'Very well,' Ramage said in a bored voice, 'she had an assignation with the lieutenant in his room. Clearly not a very virtuous young lady, eh?'

'She did not have an assignation with the lieutenant in his room,' the officer said angrily, his right eye winking and his shoulder jerking.

'What was she doing in the room, then? Meeting my foreman instead?'

'She had written a note for the lieutenant and was leaving it in his room. Where is your foreman now?' Again the wink and shoulder twitch.

'I don't know,' Ramage said impatiently. 'Perhaps he has an assignation with the young lady's mother - have you inquired? '

It must be midnight by now. Had Louis managed to get that damned loaf to the courier? If Ramage could be sure that the report - he found himself trying to avoid even thinking of the name Bruix, as if the police officer might read his thoughts - reached Jackson on board the Marie, it would make it worthwhile. What worthwhile, he found himself asking. Stop thinking in euphemisms. If I know that my copy of Vice-Admiral Bruix's report on the state of the Flotille de Grande Espèce has reached Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson safely, then tipping over on the bascule, and staring down into the basket which will catch my head a fraction of a second after the guillotine blade lops it off, will be a little easier to bear.

It must be easier to die when you know you have achieved something. On the average, Ramage had gone into action four times a year, for the past three years, never expecting to come out of it alive. There had been a good chance that a French or Spanish roundshot would knock his head off or - involuntarily he reached up and rubbed the scars on the right side of his brow - he would be cut down by a cutlass or skewered on a boarding-pike.

For Lieutenant Ramage, there was no difference between having his head knocked off by roundshot or lopped off by guillotine. Yet, in a bizarre sort of way, there was. If the copy of Bruix's dispatch reached Lord Nelson safely, there could be nothing more in his career (even if he lived to become an admiral) that could match it in importance. The sort of things that involved the risk of having your head knocked off by a roundshot were relatively trivial: it is only when you play for the very highest stakes that you risk 'marrying the Widow.'

The officer was staring at him and when he caught Ramage's eye he asked curiously: 'What were you thinking about?'

‘That if my foreman did have an assignation with the landlord's daughter, I envied him. Pretty girl - have you seen her?'

The officer flushed, a redness that stained his lined and wrinkled face like wine soaking through lasagna, and Ramage realized that the man must have been speculating about her.

'The other man you were with - the Frenchman: who is he?'

'You mean to say you don't know?' Ramage was scornful.

'Why should I?' the officer asked defensively.

'One of your ministries sent him along to spy on me wherever I go, that's all I know!' As soon as he saw the officer nodding, as though the information was credible, Ramage decided to embellish it. 'I can tell you, I've had enough of his company. "Won't you have another bottle of wine, M'sieur?" he says ... And I have half a glass and he finishes the whole bottle. Who pays, eh? I do. Liqueurs - you tell me why all the liqueurs go on my bill? And the brandy -Mama mia, how much that man can drink! I pay for it, every drop. Not -' Ramage added hastily, as though suddenly nervous, 'that I'm saying anything against him, you understand.'

The police officer nodded sympathetically. 'He was sent from Paris, no doubt.'

'Yes, he joined me in Paris after my visit to Boulogne was arranged.'

Nothing said about Louis up to now could incriminate either of them. This local police officer might accept that Louis was working for some ministry or committee - he would be used in secrecy - without checking up. He might well think that arresting a foreigner who was being supervised by the employee of a ministry or committee would leave him open to an accusation of interfering ... it was a faint hope.

'Where is he, anyway?' Ramage asked crossly. 'Let him speak for himself - he's always very secretive, although he keeps a sharp enough watch on me.'

'Probably writing a report on this affair for his superiors,' the officer said. 'I expect he'll be in to see me later.'

'Well,' Ramage said calmly, 'he can tell you all about everything, so there's no need for me to stay. You'll find me at the hotel.'

He had not walked two paces before the officer was shouting. Ramage turned to find himself covered by the pistols of the two gendarmes.

'You are going to a cell!' the officer said angrily. He pulled a large book towards him, a book that reminded Ramage of a ledger in a counting-house. 'Now, I want your full name and address, and all the details of why you are in France . . .'

The cell was square, five paces along one side and five paces along the other. It had a chill of its own, something which had nothing to do with the outside temperature, for it was a warm night. Ramage only saw the inside for a brief moment, in the light of the guard's lantern, before being pushed in and having the door slammed behind him. As his eyes became accustomed to the darkness he saw that there was a single small window high in one wall, and although it was barely large enough for a man to put his head through, there were iron bars.

He had seen a low wooden cot but in the darkness misjudged the distance, finding it by banging his shin painfully on a comer. A moment later he kicked over a bucket, and from the smell guessed its purpose. There was a thin palliasse of sacking and straw on the cot, and he thought momentarily of all the bedbugs lurking in there, waiting for the majesty of French law to provide them with their next meal.

He sat down on the cot and realized how tired he was. The strain of the last hour had drained his energy, and he hoped he was tired enough to drop off to sleep quickly, instead of finding his mind invaded by a dozen worries which tightened his muscles and chased sleep away. Having already been caught once in his nightshirt he decided that undressing would be confined to his boots.

The interview had not gone too badly. The officer was suspicious but not more so than was to be expected. His main interest obviously centred on Stafford, and Ramage was sure he had accepted the story of Louis being the representative from some ministry or committee in Paris.

As he stretched out on the cot he reflected that whatever happened - and for the moment there was no need to be too pessimistic - Louis had almost certainly had time to get the report out of his room and into the courier's hands. Sleep, that was what he needed; worrying could achieve nothing, since once again everything was in Louis's hands.

Dawn was a pale grey square at the window when he was woken by the rasp of bolts being pulled back. A moment later the door creaked open and a wedge of yellow lantern light on the floor showed a small bowl being put down on the floor just inside the cell. The door slammed shut, cutting off the light, and the bolts rasped again, all without anyone saying a word.

Ramage rubbed his eyes and heard the faint rasp of other bolts: presumably the inmate of another cell was also receiving his breakfast. He walked carefully over to the door and picked up the bowl. It was a watery gruel which had a vague smell of dried peas, and he saw something he had not noticed at first, a large crust of bread, the end of a long loaf.

There was no spoon - presumably they were afraid of a prisoner using it to beat in the guard's head, although heaving the bread like a half brick would do more damage. He tilted the bowl and began drinking, and was reminded immediately of the landlady's medicine. The taste was not the same; the prison gruel had far less body but hinted at the same strange origins. Certainly the gruel owed most of its substance to cabbage water, although the peas floating around in it might well have been rabbit droppings for all the taste or sustenance they offered.