Ramage's Devil

A moment later two horsemen cut in from the left side, then two more passed on the right and reined their horses to a stop, blocking the narrow road.

'Papers!' one of the men demanded, holding out his hand.

'Papers, papers, papers,' Gilbert grumbled. 'We have only just showed them back there, now the four horsemen of the Apocalypse want to look at them again...'

One of the gendarmes grinned and winked at Sarah. 'We like to check up on pretty girls on a sunny morning - where are you going, mademoiselle?'

'Madame,' Sarah said sleepily. 'To Brest with my husband.'

Her accent and the tone of voice was perfect, Ramage realized. The gendarme was flirting; she was the virtuous wife.

The gendarme looked through the papers. 'Ah, Citizeness Ribère, born twenty-two years ago in Falaise. You look younger - marriage must suit you.' He looked at Ramage. 'Citizen Ribère? Off to Brest to buy your wife some pretty ribbons, eh?'

'Potatoes and cabbages, and rice if there is any,' Ramage said with glum seriousness. 'No ribbons.'

The gendarme laughed, looked at Gilbert's passeport and handed the papers back to him. 'You buy her a ribbon, then,' he said, and spurred his horse forward, the other three following him.

'Was that normal?' Ramage asked.

'Yes - but for, er Janine, I doubt if they would have bothered to stop us.'

They passed the next couple of barrières without incident, although at the second two of the gendarmes were more concerned with their colleague who was already incoherently drunk but unwilling to sleep it off out of sight under the hedge. He had spotted the bottle that an unsuspecting Gilbert had been clutching as he alighted from the gig and probably saw a dozen. Finally, while Gilbert waited patiently at the table, the other two dragged the man away, returning five minutes later without apology or explanation to inspect the papers.

As they jogged along the Paris road into Brest, Ramage spotted the masts of ships in the port. Some were obviously ships of the line and most, he commented to Sarah, had their yards crossed with sails bent on. The French seamen had been busy since the two of them had spent the afternoon at Pointe St Mathieu.

Five gendarmes lounged at the Porte de Landerneau, the gate to the port, but they were too concerned with baiting a gaunt priest perched on an ancient donkey to pay much attention to three respectable citizens in a gig, obviously bound for the market.

The road ahead was straight but the buildings on each side were neglected. No door or window had seen a paintbrush for years; the few buildings that years ago had been whitewashed bow seemed to be suffering from a curious leprosy.

'This leads straight down to the Place de la Liberté and the town hall,' Gilbert had explained in French. 'Just beyond that is the Hôtel du Commandant de la Marine. Then we carry on past it along the Rue de Siam to the river. While we jog along the Boulevard de la Marine you'll have a good view of the river as it meets Le Goulet, with the arsenal opposite. Then to the Esplanade du Château. There we'll stop for a glass of wine under the trees and you can inspect the Château.'

He laughed to himself and then added: 'From the Esplanade it is only two minutes' walk to the Rue du Bois d'Amour ... in the evenings the young folk dawdle under the trees there and look down Le Goulet at the ships and perhaps dream of visiting the mysterious East.'

'But now, the young men have to be careful the press gangs don't take them off to the men o' war,' Ramage said dryly.

'Yes, I keep forgetting the war. Look,' he said absently, 'we are just passing the cemetery. The largest I've ever seen.'

'I'll keep it in mind,' Ramage said in a mock serious voice. 'For the moment I have no plans to visit it.'

Gilbert finally turned the gig into the open market place, a paved square, and told Ramage and Sarah to alight. Sarah looked at the stalls while Gilbert secured the horse and groaned. 'Potatoes ... a few cabbages ... more potatoes ... a few dozen parsnips ... Louis may be right about the soil at Finisterre!'

There were about twenty stalls, wooden shacks with tables in front of which the sellers spread their wares and gossiped.

Gilbert said: 'We'll walk to the end stall; I have a friend there.'

Despite the lack of variety, the sellers were cheerful, shouting to each other and haggling noisily with the dozen or so buyers walking along the line of tables. The man at the end stall proved to be one Ramage would normally have avoided without a moment's thought. His face was thin and a wide scar led across his left cheek, a white slash against suntanned skin. His hair was unfashionably long and tied behind in a queue. He wore a fisherman's smock which seemed almost rigid from frequent coatings of red ochre, which certainly made it waterproof and, Ramage thought ironically, probably bulletproof too.

He shook hands with Gilbert, who said: 'I am not introducing you to my friends because - to onlookers - we all know each other well.'

The Frenchman immediately shook Ramage's hand in the casual form of greeting taking place all over the market as friends met each other for the first time in the day, and he gave a perfunctory bow to Sarah, saying softly: 'The Revolution does not allow me to kiss your hand, which is sad.'

'Now,' Gilbert said, 'I shall inspect your potatoes, which are small and old and shrivelled and no one but a fool would buy, and ask you what is happening in the Roads.'

'Ah, very busy. The potatoes I have here on display are small and old because I have already sold twenty sacks to the men from the Hôtel du Commandant de la Marine, who were here early. Paying cash, they are. They tried buying against notes de crédit on the Navy, but suddenly no one in the market had any potatoes, except what were on these tables.'

'Why the Navy's sudden need for potatoes?'

'You've heard about the English mutineers? Yes, well, you know the English exist on potatoes. All the mutineers are now billeted in the Château and demanding potatoes. On board their brig there are still prisoners and their guards, demanding potatoes - it seems the ones they have are mildewed. And that frigate over there, L'Espoir, is leaving for Cayenne with déportés, and they want more potatoes...'

'Who had your sacks?' Ramage asked.

'Nobody yet. They paid extra to have them delivered - it seems that with so many ships being prepared for sea, with the war starting, they're short of boats. So I pay a friend of mine a few livres to use his boat and the Navy pays me many livres!'

Ramage thought a moment. 'Are you going to carry all the sacks on your own?'

'I was hoping my nephew would help me when he's finished milking.'

Ramage glanced at Gilbert then at the man. 'Two of us could help you now.'

The Frenchman pulled at his nose. 'How much?'

Ramage smiled as he said: 'Our services would be free.' He looked at Gilbert, seeking his approval. 'We could carry the potatoes down to the jetty in the gig.'

Gilbert nodded enthusiastically. 'Then Janine can look after it while we go out to the Murex.'

'The loyal men who are prisoners of war in the English ship do not speak French,' the man said pointedly.

'If I needed to speak to them, it would be in whispers.'

The man nodded. 'It would have to be,' he said. 'Much discretion is needed.'

Gilbert walked away from the tiller and took a rope thrown down from the Murex's deck. As he turned it up on a kevil he shouted forward at Ramage in well simulated anger: 'Hurry up! Not so tight - you'll jam our bow into the Englishman. We want to lie alongside her, not butt her like a goat!'

'Yes, citizen,' Ramage called aft in a remorse-laden voice. 'These ships, I am used to a cart with wheels...'

Several French seamen lining the Murex's bulwarks roared with laughter and in a glance Ramage counted them. Seven, and the fellow at the end, probably the bosun, had been giving orders. Was that all the French guard, seven men? It seemed likely, though he would soon know.