"Not only the merchants," Ramage said, tapping the letter beside him on the table.

Yorke sniffed contemptuously. "Perhaps if the Commander-in-Chief showed more interest, his frigates would catch these damned French privateers before they catch the Post Office packets, and honest citizens like myself could get home again. You'll be going back in a frigate, I suppose," Yorke said casually.

Ramage shook his head. "If I go, I'll probably be keeping you company. In fact, you'd better try for berths for both of us. And for Southwick and Bowen."

"Oh, I thought Sir Pilcher would be keeping you out here. And can't he find employment for a master and a surgeon?"

Ramage glanced up at the approaching waiter and Yorke waited until the man had set out his breakfast and departed before continuing. "I assumed you'd be staying here under Sir Pilcher's orders."

"I think the Admiral is already short of appointments for his own people."

"Which is a tactful way of saying that you know he's damned if he's going to deprive one of his favourites to give you a job?"

"He wouldn't phrase it so crudely. On the other hand he might find an unpleasant job that has to be done, and give it to me to avoid making one of his people unhappy."

After glancing at the folded letter, Yorke busied himself with his coffee and toast. He could see that whatever Sir Pilcher's letter said, Ramage was worried about it: that much was obvious. Yorke knew they had been through too much together in the past few months for Ramage to be unnecessarily secretive.

Slowly it dawned on him why he was in no hurry to arrange a passage back to England. He had spent the early years of his life at sea in one or other of the ships owned by his grandfather, and eventually commanded one of them. He'd realized later that the old man, a tyrant by anyone's standards, had given him command only when convinced that his grandson had nothing more to learn from any of the other masters; more knowledge of ships and the sea would come only from experience. So a year in command had been followed by a couple of years in the London office, learning the details of the business life of the shipowner, as opposed to the shipmaster. At the time Yorke had resented it all, but the old man had had a reason; a reason he had kept silent about even on his deathbed. It was only when the lawyers read his will that Yorke learnt that the whole fleet had been left to him: six well-found ships...

But Yorke had found the life of a rich young shipowner in London boring: mornings and afternoons spent in Leadenhall Street; the evenings a seemingly endless round of soirees and balls, where he had constantly to fend off the attentions of anxious mothers who regarded him as a good catch for their daughters. So he had gone back to sea again, commanding one of his own ships, leaving the London office to be run by trusted men. In some ways it was a lonely life - lonely because he missed the company of intelligent men of his own generation. Yet he knew only too well that in England such men either did not understand what sent him to sea or cultivated his friendship only because they considered a rich friend was a good insurance for paying gambling debts or getting credit.

Meeting Ramage in the Caribbean had been a refreshing change, and Yorke hoped a friendship had grown which would last until they reached old age. Not, he thought with a trace of sadness, that Ramage was ever likely to reach old age. Even now, only just past his twenty-first birthday, he had been wounded a couple of times. He'd lost one ship (albeit a small cutter with a crew of about fifty men) in a particularly desperate affair during the Battle of Cape St Vincent. More recently he'd lost the Triton brig after a hurricane which in turn followed a brilliant attack on a privateer which tried to capture Yorke's own ship in a convoy of which Ramage's brig formed part of the escort. A dozen or more other episodes had led to Ramage's ship's company having a loyalty to him which Yorke knew only came from a deep respect. And you only earned the respect and loyalty of tough men-o'-war's-men by real leadership, extreme bravery and concern for the ship and the men in her.

Yet, Yorke thought, the odd thing was that on paper Nicholas Ramage, son and heir of the tenth Earl of Blazey, was far from being an ideal naval officer - or, rather, most people's idea of what one should be. He had all the obvious advantages - damned handsome, in a lean and hungry sort of way which women obviously found irresistible, and a bizarre sense of humour. He also had deep-set, piercing brown eyes which seemed to look right through you, and would endear him to few senior officers subjected to their self-assured and often chilly stare. Yet Ramage had two major handicaps: the sensitive, impatient and proud nature of an artistic person, and a lively mind and imagination. The two combined to make a young man not very amenable to the rigid, unquestioning obedience to the precise letter of an order demanded by certain types of senior naval officer.

So far, from all accounts, Ramage had been lucky. In the Mediterranean he had attracted the attention of Commodore Nelson, and a few months later at the Battle of Cape St Vincent he had made a desperate gamble which had lost him his ship but put the Commodore in the way of capturing two Spanish ships of the line and winning a knighthood. If Sir Horatio Nelson, now a Rear-Admiral, ever rose to any importance in the Navy, then Yorke knew that Ramage would have a powerful patron. But it took time for such a man to rise - if ever he did - and in the meantime young lieutenants like Ramage could have been eclipsed; thrust out of favour and left to spend the rest of their lives on half pay, fretting their hearts out for what might have been.

When Yorke had heard that Ramage's father was a lifelong friend of the present First Lord of the Admiralty, he'd assumed it would have assured Ramage plum jobs and certainly command of a frigate within the next two or three years. But no, it had meant nothing of the sort. Instead it had led, a few months ago, to Lord Spencer picking Ramage for a job where nothing would be said if he succeeded, but if he failed he'd have been sacrificed as a scapegoat in the same way that his father had been sacrificed by an earlier government.

Why then had Lord Spencer chosen Ramage? Yorke had puzzled over the question for many weeks, but now, while he sipped his coffee and tried to get enthusiastic for dry toast which even the swarm of flies seemed to ignore, he thought he knew the answer. It had been a tricky job - an impossible one, on the face of it. There was a chance that Ramage was the only lieutenant available at that moment that Lord Spencer thought stood even a slight chance of succeeding. But the Navy didn't lack bright young lieutenants. No, the answer was probably much simpler. Since Lord Spencer had known that failure would mean complete professional ruin, he'd probably coldbloodedly chosen Ramage because if he failed he could spend the rest of his life running the family estate, wealthy if not contented, heir to one of the oldest earldoms in the country. For all too many young officers from less fortunate families, professional ruin would entail spending the rest of their lives as haberdashers' assistants.

Yorke glanced at Ramage, who was still staring at the letter. His eyes were bloodshot, his face taut and strained, and he was hunched in the chair as though thoroughly weary: not the weariness of a few hours' exertion but the weariness following months of strain. He was sure Ramage had never thought of Lord Spencer's action in that light - and to tell him would not help him at the moment. Yet ironically Ramage had successfully carried out the orders - his presence in the Caribbean proved that - but now, instead of reporting to the Commander-in-Chief with his own ship, he had had to report that the Triton brig had been lost on a coral reef after being dismasted in a hurricane.