The ADC was equally puzzled. 'I don't know, Your Excellency. She seemed upset over the French, but it was when you mentioned that her fiance was due that she - er, left the room."

'Yes, yes, that was it: the mention of Jules. It has been a long engagement - although she is the one who keeps putting off the wedding day.'

'Quite, sir,' Lausser said dryly, and deliberately changed the subject. The British frigate will be off Sint Anna Baai in about two hours' time. Shall I tell the commanders of the forts to stand - to in an hour?'

Van Someren nodded. 'I shall watch from here. If the frigate opens fire I imagine she will aim at the forts or the ships, not the Governor's residence.'

Lausser, pleased to see a twinkle in the Governor's eyes, laughed dutifully. 'But where she aims at may not be where she hits, sir.'

'Ill risk that But they'll stay well out: they've learned that our gunners are well trained. Four years ago - before you arrived, Lausser - one came in dose and was becalmed, and we shot away a mast She escaped because the current carried her clear and they could do repairs, but the British Navy learned a lesson.'

He picked up his pipe and put it down impatiently, irritated at being given a present of so much earthy tobacco. He examined a cheroot from a silver box on his desk and returned it with a grunt 'I've been smoking far too much. I think I would like a drink. Ring for the steward, will you?'

Gottlieb van Someren was tired: tired not only because he had had very little sleep in the past two weeks, thanks to the revolutionaries rioting at the western end of the island, but also because he had spent too many years on the island of Curacao: he had been the Governor for three years when, in February 1793, the Dutch had found themselves attacked by France and two years later the Stadtholder and the Prince of Orange had to escape to England while their country was named by the French the Batavian Republic. And Gottlieb van Someren, with his wife and daughter, was left in Curacao as the Governor, the republican king, as it were, of the three islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao. France had control of the Dutch fleet and gave orders to the Dutch officers, many of whom were privately torn between their loyalty to the Stadtholder and the Dutch admirals commanding the fleet Like so many Dutch officers serving in distant places, van Someren had to decide whether or not to serve the new regime: did it constitute disloyalty to the Stadtholder? And like so many others he had decided the wisest thing was to carry on: to resign or flee would, in the case of the islands, risk the French sending out a French governor, or a Dutchman who was a true republican.

His wife hated Curacao; she swore the heat dried up her skin and accepting the French shrivelled her soul, and she was equally convinced that gin, good Dutch sweet gin, was the only medicine that could save her. So for the past four years she had drunk gin when others drank boiled water or wine. She had refused all attempts to send her back to the Netherlands because she hated the French even more than the Tropics. And because her family had in the distant past suffered dreadfully under the Duke of Alva's soldiers, she walked out of the room if a Spaniard entered.

It did not mate a governor's life any easier, yet he had to admit it had some advantages. He had an excuse for having little to do socially with the Spanish - be never had to blame his wife; her dislike was well known. And, he reflected as Lausser ordered drinks to be brought, he must be one of the few governors of any nationality who cared little whether or not he would be dismissed from his post. He had saved some money; he would get his reward if the Stadtholder ever returned from exile in England. For the moment, though, the French seemed - well, omnipotent.

He took out his watch. 'Lausser, don't forget the orders to the forts.'

'I took the liberty of giving them earlier, Your Excellency.'

Van Someren nodded. Lausser was trustworthy and reliable.

and he wished Maria was to marry him, instead of that sharp - eyed young naval officer, Jules, whose sole topics of conversation were republicanism, the latest French victories, and the villainy of William V, the Stadtholder of Holland, and his son, the Prince of Orange, for having fled to England.

For several years, van Someren reflected, deliberately forgetting his prospective son - in - law, he had not only kept his job a Governor, but kept his head on his shoulders (no mean feat for anyone having any dealings with the French government) because he had drifted with the current. No republican could accuse him of disloyalty to the Batavian Republic; vet when the Stadtholder eventually returned to the throne, Governor van Someren had made sure he had clean hands so show. Clean, that is, until now.

There was a faint popping in the distance. Lausser looked up significantly. Those bands of ruffians were close; the musket shots must be from loyal Dutch troops - he had all too few of them - or local people trying to stop the rogues looting their homes.

He picked up the gilt paperknife on his desk and balanced the blade on the index finger of his right hand. For several years he had been able to sit on the fence without finding it too hard to balance. Now, however, he was dangerously poised, as though paying for all those past years. He was the Dutch republican Governor yet at this moment he was likely to lose his governorship (and perhaps his life) to a republican rabble scrabbling their way across the arid island, walking and Daggering, riding stubborn donkeys, drinking raw rum or gin, raping or robbing as the fancy took them. They sang (when they were not too drunk) all the old French revolutionary songs of nearly a decade ago; they behaved as though Curacao was some newly captured British spice or sugar island, not part of the Batavian Republic. They were stirring up the Negroes, telling them to murder their masters in their beds, bum the crops, scatter the salt, break down the walls of the salt pans ...

He took a new clay pipe from the rack on his desk and began to fill it with tobacco. What the devil could he do? The worst of these rogues were French. Admittedly privateers - men, but was it just the desire for loot that had set them off? There had been young Dutch revolutionaries only too eager to listen to them.

"How many of these ruffians do our latest patrols report, Lausser?'

'More than five hundred, Your Excellency. About two - thirds of them are from the French privateers - the ten here in Amsterdam.'

Five hundred. It sounded highly likely because most of the privateers carried extra men to act as prize crews. But why? Revolutionary zeal? Hardly - most privateersmen could barely read or write; they were concerned with loot, not loyalties. The rest must be local revolutionaries, disaffected Dutchmen. The usual rabble.

'What the devil do you think it is all about, Lausser?'

'Robbery, sir. The privateers had little luck against the British - far too many privateers hunting too few prizes. The British frigates are patrolling to the north - many more than usual. I heard that the shopkeepers here stopped credit for most of the privateers some two weeks ago, just before all this started, so they were out of provisions and spirits . . .'

'Oh? I heard nothing of that. A very short - sighted policy, stopping credit. About as sensible in these circumstances as handing over your purse to a highwayman and asking for change. I'm sure that's what started off this - this insurrection.'

'But they had not paid their bills, sir.'

'Quite so,' van Someren said impatiently, irritated by Lausser's lack of imagination, "but they aren't going to make money lying here at anchor, unable to go to sea without provisions. The shopkeepers have always done well out of them up to now: the privateersmen spend freely enough when they do capture something. The prize cargoes are sold here for whatever the merchants will pay. The merchants should welcome them, not cut off credit'