'We are two ship's lengths from her,' Auguste muttered. 'How close before we begin our turn to pass?'
'One,' Ramage said. That would be thirty yards, or so. Close enough for Ramage to see what was happening on deck; close enough for any French seaman to see a fishing boat passing. Or perhaps to show whether or not rum fumes would allow French matelots to see that far.
'No lights showing at the stern - what does.that mean?' asked Auguste.
'They're not using the captain's cabin.'
Sarah said: 'There are several men on deck sitting round the lantern - do you see them, Auguste?'
The Frenchman grunted and then counted aloud as an explanation why he had said nothing. '... three, four ... five. Two missing. Are they guarding the prisoners?'
'They could be fetching more rum or lying drunk on the deck,' Louis said. 'Perhaps we should row round for another hour and keep counting. As soon as seven have fallen down drunk, we can board!'
Ramage only just managed to stop himself making the usual joke about one Englishman being equal to three Frenchmen. These men, apart from not being trained seamen, were good: they had the right spirit and they hated the régime. Do not, he told himself, underestimate hate: it drives men to show the kind of bravery they never thought themselves capable of, yet it can just as easily warp their judgement.
'She's close on our bow - we're just beginning our run down her starboard side,' Auguste reported to Ramage, his voice punctuated by the creaking of the four oars, the slap of the oar blades in the water, and hiss of the stem as the boat drove on.
'Ho! Ohé, that boat!' The hail from the Murex's deck was definite: the voice was sober. 'Answer!' Ramage told Auguste, whose voice carried better and had a local accent.
'Ho yourself!' Auguste shouted back. 'I don't like rosbifs shouting at me.' His voice sounded genuinely offended.
'We're not rosbifs!'the voice answered indignantly. 'We are honest Frenchmen guarding the rosbifs.'
'You speak French like a rosbif,' Auguste said sourly.
'Watch your tongue: I come from Besançon. Now, why do you fish so close to us?'
'Ha!' Auguste called back contemptuously. 'So you think you own the whole sea, eh? Why, you are even standing on the deck of a rosbif ship, not a good French ship.'
'Answer: why do you fish so close?' This time it was another, harsher voice: Ramage thought he recognized it as belonging to the bosun.
'To catch fish!' exclaimed Auguste. 'You're no seaman if you can't see that!'
'What do you mean? I'm the bosun; I command this ship!'
'For the time being,' Auguste said contemptuously. 'But you've not yet learned that fish always gather round a ship at anchor. They feed off all the weed and things growing on the bottom. They like the shade on a sunny day -'
'And from the light of the moon too, I suppose. Afraid it will drive them mad, eh?'
'And they like to eat the scraps you all throw over the side. Salt beef and salt pork may not seem very tasty to you, but to a fish it is a banquet.'
By now the boat was within a few yards of the Murex's side.
'To save all this rowing, with my back giving me trouble again,' Ramage said in a lugubrious voice, 'can't we fish from your decks? Then our hooks go down where the fish are thickest.'
The bosun answered quickly. 'Yes - but you have to give us a quarter of your catch!'
'You're a hard man,' Ramage complained. 'Five wives and eleven children depend on what we catch.'
'You should have thought of that before you got married,' the bosun sneered. 'A quarter of your catch and I'll let you on board.'
'Oh very well,' Ramage said grudgingly, and Auguste, in an appropriately officious voice, gave the orders to the men at the oars which brought the boat alongside.
Ramage murmured: 'Pistols if you can hide them; otherwise just knives.'
'The bait bucket,' Sarah whispered. 'Put the pistols in the bait bucket and I'll carry it with my scarf on top.'
Louis called up to the bosun: 'I'm coming on board with the painter while they coil our fishing lines.' He touched Ramage to get his approval.
Ramage turned to Sarah. 'You go after Louis and flirt with the bosun. I'll bring the bucket and give it to you to hold as soon as I can.'
He glanced up and saw that none of the French guards were looking over the rail. Swiftly he pushed a knife and its sheath down the inside of his trousers and made sure the belt was tight enough to hold it. It was a pity that the cutlasses would have to be left under the thwarts, but Gilbert and Albert were putting the loaded pistols into the bucket with the deftness of fishwives packing sprats. Sprat - improbably, he remembered, it was the same word in both English and French.
'Your scarf, madame,' Gilbert whispered, and Ramage said loudly, 'Now are we ready? Gilbert - supposing you go up, and then you and Louis can help the lady at the top.'
As soon as Gilbert started climbing the battens fitted like thin steps up the Murex's side, Sarah began cursing, using words which would be familiar to a fisherman's wife but which Ramage was startled to find that she not only knew but used as though they were commonplace.
'Such steps - why no rope ladder? In this skirt? Do the rosbifs never have women on board? It's fortunate I wear no corset. Look the other way, you lechers; I am tucking my skirt in my belt.'
She grabbed the hem of her skirt and Ramage glimpsed long slim legs as she tucked in the cloth. 'This will occupy their thoughts!' she murmured to Ramage, and before he had time to reply she had grabbed the highest batten she could reach and started climbing.
'Forgive me, captain,' Auguste murmured to Ramage, and then called in a raucous voice to Louis and Gilbert on the Murex's deck: 'Why you went aloft too soon! From here one sees la citoyenne quite differently!'
'Keep your eyes down, you old dog,' Ramage said hotly in what he hoped was the correct tone for an aggrieved husband, but he found himself continuing to watch Sarah's progress. A young woman's legs in the moonlight: certainly they did not help concentration. And since the sight made his own throat tighten he could guess the effect on Auguste.
A jab in the ribs from the bucket and a casual, 'Your turn, and tell Louis and Gilbert to stand by to take the lines,' came from Auguste.
The lines! He had forgotten all about the fishing lines. The prospect of fishermen arriving without them was only slightly less absurd than the idea of a Royal Navy post-captain on his honeymoon climbing up the side of a surrendered brig holding a bait bucket filled with loaded pistols concealed by his wife's headscarf.
He slung the greasy rope handle of the wooden pail over his left arm and began the climb. Usually sideboys held out sideropes for the captain, and the first lieutenant waited on deck ready to give a smart salute. This time there would be a surly French bosun ...
The bucket slid down his arm and hit the ship's side with a thud. Ramage's heart seemed to stop beating for a moment, but the pistols did not make a metallic clunk and anyway, he thought sheepishly, there's no one up there watching me. But as he slid the handle back to the crook of his elbow he saw that now there was: not the bosun but the man who presumably was the sentry.
Ramage's head came level with the deck, and in the moonlight he saw Sarah a few feet away, talking to the bosun. Amidships and sitting on forms round the grating, on which stood a lantern and a wicker-covered demijohn of rum, several seamen were watching idly.
As soon as the bosun saw Ramage he left Sarah and came over. 'You came with the potatoes,' he said, his voice only slightly slurred by the rum. He had not shaved for several days or washed - it seemed to Ramage for even longer. His jersey and trousers had the greasy and rumpled look that showed he usually slept 'all standing', the British seaman's phrase for sleeping fully clothed.