Did Bonaparte ever wonder at the contradiction that the French built the best ships but could not fight 'em? And how irritating it must be for the little Corsican that usually the British kept the original French names once they captured ships and put them into service! One of the biggest ships in the Royal Navy today was called the Ville de Paris'. One could not imagine the French calling one of their flagships the City of London. And some of the best ships at present in service had been captured from the French and often the names kept - the frigates Perle, Aréthuse, Aurore, Lutine, Melpomène, Minerve, for instance. And the 80-gun Tonnant and the Franklin (which had been renamed Canopus), as well as the 74s Spartiate, Conquérant andAquilon (now called the Aboukir, in honour of the battle in which Rear-admiral Nelson had captured them). Then Le Hoche, guns, had been a little too much for their Lordships at the Admiralty, who had renamed her Donegal, but Le Bellone, guns, had been changed to Proserphine only to avoid confusion with the 74-gun Bellona. La Pallas, 40 guns, had been renamed La Pique, which showed their Lordships had no prejudice against French names! There were dozens more. And of course there were the Spanish and the Dutch ...
He suddenly realized that the two men and Sarah were watching him. Obviously they thought his silence was because he was thinking of daring plans to get them all to England, whereas in fact he had been daydreaming over ships' names.
'Yes,' he said lamely, 'let's say fourteen prisoners on board the Murex and half of them in irons during the day. All of them are put in irons for the night, so the guards can safely sleep.'
Sarah coughed as if asking permission to join in the planning, but she did not wait for anyone to nod encouragement. 'M'sieu Auguste cannot get a fishing boat - one large enough for us to sail to England?'
'No, madame, I regret I cannot. If I could, we would sail tonight. But now the commandant of the port has given fresh orders. All fishing boats with a deck - even a small foredeck - (all except open boats, in other words) must have two armed soldiers guarding them if they are in port for the night. Apparently the order comes from Paris and is the result of the renewal of war.'
'Yes,' Gilbert said, 'Bonaparte realizes that there are hundreds like the Count, and Charles here, who will be trying to escape if they are not already locked up.'
Ramage said: 'But you could get a rowing boat?'
'Yes,' Auguste said cautiously, 'but I do not wish to row to England in one!'
'No, but that means we can always go fishing in Le Goulet.I enjoy fishing and I am sure Gilbert does, too.'
'The port commandant disapproves, though,' Auguste said. He hasn't forbidden it yet, but the sentries on the men of war occasionally fire a musket if they think a fisherman is too close, just as a warning.'
'Any casualties?'
'Not yet.'
Ramage nodded. 'At night a moving boat is a difficult target, and if the fishermen keep a respectable distance...'
'Yes, the sentries are really only warning. And I hear that many captains of ships dislike having their sleep disturbed by random musket shots!'
Ramage nodded again. Firing muskets at anchor would certainly disturb a captain's rest, and half an hour would pass before he received an explanation and dozed off again.
'Gilbert, if you would pay for our wine, I think we had better buy some fruit and vegetables to satisfy the curiosity of the gendarmes at the barrières and bid our friend here au revoir.'
At the château, Louis met them with the news that a friendly neighbour of his wife's parents had told them that L'Espoir would be sailing in three or four days for Cayenne. The Chef d'administration de la Marine at Brest, Citizen Moreau, was rushing everything apparently, because the British declaration of war had taken Paris unawares and the First Consul was anxious to get this group of Royalists and priests on their way to Cayenne before the Royal Navy re-established the blockade of Brest. There was also talk of L'Espoir's decision to beat out directly to the southwestward after leaving Brest, hoping to hide herself in the wastes of the Atlantic once she was out of sight of Pointe St Mathieu.
Ramage thanked Louis for the information. Since they could do nothing about L'Espoir and her sad human cargo, he could only note that the frigate's captain was intending to do what he would have done in the same situation. In fact, L'Espoir stood little risk of being intercepted because Cayenne was so far to the south round the bulge of South America that British ships of war and privateers bound for the West Indian islands would be crossing the Atlantic well to the north of her course. By staying far to the south, L'Espoir might risk getting beyond the belt of Trade winds and run into strong ocean currents, but she was embarking extra provisions and water, probably as an insurance against a long passage. From memory, the Île du Diable, better known to the English as Devil's Island and referred to by the French as 'Cayenne', the name of the nearest town on the mainland, sat precisely on the fifth parallel of latitude, only 300 miles from the Equator, a hot and humid hell on earth.
Louis added, almost as an afterthought, that two gendarmes had called to ask if there had been any sign of the Englishman, but they had been told the agreed story: he had stayed a few days before the Count had been arrested and left, as far as anyone knew, to visit friends somewhere in Provence. Why had the Count not reported that he had strangers staying in the house, as required by State Ordinance number 532, dated 1st Vendémiaire year VI? Louis had shaken his head sadly and told the men that the Count, although a very law-abiding man, had not been living in France at the time of the Ordinance and probably knew nothing about it. But Louis had almost been trapped by his own inventiveness: had the Count had other visitors - not necessarily foreigners, but people 'not normally inhabiting the place of habitation' - staying and whom he had not reported to the préfecture? Louis said he did not know what the Count reported. The gendarmes themselves had said he had not reported the Englishman but for all Louis knew the Count had reported them and the gendarmes had lost the record. At this, Louis related gleefully, the police had been so embarrassed that it was clear that losing papers was not unknown.
Gilbert's comment had been brief and acute: clearly the authorities were not too concerned about the Englishman and accepted that he had moved on. Much more important, they did not realize that he was the Captain Ramage who had played such havoc with their ships in the previous war; if they thought he had been a guest of the Count, then strict precautions would be taken at Brest. This had not been the case, he said with a grin, at the barrières.
Ramage had been momentarily startled by Gilbert's use of the word 'previous', but of course he was right: that war had begun in February 1793 and ended officially with the signing of the Treaty in April last year, 1801. After eighteen months' peace Britain had now declared war, obviously alarmed by French preparations, but it was another war. What would it be called? The last one had gone on long enough, but with Bonaparte in possession of a huge army - it was said that he could mobilize a million men - how the devil could Britain alone (she had fought most of the last war alone) defeat him? The Royal Navy could only fight where there was water enough to float ships.
He cursed his daydreaming; once again Gilbert, Louis and Sarah were watching him and waiting, as though expecting brilliant ideas to spout from his mouth like water from a firehose the moment men started working the pump handles. He shook his head in a meaningless gesture and, taking Sarah's hand, led the way to their rooms. As soon as he had shut the door she poured water from the big jug into the porcelain basin on the washstand.