Ramage's Devil by Dudley Pope Page B

of
chasseurs
or an English ship of the line, milord,” he said. “Three or four of us against Bonaparte …”
    â€œDon’t forget Bonaparte was alone when he sent the Directory packing! From being a young Corsican cadet at the artillery school he rose to be the ruler of most of Europe … Don’t despair, Gilbert; come back in half an hour and we’ll talk again. First, though, tell me who we can count on among the staff.”
    â€œAll are loyal, sir. I mean that none will betray us. For active help: well, Edouard, Estelle and her husband Louis—who was a fisherman before becoming a gardener when the authorities confiscated his boat—will actively help. The others may not care to risk their lives.”
    â€œBut those two men and the woman would?”
    â€œYes, because they all hate the new régime. Not that it’s very new now, but they have all suffered. Estelle and Louis lost their fishing-boat and then had to sell their little cottage in Douarnenez: Edouard’s father should be buried in the cemetery at Landerneau,
    on the Paris road, but instead the body is in a mass grave near the guillotine they set up in Brest.”
    â€œWhat did the father do?”
    â€œA terrible crime,” Gilbert almost whispered. “He was the Count’s butler. He decided to stay here in France when the Count escaped to England because he could not see any danger from his own people for a butler. But he was denounced to the Committee of Public Safety as a Royalist.”
    â€œOn what evidence? That he worked for the Count?”
    â€œMilord, you do not understand. If you are denounced, you are not brought before the kind of court you are accustomed to in England. You are first locked up, and next day, next week, next month—even next year—you are brought before a tribunal, the denunciation is read out, and you are sentenced. You might be asked for your explanation, but no one will be listening to it. The sentence is the same, whatever you say—the guillotine.”
    â€œDoes Edouard know who denounced his father?”
    â€œNo, but he knows the names of the three members of the tribunal.”
    â€œWhat does he intend to do?”
    â€œWe Bretons are like your Cornishmen, milord: we have long memories and much patience. Edouard is prepared to wait for his revenge. Nor is he alone: there have been many unexplained accidents in the last year or two, so I hear: farms catch fire, the wheel comes off a
cabriolet
and the driver is killed or badly hurt … it seems that a band of assassins occasionally prowl the countryside. It was only six months ago that members of tribunals stopped having armed guards at their houses. But now, milord, I will leave you for half an hour.”
    When the door had shut, Sarah patted the bed beside her.
    â€œCome and sit with me—I suddenly feel very lonely.” She leaned over and kissed him. “If I said what I felt about that, you’d blush.”
    â€œI’d like to blush. For the last few hours I’ve felt pale and wan.”
    â€œIf you’d told Gilbert to come back in two hours, I’d lure you to other things.”
    â€œI had thought of that, but Gilbert will be expecting to hear of a plan worthy of Captain the Lord Ramage—one that frees Jean-Jacques and gets us all safely back to England.”
    She looked at him carefully, as though inspecting a thoroughbred horse at a sale. “A slight turning up at the corners of the mouth … a brightness in at least one eye … a jauntiness about the ears … Or am I mistaken?”
    â€œYou’re in love,” he said solemnly. “I can produce plans as a cow gives milk, but they curdle as soon as you look at them.”
    â€œWhat are the chances of rescuing Jean-Jacques?”
    â€œYou know the answer to that question.”
    â€œYes, I suppose I do. What are the chances of us escaping?” He paused a minute or two.