Rossi poured soup into the plates and passed them round while Jackson produced a large knife and sliced up the bread.
As soon as they were all bent over their plates Ramage described, between spoonsful of soup, the Corporal's description of the lovelorn lieutenant and his weekly ride to Paris with the Admiral's dispatches. At the end of the story Louis was silent for several moments and then, picking up the jug to see if any more soup remained, he gave a prodigious belch. He sat back in his chair looking to his right, away from the group of workmen at the other table, and apparently bored or daydreaming. But Ramage noticed that no lip-reader could watch his mouth.
'So you wish to sample the food at the Hotel de la Poste at Amiens . . .' It was a statement, not a question, and Ramage waited as Louis mulled over the problems involved. '. . . Carpenters won't do - Amiens is the centre for velvet, and that sort of thing. And priests, too,' he added maliciously, 'with the largest cathedral in Europe. Priests are great travellers now, since the First Consul and the Pope signed the Concordat - always going to see the bishop. Not so long ago they were being hunted down by the enfants de terreur and their churches and cathedrals robbed and pillaged. Fashions change,' he commented. 'Passports will be needed, and different clothes. I shall want some money to pay for all this.'
'Of course,' Ramage said. 'And I need to be in Amiens by Friday night, so that I can spend Saturday arranging things at the hotel. The others could arrive on Saturday, if that would make it any easier.'
'It might be better to split into two parties of two,' Louis said, obviously thinking aloud. 'Two priests, two weavers, two masons . . . people travel in pairs. Four creates suspicion. Let me think about it. I'll see you in your room at ten o'clock tonight.' He called to the patron for wine and asked quietly: 'You had an interesting walk round the port?'
'Very interesting,' Ramage said, 'and a little frightening. Even the vessels completed so far could carry an army across the Channel . . .’
'They could' the Frenchman said evenly, 'though whether they will is another matter. Would you bet on a week or more of easterly winds?'
'Not if I was a Bonaparte, but the odds seem shorter when you look at it from the British point of view.'
Louis shrugged his shoulders. 'Appear to shorten my friend, but an east wind is still an east wind, and this flotilla of sheep needs moonlight also or they'll all get lost. You have seen those prames?They need a gale of wind under them to make any progress..."
'If only half of them arrive on the Kentish beaches,' Ramage said, 'they might not take the country, but the devastation ...'
Louis reached up and took the carafe of wine from the patron and reminded him they needed glasses.
'Yes, there would be much devastation. Indeed,' he grinned broadly, 'it would upset the contraband trade for a long time, too, which is one of the reasons why we are helping you. To tell you the truth, I'm beginning to enjoy it; running contraband three or four nights a week becomes boring.'
Ramage raised his eyebrows. 'I should have thought boredom was the last thing that troubled you.'
'Don't misunderstand me; a boring voyage means a safe one, and I have no wish to return home with wild stories of narrow escapes. We make a profit because we sail as regularly as the packetboat did before the war. But it is still boring!'
The patron arrived with the glasses, which Ramage saw were even dirtier than the windows at the Corporal's inn. He reached for the bottle and poured wine for them all and lifted his glass to Louis. 'War sees some strange alliances - here is to this one.'
The Frenchman drank to it and then put his glass down carefully. 'Not so strange, when you think about it carefully. I don't want to rule the world; I just want to be left in peace to follow my trade. You don't want to rule the world either, nor do these men; you just want to be left in peace, knowing your family and friends are safe from invaders. That is why we are allies against this Corsican . . .' He stood up. ‘I’ll see you in your room after supper,' he said.
That night while Ramage and his three men were sitting on the two beds in their room, talking in whispers as they waited with the flickering candle flame glittering occasionally on the shiny blades of the carpenters' tools stacked on the floor beneath the window, there was a faint double tap at the door, and before anyone could move Louis slipped into the room, closing the door silently behind him.
Stafford looked at him and said admiringly, 'Cor – didn’t hear the coming of you! If you want a job when the war’s over, just look me up in London: we could make a good living, s'long as you don't mind working at night.'
The Frenchman grinned and said to Ramage in his hesitant English: ‘I think the heavy feet might alarm you, no?'
'It most certainly would,' Ramage said in French. 'We were woken this morning by a gendarme banging on the door. He wanted to inspect our papers - mistook us for conscripts.'
'I warned you: they check all inns and lodging houses for deserters two or three times a week. A matter of routine, but alarming if you have a guilty conscience!'
He sat down on the bed beside Ramage and took some papers from his pocket. After putting them down, he brought out a bottle of ink, and then carefully removed a quill pen which he had slid down inside his boot. He held it up to the candle flame to make sure the point had not split.
'We have to write in the details on the documents,' he explained. 'Who you are, why you are travelling . . . But first I must tell you some differences you will find on the road to Amiens - on any road, in fact. If you use a postchaise (the wagon is too slow), the posts are still the same: thirty-four between here and Paris, and usually ten kilometres (about six English miles) apart. They are well supplied with horses, although the postmasters no longer follow the old rule of one horse per person; you're lucky to get three horses for four people these days. The postillions can legally charge only fifteen sous per post, but if you do not pay them double they can make the journey unpleasant in many little ways.
'Now, listen carefully; there is now a new system by which the traveller has to pay a toll. The money is supposed to be for the upkeep of the roads, but no one has spent a sou on a road in France since the Revolution, let alone a livre: there are deep potholes every few yards. You pay the tolls at barrières which have been set up along the main roads. But watch out, they are not at regular intervals, and the toll varies between three and eighteen sous.
'All of this makes travelling expensive: before the Revolution you could take a postchaise to Paris for 213 livres; now you have to pay double. Still, there is a brighter side: before the Revolution you would be lucky to arrive in Paris without meeting a highwayman or a footpad. Now they are a rarity.
"They are a rarity,' he said, tapping Ramage's shoulder for emphasis, 'because - from your point of view - there is another pest on the roads: mounted gendarmes. They halt all carts and carriages and demand to see every traveller's papers. Anyone arousing suspicion is taken to the nearest jail. Oh yes, their favourite trick is to make you sign your name, which they compare with the signature in your passport, so remember that and practise it!'
After making Ramage repeat the details, Louis said: 'Now, the journey to Amiens. The route from here is through Montreuil (four posts, or about twenty-three miles), Nampont, and Nouvion to Abbeville -'
Ramage noticed the Frenchman tensed slightly as he paused and then continued.
'It is a wretched town now; half the people have left and the Revolution has ruined the damask industry. Reichord's Hotel is comfortable - by today's standards, anyway. Then you go on to Ailly-le-Haut-Clocher. There's a Red Cap of Liberty on top of the church steeple. It is stuck on the weathercock, so it swivels round with every change of wind.' He shrugged his, shoulders. 'Perhaps others have noted the irony - to comment aloud in public would be to risk your neck. At the next village, Flixecourt, you will get your first sight of a Tree of Liberty; they are proud of the one set up in the square. You will change horses for the last time at Picquigny, and Amiens is only a league and a half beyond.'