Watching the wax carefully, he moved the blade away for a moment and then slid it under again. He crouched over the seal like a cat about to pounce, hiding it from Ramage’s sight. Suddenly the spatula was tossed aside again and Staffer was blowing hard at the seal.
He then stood upright and reached for the satchel. 'Any of these other letters interest you, sir?' When Ramage shook his head he put them back in the satchel and pointed at the dispatch. 'Pick it up and look if you want, sir; the wax has set now. All ready for the Minister, it is!'
He was not exaggerating: the red wax was adhering once again to both sides, and Ramage saw that Stafford had judged it perfectly, softening just enough of the wax to make it stick together but not enough to affect the impression of the seal.
The Cockney was holding the satchel open, but before Ramage had time to put the letter in he tipped the other letters out again, closed the flap and locked it. Then he put the satchel flat on the table and punched it with a clubbing movement, both hands clasped together. The blow was heavy enough to flatten the satchel, and as he opened the lock again and replaced the letters he said: 'Worth knowing, that. If I'd 'ad trouble with the seal, we could've put all the letters together so the seals line up, and then jumped on the satchel. That would've cracked all the wax. Wiv every seal broken, the clerks in Paris would reckon the lieutenant's 'orse must 'ave sat on the satchel. Not very bright, clerks isn't.'
He lifted the candle to illuminate the inside of the drawer, took out his set of picklocks, and picked up the satchel. ‘If you'd like to keep an ear open for anyone comin' hup the stairs, sir, I'll take the 'tenant's bag back. We all right for time?'
Ramage looked at his watch. 'Twenty-one minutes from the time I came in. Where did he hide the satchel?'
Stafford laughed dryly. "Very horiginal, our 'tenant. Hid it under the bed!'
It was nearly midnight before Louis returned to the room. Ramage and Stafford, lying on their beds, heard the lieutenant-de-vaisseau and the smuggler stumbling up the stairs, joking and guffawing in the confidential and noisy manner of men who had spent the evening getting drunk together. Louis escorted the lieutenant to his room, said good night with a flourish, and stumbled back towards his own room. Ramage heard the lieutenant's door shut, and a moment later their own door opened.
'How is the sick man?' Louis asked loudly in French.
'A little better, if you mean me. My foreman is much better - and hungry!'
'I thought so,' Louis said drunkenly, ‘wait a minute . . .'
They heard him stumble down the stairs again, to return with a jug in one hand, two bowls in the other and a loaf of bread tucked under his arm. Once he had pushed the door shut it was obvious he was as sober as when Ramage had left him at the table; the drunkenness was an act.
'Enough broth for both of you,' he said, putting it on the table. 'With the landlord's compliments. Now, how did it go?' he asked Ramage quietly. 'I made sure the lieutenant was drunk when he went to bed, just in case!'
Ramage and Stafford sat down at the table as Louis served the soup and broke the loaf into pieces. 'The suckling pig was excellent,' he chuckled. 'The lieutenant was as appreciative as myself. He was critical of the sole - as became a naval officer, perhaps - and as a true Norman he approved the onion soup.'
Absent-mindedly he extracted two spoons from his pocket, handed them round, and sat down opposite Ramage. He was obviously anxious to hear their news but both Ramage and Stafford were too busy with the broth to pay much attention. Stafford finished the bowl and eyed the jug hopefully. 'Some left,' Louis said. 'More for you, sir?' Ramage shook his head and nodded towards Stafford.
Leaving Stafford to finish off the soup with noisy gusto, Ramage took his notes, smoothed them out on the table, and said in English: 'Stafford did an excellent job: we - er, borrowed - the satchel for fifteen minutes. There were sixteen letters in it, and a dispatch from Vice-Admiral Bruix to the Minister of Marine Citizen Forfait . . .' Ramage could not resist pausing to tantalize the Frenchman,
'Were you able ...?'
'Stafford opened the seal and -'
'But was he able to close it again?' Louis interrupted anxiously.
' - and after I'd read the dispatch he sealed it again so that the clerk who applied the original wax would never know Stafford has - like you - skills not normally found in a sailor,
'The dispatch,' Louis prompted.
'Ah yes -' Ramage tapped the paper, 'most interesting. It seems that the Minister, on behalf of Bonaparte himself has just asked Bruix nearly the same questions that the British Admiralty wants answering: how many of the various types of vessels forming the Invasion Flotilla have been completed and are ready for sea; how many will be completed in a month's time; and the situation regarding the rest.
'Oh yes, and Admiral Bruix is having a great deal of trouble getting enough money to pay the carpenters and shipwrights at the various yards - all of whom are eleven weeks behind with their wages. And he is reminding the Minister that he has asked for more than 350 guns and carriages for the gunboats. They must be 24-pounders -'
'One for each gunboat,' Louis said.
'- exactly,' Ramage said, glancing at his notes. 'Here we are - seventy-three gunboats completed so far, and only nineteen ready for sea. No guns for the remaining fifty-four. Then he needs another 359 guns for the rest of the gunboats ordered by the First Consul. Then he says twenty-three barges have been launched but he has masts, sails and cordage for only eleven of them. All that bears out what we saw in Boulogne.'
Louis sucked his teeth. 'More than four hundred gunboats ordered, and guns for only nineteen . . . Masts, spars and sails for less than half the barges launched, and probably four times more are ordered . . . That's how this man Bonaparte seeks to challenge the British Navy, which has kept nearly every one of its ships at sea, winter and summer, for the past eight or nine years. Fill the gunboats with farmers' boys and clerks from the counting-houses and send them across the Channel,' he said, mimicking the Bonaparte portrayed by English cartoonists.
Ramage felt a great sympathy for the man, and noticed that Stafford was watching him curiously. By Bonaparte's standards, Louis was a traitor to France; but by the standards of men like Louis and the man with only one leg who was abandoned in the Alpine snows, it was Bonaparte and the new régime who were the traitors. What a dreadful position for men to be in, when they find their country's official enemies are their only friends ... As though all the jailbirds in Britain had suddenly seized control and, with their leader installed in St James's Palace, then set about making the country a safe place for thieves, murderers, panderers, blackmailers and sheepstealers to live in —and, the bitterest irony, did it all in the name of liberty, equality and the brotherhood of man.
Louis pointed at Ramage's notes, his finger emphasizing that they covered only one side of the page. 'Is that all Bruix reported? Surely it is not enough for your people!'
Ramage grinned. 'No, this is really only an acknowledgment of the Minister's request. I had the feeling that Admiral Bruix wanted to warn Citizen Forfait that the full report when it comes will not make cheerful reading for Bonaparte: he more than hints that the First Consul should be tactfully prepared in advance . . . And he's taking the opportunity to square his own yards, too, reminding Forfait that he has not received the guns, cordage, sailcloth and so forth that he has requested, quite apart from money to pay the workmen.'
'He'll need all the excuses he can think of, if the First Consul finds he has fallen behind schedule with the new Invasion Flotilla,' Louis commented sourly. 'And General Soult can abandon hope of ever getting a marshal's baton if the Army of England is not ready, right down to the last button and musket flint. But -' Louis hesitated, obviously still puzzled, 'what happens now?'