Auguste said: 'It's all true, citizen. The English ambassador left Paris, war began and Bonaparte arrested all the English in France, whether officers on leave or women. Bonaparte now makes war on women.'
Robilliard flushed and then said angrily to Ramage: 'This is ridiculous. Why, I could seize you, and then your ship would never dare open fire for fear of killing you!'
A series of metallic clicks made him look round and he was startled to find that three seamen, Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, were standing close with broad grins on their faces and pistols aimed at Robilliard, and each man swung a cutlass as a parson might use his walking stick to knock the head off a dandelion.
'Captain,' Ramage said, 'we are wasting time, my ship would certainly open fire if necessary, my second-in-command has strict orders about that. But you would not be alive to hear the first broadside that might kill me. You have been tricked by the perfidious English, captain, just as I was tricked by the perfidious French less than a month ago. There is no dishonour: no need for you to fire a broadside "for the honour of the flag".'
Robilliard still shook his head disbelievingly. 'I have only seventy-six men because we were short when we left Brest and have had much sickness in Batavia and at sea, but how can you keep us all prisoner ... ?'
That is no problem,' Ramage said and signalled to Jackson. 'Give me your pistol,' he said in English, and then switched back to French to say to Robilliard: 'We are agreed, are we not, that you and your ship are my prize?'
Robilliard shrugged his shoulders and looked round at his three lieutenants. They were all young men, their faces frozen with the shock of finding an English frigate poised to rake their ship and her captain on board La Robuste.
'What do you say, mes braves?'
'We have no choice,' the oldest of them said without much conviction.
'You must remember you said that when a committee of public safety accuses me of treachery,' Robilliard said bitterly. 'We have no choice, certainly, but I don't want any of you claiming to be heroes if we are exchanged and get back to France.'
'Don't worry,' Ramage said and waving to Jackson to go aft. 'My dispatch will make it clear you had no knowledge of the war.'
'A lot of good your dispatch would do me in France!'
'I expect it will be published in the London Gazette, which is as good as Le Moniteur. Certainly, I'm sure that Bonaparte has it translated and read to him.'
Robilliard was watching Ramage closely. 'Yes, I believe you.' He spelled out his name. 'And make sure you put in the "Pierre", because there is my cousin, too, and although he does not command a ship he is a scoundrel - no, I didn't mean that -'
'I understand,' Ramage assured him.
'But so many prisoners,' Robilliard said as he watched the Tricolour flutter down as Jackson hauled on one end of the halyard. 'How will you ... ?'
'Leave that problem to me,' Ramage said. 'You are not short of provisions?'
'Water, but not provisions. With so many dead from sickness, I could have doubled the rations of the living.'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ramage and Aitken sat at the desk, Ramage in his normal chair and the first lieutenant opposite, trying to make himself comfortable on a chair that normally served at the dining table in the coach. Aitken was hurriedly writing notes, quill squeaking, as Ramage translated from various pages of the small pile of documents in front of them.
'Ah, here we are,' Ramage said happily, 'some of the answers about Cayenne. This is' - he glanced at the title page - 'a sort of pilot book published three years ago, so it is reasonably up to date. Take notes as I read it aloud.'
He turned over a couple of pages. 'It begins with a word about the currents to expect off the coast of French Guiana. There are two - well, we knew that. The first starts close off the African coast, near to the Cape Verde Islands, and is caused by the Trade winds blowing across the Atlantic. Yes, well, we know all about that, too. It reaches to within ...' he paused, making the conversion, 'to within thirty-five miles of the coast, or a depth of eight fathoms, where a second current, produced by the tides, meets it. And there is the water pouring out of the Amazon and the Orinoco. Well, it's the heights not the rates that interest me.
'Hmm, numerous other rivers between the Amazon and the Orinoco carry down vast quantities of mud, tree trunks and branches ... these accumulating along the shores have built up a border of low ground.' The pilot was written in stilted French and translation was difficult. 'Mangroves generally cover it between high and low water. At low water this border seems impassable: at high water there are sometimes channels accessible to vessels ... Ah, here we are: "The only ports are at mouths of rivers ... there are usually bars at the entrances and shoals in the channels ... Larger ships can anchor to wait for high water without risk because no violent tempests ever occur in this region ..."
'That's comforting; I dislike "violent tempests". The mariner "can wait for a local pilot or send boats ahead to make soundings".'
Aitken reached out for the inkwell. 'Except for the mangroves and the lack of "violent tempests", it sounds rather like the east coast of England!'
'Yes. Now for the general information: the French have owned Cayenne - Guiana, rather - since 1677 ... It stretches about two hundred and fifty miles along the coast and goes more than a hundred miles inland ... The land is low along the coast which runs roughly north and south with a mountain chain running east and west ... Produces and exports pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmegs. Nothing,' Ramage noted, 'that isn't used for seasoning food!'
He read several more pages without bothering to translate but finally hunched himself in his chair and squared up the book. 'Here we are ... During the summer the current runs strongly to the northwest off this coast... Heavy breakers generally ease at slack water ... Tide rise just over eight feet at springs, four or five at neaps ...
'Now, we're interested in twenty-seven miles of coast between the River Approuague to the south and the River Mahuri to the north. The land is so flat you can see it at only seven or eight miles from seaward ... behind it, though, are the Kaw mountains, a level ridge not very high. Now, the Mahuri river -'
He broke off, cursed and shut the book with an angry gesture and stood up. With his head bent to one side to avoid bumping it on the beams overhead he strode round the cabin, watched by a startled Aitken, who then picked up a piece of cloth and busied himself wiping the sharpened point of his quill. He knew better than to ask what was the matter. Was the vital page missing? The Scot did not trust anything French. The good luck of finding a French pilot book would obviously, he considered glumly, be cancelled by there being pages missing ...
Ramage sat down, face flushed, and opened the pilot book again. 'Cayenne ... Cayenne ...' he said crossly. 'Wouldn't anyone in their right mind assume that any wretched Frenchman deported "to Cayenne" was being sent to a penal colony on the island of Cayenne, which is in the middle of the entrance to the Cayenne river?'
Aitken thought for a moment but could see no danger in agreeing. 'Yes, sir, that seems a reasonable assumption; indeed, a very logical conclusion.'
'Yes, but any ship laden with prisoners and anchoring off the Îles de Cayenne in the Rivière de Cayenne would find herself some twenty-five miles too far south!
'Having no charts or pilots, I'd assumed the three Île du Salut, which include Devil's Island, were in the Cayenne river.' He tapped the book. 'Now I find they are three almost barren little lumps of rock seven miles offshore and twenty-five miles north of Cayenne, river or island. So, tear up what you've written and let's start again...'