The reddish-gold reflection of the sunset came through the sternlights and both sides of the skylight and brought out the rich colour of the mahogany furniture in Ramage's cabin, deepening the tan of his face as he sat back comfortably in the armchair talking to Aitken.

"These sunsets," the first lieutenant said, "the colours are quite fantastic. This one stretches across three quarters of the sky. We take a pride in our sunsets in Scotland, but these . . ."

"You've never been along the Tuscan coast before?" Ramage said: "Well, you commented this morning on the curious light. It has a strange clarity, inland as well as along the coast, particularly around Florence and Siena. In fact, you remember seeing paintings by Italian artists working in Tuscany?"

Aitken paused doubtfully, settling himself more comfortably on the settee, and then nodded. "Yes. Religious pictures, and all painted in a kind of a religious light."

"Not religious," Ramage said, smiling at the staunch Protestant disapproval in Aitken's voice. "That's Tuscan light. That's what you've been seeing all day."

The first lieutenant nodded slowly. "Aye, I begin to understand now. Those artists weren't deliberately painting a special background - as though there was some holy light shining on the subject, and on the countryside round them . . ."

"No, they were just painting what they saw: that was, and is, the normal summer light in Tuscany, and their backgrounds were often Florentine. No one in Britain has ever seen such vivid light, and they just didn't believe it. They scoffed at the painters. It wasn't until people began visiting Italy in larger numbers that they realized that the painters were truly painting what they saw."

"If one of them had been on the beach this morning he could have used those mortar shells bursting as a model for the entrance to Hell," Aitken said. "But even as a landscape painting, what a picture it would have made: the hills and mountains brown and bluish - grey in the distance; the pine forest a line of dark green, with the juniper bushes in front; then the dazzling sand. And the sea - from pale green to deep blue."

"How does it all compare with those great beech trees turning coppery in the autumn at Dunkeld?" Ramage asked, curious to hear the Scotsman's reaction.

"When I look inland at the way the mountains start, I don't think it's so different from Dunkeld in summer, apart from the light. There are the pines, the grass here is more parched - they don't have enough rain in summer to produce rivers like the Tay . . . What I have noticed is the difference that's come over you, sir, and Southwick, and men like Jackson and Stafford: the minute the sun rose yesterday morning and you could see those Tuscan hills again, you all came alive! I don't mean," he added hurriedly, "that before then you'd been sleepy or anything like that. But you know how a man looks when he sees someone he loves after a long absence."

Ramage did not answer and Aitken realized that the Captain had gone away with his thoughts to some private place - thinking of the Marchesa, no doubt. It was comfortable sitting here, knowing that a prize was anchored each side, and that thanks to the three French flags they would not be attacked. Ruse de guerre, a trick used by both sides with only one rule - that you could fly the enemy's colours, but had to drop them and hoist your own before opening fire.

"The Frenchman's orders," Ramage said unexpectedly, coming back from wherever he had been. "He was supposed to be taking these two bomb ketches to Crete."

"Why Crete?" Aitken mused. "What on earth can the French be planning against Crete? Surely they've occupied it anyway," he added gloomily.

"I'm not at all sure," Ramage admitted. "I hope we aren't going that far. I've heard that the harbours aren't much use, but I don't think Crete was the bomb ketches' final destination. I'm sure they were going on to somewhere else. I have a feeling that the French are simply using Crete to assemble a powerful force - a fleet complete right down to bomb ketches, and transports, and an army to travel with it."

"Where could they be planning to attack?"

"Another attempt at Egypt? A landing on the Levant in the hope of forcing a way through to India? With this madman Bonaparte one can never be sure."

"Perhaps that's putting a lot of meaning into the orders for two bombs, sir," Aitken commented cautiously. "There might be some anchorage or harbour that the French are finding useful but which has no fort to protect it. Easier to anchor a couple of bombs there than build a fort. . ."

Ramage shrugged. "There's no need to build a fort anyway - why not just construct a battery on a cliff? Some thick planks put down on levelled ground, a few baskets or bags of earth to make a parapet . . . No, Renouf received additional orders when he reached Toulon. Two frigates were to meet him at Porto Ercole on the thirteenth of this month. He was to water and provision there and be anchored outside by the time the frigates arrived to go in and embark cavalry and field guns. The frigates would then carry them to Crete, escorting the bombs at the same time."

"En flûte?"

"Probably," Ramage said, knowing that frigates carrying troops and stores usually had most of their maindeck guns removed to make more space and the port lids caulked, leaving the ships armed with only the guns on the fo'c'sle and quarterdeck. "Using a couple of frigates en flûte makes sense here in the Mediterranean now; as far as the French are concerned, it's unlikely they'll meet any enemy ships of war. There may be occasional Algerine pirates - the Italians still call them i Saraceni, the Saracens - but nothing that two frigates couldn't drive off or sink."

"I wonder what happens," Aitken mused, "when the frigates arrive at Porto Ercole on the thirteenth and the two bombs aren't anchored outside waiting for them?"

"I don't think you should worry yourself with questions like that."

"I beg your pardon, sir," Aitken said hastily. "I didn't mean to -"

"No, always make your views clear. All I meant was that I can see no reason why the bomb ketches shouldn't be anchored outside Porto Ercole waiting for them."

Aitken sat bolt upright, his eyes bright. "What a trap!"

"It can be a trap only if it was good shooting and not luck that blew up those casks this morning."

"I had a talk with Wagstaffe and Kenton because I was curious too," the first lieutenant said. "It was good shooting. They both complained that the French powder is so bad that every round fell differently. If they realized that, then they must have been confident. Both reckoned that with our own powder they'd have hit the casks with the third shell. Each of them told me that before he had had a chance to compare notes with the other."

Ramage nodded and stood up to take a rolled-up chart from the rack above him. As he opened it on his desk, using paperweights to prevent it rolling up again, he said: "You might wonder why the French chose Porto Ercole. Look, here you can see Argentario. It is almost an island a mile or so from the coast, and I always think it looks like a bat hanging from a beam, with each leg a causeway. Here," he ran a finger from the island to the mainland, "you can see the northern one is the Pineta di Gianella, and the southern, which is wider and almost touches Porto Ercole, is the Pineta di Feniglia.

"The Feniglia is covered with pines but there's a track cut through it, which is the route to Porto Ercole from the mainland. Between the two causeways is a large lake. Shallow, of course. And here, sticking down like a stubby finger between the two causeways, and pointing at Argentario, is a peninsula with the town of Orbetello on the end, almost surrounded by water."