Omelette. He who shows this is my uncle, and can be trusted. Write how I may help you.
That was all, but the first word gave him the clue to its writer.
Jeanne Terray, who had shown her friendship on board the Vengeur, was risking a great deal in sending that note. His impulse was to take no advantage of it, but a moment's thought showed him that his duty was to make use of her offer. There was very little time for planning, and if the germ of a plan had not been in his mind already he could not have seized this opportunity.
Pretending to have some difficulty in making the pen write, he contrived to write--in addition to his name in the book--a line on the slip of paper:
Please send our laundry, Bale Seventeen, and receive my thanks.
Monsieur Rebuffat closed the book as he finished writing. His face gave no sign that he had seen Septimus's message. He was turning to go when the midshipman remembered something.
"Pray inform me, monsieur," he said quickly, "whether we unfortunates will be able to see anything of the carnival from our prison window when it takes place--is it next week or this?"
"It takes place tomorrow," the clerk replied coldly. "And since it is a water carnival you English rascals will see nothing of it from your window. Guard, I have finished here. Precede me."
The heavy door closed behind them, leaving the prisoners in darkness. But there was a gleam of hope in Midshipman Quinn's mind now. Jeanne's uncle, Jacques Rebuffat, had been careful to show no favour to the Englishmen, but he had taken the message and he had told Septimus two useful things. The carnival was tomorrow, and it was a water carnival--that meant it would be held on the waters of the harbour or on the quays.
If Jeanne Terray was as quick-witted as he thought her, she would know that "Bale Seventeen" referred to a certain bale from the cargo of her brig Blanche. With the contents of that bale in his hands, Mr. Quinn told himself, he and his men would have a chance--a very small chance--of escape.
Septimus told nothing of his plan to the six seamen that night. It might prove impossible for Jeanne to smuggle Bale Seventeen to them by the method he had suggested in his message, and he did not want to raise their hopes. But while they snored on the straw that night the midshipman was wakeful, planning all the details of an attempt at escape which depended on the arrival of their "laundry" next day. He also spent some time in wondering what had caused Jeanne Terray to endeavour to help them. Doubtless the rudeness of the Vengeur's captain, and his own polite treatment of the girl when she was his prisoner had something to do with it, but he concluded that she must be secretly a Royalist and against Napoleon's rule.
Towards morning he snatched a little sleep, but at first light he was peering out of the window of the prison. By getting his face close to the right-hand bars he could see down to the left. As he had thought, their first-floor room was at the corner of the building, and down below he could see the corner of the twelve-foot wall with its hedge of spikes. Beyond that corner was a space between it and the blank face of a building. There was evidently a narrow alley running along that side of the prison wall, and the space was its entrance from the Rue de la Ferronnerie. There was almost sure to be a way round the back of the prison building. Another small section of his plan dropped into place.
When the bang on the door announced the arrival of their meagre breakfast, he looked up eagerly. But there was no large parcel-only the usual bread and oatmeal broth. When this had been eaten, Septimus gave the men his first hint that there was a possibility of action.
"You may not know it," he told them, "but when we arrived in this prison we demanded that some of our clothing should be washed. If it comes back during the day, show no surprise."
He would say nothing more, despite their pleas. Young as he was, he had learned that these seamen were very like children easily depressed by disappointment. The plan must wait until he knew that its materials were at hand.
The hours passed. Outside the prison it was a brilliant day, and distant sounds of music and shouting told that the water carnival was in progress. The afternoon was half gone when they heard outside their door the voice of their guard protesting and an angry female voice answering.
"But see here, madame," came the guard's growling tones, "I saw no laundry go out from here! Show me what's in that bundIe! "
"What do I care if you saw nothing, blind bat?" shouted the woman. "It's the laundry for Room Six and here's the Governor's clerk's signed pass stuck on it! Isn't that good enough for you?"
"Oh, all right then!" Septimus, listening eagerly, gasped with relief as he heard that. "Heave it into the room and get out, vixen!"
The door opened, showing the usual threatening musket, and a bundle wrapped in an old tablecloth was thrown in.
"Maybe you dirty English will smell a bit sweeter now!" snarled the guard, and the door clanged shut again.
Septimus gestured to the seamen to be silent until the footsteps of the guard and the laundress had echoed away down the passage.
Then he untied the bundle. Inside it was the bale-Bale Seventeen-which he had seen listed on the Blanche's papers as "Theatrical Costumes for Marseilles". Five minutes later, with the six men clustered round him and listening eagerly, he was outlining his plan of escape. And the rest of that afternoon was spent in rehearsing the first part of the plan and ensuring that every man knew his part.
The prisoners' supper was usually brought at sunset, but on this day-perhaps because the off-duty guards wished to go to the carnival-the thunderous knock on the door came half-an-hour earlier than usual. The two guards had an invariable system to guard against any attack on them by the prisoners. The door of the prisoners' room opened outwards, so there was no possibility of anyone hiding behind the door to surprise and overcome a guard. Thus, the door was first pulled open to reveal a guard with musket cocked and presented, standing just outside the door. Then the second guard would enter carrying the tray of food while the musket-muzzle swung to cover any prisoner who made a suspicious movement. Midshipman Quinn's plan had to make the most of this situation. It had to seize the first half-second of time when the door opened, and it had to divert the attention of the man with the musket immediately.
So, when the supper-time banging on the door was followed by the flinging open of the door, the armed guard was astounded at the sight before him. A gigantic lady some nine feet high, in bonnet and gown, was standing in the centre of the room. It was Septimus Quinn seated on the shoulders of Tod Beamish, whose body was hidden by an ingenious arrangement of female garments, but the guard was not to know that. He was not to know much more, in fact. For, profiting by that moment of incredulous astonishment, two of the five men who had been flattened against the wall inside the door sprang upon him. Simultaneously the other three darted past him and dealt with his comrade.
Every movement of this had been practised over and over again and it was all done in a very few seconds. Frith brought the edge of his granite-hard hand in a chopping blow to the base of the armed guard's skull while Dobbs wrested the musket from him in one savage snatch. The man collapsed with no more than a groan and Frith caught him as he fell. Meanwhile, O'Neill had stifled the second guard's yell in the nick of time and held him while Wallace's heavy fist stunned him, the tray of food being neatly caught by Eccles and saved from crashing to the floor. In six seconds from the moment the door had opened it was being gently closed again and deft hands were already at work gagging and binding the unconscious guards with strips made from the "theatrical costumes". The first part of the plan had succeeded completely.