The sun was just coming up over the horizon to reveal a cloudless sky as the 'chaise reached the open countryside and passed the hamlet of Samur. Ramage felt uncomfortable in his new clothes, although they were a passably good fit. The white kerseymere breeches would have benefited by an hour's attention from a good tailor, but the boots fitted and the worsted cotton stockings were comfortable enough. The coat was tight under the armpits and the skirt was (by London standards) unfashionably long, but the light grey was just the colour an Italian man of affairs would choose for a visit to France. It seemed strange to be wearing a round hat after so many years with a three-cornered one, but they were popular in France, according to Louis.
The damage to property was not confined to Boulogne: in even the smallest village there was usually at least one shop or cottage destroyed; in the larger villages and towns the churches had suffered too, and those left standing often had a sign in front, painted in Revolutionary colours, saying ‘This is a Temple of Reason and Truth.' Louis pointed out the English convent at Montreuil which had been destroyed and was now just a heap of ruins, with bushes and shrubs growing where once nuns walked and worked and prayed. Most of the ruined houses nearby belonged to British families who had formed a flourishing little colony under the ancien régime.
Soon the journey established its own rhythm: at each barrière the coachman would call the amount of the toll and Louis would pass it out to the attendant; at each post Louis alighted to inspect the new horses, usually complaining (on principle, apparently) at the condition of at least one of them. Most of the people they passed along the road were poorly dressed. Few men were less than middle-aged and most much older, which was to be expected in a country where conscription was strictly enforced, but it had another effect for which Ramage was not prepared: in the few fields that were cultivated, women were doing most of the work.
He saw an old woman leading a pair of donkeys while another, her skirts hitched up to her knees, guided the plough; a mile down the road two young girls led a horse pulling a cart laden with cordwood. He had also seen several boys, fifteen or sixteen years old, begging quite openly, and Louis had explained that most such youths refused to learn a trade, knowing they would be conscripted the moment they reached eighteen, and were already dreaming of the martial glory that Bonaparte promised them.
The whole countryside showed one effect of the Royal Navy's strict blockade: almost every forest, wood and copse had been chopped down; even isolated trees in the hedgerows had been felled and one had fallen across a cottage, where it had been left. Ragged stumps, like rotten teeth, showed Bonaparte's hunger for timber to build his invasion barges and repair his ships, although it was significant that there was no sign of the arch-shaped two-wheeled timber carriers, no train of horses hauling trunks along the roads, no trees newly felled and lopped and waiting for transport. Whatever timber was now being cut into planks at the sawyers' pits at Boulogne and Calais must have been carried a long distance - by sea from the Biscay ports or Spain? It was unlikely that many ships would get through from the Baltic, Ramage thought; the blockade was too effective. But hauling trunks a couple of hundred miles along roads such as these would take weeks.
Shortage of wood was not just a lack of planking; far more critical would be the lack of compass timber, the wood that grew in natural crooks and curves and which was vital for constructing frames and rounded bows and tapered sterns. He realized that that alone would account for the box-shaped barges; that alone meant that no master shipwright could build a bow or stern that would allow a vessel to get to windward: apart from the bow having to butt through the water, like a goat trying to get through a hedge, every wave would try to push it aside ...
Even though the 'chaise's wheels were large and reasonably well sprung they could do little to disguise the big potholes which jarred each man's spine; soon Ramage was just staring numbly at the countryside until, at Montreuil, they rattled over a bridge across a river which Louis said was the Canche. The name was vaguely familiar and Louis tried to provide clues. It flowed through Hesdin to its source somewhere near St Pol, he said. Hesdin? And then Ramage remembered: Agincourt was ten miles or so to the north-east and Crécy the same distance to the south-west. Crécy-en-Ponthieu, to give it the full name. Had the great forest nearby —which they would soon pass - fallen to the axe to supply the boatyards along the coast? Bonaparte would have no reason to be sentimental about Crécy, where the English longbow-men defeated the French cavalry in 1346 ...
At Nampont the horses were changed again and later, as they skirted the old forest, Ramage noticed that only slender saplings and undergrowth stretched as far as he could see. From Nouvion - barely five miles from the actual battlefield of Crécy, Louis told him - the land was flat and uninteresting until the Frenchman pointed to the outskirts of a small town ahead: Abbeville, he said, his voice flat and expressionless.
There were three gendarmes at the guardhouse covering the roads from Montreuil and Hesdin and, with pistols tucked in their belts, unshaven and cocked hats askew, they slouched over to the 'chaise. Two stood back while the third held out his hand for the documents, which Louis handed him with a polite greeting, answered by a non-committal grunt.
After a cursory look at the papers he muttered something to the other two men and went back to the guardhouse. Louis glanced at Ramage and nodded his head slightly, then climbed out of the carriage, followed by Ramage, who signalled to Stafford to stay where he was.
Almost at once there was a peremptory shout from the guardhouse. 'He wants all three of us,' Louis growled, and beckoned to Stafford. Inside the guardhouse there was a small, high desk behind which the gendarme was perched on a stool, his cocked hat now on a hook behind him and the papers spread open across the top of the desk, each held down by a small stone.
'Which of you is Citizen Peyrachon?'
Louis reached across to fold his two papers, jerking his head as if Ramage should not see them. 'I am Citizen Peyrachon, and you know better than to leave Committee papers lying around like that,' he snapped.
The effect on the gendarme was startling, and Ramage saw that even he lived in terror of the Committee of Public Safety. The man slid off the stool as though it had been kicked from under him, and with what seemed to be one single movement he had his hat on his head and was offering Louis his papers, placating a member of the secret police.
'Of course, Citizen!' he said hastily. 'I have not checked the papers of the other two but...'
'I vouch for them, but check their papers; you have your duty to perform,' Louis said sternly.
The man snatched the first passport. 'Citizen di Stefano?'
'I am Signor di Stefano,' Ramage said pompously.
The gendarme slid a piece of paper across the desk towards him and dipped a quill in a bottle of ink. 'Would you please sign your name?'
With a flourish Ramage wrote 'Gianfranco di Stefano,' and passed the pen to Stafford, who wrote his assumed name beneath with all the assurance of a skilled actor.