There was a faint hiss and a gentle splash as a tiny wave broke on the beach, then the cutter's keel grated on the sand. A moment later several seamen jumped over to hold the boat so that it would not broach. Ramage leapt out in the darkness to land on the dry sand, followed by Paolo Orsini and finally Martin.

Southwick, who had just told Ramage: "First time you've had to avoid getting your feet wet, sir!", now said in a low voice: "We'll be waiting to hear from you," and then gave the order for the men to push off the cutter and start rowing back to the Calypso frigate.

While coming out and heading for the causeway, the old master had not been sure he approved of the Captain's latest plan. As the cutter sped back towards the black shape of the Calypso, anchored in the middle of the bay formed by the mainland and the northernmost of the two causeways to Argentario, he decided it was madness.

All three of them were bound to be caught and guillotined or shot. No one could blame the French because they were in disguise and so were acting as spies. The three of them, helped by Jackson and Aitken, had spent the last two hours making themselves look like wandering gipsies, with young Paolo laying down the law about exactly how Zingari should appear. Zingari: it sounded a silly word, and it described the whole business.

The Captain's hair had been ruffled until it looked like a mop, then it had been made greasy and he had put on a tattered shirt belonging to one of the seamen and then something that was halfway between a kilt and breeches, a short skirt with a few odd stitches turning it into a rude apology for trousers.

Young Orsini had made up his own disguise and Southwick had to admit the boy did look just like one of the young scoundrels who, in any Latin seaport, marched up barefaced and demanded "baksheesh" or sidled up with some vile proposition. He had not even recognized young Martin by the time Orsini and Jackson had finished with him: the Calypso's fourth lieutenant had been transformed into any village's idiot, complete with a line round his waist that Mr Ramage intended to hold, so that Martin, in his role of a fool who could play a flute, could not escape.

It was a clever idea, though, because it got over the difficulty that Martin did not speak a word of Italian: it was not unusual for an idiot to be dumb. Natural enough, too, for a gipsy idiot to be dressed absurdly, with two or three brightly-coloured shirts, tattered and torn and worn one on top of the other, and trousers so big that they were baggy round the waist and hips, making Martin look like a shapeless sack of potatoes. No one would think of searching him - which was just as well, because in a specially-made belt that the sailmaker had completed only just in time were three pistols, spare powder and shot, and three knives, their blades thinned down and sharpened on the grindstone so that, by any honest man's standards, they were daggers of the type favoured by footpads and assassins.

Both Mr Ramage and Orsini had watched carefully while those knives were being ground down; they had balanced them on their fingers and it had been some time before Southwick realized that they were testing them for the distribution of weight, to make sure that they could be thrown properly. Then Southwick remembered Mr Ramage's skill at knife-throwing - a skill picked up during a childhood spent in Italy before the war. Southwick had not bothered to ask where Orsini had learned; it was obviously an aptitude that prudent Italians picked up at an early age.

What could a trio of gipsies find out about the final destinations of these French frigates, troops and bomb ketches? Mr Ramage seemed confident enough. Certainly his Italian was fluent; Mr Orsini had told Jackson some time ago that Mr Ramage could pass for someone born in Volterra or anywhere in Tuscany, and he could imitate the accents of other states. Naples was one of the most difficult, apparently; it was the Italian equivalent of real Cockney, and they pronounced only the first half of a word.

Something else worried Southwick: what would the senior officer of the French frigate squadron now in Porto Ercole think when he found that the two bomb ketches which should be anchored close to him at Porto Ercole were in fact on the opposite side of Argentario, off Santo Stefano? When Southwick raised the point, Mr Ramage had said he would think either that the current and light wind had prevented the unwieldy vessels from getting round Argentario, which was quite likely because the mountains made wind shadows, or that Renouf had made a mistake and gone to Santo Stefano instead of Porto Ercole. Again, a likely sort of mistake for these damned Frenchmen.

There was another possibility - that Renouf, seeing the frigates arriving early, had very sensibly gone into Santo Stefano to water and provision, leaving Porto Ercole free for the frigates and thus saving time. Actually that sounded the most likely as far as Southwick was concerned; it was a seaman-like thing to do, and there was the added advantage that even if the senior officer of the frigate squadron did not credit Renouf with that much intelligence, he might well think that the captain of the frigate with the bomb ketches would have given the order. He might even speculate, Southwick realized as the cutter was hailed from the Calypso, that the frigate also wanted water and provisions.

The Captain had merely shrugged when Aitken asked what was to be done if the French sent out an officer in a boat to ask questions. "Keep a sharp lookout, and the moment you see any signs of a boat coming out, get under way . . . If you happen to run down the boat in the process, make a note in the log . . ."

Southwick had admitted that he had no right to ask the Captain why he was risking his life and future, the life and future of the fourth lieutenant, and the life and future of the Marchesa's nephew (he thought it a cunning touch to bring in the family relationship), quite apart from leaving his ship under the command of her first lieutenant. Mr Ramage had just grinned and said that only yesterday the master had complained of missing Nelson's great victory at Aboukir Bay, and they would all look dam' fools if they missed the chance of having their own Aboukir Bay in a month or so's time.

Southwick climbed up the side of the frigate to be met by Aitken, who immediately asked: "They landed safely?"

Anyone would think it was ten miles to the beach and they were under heavy fire. "Yes, of course."

"Very well, tell Jackson to make up the cutter astern; we might need it in a hurry."

Southwick turned to call down to the boat, and at that moment he remembered that the man at the tiller coming back had not been Jackson, who as coxswain had steered the boat to the beach.

"Jackson - ahoy there, Jackson!"

There was a curious silence. Men who had been stowing the oars along the edges of the thwarts seemed to redouble their efforts and make more noise.

"Stafford?"

"Aye aye, sir?"

"Where's Jackson?"

"Dunno, sir; 'e ain't 'ere."

"When did you see him last?"

"Well, sir, it's dark and . . ."

"He was at the tiller when we landed at the beach, wasn't he?"

"I think so, sir."

"But not when we shoved off?"

"I couldn't rightly say, sir," the Cockney seaman answered, obviously being evasive.

Southwick thought for a moment and then snapped: "Is Rossi down there?"

For a few moments half a dozen voices inquired: "Is Rossi here?", all of them with the assumed innocence of choirboys.

Aitken tugged Southwick's sleeve, pulling him away from the bulwarks.

"Jackson and Rossi must have gone after the Captain. I saw them talking this afternoon. What the devil they think they can do, just the two of them, I don't know. I can only hope they don't do anything silly and get the Captain caught."