Marianne and the Privateer

by Жюльетта Бенцони

  'Carry him off, just like that. I know where the prison hospital is, the end building, almost outside the prison itself. The walls are not so high – easier to climb. I have ten men, all used to going aloft in a full gale. To get into the hospital, get your friend out and over the wall will be child's play. We simply knock out anyone who gets in our way. It'll be all over in a brace of shakes. High tide on Christmas Eve is midnight. We can sail on the turn. The Saint-Guénolé will be moored off Keravel. Besides' – he grinned briefly at the two startled faces before him, 'it'll be Christmas Eve – and the guards have their own way of celebrating. They'll be drunk as lords. We'll have no trouble from them. Any other objections?'

  Marianne took a deep breath, as if she had just surfaced after swimming for a long time under water. After all these days of doubt and anxiety, Jean Ledru's quiet confidence left her feeling slightly dashed. But, goodness, what a comfort he was! She smiled.

  'I'd hardly dare! You wouldn't listen to them if I had, would you?'

  'No, I shouldn't,' he agreed seriously, but his eyes twinkled suddenly as he hoisted the fish basket back on to his shoulder, with the crinkling smile which, in this taciturn Breton, was a sign of extravagant mirth:

  'Warn the prisoner it's for Monday night. Let him have his chain cut through by eleven o'clock. The rest is up to me. As for yourselves – watch for the boat and when you see her alongside wait until it's dark and then go aboard.'

  With a final wave of his hand, the sailor passed out of the house and through the little garden then, with his basket on his shoulder, he set off with great strides in the direction of the harbour. For a little while, the sound of his whistling came floating back to them up the steep, narrow streets, the same, jaunty little tune which Marianne had heard once before, one anguished morning as she stood watching a tiny sailing boat put slowly out to sea, leaving her the captive of Morvan the Wrecker: it was the song of Surcouf's sailors:

  The thirty-first of August,

  With the larboard watch below,

  We spied an English frigate…

  Left alone, standing looking at each other across the table on which Jean had left them a few fish, Marianne and Jolival said nothing for a moment or two. Finally, Arcadius gave a shrug and went to fetch himself a cigar from the blue Delft jar. He sniffed it gently for a moment before bending and taking a light from the fire. A rich, tobacco smell filled the room, overcoming the smell of fish.

  'He's right,' he said at last. 'It pays to be bold in matters like this. Anyway, we have no choice.'

  'You think he will be able to do it?' Marianne asked anxiously.

  'I hope so! If he can't, my dear child, nothing can save us. We shall all be hanged at the yard-arm – unless they decide to shoot us instead. There will be no quarter, you know, if we are caught? Are you afraid?'

  'Afraid? The only thing I fear, Jolival, is a life without Jason. I care for nothing else, rope or a shot is all one to me.'

  Arcadius drew luxuriously on his cigar and then considered the glowing tip of it intently.

  'I always knew you had the makings of a great tragic heroine,' he said equably. 'Or else a great lunatic! For my own part, I've no complaints about staying alive and since we've seven saints in the house, I'll ask them kindly to make sure this exciting Christmas Eve which our ebullient captain promises us may not be our last.'

  With that, Arcadius strolled out to finish his cigar in the garden while Marianne, left to herself, started unthinkingly to gut the fish.

  ***

  December the twenty-fourth began badly. When daylight dawned belatedly, it was to reveal dense, yellow fog, thick enough to cut with a knife. Recouvrance, with its grey stone walls and isolated trees, might have been a lost world drifting in some cloudy infinite. Visibility extended no further than the tower of La Motte Tanguy. Everything else, town, port, castle and roadstead, had vanished as utterly and completely as if the hill had loosed its moorings suddenly and sailed away into the sky, like some enormous air balloon.

  Marianne, who had not slept a wink all night long, stared out resentfully at the fog. Fate seemed to be taking a malicious pleasure in making things difficult for her. She was angry with fate, angry with nature, angry with herself for her own fidgets, she was even angry with the world for continuing to turn in its ordinary way while she was in such suspense. She was so nervous and complained so many times that they could never see the Salnt-Guénolé even supposing that she was able to feel her way into the river mouth, that in the end Jolival told Gracchus to go and keep watch from the rocks by the castle point on whatever shipping appeared.

  This was at about noon and after that Marianne did make some effort to behave normally for the remainder of the crucial day which was to decide the whole course of her life. Even then, she could not refrain from asking the endlessly patient Jolival a hundred times over if he were quite sure that Jason had been warned to hold himself in readiness and if François Vidocq had also been alerted, as he had requested, so that he could help the American while at the same time seizing a heaven-sent opportunity to escape himself. For Marianne was quite sure that Vidocq was not the man to do anything for nothing.

  Madame le Guilvinec, who was spending the festive season with her niece at Portzic, came in during the morning to make sure that her neighbour would want for nothing during her absence and also to bring the traditional yule log which was supposed to be put on the fire to burn slowly up to the time for midnight mass. This one was prettily decorated with red ribbons, golden laurel leaves and sprigs of holly, and Marianne was all the more touched by this mark of friendship because she had been careful to give no hint of her intention to leave Brest that night for the last time and had been inclined to look on the niece's invitation as a stroke of luck.

  The good lady was so distressed at the thought of leaving her new friends for this, their first Christmas, that she came back two or three times to ask them if they would not rather she stayed, or would like to come with her to her family. However, in the face of their firm, though smiling refusal, she eventually brought herself, with many expressions of regret, to say good-bye, although not without innumerable injunctions to Marianne regarding local customs: the welcome to be given to the youthful carol singers, not to forget to say a prayer for the dead before going off to midnight mass, to have the hearth cakes and the chicken ready for the modest revelllon which should follow and a host of other things, one of the most important of which was a strict injunction to remain fasting until the evening.

  'To eat nothing?' Jolival protested. 'When we have enough ado as it is to make her eat like anyone else?'

  Madame le Guilvinec raised an admonitory finger to the blackened rafters:

  'If she wants to see miracles happen on the holy night, or even if she wants her own wishes to come true, she must take nothing all day long, not until after dark when she can count nine stars in the sky. If she is still fasting when the ninth star comes out, then she can expect to have a gift from heaven.'

  Arcadius, being a rational man with a strong aversion to anything that smacked of superstition, might have muttered a little, but Marianne was deeply attracted by this romantic prophecy. It was with eyes suddenly softened that she looked at the widow from Pont-Croix, standing there in her black garments, like some antique sibyl.

  'The ninth star,' she said seriously. 'I will wait, then, until it is out. Although in this fog—'

  'The fog will go away with the tide. God bless you and keep you, young lady. Nicolas Mallerousse did well to leave his house to you.'

  With one last stroke for her cat which she was leaving with her neighbours, she was gone and Marianne, watching her wide, black cloak billowing along the road to the church, felt oddly sad for a moment. Just as Madame le Guilvinec had predicted, the fog was already beginning to clear, blown away by the gusts of wind that had got up, and by the beginning of the afternoon it had gone completely, leaving the countryside restored to all its wild beauty. It was about an hour after this that a lugger w
ith red sails entered the harbour channel below the castle and came on up the Penfeld. The Saint-Guénolé had reached the rendezvous. The adventure had begun.

  That evening, when it was quite dark, Marianne, Jolival and Gracchus left the house silently. They locked the door behind them, having taken care to leave a window open and unshuttered so that Madame le Guilvinec's cat, left with ample supplies of fish and milk, might come and go at will. Gracchus skipped lightly over the low garden wall and slid the key under the neighbour's door, along with a note explaining that Marianne and her 'uncle' had been obliged to return to Paris unexpectedly.

  It was long after the time when the castle gun and the great bell of the prison had announced the end of work for the day and the church bells had rung for evening prayer, yet the town was not going to sleep as it usually did. The ships of war were dressed overall and as the lights went up on the mastheads so the lighted sterncastles showed that those aboard were keeping their own Christmas Eve. From the taverns came the sounds of lusty voices singing everything from the old Christmas carols down to lewd sea shanties, while the streets were full of people, whole families of them, all in their best caps and bonnets, the men carrying in one hand a lantern and in the other the knotted wooden staff called the pen-bas, and all hurrying off to spend the evening with friends until the time came round to go to church. There were groups of small boys as well, armed with beribboned branches, going the rounds of the houses knocking on doors and singing carols for all they were worth, for the reward of a few coins or a cake apiece. The whole town basked in the aromatic scents of cider, rum and pancakes.

  The three of them attracted little notice, in spite of the small box containing Marianne's few clothes and her jewels which Gracchus carried under his arm, beneath his heavy cloak, and her own carpet bag. There was little to mark them out from other pedestrians that night.

  Once they reached the other side of the Pont de Recouvrance, the bridge being the shorter way on this occasion, they began to encounter the occasional drunk. The lights of the taverns at the lower end of the rue de Siam, near the harbour, shone out across the pavement, and now and then gleamed on the dark water beyond. Everywhere there was a holiday feeling in the air and only those few vessels that were putting to sea on the tide showed any signs of activity aboard.

  Marianne had taken Arcadius's arm and all the way she kept her eyes glued to the dark sky, counting the rare stars that appeared there. So far, she had reached no more than six and Jolival smiled at her worried face.

  'If it clouds over, you're likely to starve to death, my child.'

  She only shook her head, without answering, then pointed suddenly to where the seventh star had come out, above the tall masts of a frigate in the bay. As for starving, until she had found Jason again she was oblivious of hunger.

  At the same time, she caught sight of the lugger, tied up below Keravel, and the figure of Jean Ledru beckoning on the deck. The Saint-Guénolé looked very small alongside the brig Trident and the two frigates, Sirène and Armide, berthed close by, but her very insignificance was a safeguard, as was the single, modest riding light at her masthead.

  Seconds later, the fugitives had crossed the plank connecting her with the shore and were aboard. Suddenly, in the yellow light of the ship's lanterns, Marianne found herself the centre of a ring of silent faces which might have been carved out of mahogany, despite the many blond heads and beards among them. Dressed all alike in thick, dark jerseys, their caps pulled well down over their eyes, Jean Ledru's men looked far more like a crew of pirates than of honest seamen, but all their faces wore the same look of grim determination and the muscles beneath the heavy jerseys were certainly like knotty oaks.

  'You're just in time,' Ledru grunted. 'You go down below, Marianne, and wait for us. Monsieur, your uncle, will stay with you.'

  With one accord, the two persons addressed opened their mouths to protest.

  'No!' Arcadius said. 'I'm going with you.'

  'Me, too!' echoed Marianne.

  It was one of the men, a big, red-headed fellow with something of the look of a large, reddish bear, who voiced immediate opposition to this suggestion:

  'It's bad enough, Cap'n, having a woman aboard! If we've got to cart her along with us!'

  'You'll not be obliged to cart me, as you put it,' Marianne exclaimed indignantly. 'And if I go with you, I shall be the less time aboard your boat. It is my man you are going to rescue and I want to share the risk with you.'

  'And climb the wall, in your petticoats?'

  'I can wait at the bottom. I'll keep watch. And I know how to use this, as well…' she added, putting aside the folds of her cloak and showing one of the pistols Napoleon had given her tucked into her belt.

  The red-headed seaman gave a shout of laughter:

  'By God! If that's the way of it, come you shall! You're a brave lass, after all, and an extra hand is always welcome.'

  Jean Ledru, who had disappeared for a moment during this exchange, now reappeared, closing the cabin door behind him. As he did so, Marianne's sharp eyes caught sight of the length of rope coiled neatly about his chest. He glanced quickly round his crew.

  'Is everyone ready? Joel, got the rope? You, Thomas and Goulven, the grapnels?'

  Three men, the redhead among them, opened their thick jackets simultaneously. One was wrapped about in hemp, like Jean himself, the other two, one of whom was the redhead, who seemed to be called Thomas, had stuck into their belts the long grappling irons which were to be thrown up over the wall.

  'We'll be on our way then,' the young leader declared. 'In small groups, if you please, and try and look as natural as you can. You three' – once again he addressed the newcomers – 'you three follow at a little distance, as if you were on your way to spend the evening with friends. And try not to get lost.'

  'No fear of that,' Gracchus muttered. 'I know Keravel like the back of my hand. I could get about the place with my eyes shut.'

  'Better keep them open, all the same! Otherwise you might run into things you don't expect.'

  In small groups, two or three at a time, they left the boat, until the only people left on board were an old man, who answered to the name of Nolff and the cabin boy, Nicolas. Marianne and her escort were the last to leave. The girl's fingers tightened nervously on Jolival's arm. In spite of the cold, she felt as if she were stifling. When they plunged into the unsavoury streets of Keravel, she had the impression that the houses, their overhanging upper stories all crooked and reared up at strange angles, were only waiting to spring on her. This was the first time she had ventured into this area of the town, a place forsaken by God but not by men, and the maze of squalid, twisting alleyways where now and then the red light of a tavern shone through greasy curtains, were obscurely terrifying. Far ahead, as though at the end of a tunnel, a lantern hung, creaking, on a chain stretched between two crumbling buildings, but every dark, shadowy hole and corner in between was filled, she saw with a sick feeling of disgust, with a squeaking, scampering colony of rats, scurrying to and fro among the refuse on the ground. The slender ribbon of sky seemed so far away that there was no hope of even the smallest star.

  'You ought to have stayed on the boat,' Jolival said, feeling her shiver, but Marianne pulled herself together instantly:

  'No, not for anything!'

  They were obliged to make a detour to avoid passing directly in front of the big gates of the prison and the guards on duty there but not long afterwards the little band was stretched out in the shelter of the great, dark walls, hearing the steady tramp of the sentry going his rounds on the footway above. One by one, they passed between the prison and the rope-walks, deserted at this late hour, and, rounding a corner to the right, saw before them a series of barred windows on the far side of a wall distinctly lower than the rest. This was the prison hospital. There was light in the windows, a feeble, reddish glow that probably came from a night light.

  On a level with the first of these windows, Jean Ledru assembled his p
arty. Taking off his coat, he began unwinding the rope from his middle. Joel did the same, while Thomas and Goulven unfastened their grapnels. Marianne pointed a little timidly at the window:

  'There are bars… How will you manage?'

  'You don't think we'll be going in that way?' the Breton said, on a smothered chuckle. 'There's a door on the other side of the wall. We can jump the sentry from the top and flatten him!'

  The grapnels were made fast in a moment. The sailors stood back, drawing Marianne and Jolival with them. Jean Ledru and Thomas measured their distances and then, standing with legs well apart for balance, they began to swing the grapnels with the same easy motion.

  They were just about to let go when, suddenly, Jean let his go slack and signed to Thomas to do the same. There had come a sound from above. They heard a noise of running footsteps, then lights sprang up in one window after another. Then, without warning, and so close that it felt to Marianne as if the entire wall had exploded, came the report of a cannon being fired, followed by a second and a third.

  Throwing caution to the winds, Jean Ledru swore comprehensively and snatched up his equipment:

  'There's been an escape! They'll search the prison, then the town. After that the coast and country around. Back to the boat, all of you, fast as you can make it!'

  Marianne's cry came like an echo: 'But we can't! We can't go and leave Jason!'

  But already the men had scattered, making their own way through the dismal lanes of the old quarter. Seizing Marianne swiftly by the arm, Jean began dragging her firmly away, ignoring her protests:

  'It's all off for the present. If we stay here, we'll only get ourselves caught.'

  Marianne made desperate efforts to resist, still looking back frantically at the windows, behind which figures were already moving about. The whole prison was awake now. There were sounds of nailed boots running and the dick of weapons being cocked. Someone had got to the bell and was hauling on it like a madman, sending its ominous strokes booming and clanging out over the festive town.