she warned.

'No, it's obvious when you think about it.'

'Where do we go now? This storeroom is rather bare!'

'Back to our suite eventually, because it'll probably be the safest hiding place in France.'

'Our suite? But...'

'"It's been searched by the cavalry, so the rosbif and his wife can't be there",' he said, imitating the precise speech of an officer reporting to a senior. 'They'll be searching everywhere eIse for miles around.'

There was a faint tapping at the door and Ramage opened it. Gilbert slid in, a reassuring smile on his face. He bowed to Sarah.

'You must find that box uncomfortable, milady.' As soon as Sarah reassured him, he turned to Ramage and took a deep breath.

'Edouard used his ears and eyes carefully, milord, and he acted as a simpleton so that he could ask silly questions - and sprinkled some shrewd questions among them.

'Anyway, it means this. As far as the Count is concerned, because France is now at war with England again and the Count spent all those years in England, he is regarded as an enemy of the state. He was denounced and the authorities in Paris sent orders to the chef d'administration in Rennes to arrest him.'

'Where is he being confined?'

'Ah, that's my next piece of information. He will be confined in the Château in Brest, the naval headquarters. He and many others not yet brought in.'