Ramage's Devil by Dudley Pope

at the meat market, and she heard about this at the fish market.”
    Gilbert was a splendid fellow, Ramage told himself, and his only fault is that for him the shortest distance between two points is a well-embroidered story. His listeners needed patience, and it was a defect in Ramage’s own character, he admitted, that he had been born with little or none.
    â€œYes, the gardener’s wife—her name is Estelle, by the way—overheard two fishmongers discussing a brig which had arrived in Le Goulet the evening before, escorted by a French corvette.”
    â€œWhy ‘escorted’?” Ramage asked.
    â€œOh, because the brig is English, milord, and with the war now resumed one would expect an escort, no?”
    Ramage nodded and managed to avoid looking across at Sarah: he knew she would be hard put to avoid laughing as she saw him struggling not to snap at Gilbert, swiftly drawing the story from him like a fishmonger filleting fish.
    â€œAnyway, this brig has a name like
Murex.
It seems a strange name, but Estelle was sure because one fishmonger spelled it to the other.”
    â€œYes, it would be
Murex,
” Ramage said, and remembered another ten-gun brig of the same class, the
Triton,
also named after a seashell (not the sea god, as many thought). She had been his second command, and she had stayed afloat during a hurricane in the West Indies but, dismasted, then drifted on to the island of Culebra. By now there would be very little of her skeleton left: the teredo worm would have devoured her timbers and coral would be growing on any ironwork while gaudy tropical fish swam through whatever was left of the skeleton.
    â€œWere many killed and wounded when the
Murex
was captured?” Sarah asked.
    â€œKilled and wounded, milady?” a puzzled Gilbert asked. “I don’t think anyone was hurt. The captain and the officers, perhaps, but I doubt it.”
    Ramage had a curious feeling that he was dreaming the whole conversation: that he was dreaming about a fairy tale entitled “The Two Fishmongers.” The time had come to be firm with Gilbert.
    â€œStart at the beginning and tell us what Estelle overheard in the fish market. Now, she is in the fish market and she hears two fishmongers talking.”
    â€œWell, she was to buy salt cod. There was plenty of that. Then she wanted some halibut—but she could find none. What, she asked herself, could replace the missing halibut? Bear in mind she would be cooking it: the first cook, Mirabelle, refuses to cook fish: she says that a woman with her delicate pastry should not be asked to meddle with scaly reptiles—that’s what Mirabelle calls them, milord, ‘reptiles.’”
    â€œThe fishmongers,” Ramage said patiently.
    â€œAh yes, Estelle was discussing with them what to buy in place of the halibut. She had the sauce in mind, you understand. Well, the second fishmonger joined the discussion, and while Estelle was thinking, asked the first fishmonger if he had heard about the English brig arriving.
    â€œThe first fishmonger had not, and the second—his name is Henri, a Gascon, and he has trouble making people believe his stories: not for nothing do we have the word
‘gasconade.’
”
    â€œAnd then …” Ramage prompted.
    â€œHenri then told how this brig had been sighted in the Chenal du Four by the lookouts now stationed on Pointe St Mathieu. Then they noticed the strange business about her flag.”
    Once more Gilbert came to a stop, like a murex (or a winkle, Ramage thought sourly) retreating into its shell after every few inches of progress. Dutifully Ramage encouraged him out again. “What about the flag, Gilbert?”
    â€œShe was flying a white flag above the English colours. Had she been captured? the sentries asked themselves. But why a
white
flag—one would have expected a
Tricolore
over the English.
    â€œAnyway, they passed a message round to the