'I heard about that,' Martin said. 'Well, he would know!'

'To hear Jackson tell the story, it was quite a battle. Mr Ramage stopped a Spanish ship of the line by letting it ram the Kathleen. This slowed the Spanish up and gave Lord Nelson - Commodore as he then was - time to catch up. His Lordship never forgot that.'

'Yes, we lost a good friend when he was killed. It doesn't do to think what the Navy lost. There'll never be another admiral like him,' Martin said.

'Let's hope we don't have another battle like Trafalgar to fight, because I don't think we have an admiral capable of fighting it: they're all so old or inexperienced. Look what Calder did - he was court-martialled, and quite rightly so.'

Martin nodded and said: 'Yes, but it will be quite a day when Mr Ramage gets his flag. The war may be over by the time he has enough seniority - that's the curse of the Navy, seniority. Why they don't promote on merit alone I'll never understand.'

Orsini held his hands out in a typical Italian gesture. 'It would never work. It might start off with promotion by merit, but soon the politicians would get their fingers into it, and it would turn into favouritism, influence and patronage. Politicians foul everything they touch. So maybe it is safer to rely on seniority.'

Martin was startled by Orsini's matter-of-fact wisdom. 'Yes, I suppose you're right, but in the meantime we have to put up with the Calders and the like, promoted on seniority, not merit.'

'It's the price we pay. Sometimes merit and seniority combine and we get a Lord Nelson.'

'Don't forget,' Martin said, 'that it was Lord St Vincent that picked him for Copenhagen.'

'And put that old fool Sir Hyde Parker in command!' retorted Orsini. 'It nearly caused a disaster - in fact if it had not been for Lord Nelson it would have been a complete disaster: the command and the battle.'

'Well, Lord Nelson won, in spite of the confusion.'

'Yes, Mr Ramage says the Danes never studied the Battle of the Nile. Had they done so, they would never have fought the battle like they did because they let Nelson fight the same sort of battle - with the same sort of results.'

At that moment Ramage came on to the quarterdeck and, overhearing Orsini's last few words, asked: 'What are you two naval strategists discussing?'

'Lord Nelson and Sir Hyde Parker at Copenhagen, sir,' Martin said. 'The divided command.'

'You can talk about that for a month without reaching any conclusions,' Ramage said, deciding not to enter into any conversation criticizing senior flag officers. He had talked about Copenhagen with his father and Paolo at Palace Street, but they were family conversations, not exactly private but not the sort of talks he would have with his junior officers, since he had been very critical of Sir Hyde Parker, who was unsuited to Danish waters after several years of comparative luxury in the West Indies, where the only enemies were mosquitoes, yellow fever and occasional enemy cruisers.

'Well, can you two strategists tell me how far we are from Cabrit?'

'Five miles, sir,' Martin said with a promptness that told Ramage he was making a guess. Martin, he decided, had learned the old trick of always giving a prompt reply, relying on its promptness to assure the listener of its accuracy.

Not, Ramage admitted, that it mattered on this occasion: they were on course for Cabrit and were about halfway between Diamond Rock and the island itself, so five miles was a good guess. From this angle, Cabrit Island still seemed to be part of the southern tip of Martinique, not yet outlined against the sea horizon.

Which side of the headland should he wait on? He had already decided not to go hunting for the convoy; instead he would wait and tackle it somewhere between Cabrit and Diamond Rock. That gave him a distance of ten miles. In that distance he had to deal with two or three frigates, perhaps a ship of the line, and a dozen or so merchant ships (maybe more).

It was not a great distance, but he could always chase them the last few miles up to Fort Royal, and there was nowhere there for them to hide - they could not all huddle under the protection of Fort St Louis. But how many merchant ships would there be? It was hard to guess. A British convoy to England from somewhere like Barbados could amount to fifty ships, sometimes a hundred, and those coming back were as big. But the French were only supplying Martinique, they were not sending out ships to bring back molasses and sugar and hides and spices: no, they were just breaking the blockade, so the ships would probably be carrying supplies for the Navy (rope, powder, canvas and salt tack) and the army (guns, powder and shot, muskets, clothing) and, if they were lucky, some cargo for the civil population. The French were fortunate to have been able to assemble and sail a convoy from Europe - there were plenty of British squadrons cruising off the French coast, ready to intercept such ships.

Yet the French would be prepared to take risks to supply Martinique. It was one of their more important colonies and, to the authorities in Paris, it must seem to be one of the keys to French power in the West Indies. But at the moment it was a dog without teeth: the Alerte frigate was captured and in Barbados, the Achille was on the rocks. The army in Martinique was helpless without the French Navy to carry it anywhere.

Anyway, the convoy would have a large escort, and some of the ships might stay behind, to reinforce the French in Martinique. Or at least that would be the intention of the Ministry of Marine in Paris, unaware just what had been happening in the past few days. All of which boiled down to one thing - that the Dido might be in for a surprise when the French hove in sight; a surprise and a bitter fight against heavy odds. Well, as usual, the Dido's only ally would be surprise: the French would be expecting to be met by the Achille and the Alerte; in their place they would find the Dido.

As soon as the Dido reached Cabrit Point she tacked and began retracing her course up to the north-west. Ramage told Southwick: 'We'll hold this course for an hour and then wear round and steer back for Cabrit. We'll continue doing that until we sight the convoy.'

'What'll the French do when they don't see the Achille and the Alerte?'the master asked.

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. 'I hope they'll assume there's been some mix-up and that both ships have gone to a different rendezvous. It wouldn't be the first time that something like that has happened. They wouldn't have sent that frigate very far ahead: just to give the Achille time to get ready for sea. Perhaps twenty-four hours, and another day to reach the rendezvous.'

'Yes, they wouldn't be sure enough of their navigation to set a time and place too far ahead.'

'I doubt if they did much more than give a latitude,' Ramage said. 'They probably aren't very sure of their longitude after an Atlantic crossing. Most likely they said "Rendezvous in 14° 40' North", or something like that. I can't see them being more exact. Nor is there any need.'

'I'd give a lot to know whether they are going to try to get into Fort Royal in the dark,' Southwick said.

'The easiest way of answering that is to ask yourself what you would do if you were the French.'

'I'd have a go,' Southwick declared. 'The frigate did it once, and there's no reason why he shouldn't try it again, and pilot the convoy in.'

'Exactly. He will be very confident of himself. And quite rightly so: that was a very creditable piece of seamanship. He fooled us!'

'He did that,' Southwick said ruefully. 'But perhaps we'll get our own back by fooling him.'

'I hope so,' Ramage said. 'Though we haven't a lot of room to tackle both escorts and convoy.'

'But if we manage to destroy the pilot, perhaps a lot of the French merchantmen will run aground through not weathering Pointe du Diamant. It's a big gulf, and a lot of them might go aground on the north shore.'