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!
The two vertical creases between the eyebrows, and the mouth shut in a straight line like a mousetrap meant someone had done something wrong, and stand by for a chilly blast, m'lads. Creases, mouth normal, blinking and rubbing the upper scar on the brow meant difficult situation and I'm thinking hard. Creases, mousetrap mouth and rubbing the scar meant get your heads well down everyone 'cos the Captain is about to explode. The exception was when they were going into action and the odds were not favourable (and that was the way the Captain usually went into action!). The creases, mousetrap and rubbing the scar vanished with the sound of the first gun; then the Captain's eyes fairly glowed, like polished chestnuts, and he would sling the same sort of grin across his face as he used when the Marchesa teased him.
Stafford had never seen the Captain worried like this, though. Like a bear in a cage, those bears they have at Vauxhall Gardens, nasty-tempered brutes, and you could see that all they wanted was to be set free, so they could roam where they wanted, eating people from time to time or just growling like the Captain. Trouble was he had been talking French to Louis most of the time, so it was hard to know exactly what was going on. Sitting here and getting the satchel and opening the letters might seem difficult to the Captain, but as far as William Stafford was concerned it was a lot better than reefing a topsail in a high wind, or polishing brass and scrubbing decks on board a ship of the line at anchor at Spithead.
There were not many other captains he would care to be with on a jaunt like this one; in fact Mr Ramage was the only one he could think of. All the rest would be stiff and sort of gritty, like dried sand on the deck after holystoning; the idea of having to share a room with a common seaman - well, demmit, sir! That was what made Mr Ramage the Captain he was: it all came natural to him - joking with the men, sharing a room with one of them when necessary, and all the rest that went with it. Dignity - that was it. Any of those other captains would lose their dignity if they did that; they would find the men getting familiar. It did not work that way with Mr Ramage, though; if anything, it worked the other way - he gained in dignity because he had the men's respect. Assured of himself, he was, as if he wore his assurance like a skin and never realized he had it, and because of that was not for ever scared of losing it. It was only whores who kept harping on their virginity.