Louis shook his head. 'Don't take any risks. If you can tell him that all is well, do so; but he has his instructions, and everything so far is going according to plan - for once!'
As the setting sun balanced like a red-hot coin standing on the western horizon, Ramage rested his arms on the window ledge and looked seaward through the fisherman's battered telescope. The horizon was clear except for a distant frigate whose hull was hidden below the curvature of the earth: only her sails were still in sight, tiny squares darkened by shadow. A routine patrol - one of Lord Nelson's squadron 'on a Particular Service,' running up and down this end of the Channel, making sure the French Army of England had not put to sea. She had probably just looked into Havre de Grace, fifty miles away along the coast to the south. The Marie would have slipped past such frigates in the darkness, on her way with Ramage's dispatches which told Lord Nelson that no Army of England could sail for many months.
'No sign of her?' Louis asked.
'No, just that frigate we saw earlier. Still, with this west wind she'll make a fast passage. But I must admit I'm getting nervous. Ah -' he looked round as the fisherman's wife came in and began setting plates and cutlery on the table, 'well, it makes me hungry too.'
They ate a leisurely supper, the fisherman and Louis telling stories of smuggling and shipwreck along the Normandy coast. When they had finished Ramage looked at his watch, He was not particularly tired but several years at sea had taught him to take advantage of any opportunity for a nap. After a word to the fisherman, Ramage stretched out on a mattress.
It seemed only a moment later that the fisherman was waking him, and as he rubbed his eyes he saw that Stafford and Louis were crouched over a bucket, washing their faces.
'Midnight,' the man said, 'and time for fishing . . .'
The boat was heavily built, beamy with what seemed a low freeboard to anyone used to a ship of war's boats. The fisherman put a small lantern and a bucket abaft the centre thwart. 'There's the bait,' he told Louis. 'Look - lines here, and watch out for the hooks. And here is the grapnel with plenty of line, more than enough to anchor inside the three-fathom line. Don't forget -'
'Yes, yes,' Louis interrupted impatiently, 'we've been over all that before and you're coming with us anyway; let's get her launched!'
The boat was hauled up well above the high-water mark, and heavy wooden beams had been sunk into the beach down as far as the line of seaweed. Below that, planks had just been laid so that the boat could be slid down to the water's edge.
Ramage checked the oars: there were six in the boat, but they were large and heavy with balanced looms. Stafford was fitting the thole pins - the waves breaking on the beach were just large enough so that once the boat began to float it would need some vigorous rowing for a few minutes to prevent her broaching and tipping them all out.
Both Stafford and Ramage were looking at the bulk of the boat and wondering how four of them were going to get her started - once she began sliding it would be easy - when the fisherman stuck a finger and thumb in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle. A minute or two later Ramage saw men coming from the nearby houses, shadowy figures in the moonlight.
Without a word they positioned themselves round the boat and, joined by Ramage, Louis, Stafford and the fisherman, ran her down into the water, wading to hold her while the four men climbed in, dropped the oars into position and began rowing.
The boat rowed well, and Ramage looked along the shore, watching the sea breaking on the rocky ledges which ran out for a couple of hundred yards from the beach to the north. Although the broken water sparkled and danced in the faint moonlight, the rocks themselves were grey and evil-looking, as though waiting patiently yet hungrily for a ship to be caught in a storm and driven on to them.
Soon they were far enough out to see the saddle-like gap in the cliffs in which both Le Tréport and Mers nestled, and the fisherman grunted, shipping his oar. They had rowed perhaps a thousand yards, and already Ramage felt the muscles across his shoulders tightening uncomfortably and others in the lower part of his back giving a hint that they would soon start aching.
The fisherman shifted the lantern and began coiling up a line along which pieces of cloth and twists of leather marked distances. Finally he had it coiled, and lifted up the small lead weight attached to the end and shaped like the weight in a grandfather clock. He leaned over the side and let the weight go, the line rushing out from the coil in his right hand. Suddenly it slowed down and stopped, and he seized it, dropping the coil and pulling in the weight end until he felt it just lifting off the bottom with the line taut. He felt the nearest marker on the line and muttered the depth. Three and a half fathoms.
'We'll start here,' he said, hauling in the leadline. 'Louis, begin baiting the hooks.'
Three hours later there was still no sign of the Marie although, the fisherman commented enthusiastically, the fishing was very good despite the moon. Ramage fervently wished the fish would stop biting but, knowing how the families at Mers depended on fish for their food, he thought it would be churlish to suggest they just sat there quietly without the lines over the side, either lying to the grapnel or rowing up to the west for half an hour and letting the wind and current carry them back parallel with the coast.
As more fish were hauled into the boat, twisting and thumping, covering everything with scales and slime, Ramage looked wistfully at the grapnel and line. He remembered all the boats he had seen in various parts of the world, comfortably anchored, with the men in them fishing by dangling lines over bow and stern, occasionally hauling in a line to find the bait had been taken. Three hours of rowing and drifting seemed to have knotted most of his muscles. It was unlikely - though pride prevented him from inspecting them in the light of the lantern - that his palms had any skin left on them; the sharpness of the pain when a dollop of spray soaked them again indicated that blisters had burst.
They were just rowing the boat round to get back to the westward again when Stafford said, almost as though it was of no consequence, "There she is.'
Ramage glanced round and saw a darker shape: the Marie reaching down towards them, perhaps five hundred yards away and down moon. The fisherman hurriedly shipped his oar, tipped the bait out of the bucket and shook it to make sure no water was left inside, and put it over the lantern. The light had not been bright, but suddenly dousing it made Ramage realize just how much it had affected their night vision and allowed the Marie to get so close.
'We hide the light now in case someone watches from the shore with night-glasses,' he explained to Ramage. 'It is best, eh?' he asked, and Ramage suddenly realized how determined the man was to make a good impression on the two Britons.
Ramage rested on his oar and leaned over to the fisherman. 'While there is time -' he held out his hand, and winced as the fisherman shook it enthusiastically, 'thank you.' There was nothing more than could be put into words and the fisherman seemed to understand.
'You will be all right with Dyson,' the fisherman said reassuringly, 'he is a good man.'
Ramage sat and watched the approaching fishing-boat. Dyson was bringing her along thirty yards or so to leeward of the rowing-boat, obviously intending to luff up and then heave-to, leaving them a few yards to row to get alongside.
Ramage glanced towards the beach: the odd patches of cloud crossing the moon, combined with the fact the moon was now low in the sky, made it impossible to distinguish the cluster of houses at Mers, nor could he see the large tower of the church in Le Tréport, St Jacques tower, according to Louis. Even using a good night-glass it would be impossible to spot the rendezvous between the rowing-boat and the Marie.