Rossi tapped the little table with his mug. 'So sad; Slushy; I cry for you. Poco tempo fa - not so long ago - you sell off the slush from the Triton's coppers to make the extra soldi; now you are the grand signor. Of course is dangerous; of course is not many friends. But the Navy, amico mio, is short of friends, too. The Triton after you waved goodbye - two, three times we are in battle. And a hurricane - Madonna! such wind - and we lose our masts and run on a reef. Yes, Slushy, I cry for you - on your saint's day.'
'Thanks,' Dyson grinned. 'That'll be a great comfort to my old mother, p'ticularly since she reckons the Devil's a Catholic. You want some more brandy in that mug?'
Before Rossi could reply, Ramage interrupted: 'What time do you intend sailing, Dyson?'
The seaman pulled out his watch. "Bout eleven, sir - in fact, won't 'arm any to leave earlier. We can go now. If you'd let my men pass down your seabags we can stow 'em and then get under way.'
He made no move as he put his watch away, and Ramage looked questioningly. 'Do you have any special orders for me, sir? I mean, is there anything I need to do a'fore we get under way?'
'Is anyone going on shore before we sail?' Ramage asked cautiously.
'No, sir; my two lads are coming with us - part of the trip, anyway.'
Unsure whether Dyson was deliberately talking in riddles or assumed he had guessed more than he had, Ramage decided to wait before asking any more important questions: Dyson seemed to be the kind of man of limited intelligence who thrived on mystery; who for various devious reasons made secrets from what others would regard as idle gossip or the kind of information imparted when passing the time of day,
'What exactly were you told had been arranged with the man at Studfall?' asked Ramage.
'No one seemed right to know. Take you and some men to Boulogne; stand by to bring you out again; mebbe bring some things back in between - reports and the like.'
Ramage felt relieved. 'That covers everything,' he said. 'How will you be able to stand by?'
'Smack'll be waiting in Boulogne 'arbour, sir,' Dyson said, his voice showing surprise that Ramage did not know that. ‘’Ow else can I be standing by?'
Ramage shook his head, trying to stifle his exasperation. 'Dyson, I don't know a dam' thing about how you people run your affairs, so you'd better -' He broke off. The devil take it; he had neither the wish nor the patience (and too much pride?) to squeeze Dyson like a lemon for drops of information.
CHAPTER SEVEN
By midnight the Marie was heading for Boulogne with the wind comfortably on the starboard quarter. Comfortably as far as steering her in the darkness was concerned, because the wind was far enough round that a few moments' inattention by the helmsman or an unexpectedly large swell wave coming up astern would not gybe her all standing, the heavy boom and gaff crashing over as the wind filled the mainsail on the other side.
As far as the Revenue officers in Folkestone and Dover were concerned, the smack Marie had sailed for a night's fishing and, as usual, was under the command of Thomas Smith, who was noted down in the Register of Ships in Dover as her owner and to whom had been issued, under the recent Smuggling Act, a special licence.
As its name indicated, the Act was intended to stamp out smuggling; but like most acts which Parliament in its wisdom passed with much talk and eventual self-congratulation, it was only a partial success (the Government's view) or an almost complete failure (the view of the Inspectors of Customs stationed round the coast). Thus the judgement of the Government and of the Customs was really the same, but a politician prefers to describe an almost complete failure in more positive terms as a partial success. Men under orders to enforce the law had to take a more realistic and thus more negative view.
So as far as the law was concerned, the Marie was going about her lawful business of fishing. She was more than a certain length and had a fixed bowsprit, so under the Act Thomas Smith, her registered owner, had to have a licence. He had a licence and was at all times ready to show it to any official duly authorized to demand its production.
The Act was an almost complete failure because the various experts concerned in drafting it would not (the view of the Inspectors of Customs) or could not (the subsequent excuse offered by the Government) interpret the appropriate requirements set out by the Board of Customs. Instead, Parliament passed an Act which was, as usual, a legal redundancy, and superbly upholstered with 'whereby', 'notwithstanding', 'heretofore' and other such words so beloved of anyone who ever used a heavy legal textbook to prop open a door on a windy day.
One did not have to be a boatbuilder to find the loopholes. The fixed bowsprit, for example. One boat could have a sliding bowsprit, which meant it could be run in (slid back out of the way, as a Customs Board member had patiently explained to one of the legal draftsmen working on the original Act), and put her into a certain category. Her otherwise identical sister ship could have holes drilled for a couple more bolts and, providing the nuts were tightened up, the bowsprit could be classified as fixed, putting her into another category requiring a licence.
To a boatbuilder it was a distinction without a difference - an hour's work with an awl and the supply of two Iong bolts, washers and nuts meant the owner decided whether his vessel had a fixed or a sliding bowsprit: it took only a matter of minutes to change from one to the other.
In the case of the Marie the real owner was a wise man: he knew the value of having a document to flourish at an official, whether the commander of a Revenue cutter or a naval frigate. 'What are you doing?' 'Fishing.' 'Prove you're not out here for smuggling!' 'Here's my licence allowing me to fish nine miles offshore . . .'
So the new Act modified an earlier one, the Hovering Act, which had at least given the Revenue men an excuse to act on suspicion. Any vessel waiting some distance off the coast was assumed to be 'hovering for an unlawful purpose.' Now, under the new Act, licences had to be issued to applicants unless a very good reason could be found for refusing them, and the effect was to legalize hovering, to the delight of men like the owners of the Marie and the chagrin of the Revenue officers.
Previously it had been enough to sight a vessel; the owner could later be charged with hovering. Now a vessel had to be caught smuggling - a far from easy job, since the larger smugglers were usually faster than the Revenue cutters - and searched for contraband, with the certainty that during the chase the smuggler would, if there was a risk of capture, quietly dump the contraband over the lee side, thus destroying any evidence and leaving himself with the excuse - should anyone claim that flight was proof of guilt - that he had fled because he thought the Revenue cutter was a French privateer.
At midnight Ramage knew very little more about Slushy Dyson's immediate intentions than he did before they slipped the mooring in Folkestone harbour. The two seabags of spare clothing and Rossi's bagpipes were in the cuddy, and Stafford and Rossi were already stretched out on the seats, fast asleep, along with the third man in Dyson's crew.
Thomas Smith, officially the owner and master of the Marie but, from the way he was treated by Dyson, no more than a hand, was at the tiller and to Ramage's surprise (until he remembered Dyson's reference to meeting another smack) steering a very careful compass course, cursing all the while that the wick of the tiny binnacle light had not been properly trimmed.