Ramage began to feel a chill creeping over him that had nothing to do with the fact that the sun had long since set: he pictured the police of France as a great octopus bestriding the country, a tentacle reaching into every town, with the suckers representing villages and police posts along the roads, and although unseen, touching the lives of every man and woman in the country.
Louis was watching him closely. 'I think at last you understand, mon ami,' he said quietly, and Ramage nodded.
Stafford's grin was infectious. As he held out the letter after opening the seal on the cover Ramage saw that the Cockney was completely unworried: there was not a trace of perspiration on his brow, his hand was steady, and he had worked quickly but without hurrying. Deftly, Ramage thought; that was the word. As he took the letter, Ramage made sure he did not have to hold out his own hand too far for too long: he knew it was trembling slightly. He knew he would laugh a little too loudly if Stafford made a joke - in fact a laugh might well sneak out as a giggle.
With great deliberation he put the letter to one side without glancing at it, drew the sheets of notepaper in front of him, placed the inkwell near his right hand and inspected the tip of the quill pen. Unhurriedly - although he knew the whole performance was for himself, because Stafford was completely absorbed with the watermarks in the paper used as an envelope - he unfolded the letter and began reading, almost skimming through it the first time. He found this was the best way of getting the 'atmosphere' of a letter written in a foreign language, relying on a second or third reading to yield the precise details.
One thing was immediately so clear as to be startling: Citoyen Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait, Minister of the Marine and Colonies, was writing an extremely chilly reply to Admiral Bruix; far colder and more formal than Ramage would have expected, having read the Admiral's dispatch to the Minister. It might be Forfait's manner - in which case would the Admiral (who obviously knew him well) have written what was by comparison a friendly dispatch?
He read the Minister's letter again more slowly, lingering over some of the phrases and examining them. Hmm . . . there was no doubt about it; the letter was intended to be cold. Ramage had the feeling that someone (presumably Bonaparte himself) was very angry with Bruix's request - repeated request - for money, while the Minister was alarmed at Bruix's warning that the full report on the Invasion Flotilla would prove disappointing to the First Consul when it arrived in Paris.
Citoyen Forfait was more than alarmed; he was obviously a very frightened man. Ramage saw him as a nervous individual who understood the danger of standing between the First Consul and one of his admirals. When things were going well, it was a splendid position for an ambitious politician, since he received the praise and could hold on to as much as he wished before passing on the remainder to the admiral concerned. When things were going badly, Bonaparte's wrath - and from what Louis said, the Corsican had more than his share of his island's hot temper - landed fairly and squarely on the minister's unprotected head. From the tone of Bruix's dispatch Ramage guessed that the First Consul's original orders for the construction and commissioning of the Invasion Flotilla had been impossible from the outset. He pictured an anxious Minister nodding his head, bowing his way out of the First Consul's presence, and rushing off to give the orders to Bruix...
Ramage glanced at his watch and realized that he was wasting time.
Hurriedly he began making notes. Admiral Bruix's request for fifty-four guns at once for the gunboats already completed, and 359 more for the remaining gunboats that were ordered, 'had been noted.' However, Citoyen Bruix would have observed, the Minister wrote icily, that there was a general shortage of all sizes of naval guns, particularly 24-pounders, and the foundries were, at the First Consul's express order, working overtime. However, there were seventeen 24-pounder guns and carriages at Antwerp, and orders had been sent for them to be taken by sea to Boulogne. Since most of the coast between Antwerp and Boulogne fell within Citoyen Bruix's command, the Minister hoped that the British would not be allowed to intercept the vessels carrying them.
The request for money was ill-timed, Forfait wrote, and the First Consul, when told of it by the Controller-General (since the request had to be made to the Treasury, 'there being no funds available at the Ministry'), had given instructions that Citoyen Bruix would be responsible for ensuring that the shipyards continued to give of their best 'even though accounts were outstanding,' and that the workmen did not leave their jobs. Any man that did - or threatened to - would be conscripted immediately. Citoyen Bruix was to issue a warning to that effect. In the meantime the First Consul waited 'with unconcealed impatience' for the complete report he had requested.
Ramage handed the letter back to Stafford as he scribbled the last of his notes. He had been careful to copy whole sentences where necessary - he knew that although Lord Nelson might accept his word that as a precaution Citizen Forfait was putting out an anchor to windward, their Lordships at the Admiralty most certainly would not. Nor could he blame them, he thought, as he watched Stafford carefully folding the paper and beginning to heat the spatula again; Their Lordships would also find it impossible to picture Lieutenant Ramage and Ordinary Seaman Stafford juggling with candle, spatula and sealing-wax and reading the correspondence between Vice-Admiral Bruix and Bonaparte's Minister of Marine - in fact even Lieutenant Ramage was finding it hard to believe, though Will Stafford, Ordinary Seaman, seemed to take it in his stride.
As soon as the letter to Bruix was sealed, Stafford put it back in the satchel and vanished from the room to return it to its resting place under the lieutenant-de-vaisseau's bed. Ramage took another sheet of paper and began his report to Lord Nelson. He had already decided that he must write it on the assumption that he might not get back to England to make a personal report: a euphemistic way of avoiding having to admit that the French might catch him and put his neck under the guillotine blade. He must also write it in such a way that if it was intercepted it would not reveal how the Minister's mail had been read.
'An opportunity presented itself to read the reply made to the sender of the dispatch referred to in my first letter,' he wrote carefully. From that, Lord Nelson would know it was Forfait's reply to Bruix, since he had given both names in his previous report, which had already reached Jackson safely. He glanced up as Stafford slid back into the room, and then continued writing.
Stafford sat down on his bed, wondering if he would ever stop feeling hungry. He stifled a belch, but tasted the medicine yet again. The damned Frogs: he had not trusted them the moment the Marie arrived in Boulogne, and nothing had happened since to make him change his mind.
Marvellous how the Captain gabbled away in the lingo: he sounded as French as Louis, except when he was talking Italian, of course. To hear him and the Marchesa rattling on was an education - they talked so fast they certainly got their money's worth for every breath they took! It was funny how being shut up in this room was getting the Captain rattled. Unlike him - he was usually ... Stafford cudgelled his memory for a phrase he had heard one of the Captain's friends use: 'My deah Remmedge, y're disgustin'ly cheerful!' He usually was, too. In fact, when they went into action the more dangerous it got the more cheerful he became. Jacko once said that if the Captain ever died in battle, he would probably be laughing his head off.
Stafford glanced across to see him writing, his face in profile against the flickering candle. He looked very strained these days. Dark patches under his eyes - squinting, too, so the two vertical creases between the inboard ends of his eyebrows look like the fairloads for heavy rope. And blinking, as he did when he was thinking hard and rubbing the upper of those two scars over his brow. If only he knew how well his ship's company knew all his little habits!