"Crete is larger than Corsica," Ramage said casually. "A squadron of cavalry, a few field guns and two bomb ketches are not going to make much impression. You'll probably meet a fleet there and go on somewhere else. Back to Egypt, perhaps ..."
Renouf looked alarmed at the mention of Egypt. The defeat of the French fleet there - Nelson had captured or burned eleven ships of the line out of thirteen - and Bonaparte's narrow escape (at a cost of abandoning his Army of Egypt to its fate) was still fresh in every Frenchman's memory, and the prospect that the Dix-Huit de Fructidor and the Brutus might be part of a new plan by Bonaparte to return to those scorching sands (even though the Royal Navy had quit the Mediterranean) did not appeal to him. Then he composed his face - it was an expression Ramage had often read in books, but he had never previously seen someone actually doing it. Clearly Renouf had suddenly realized the danger of letting a senior officer glimpse his feelings: charges of treason made as the result of a look, let alone a careless word, had led to a man making the short walk to the guillotine or the long voyage across the Atlantic to Devil's Island, just a few miles north of the Equator. "The convoy to Cayenne", meaning transportation, was as common an expression in France these days as "taking a ride in a tumbril" and "marrying the Widow" were for being guillotined.
Renouf saw that his companion was nodding and smiling understandingly, so no harm had been done, but the mention of Egypt was enough to turn a man's stomach. One could not trust such a fellow as this too far, however. He was from Paris, judging by his accent, or maybe from the Orléans area. Obviously once an aristo - Renouf could tell that from his voice. But he, or his family, must have done good work for the Revolution, or else paid a lot of money, to keep his head on his shoulders, and even more to have obtained and kept command of a ship like this frigate.
Renouf admitted that the ship was in good order: he had seen enough while being rowed over, and the decks were spotless: he had noticed that in the brief walk from the entry port to the companionway. As scrubbed as they always said English ships were!
Still, the damned man might at least offer him a drink. His mouth tasted as coppery as a moneylender's leather pouch. There was something he did not understand about this young man. He had the face of an aristo: high cheekbones, a slightly hooked nose, dark brown eyes very deep-set under thick eyebrows. Not really a French face - but then what was a French face? Long and narrow with crinkly black hair and a boasting tongue like a Gascon? Leathery, the body wiry, like a man from one of the provinces along the Pyrenees? Or stocky, round-faced from too much eating, like those living close to the Swiss border, neither men of the mountains nor the plains? There was no really typical Frenchman, but nevertheless this capitaine de vaisseau looked different. Perhaps his mother was a foreigner.
Renouf decided that the eyes were disconcerting: they seemed to look right through you. The two scars over the right eyebrow must be sword cuts - one newer than the other. He held his left arm as though the muscles were slightly wasted. He must be recovering from a wound. Renouf always warned his men that if you had a wound in a limb, you could say goodbye to it. At least this fellow had escaped the surgeon's saw.
This frigate, Renouf thought, was not one of the two that were supposed to meet him at Porto Ercole since the Captain knew nothing of his orders. Curious that there should be a third frigate in such a small area. Perhaps this fellow was trying to catch him out; trying to make a case against him for wasting time? No, there was no doubt about the Captain's surprise when he read the second set of orders.
Renouf was startled by a double knock at the door, which had been left open. He heard uneven footsteps coming down the companionway and a moment later the lieutenant commanding the Brutus entered. The fool was drunk; Renouf spotted that immediately although someone who did not know Michelet so well might take a few minutes to realize it.
Renouf stood up at once. "Captain," he said hastily, "may I present Citizen Jean-Pierre Michelet, commanding the Brutus, who is not only a fine seaman but a man of considerable skill in the use of the mortars."
Renouf had not fooled the Captain, who nodded towards a chair and said sarcastically: "Citizen Michelet had better sit down: he finds the ship is rolling rather heavily at the moment."
Certainly Michelet had walked in as though trying to keep his feet in a rough sea, and now he turned and headed for the chair. Renouf guessed that Michelet could see three chairs and hoped he would sit down in the middle one. But the drunken lieutenant must have seen four and sat on the third because a moment later he fell over backwards. The startled look on his face before he hit the deck made Renouf think of a man who found himself falling over a precipice.
The Captain did not move, did not smile and did not start cursing. Nor did he threaten Michelet. In fact he did not even look down at him as the man struggled to his feet.
"Does he often do that?"
The eyebrows were slightly raised and the question might be facetious, or it could be serious. The voice was quiet enough. Renouf knew it could bode ill for the two bomb ketches, because commanding officers had been court-martialled for much less. Travelled in a tumbril for less, because Michelet was on duty, and sleeping or being drunk on duty was punishable by death.
"Er, no sir." He had not intended to say "sir", but the Captain had an odd effect on him. Renouf thought of him as "sir" and the old phrase had slipped out. "No Citizen, but we have had a long voyage and I'm afraid we all celebrated last night."
Renouf tried a conspiratorial grin and hoped that the Captain would not smell the fresh wine on Michelet's breath nor appreciate that Lieutenant Renouf shared the responsibility for Michelet's condition, even though he was himself now sober. There was a noticeable tremor of the hands, a redness of the eye, a queasiness of the stomach, but he was sober, the smell of wine on his breath being old and stale from last night's wine. Admittedly he had been pulling a cork when a seaman shouted into his cabin that there was a frigate alongside, and then he vaguely remembered a conversation with someone on board a strange ship the previous night.
"Citizen Michelet reeks of fresh wine; in fact the front of his shirt is still damp from where he spilled it."
Again, Renouf was puzzled because the Captain's voice was a straightforward observation and gave no indication of his view of Michelet's absurd behaviour. The Captain was in fact talking to Michelet through him, as though Michelet when drunk spoke a foreign language only understood by Renouf, who was expected to translate.
"Has the lieutenant brought his orders?"
Renouf relayed the question by repeating it and hurried across the cabin to collect them as Michelet wrested them from his pocket.
The strange captain opened both sheets, glanced over them to make sure they were the same as the others, and handed them to Renouf, who went back to return them to Michelet and made sure he accidentally stood on the man's foot, hoping the sharp pain would help sober him, but Michelet swore violently, and there was little doubt that the Captain saw what had happened. Nor did the episode help sober up Michelet, who now he was sitting properly in a chair looked pop-eyed, like a freshly landed cod.
"When was the lieutenant last drunk while in command of the Brutus?"
What a question, Renouf thought, as he tried to think of an answer. Michelet was very drunk at least every other day, fine weather or foul, and slightly drunk all the time, and of course a captain was always in command of his ship, unless he was away on leave or official business. Because they had left Brest four months ago, Michelet must have been drunk one hundred and twenty times, if not more, because anniversaries of great victories, birthdays and even landfalls were good enough reasons for him to have extra celebrations. The worst of it was he forced some of his officers and petty officers to join him. One petty officer who came from Caen (which, being the centre of Calvados, meant the man was hardly a stranger to liquor) had finally gone off his head, leaping over the side one night screaming that the guns had broken loose and were running after him. That had been hushed up and described in the log as an accident in which the petty officer had been killed by a fall down a hatchway.