To one side of the two mortars, away from the piles of shells, there was a low tub of water. Notches had been cut round the lip of the tub, and now lengths of what looked like thin grey line hung down from the notches like dried snakes. Faint wisps of smoke rose up from inside the tub, showing that the slow matches had been lit and the burning ends were hanging down safely over the water. Jackson was holding a short rod which ended in a Y, a linstock, and Stafford had another. As soon as Kenton gave the word, each would take a length of burning slow match and wind it round his linstock, arranging the burning end so that it was held by the fork.

Kenton looked at his watch once more. Two minutes to go. Suddenly he realized that he was soaked with perspiration and that he had cut it very fine. The Calypso was ahead of the schedule! He snatched a telescope from the binnacle box drawer and looked across at the Brutus. They were all ready - there were Wagstaffe and Martin, standing still, two men close to the mortar, and four or five more further aft, all motionless. Now Wagstaffe was looking at his watch and then picking up his telescope and looking at the Calypso - here she came, beginning to wear round . . . Captain Ramage could be wrecking his own plan by being four minutes early. There was only one thing to do - would Wagstaffe do it? Kenton felt his telescope wavering.

He looked across at Paolo and Jackson. The American said: "Early, isn't she, sir?" Kenton nodded; his throat felt dry and he was afraid it would show in his voice if he spoke. The Calypso was supposed to pass northward across the harbour entrance and then turn southward again as soon as she reached the Feniglia to cross the entrance a second time ready to prevent any of the French frigates escaping. Being too early meant that she would pass too soon and the French might escape astern of her . . .

"Is Mr Wagstaffe going to open fire early to make up for it, sir?" Jackson asked.

Kenton looked at the smoking slow match. "Drop the French colours and hoist ours . . . Now stand by to fire," he said, and both Jackson and Stafford snatched up slow matches and in a moment had them coiled round their linstocks as a seaman hoisted the British colours and made up the halyard on the cleat.

"Fire both!" Kenton said and clutched his hands over his ears as Stafford reached over with his linstock and lit the fuse of the shell, jumping back as Jackson bent down to touch the glowing end of the linstock in the pan. A moment later the mortar gave an enormous, asthmatic grunt. By then both men were running aft with their linstocks, heading for the second mortar, and Rossi was busy organizing the sponging and reloading of the forward mortar, which looked like an enormous cast-iron bulldog squatting open-mouthed in the midst of a smoky bonfire. A moment later there was a heavy grunt from aft as the second mortar fired, and from the starboard side a sharper crack as the Brutus opened fire.

Kenton cursed because in the excitement he had forgotten to follow the flight of the first shell. Now he looked over towards the French frigates.

As the Calypso's bow swung round and Aitken gave orders that steadied her on a course which would take her across the sterns of the bomb ketches - but far enough away not to interfere with them - Ramage heard a distant bark of a gun. It seemed to be a heavy gun, and immediately he looked across at Monte Filippo, but there was no sign of smoke, and at that moment there was a second bark.

Southwick saw his head turned and nudged him, pointing across at the Fructidor, which was now almost hidden in yellowish, oily smoke, the top of which was just being caught by the breeze and twisted into strange shapes.

Ramage pulled out his watch, flipped it open and cursed: the Fructidor had opened fire early, but the Calypso was much too early: he realized he had been so confident that everything was going according to plan that he had forgotten to check the time for the past several minutes. But young Kenton had been smart enough. A double explosion and more smoke showed that the Brutus had followed suit and opened fire. Ramage held the watch to his ear to listen for the tick - a useless gesture. Southwick said: "T'isn't your watch, sir; the wind's freshened and we're going to be too early. We've come out of the lee of those damned hills. But the bombs have made up for it."

Ramage couId not see into the harbour yet but his eye caught the flight of one of the shells as he suddenly saw that the fault was his own. His plan was wrong. He had misjudged distances. He had explained to Wagstaffe and Kenton what he hoped would happen when the bomb ketches opened fire, and that the Calypso would be waiting off the entrance to attack the first frigate that came out and somehow force her to block the harbour, her bow aground on one side, stern on the other.

He thought for a few moments longer, realizing that he had lost sight of the shell as it curved over towards Porto Ercole. If the bomb ketches had waited until exactly half past eleven before opening fire, the Calypso would have been out of position because he had made a number of little mistakes, all of which added up. The Fructidor, which meant young Kenton, had noticed this and, what is more, had had the guts to disobey orders and open fire two minutes early to retrieve the mistake made by his captain. Kenton had taken a bigger risk than he probably realized, Ramage thought grimly, because the third lieutenant was not to know if his captain had changed the Calypso's task at the last moment, so that by prematurely opening fire the bomb ketches could wreck some new plan.

Well, Lieutenant Kenton was right and Captain Ramage was wrong, but for the moment all that mattered was that the two pairs of mortars were keeping up a high rate of fire: first the Fructidor and then the Brutus fired their second pair of shells, and the fact that they were firing as fast as they could reload meant, or Ramage hoped it meant, that the mortars had been accurately aimed right at the beginning.

"Clew up the maintopsail," Ramage snapped at Aitken: the Calypso was still sailing too fast as the breeze increased, because the harbour was just coming into sight. No shots from Filippo, none from Santa Catarina - and nothing from the bowchase guns of the three frigates.

Seamen were running to haul on ropes; gradually the lower corners of the great maintopsail, the clews, were pulled up and in towards the middle, a quick way of reducing the area of the canvas and the Calypso's speed.

Suddenly there was an enormous drumroll, turning into a reverberating explosion inside the harbour which hurt the eardrums and echoed and re-echoed among the hills, punctuated by the shrill screams of startled gulls, and, a moment later, while the noise was still rolling and rumbling like thunder, Ramage saw a great cloud of oily smoke streaming up from the middle of the harbour, as though from an enormous bonfire.

A few moments later the Calypso had sailed far enough for him to be able to see into the entrance. The southernmost frigate had blown up: one of the shells must have landed in her magazine. All that could be seen of her were her masts poking out of the smoke: some spars had toppled over across the next frigate, festooning her with rigging, yards sticking out at crazy angles like pins in a pincushion and several with sails still attached and beginning to burn. The weight of the wreckage was making the centre frigate heel to the south, over the spot where as the smoke drifted the hulk of the exploded frigate could now be seen amid a white froth of water. All over the harbour there were splashes, like leaping fish: it was raining wreckage ...

A ball of smoke appeared above the hulk as another mortar shell burst in midair; a second one landed close in the water and exploded a moment later, stirring up the wreckage. A third landed well beyond, over the quay, and then a fourth burst high in the air, the fuse obviously cut too short. Then Ramage spotted a movement: the northernmost frigate was making a desperate attempt to get out of the harbour: obviously all the lines holding her stern to the quay had been cut and she was being pulled forward by the weight of her own anchor cables; being pulled clear of her consort, which was likely to catch fire at any moment from the wreckage of the third ship.