'Think about all those Frenchmen we landed, then; they won't have been given a rotten fishhead or an empty wine fiasco to help them on the road to Cagliari.'

'That's true, sir.' The thought brought a grin to Jackson's face.

'And everyone speaking to them in Italian ...'

Jackson nodded; he tended to forget the captain spoke good Italian, and the effect that this could have.

'Can you put on a Sardinian accent, sir?'

'The Sardi... in this island alone there are probably two dozen different accents, quite apart from the fact it was owned by Austria until eighty years ago. Certainly I couldn't imitate the accent of this place, Sant' Antioco. Centuries ago they came from Genoa down to somewhere on the Barbary coast opposite here, then moved here when the Algerines oppressed them. They probably use as many Arabic words as Italian. Or archaic Italian words no longer used today.'

Ramage felt slightly irritated by Jackson: until five minutes ago he was concerned only with being generous to some Sardi fishermen, and that in turn had led him to recall the Genovesi who, before the Spanish Armada sailed for England, went to North Africa; to Tabarka, Zembra and Djerba, and the Kerkenna Islands near by, in the constant hunt for new fishing grounds. Moslems, Normans, Christians, Catalans, Spaniards - all at some time or another had fought to get the tunny, the coral from the reefs, the slaves and the grain to be found in the triangle formed by Sicily, Sardinia and the Barbary coast. The language resulting over the centuries from such a mixing would be fascinating - and yet the nearest he could get to hear it now was letting this brig run ashore. There was so much of interest, so much to learn - and so little opportunity ...

As soon as he was sure the wind would carry the brig down to the waiting fishermen - it seemed they had guessed what was about to happen - Ramage told Jackson to lash the wheel, left the topsail drawing, and ordered his men down into the gig.

Two hours later all the boats were back at the Calypso and being hoisted on board, and Southwick was already conjecturing whether the Calypso would catch up with Aitken's convoy.

'We'll be sailing less than twenty-four hours after them, sir', he commented.

Was it only twenty-four hours ago that Aitken sailed out past Isolotto la Vacca? The thought surprised Ramage, who, working backwards in time, found Southwick was right. It seemed more like a week.

'I can guess the course Aitken will take, sir, because I gave him some tips about the currents along the Barbary coast. There's a nasty inset into most of those big bays.'

'The course from here to Europa Point is fairly direct', Ramage said sarcastically: 'west by north, about 700 miles, and if we were bound for Gibraltar, I'm sure we'd sight them.'

'Aren't we going to Gibraltar, sir?' Southwick was obviously startled.

'Yes, but we have some things to do first.'

His satisfaction at surprising Southwick was short-lived; the master's face took on the smile of some benevolent and overindulgent bishop; all he lacked, Ramage thought, was a cope, mitre and crozier. 'Good', the master said, 'if there's some action I'll get a good look in now we've no lieutenants on board.'

Ramage found himself strangely reluctant to leave the Golfo di Palmas; like so many other gulfs and bays in the Mediterranean, it held impressions of all the civilizations that had passed through it. Ramage was reminded of a piece of canvas with many portraits painted one on top of the other so that from different angles and in different lights one could see traces of the earlier works.

As the Calypso stretched past the Isolotto la Vacca with a brisk south wind and all plain sail set and drawing, Ramage looked astern at the Passe Partout, slicing along in the Calypso's wake.

'Discipline in that ship for the next few days', Ramage commented to Southwick, 'is going to be fierce!'

'Why, sir? Jackson's a mild enough fellow.'

'Yes, but first Martin and then Orsini worked hard to clean her up: deck holystoned and a shine put on anything that would take a polish. Jackson doesn't know when Martin or Orsini will be on board again, but he's going to make sure she's sparkling.'

'Just to show them how it should be done!' The idea appealed to Southwick. 'Pity we can't put the gunner on board as Jackson's second-in-command.'

'He'd beat Jackson', Ramage said, and knew exactly why. Jackson had enormous initiative, was not the slightest bit frightened of responsibility, and in action appeared never to have heard the word fear. But one word he did know was contempt; if he was contemptuous of a man, then that man ceased to exist; he became what in the West Indies was called a zombie, a dead man walking. Jackson would go about his business in the Passe Partout as though the gunner did not exist and the gunner, being the man he was, would be delighted, not insulted; he would probably start painting black lacquer on the guns, or passing all the roundshot through a gauge to make sure they were completely spherical, with no bumps of rust.

'How are you heading, quartermaster?' Ramage called, more to bring himself back to the immediate present than a wish to know if the men at the wheel were on course.

'Nor'west a half west, sir', the helmsman said after glancing at the compass on the weather side of the binnacle.

And about 320 miles to go, Ramage thought to himself, if the wind does not head us so we have to start tacking.

Southwick supervised a cast of the log and came forward with the report that they were making six knots and the wind was freshening.

'We're not on the course the convoy took, sir', he said almost accusingly.

'Of course not. We're not going to the same place.'

'I assumed that', Southwick said heavily as he noted the time, speed, course and position on the slate. Later, the details would be transferred to the master's log and to the captain's journal, and in due course, as laid down in the Regulations and Instructions, both volumes would be forwarded to the Admiralty, where Southwick assumed they would join an enormous and dusty pile of other logs and journals, unread and merely recorded in some index.

He was sure they were unread because he had served in ships where, for example, a captain had ordered that a man be given nine dozen lashes of the cat-o'-nine-tails and this was quite openly recorded, although two dozen lashes were the legal limit a captain could award; more than that could be ordered only by a court martial. Yet there had been no letter from the Board Secretary expressing Their Lordships' displeasure, or even asking for more details.

No, a log or journal became important only if something went wrong, and something going wrong meant in effect losing the ship. Logs and journals were kept in case of trouble; a sort of coroner looking over your shoulder in the hope there would be an inquest.

Southwick's attitude towards life reflected in his cheerful face; he met tomorrow's problems tomorrow; he did not brood about them today. As he looked aft, to see if he had missed any details of the sketch he had made of the coast and which meant that not only had he carried out the instructions for masters but added to his own store of charts and views, he found himself startled that in the course of twenty-four hours, eight French merchant vessels and one 74-gun ship had been destroyed in the Golfo di Palmas, entirely due to the Calypso; six large prizes had been sent off to Gibraltar; and a small tartane had been kept as a tender to the Calypso.

He pencilled some more shading on to the sketch slightly to change the shape of the south sides of Monte Riciotto, one of the smaller mountains on San Pietro, and Monte Guardia dei Mori, the tallest.

Yes, Isolotto la Vacca also needed a little alteration. When he came to put on some water colours later, he must remember the thin, distant line of the marsh and salt pans, and also the white sand beach near Porto Pino. The whole stretch of coast seemed peaceful enough now: just one brig heeled over on the beach near the fishermen's village and another ripped open on a reef at the other end of the gulf - they were the only signs of their visit. By now the brig at the village would have been looted by the local people, and as the months and years passed they would gradually strip the wood from the ship, using it to build or repair their own fishing boats. The towers of various shapes, sizes and heights - he wondered when they had last been manned by soldiers. Mr Ramage said Sardinia had been Austrian until about 1720, and Southwick could imagine them keeping a sharp lookout. Who were they fighting in 1720?