'I'm glad to hear that, sir," Aitken muttered. "What would that be?"

"Shirley would have had a good defence for raking us if he'd sworn he never saw the convoy in the distance. Then he could claim that because the Calypso has French lines, he assumed she was French, flying British colours as a ruse de guerre."

Wagstaffe said: "He could have claimed he thought we were about to attack the convoy and that he arrived just in time to save it."

"That's true, but keep the thought to yourself," Ramage said dryly. "I haven't even thought of it in Shirley's company in case he has the same powers as some of those old biddies in the Highlands, and reads my mind."

"He's got some weeks to think of it," Aitken pointed out. "They say there's nothing like a sea voyage to clear the mind."

"No," Ramage agreed, "but he denies firing a gun, so he'd have to change everything to use that defence."

"You'll have to tell Bowen to think of some vile disease that Shirley has, sir," Wagstaffe said. "Something that'll keep his mind occupied, worrying!"

"They get damned ethical, these medical men," Aitken grumbled. "At least, ones like Bowen do. He'd faint if you suggested he prescribe a dram of brandy on a cold night 'for medicinal purposes'."

"Damnation take it!" Ramage swore. "The Jason's surgeon! We haven't questioned him."

"Haven't seen him," Aitken said. "And I remember that when we were down in the gunroom yesterday, winkling out the officers from their cabins, I noticed the only open door and empty cabin had 'Surgeon' painted over it."

Ramage was already hurrying down the ladder to the maindeck and a couple of minutes later the Marine sentry was announcing him at the door of Captain Shirley's cabin.

Shirley was sitting back on his settee with his feet up reading a book. He closed it and swung his feet down, but Ramage waved him to remain seated. "Please don't get up. I'm sorry to interrupt your reading."

"My dear Ramage, you are always welcome, as I continually tell you. I am beginning to think you have a poor opinion of yourself!"

"Certainly you make me a welcome guest. There was just one question I forgot to ask you. Your surgeon. I have not seen him."

Shirley shook his head sorrowfully, and Ramage thought that being the possessor of such a sad, long face would make Shirley an excellent professional mourner: all he needed was a tall hat with a thick ribbon of black silk round it, and a pair of black silk gloves: he already had the long black coat.

"Ah yes, a sad business. Died very suddenly - just off Barbados. We don't know what it was, since we have no medical knowledge -" he permitted himself a slight smile, "- but we all agreed that it was something in the nature of a stroke. Yes, a stroke; that's what we agreed to enter in the log and I put it in my journal. A moving funeral because he was a popular man. Not as well qualified medically as your fellow, I imagine, but widely experienced, especially in the diseases of the East. He had served in John Company ships as a surgeon's mate, I think."

Ramage leaned forward over his desk, finding his chair hard, and he was tired of the sound of his own voice. He looked round at Aitken, Bowen and Southwick and said: "There you have it. That was all the information that a morning's work yielded us. I haven't forgotten anything, have I?" he asked the first lieutenant.

"No sir, except the strange feeling you had about Captain Shirley and the men." When Ramage looked puzzled, Aitken reminded him: "You did mention about Voodoo, sir - some experience you had in Grenada?"

"Voodoo?" Southwick exclaimed, startled. "Don't say . . ."

"Mr Southwick was with me at the time in Grenada," Ramage explained to Aitken. "And so was Mr Bowen."

"Tell us about it, sir," Bowen said anxiously. "Don't say that Captain Shirley is mixed up with Voodoo!"

"No, no, no!" Ramage said emphatically. "I was just describing its effect to explain to Aitken and Wagstaffe what the atmosphere reminded me of - there was no sign of Voodoo as such."

Southwick looked at Bowen and nodded his head. "The captain is right. When we talked to them on board the Jason yesterday I couldn't put my finger on it then, but now I've got it. It's the same as going down into a crypt - no reason why you should feel uneasy, but you do. You know about the coffins, you know the stonework makes the atmosphere cold, you expect the air to be stuffy because the door has been shut. . . but you can still get a strange feeling: the hair on the back of your neck wants to stand up. There's no reason, but it just does."

"And talking to the witch doctor and his victims," Bowen added, "you feel they're hiding behind a pane of glass; you can see and hear them but if you reached out you'd never touch them."

Ramage tapped the desk top. "Now then, let's not attach too much importance to that. I'm more interested in knowing how Captain Shirley makes his whole ship's company deny everything."

"Well, they're not exactly denying everything, sir," Aitken said. "I noticed that more often than not they told us to ask Captain Shirley about it. They shifted the responsibility for an answer on to him."

Ramage shrugged his shoulders. "Yes - which is the same as them dodging the responsibility."

"I'm more interested in the death of the surgeon," Bowen said. "Most unfortunate that they don't have a surgeon on board. His views would have been very significant."

Aitken waved a deprecating hand. "Don't you believe it. If he knew anything of the slightest use, he'd have bleated about medical ethics. But he wouldn't have noticed anything - he was one of those bleed-and-purge chaps. Started as a surgeon's mate in a John Company ship."

"Probably knew some sovereign remedies for belly aches brought on by too much curry," Southwick said, unable to resist teasing Bowen. "Anyway, as far as a court-martial in Plymouth is concerned," he said, a practical note in his voice, "all we know is that the Jasons deny firing at us, and we heard the shot whistling over our heads, and we had some holes, since patched, in our sails and some rigging cut, all of it since replaced."

"That's it," Ramage said. "So it's up to you now, Bowen."

"Don't expect too much from my report, sir," Bowen warned. "A walk across Parliament Square or down Whitehall is enough to prove that there are more madmen walking around than sane ones, simply because the mad are usually very cunning."

Sidney Yorke shook Ramage by the hand. "Alexis wanted to invite you to dinner again but I told her we must observe the formalities. Now, Jackson knows -" He watched as the cutter's painter was led aft, so that the boat trailed astern like a dog on a lead. "Ah yes, he knows," he said with a smile as the American led the boat's crew forward. "I told the cook to make them up something with cold cuts."

"That's why they like coming over," Ramage said. "All the food is boiled in the King's ships. You look well. How is Alexis?"

"Come below now and see her or she'll get impatient. Is everything arranged to your satisfaction?" he inquired ironically, waving towards the Calypso, which was now stretching along a couple of cables to windward of the Emerald. "It's a good idea of yours to take a turn round the convoy occasionally: I've never seen such good station-keeping. You scared them at the convoy conference!"

Alexis, wearing a high-waisted morning dress of white cambric, sprigged muslin and yellow morocco slippers, was sitting in Yorke's day cabin, and when Ramage kissed her hand she smiled up from the settee. "I thought you'd decided to leave us when you suddenly headed for Africa! And then that frigate began shooting at you, although she seems to be on our side!"