The five of them squatted round the lantern and began eating thankfully as Dyson tore cold roast chicken apart with his fingers and shared it out. The cold potatoes had been roasted in their skins, sliced in half when cold and a piece of butter put inside.
'Greasy p'tater, my mother calls it,' Dyson said as he offered one to Ramage. 'But don't eat it too fast, sir, else it lodges on the breastbone an' gives yer what for.'
They had just finished eating and were wiping greasy fingers on their trousers when there was a hail from the darkness.
'Here 'e comes,' Dyson said matter-of-factly. 'The new master of the lerbong b'tow Marie.'
It took Ramage a moment to realize that Dyson was merely massacring the French language. Would the new master of le bon bateau Marie be French?
The man who scrambled up after throwing the painter on board and pausing only a few moments to lash the oars was indeed French; and as his face was lit up by the lantern on the deck, throwing the eyes into shadow, Ramage saw that by comparison Dyson's face was one which inspired confidence and trust, but only by comparison.
It was as if a wilful Nature had created a face which was the exact opposite of Dyson's: the Frenchman, introduced to Ramage with a brief, 'This 'ere's Louis,' looked like a pumpkin into which had been pressed, too far apart, two black buttons for eyes, two holes which were nostrils - no nose as such was apparent - and two narrow sausages which were his lips, and between which a furry tongue popped out in a grotesque circular motion every minute or so. Occasionally the lips parted to reveal uneven and blackened teeth.
Louis was about five feet four inches tall and his body, a barrel stuck on two short legs, reminded Ramage of a performing bear sitting up and begging while his master played a fiddle. Louis gave the impression of enormous strength. In contrast to his short legs, his arms were long, and he stood with a thumb jammed in his belt, arms akimbo, tongue appearing to circle briefly, like an obscene rodent poking an inquiring head out of its lair.
The Frenchman stared curiously at Ramage for a few moments, and then said to Dyson in heavily-accented English: 'We get the mainsail up, eh?'
From the way he spoke, it was clear that Louis, if not Dyson's superior in the smuggling hierarchy, was at least an equal, but it was equally clear that Dyson resented the fact.
'Got the papers?' he demanded.
The Frenchman tapped a pocket and repeated, 'We get the mainsail up, eh?'
Dyson swung round and walked towards the mainmast. 'Give us 'n 'and,' he said to Stafford and Rossi. 'That throat halyard just about creases me up.'
Jackson threw off the gaskets and as the mainsail was hoisted Ramage noticed that Rossi was hauling down on the throat halyard and Stafford the peak, while Dyson was standing back encouraging them. And that showed more clearly than anything else that Dyson, the Marsh Man, was considerably more artful than Stafford, the sharp-tongued Cockney. With those two vying with each other to avoid the hard work it was inevitable that the good-natured Rossi should end up with the throat halyard. But all the native shrewdness and tricks learned during a childhood spent in Genoa emerged the moment Rossi thought he was 'being took advantage of’, a phrase he had learned from Stafford. With the main halyards belayed, Ramage was not surprised to see that Dyson and Stafford found themselves hoisting both staysail and jib while Rossi walked round, explaining loudly that he was 'tending sheets'.
Louis, hunched over the binnacle, pushed the tiller over as soon as the Marie had steerage way, and grunted his thanks as Ramage trimmed the mainsheet.
Dyson came aft and squatted down on the deck with an exaggerated sigh of weariness. Ramage thought for a moment and then asked: 'Well, what do we do when the Marie goes into Boulogne?'
Dyson glanced up in surprise as he opened the lantern and blew out the flame. In the sudden deeper darkness he said: 'Do sir? Why, we let Louis go on shore and shout loudly there's no fish, an' he takes the papers to the port captain. Then, when it's dark again, you all go on shore. You'll have to stay down in the cuddy while it's still daylight.'
Steady, Ramage told himself; the tone of Dyson's voice made it clear the man was stating what he considered to be obvious.
'I thought you said the Marie had to be back in Folkestone by dawn ...'
'But she will be, sir!'
Ramage struggled to speak quietly; to keep the edge out of his voice - an edge which Louis, if his English was bad might well misinterpret.
'Dyson, one ship can't be in two places at once. The Marie can't be in Boulogne and Folkestone at the same time.'
'But she can,' Dyson protested and then, as Jackson began to laugh, hastily explained: 'There's two Maries, sir; habsolutely hidentical they are. See, it don't matter which one goes into what port, perviding the master's got the right set of papers. The authorities don't know, o' course!'
'Of course,' Ramage said casually; so casually that only Jackson knew how angry he was with himself. 'So Louis will have caught enough fish for Thomas Smith to run into Folkestone market.'
'Five stone,' Louis grunted, revealing his knowledge of English.
'But - you said Louis reports we caught nothing when we get to Boulogne. You don't intend to try on the way in?'
'What, an' get the stink of fish all over us?' Dyson made it clear that as far as he was concerned, the idea was unthinkable, but he added: 'Mind you, if Jacko or someone wants to try his 'and with an 'ook and line ...’
'The French port authorities - won't they get suspicious?' Ramage asked cautiously.
'Never 'ave so far; we pay 'em enough to take their suspicions somewhere else. It's only the English Revenoo men we 'ave to worry about. They're all too stoopid to take bribes.'
'Or too honest,' Ramage said.
'Same thing,' Dyson said bitterly. 'Gawd save us from ‘onest fools. 'Ere, Jacko, in that locker there you'll find a board with 'Boolong' written on it. Take it out and change it for the one that says 'Dover' on the transom. Just slips up and down vertical, like a sliding window.'
Dawn found the Marie running into Boulogne with a Tricolour flying from the leech of the mainsail and only Louis and Dyson on deck. For the previous hour both men had taken it in turns to search the horizon carefully with a night glass.
'It can get like a main highway out here,' Dyson had explained. 'So many of our frigates and cutters keeping a watch. We usually time it so we've got 'em east of us as dawn breaks, so they show up against the lighter sky. That gives us a chance to dodge. Still, quiet enough this morning.'
Louis invited Ramage to watch at the hatch so he would recognize Boulogne from seaward again: there had been many changes, he said, pointing out the stone forts of Pointe de la Crèche and Fort de l'Heurt, and several batteries round the harbour and on the cliffs and hills surrounding it.
'Barges,' he said, pointing at the rows of vessels anchored close inshore and almost hidden in a gloom only lightly washed by pink from a sun still below the horizon. 'Gun-boats, and sloops too. More there - and there. They build there -' he pointed at the shore, where what seemed at first to be several wooden buildings on the sloping foreshore proved to be vessels under construction on crude slipways. 'Very slow. No money, no wood, no shipwrights. No sails and no ropes either. Even when money and wood, still slow. Butchers’ and bakers' apprentices is all they have, twenty old men and boys to every shipwright, and sometimes conscripts. The Admiral - he goes crazy. Much trouble when the Corsican makes a visit . . .'
He pushed a hip against the tiller and pointed again: 'You see the camps? Five so far - have you ever seen so many tents?'
Boulogne seemed as martial as Folkestone was peaceful, and Ramage felt a brief dismay. This was what the lists had said, but somehow he had not actually pictured what they had told him. Twenty barges - yes, it didn't seem much when written down, but the devil of a sight it looked, with them moored bow to stern! The Norman - for Ramage had at last managed to identify his accent - made no secret of his contempt for Bonaparte, a contempt that seemed both deep-seated and genuine. As he stared at the rows of barges, Ramage said: ‘Do you think Admiral Bruix is ready to sail his flotilla to England?'