Ramage & the Guillotine

BY
A
LEXANDER
K
ENT

The Complete Midshipman Bolitho

Stand Into Danger

In Gallant Company

Sloop of War

To Glory We Steer

Command a King's Ship

Passage to Mutiny

With All Despatch

Form Line of Battle!

Enemy in Sight!

The Flag Captain

Signal–Close Action!

The Inshore Squadron

A Tradition of Victory

Success to the Brave

Colours Aloft!

Honour This Day

The Only Victor

Beyond the Reef

The Darkening Sea

For My Country's Freedom

Cross of St George

Sword of Honour

Second to None

Relentless Pursuit

Man of War

Heart of Oak

BY
P
HILIP
M
C
C
UTCHAN

Halfhyde at the Bight of Benin

Halfhyde's Island

Halfhyde and the Guns of Arrest

Halfhyde to the Narrows

Halfhyde for the Queen

Halfhyde Ordered South

Halfhyde on Zanatu

BY
J
AN
N
EEDLE

A Fine Boy for Killing

The Wicked Trade

The Spithead Nymph

BY
J
AMES
L. N
ELSON

The Only Life That Mattered

BY
J
AMES
D
UFFY

Sand of the Arena

The Fight for Rome

BY
D
EWEY
L
AMBDIN

The French Admiral

The Gun Ketch

A King's Commander

Jester's Fortune

BY
B
ROOS
C
AMPBELL

No Quarter

War of Knives

Peter Wicked

BY
D
OUGLAS
W. J
ACOBSON

Night of Flames

BY
D
UDLEY
P
OPE

Ramage

Ramage & The Drumbeat

Ramage & The Freebooters

Governor Ramage R.N.

Ramage's Prize

Ramage & The Guillotine

Ramage's Diamond

Ramage's Mutiny

Ramage & The Rebels

The Ramage Touch

Ramage's Signal

Ramage & The Renegades

Ramage's Devil

Ramage's Trial

Ramage's Challenge

Ramage at Trafalgar

Ramage & The Saracens

Ramage & The Dido

BY
F
REDERICK
M
ARRYAT

Frank Mildmay
or
The Naval Officer

Mr Midshipman Easy

Newton Forster
or
The Merchant Service

BY
V.A. S
TUART

Victors and Lords

The Sepoy Mutiny

Massacre at Cawnpore

The Cannons of Lucknow

The Heroic Garrison

The Valiant Sailors

The Brave Captains

Hazard's Command

Hazard of Huntress

Hazard in Circassia

Victory at Sebastopol

Guns to the Far East

Escape from Hell

BY
J
ULIAN
S
TOCKWIN

Kydd

Artemis

Seaflower

Mutiny

Quarterdeck

Tenacious

Command

The Admiral's Daughter

BY
J
OHN
B
IGGINS

A Sailor of Austria

The Emperor's Coloured Coat

The Two-Headed Eagle

Tomorrow the World

BY
A
LEXANDER
F
ULLERTON

Storm Force to Narvik

Last Lift from Crete

All the Drowning Seas

A Share of Honour

The Torch Bearers

The Gatecrashers

BY
C.N. P
ARKINSON

The Guernseyman

Devil to Pay

The Fireship

So Near So Far

Dead Reckoning

The Life and Times of Horatio Hornblower

BY
D
OUGLAS
R
EEMAN

The Horizon

Dust on the Sea

Knife Edge

Twelve Seconds to Live

The White Guns

A Prayer for the Ship

For Valour

BY
D
AVID
D
ONACHIE

The Devil's Own Luck

The Dying Trade

A Hanging Matter

An Element of Chance

The Scent of Betrayal

A Game of Bones

On a Making Tide

Tested by Fate

Breaking the Line

Published by McBooks Press 2000

Copyright © 1975 by The Ramage Company Limited

First published in the United Kingdom in 1975 by

The Alison Press/Martin Secker & Warburg Limited

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without the written permission of the publisher. Requests for such permissions should be addressed to McBooks Press, Inc., ID Booth Building, 520 North Meadow St., Ithaca, NY 14850.

Cover painting by Paul Wright.

The trade paperback edition of this title was cataloged as: Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pope, Dudley.

       Ramage & the guillotine / by Dudley Pope.

             p. cm. — (Lord Ramage novels ; no. 6)

       ISBN 0-935526-81-1 (alk. paper)

           1. Ramage, Nicholas (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Great Britain—History, Naval—19th century—Fiction. 3. Great

       Britain. Royal Navy—Officers—Fiction. 4. Napoleonic Wars,

       1800-1815—Fiction. I. Title

PR6066.O5 R25 2000

823'.914—dc21

00-058627

The e-book versions of this title have the following ISBNs: Kindle 978-1-59013-525-9, ePub 978-1-59013-526-6, and PDF 978-1-59013-527-3

www.mcbooks.com

R
AMAGE reached across the breakfast table for the silver bell, shook it and waited. After more than a year at sea in one of the King's ships (when meals were usually dreaded as unimaginative variations on a theme of salt beef or salt pork, and bread was a polite name for hard biscuit that an honest baker would disown and a potter would proclaim a credit to his oven) his stomach still rebelled at the rich fare that old Mrs Hanson insisted on providing for every meal, including breakfast.

She had been the family cook and housekeeper at the London house for as long as Ramage could remember, and her short-sighted husband was the butler, a timid and wispy-haired man whose life seemed to be a sheepish hunt for his mislaid spectacles.

Mrs Hanson firmly believed that all sailors, be they admirals or seamen, lowly lieutenants like Ramage or portly masters, were deliberately underfed by a scheming Admiralty which calculated the scale of rations on the principle that fighting cocks were starved for hours before being put into the cockpit to battle for their lives. It seemed to Ramage that whenever he came up to London on leave she was determined to cram enough food into him to last another year at sea.

“You rang, my Lord?”

Ramage glanced up to find Hanson waiting expectantly, his spectacles slowly sliding down his stub of a nose. “Ah—please thank Mrs Hanson for an excellent breakfast.”

“But you've hardly touched the cold tongue, sir,” Hanson protested plaintively. “And the oysters—you haven't eaten a single one!”

“Hanson,” Ramage said sternly, knowing that to the butler he was still a small boy, to be humoured, but made to eat every scrap of food on his plate, “you should remember I've always hated oysters; the mere thought of them makes me queasy.”

The butler shook his head sadly. “Mrs Hanson will be upset; sets great store by oysters, she does; reckons they build you up. A score for breakfast, she says, and you'll never come to no ‘arm for the rest of the day.”

“Just look at me,” Ramage said patiently. “Do you think I'm fading away?”

“Bit on the lean side, my Lord,” Hanson said warily, remembering how sun-tanned his Lordship had been when he first arrived back from the West indies. “Your face is paler, too. My wife commented on it yesterday.”

“Remind Mrs Hanson that suntan doesn't last for ever.”

“Well, it's been raining hard,” Hanson said lamely as he began to clear away the plates, “an' it'll rain again before the day's out.”

“I'm sure it will,” Ramage said soothingly. “is anyone else in the family up and about yet?”

“Your father and mother, sir, and hot water has been sent up for the Marchesa, so she'll be down presently.”

Ramage sniffed doubtfully. “Very well—please fetch me a newspaper.”

“The
Morning Post
or
The Times,
sir?”

“I'll have plenty of time to read both before the Marchesa is ready.”

Hanson smiled happily, nodding his head at some private thought as he went to the door. “A lovely lady,” he murmured to himself, “and her a foreigner, too …”

Ramage grinned self-consciously and then felt foolish; praise for Gianna was not flattery for him! Still, Hanson's innocent remark emphasized that now was not the best of times to be a foreigner in England—in Great Britain and Ireland, he corrected himself. The Act of union had become law while he was commanding the
Triton
brig in the West indies, and recently he had been trying to break himself of the habit—which infuriated the Scots and Welsh—of saying England when he meant Britain. The trouble was that foreigners always refer to “you English,” not “you British.”