'But nevertheless you managed to persuade them?' Ramage asked quietly.
Dyson looked uncomfortable. 'I made a bargain. I can use the Marie, but I had to put up a sort o' guarantee. It's all arranged, sir; there's nothin' to worry about.'
'What was the guarantee?' Ramage said.
'Just some money as security for the Marie, and my young brother - he usually sails with me as mate. I had to leave him behind.' Dyson saw Ramage's raised eyebrows and added uncomfortably. 'Better security than money, my brother, an' they know it.'
Was the brother literally a hostage? Ramage was not sure and phrased his next question carefully: 'What does the money and your brother's life guarantee, exactly?'
The seaman shrugged his shoulders. 'Hard to say, come to think of it. Our good behaviour, I s'pose. That you don’t interfere with the contraband trade and don't hand me over to the authorities; and - well, that I get you there and back and don't take risks with the smacks.'
So the smugglers were quite ruthless: Dyson's brother would get his throat cut if Slushy put a foot wrong. Ramage also pondered over 'smacks.' Was another one due to sail with the Marie, or was Dyson referring to the one they were supposed to meet? He decided to wait and see: at the moment Dyson seemed angry with his smuggler friends and genuinely anxious to repay what he regarded as a debt to Ramage himself. Yet Ramage was curious at the way Dyson had been treated - it contradicted Simpson's airy and open-handed behaviour of a few hours ago.
'Tell me, do you have much to do with - well, no names, but he lives near Studfall?'
"The gentleman you went to first,' Dyson nodded. 'No one sees 'im. Like the Navy, it is. If he's the Commander-in-Chief - and I ain't sayin' he is,' Dyson added hurriedly, 'then the like o' wot I deal wiv is bosuns, and me a bosun's mate.'
'A big organization,' Ramage commented. 'But when I talked with the man at Studfall, he promised me everything I asked.'
'I'm sure he did, sir and meant it too. The trouble starts among the men under him. It's money, Mr Ramage; contraband round the Kent coast brings in a great deal of money, and where there's that kind of money men get greedy and suspicious o' each other. Money never bought loyalty, sir. The gentleman at Studfall won't have any idea about the guarantees I 'ad to give; fact is, I dare say 'e'd get very angry. But 'e'll never know; not from me, anyway: more than my life'd be worth, to make any complaint. An' I ain't complaining, reelly; you was askin' me. Fact is, no man's yer friend as far as bottle fishermen are concerned.'
Rossi tapped the little table with his mug. 'So sad; Slushy; I cry for you. Poco tempo fa - not so long ago - you sell off the slush from the Triton's coppers to make the extra soldi; now you are the grand signor. Of course is dangerous; of course is not many friends. But the Navy, amico mio, is short of friends, too. The Triton after you waved goodbye - two, three times we are in battle. And a hurricane - Madonna! such wind - and we lose our masts and run on a reef. Yes, Slushy, I cry for you - on your saint's day.'
'Thanks,' Dyson grinned. 'That'll be a great comfort to my old mother, p'ticularly since she reckons the Devil's a Catholic. You want some more brandy in that mug?'
Before Rossi could reply, Ramage interrupted: 'What time do you intend sailing, Dyson?'
The seaman pulled out his watch. "Bout eleven, sir - in fact, won't 'arm any to leave earlier. We can go now. If you'd let my men pass down your seabags we can stow 'em and then get under way.'
He made no move as he put his watch away, and Ramage looked questioningly. 'Do you have any special orders for me, sir? I mean, is there anything I need to do a'fore we get under way?'
'Is anyone going on shore before we sail?' Ramage asked cautiously.
'No, sir; my two lads are coming with us - part of the trip, anyway.'
Unsure whether Dyson was deliberately talking in riddles or assumed he had guessed more than he had, Ramage decided to wait before asking any more important questions: Dyson seemed to be the kind of man of limited intelligence who thrived on mystery; who for various devious reasons made secrets from what others would regard as idle gossip or the kind of information imparted when passing the time of day,
'What exactly were you told had been arranged with the man at Studfall?' asked Ramage.
'No one seemed right to know. Take you and some men to Boulogne; stand by to bring you out again; mebbe bring some things back in between - reports and the like.'
Ramage felt relieved. 'That covers everything,' he said. 'How will you be able to stand by?'
'Smack'll be waiting in Boulogne 'arbour, sir,' Dyson said, his voice showing surprise that Ramage did not know that. ‘’Ow else can I be standing by?'
Ramage shook his head, trying to stifle his exasperation. 'Dyson, I don't know a dam' thing about how you people run your affairs, so you'd better -' He broke off. The devil take it; he had neither the wish nor the patience (and too much pride?) to squeeze Dyson like a lemon for drops of information.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By midnight the Marie was heading for Boulogne with the wind comfortably on the starboard quarter. Comfortably as far as steering her in the darkness was concerned, because the wind was far enough round that a few moments' inattention by the helmsman or an unexpectedly large swell wave coming up astern would not gybe her all standing, the heavy boom and gaff crashing over as the wind filled the mainsail on the other side.
As far as the Revenue officers in Folkestone and Dover were concerned, the smack Marie had sailed for a night's fishing and, as usual, was under the command of Thomas Smith, who was noted down in the Register of Ships in Dover as her owner and to whom had been issued, under the recent Smuggling Act, a special licence.
As its name indicated, the Act was intended to stamp out smuggling; but like most acts which Parliament in its wisdom passed with much talk and eventual self-congratulation, it was only a partial success (the Government's view) or an almost complete failure (the view of the Inspectors of Customs stationed round the coast). Thus the judgement of the Government and of the Customs was really the same, but a politician prefers to describe an almost complete failure in more positive terms as a partial success. Men under orders to enforce the law had to take a more realistic and thus more negative view.
So as far as the law was concerned, the Marie was going about her lawful business of fishing. She was more than a certain length and had a fixed bowsprit, so under the Act Thomas Smith, her registered owner, had to have a licence. He had a licence and was at all times ready to show it to any official duly authorized to demand its production.
The Act was an almost complete failure because the various experts concerned in drafting it would not (the view of the Inspectors of Customs) or could not (the subsequent excuse offered by the Government) interpret the appropriate requirements set out by the Board of Customs. Instead, Parliament passed an Act which was, as usual, a legal redundancy, and superbly upholstered with 'whereby', 'notwithstanding', 'heretofore' and other such words so beloved of anyone who ever used a heavy legal textbook to prop open a door on a windy day.
One did not have to be a boatbuilder to find the loopholes. The fixed bowsprit, for example. One boat could have a sliding bowsprit, which meant it could be run in (slid back out of the way, as a Customs Board member had patiently explained to one of the legal draftsmen working on the original Act), and put her into a certain category. Her otherwise identical sister ship could have holes drilled for a couple more bolts and, providing the nuts were tightened up, the bowsprit could be classified as fixed, putting her into another category requiring a licence.