'Enough broth for both of you,' he said, putting it on the table. 'With the landlord's compliments. Now, how did it go?' he asked Ramage quietly. 'I made sure the lieutenant was drunk when he went to bed, just in case!'
Ramage and Stafford sat down at the table as Louis served the soup and broke the loaf into pieces. 'The suckling pig was excellent,' he chuckled. 'The lieutenant was as appreciative as myself. He was critical of the sole - as became a naval officer, perhaps - and as a true Norman he approved the onion soup.'
Absent-mindedly he extracted two spoons from his pocket, handed them round, and sat down opposite Ramage. He was obviously anxious to hear their news but both Ramage and Stafford were too busy with the broth to pay much attention. Stafford finished the bowl and eyed the jug hopefully. 'Some left,' Louis said. 'More for you, sir?' Ramage shook his head and nodded towards Stafford.
Leaving Stafford to finish off the soup with noisy gusto, Ramage took his notes, smoothed them out on the table, and said in English: 'Stafford did an excellent job: we - er, borrowed - the satchel for fifteen minutes. There were sixteen letters in it, and a dispatch from Vice-Admiral Bruix to the Minister of Marine Citizen Forfait . . .' Ramage could not resist pausing to tantalize the Frenchman,
'Were you able ...?'
'Stafford opened the seal and -'
'But was he able to close it again?' Louis interrupted anxiously.
' - and after I'd read the dispatch he sealed it again so that the clerk who applied the original wax would never know Stafford has - like you - skills not normally found in a sailor,
'The dispatch,' Louis prompted.
'Ah yes -' Ramage tapped the paper, 'most interesting. It seems that the Minister, on behalf of Bonaparte himself has just asked Bruix nearly the same questions that the British Admiralty wants answering: how many of the various types of vessels forming the Invasion Flotilla have been completed and are ready for sea; how many will be completed in a month's time; and the situation regarding the rest.
'Oh yes, and Admiral Bruix is having a great deal of trouble getting enough money to pay the carpenters and shipwrights at the various yards - all of whom are eleven weeks behind with their wages. And he is reminding the Minister that he has asked for more than 350 guns and carriages for the gunboats. They must be 24-pounders -'
'One for each gunboat,' Louis said.
'- exactly,' Ramage said, glancing at his notes. 'Here we are - seventy-three gunboats completed so far, and only nineteen ready for sea. No guns for the remaining fifty-four. Then he needs another 359 guns for the rest of the gunboats ordered by the First Consul. Then he says twenty-three barges have been launched but he has masts, sails and cordage for only eleven of them. All that bears out what we saw in Boulogne.'
Louis sucked his teeth. 'More than four hundred gunboats ordered, and guns for only nineteen . . . Masts, spars and sails for less than half the barges launched, and probably four times more are ordered . . . That's how this man Bonaparte seeks to challenge the British Navy, which has kept nearly every one of its ships at sea, winter and summer, for the past eight or nine years. Fill the gunboats with farmers' boys and clerks from the counting-houses and send them across the Channel,' he said, mimicking the Bonaparte portrayed by English cartoonists.
Ramage felt a great sympathy for the man, and noticed that Stafford was watching him curiously. By Bonaparte's standards, Louis was a traitor to France; but by the standards of men like Louis and the man with only one leg who was abandoned in the Alpine snows, it was Bonaparte and the new régime who were the traitors. What a dreadful position for men to be in, when they find their country's official enemies are their only friends ... As though all the jailbirds in Britain had suddenly seized control and, with their leader installed in St James's Palace, then set about making the country a safe place for thieves, murderers, panderers, blackmailers and sheepstealers to live in —and, the bitterest irony, did it all in the name of liberty, equality and the brotherhood of man.
Louis pointed at Ramage's notes, his finger emphasizing that they covered only one side of the page. 'Is that all Bruix reported? Surely it is not enough for your people!'
Ramage grinned. 'No, this is really only an acknowledgment of the Minister's request. I had the feeling that Admiral Bruix wanted to warn Citizen Forfait that the full report when it comes will not make cheerful reading for Bonaparte: he more than hints that the First Consul should be tactfully prepared in advance . . . And he's taking the opportunity to square his own yards, too, reminding Forfait that he has not received the guns, cordage, sailcloth and so forth that he has requested, quite apart from money to pay the workmen.'
'He'll need all the excuses he can think of, if the First Consul finds he has fallen behind schedule with the new Invasion Flotilla,' Louis commented sourly. 'And General Soult can abandon hope of ever getting a marshal's baton if the Army of England is not ready, right down to the last button and musket flint. But -' Louis hesitated, obviously still puzzled, 'what happens now?'
The Admiral has asked the Minister to tell him by return - presumably he means by this same lieutenant - when he can expect the 413 guns and carriages, and the money to pay the: workmen. He says the full report on the Invasion Flotilla will take a few days to prepare and will be included in his next weekly dispatch. So presumably it will be taken to Paris by our lieutenant this time next week.'
Ramage waited anxiously for Louis to absorb the significance of the timing. It was better to let the Frenchman think it out for himself. While lying on his bed waiting for Louis to return from the orgy with the sucking pig, he had considered all of the alternatives open to him. Thank goodness there were some: he was not forced into one course of action - except that in the last resort, if everything went wrong, then some time next Saturday the wretched lieutenant-de-vaisseau was going to be left for dead behind a hedge on the quietest stretch of road between Boulogne and Amiens,
Louis was slowly arranging the crumbs on the table in a neat little pile. He looked tired and there was a sheen of grease on his chin, a patch he'd missed when he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand after finishing the sucking pig. Damn the pig; he was still so hungry his thoughts kept going back to it. Now Ramage was having to wait, and regretting the way he'd tantalized Louis over the dispatch, though the Frenchman was not being deliberately slow. He was being thorough, if his past performance was anything to go by; like a good chess player he was calculating every move his opponent could make before deciding on his own.
He looked up and, with a gesture to Stafford, said, 'I talk in French; I can't think well in English.' He folded Ramage's notes along the original creases and then ran the edge of the paper along the line of his jaw, the paper rasping on the stubble.
'First, we need to look into the lieutenant's satchel again when he returns from Paris on Monday, so we know when - or if - Admiral Bruix can expect his 413 guns and carriages?' When Ramage nodded he commented: 'Your people should regard that information as more vital than knowing when the vessels will be completed, since without a gun a gunboat is useless.'
Ramage nodded again: so far Louis's thoughts had run parallel with his own.
'Second, we need to look into the satchel again when the lieutenant returns to Paris from Boulogne next Saturday, so we can make a copy of Admiral Bruix's full report to the Minister. After that, your people will know as much about the Invasion Flotilla as the First Consul, eh?'