'I'm going below for half an hour,' he told Swan. 'Report when you can see Ushant.'

Sarah was awake, unused to the swinging cot, which was little more than a large hammock with a shallow, open-topped frame fitted in it, like a box in a net bag.

'I preferred going to and from India,' she said teasingly. 'A proper bed is more comfortable.'

'You wait until there's rough weather. Going to windward in a blow and that cot will swing comfortably, while a fixed bed tosses you out.'

'How do I get out of it, anyway?'

'You don't; you're marooned!'

'Do you want to get some sleep?' she offered, sitting up with her tawny hair tousled, naked because she had only the clothes she had worn in the fishing boat. The lantern light seemed to gild her and he turned away quickly, reassuring her and telling her to stay in the cot. Stay in the cot, he thought to himself, or the captain will not concentrate on his charts ...

He put the lantern on the hook in the beam just forward of the desk. The charts were rolled and stowed vertically in a rack fitted on one side of the desk. Checking what charts were there meant removing each one and partly unrolling it. He sat at the desk and made a start. English Channel, western section, including the Scilly Islands; English Channel, eastern section, including the mouth of the Thames and the Medway. North Sea ... in four sections. Ireland, the southern half. The Channel Islands. St Malo to Ouessant (the French spelling and the detail showed it was probably copied from a captured one). Ushant to Brest and south to Douarnenez... Those were probably the charts for her last patrol... Half a dozen more left. North Atlantic, southern section...

Ramage unrolled it. It covered from the southwestern corner of Spain to the eastern side of the West Indian islands, and down to the Equator, yet giving very little detail of the South American coast. There was Trinidad - which anyway could be identified by its shape. No reference to Cayenne, though; it must be about there, just a kink in the ink line of the coast, north of Brazil.

He looked at the remaining charts. A French one of the islands of St Barthélemy, St Martin (with the southern half owned by the Dutch and given its Dutch name, St Maarten), Anguilla and well to the north, just a speck, Sombrero. Then another two of the group just to the southward, Nevis and St Christopher. And two more, St Eustatius and Saba. A detailed chart of Plymouth ... and Falmouth ... and, finally, the Texel, showing the northwestern corner of the Netherlands.

All in all, Ramage thought wryly, he was no better off than he would be with a blank sheet of paper and his memory; in fact he was going to have to draw up a chart or two for himself. For the moment, though he had to try to put himself in the French captain's place.

When sailing from Europe to the West Indies or the northern part of South America, the trick was to pick up the Trade winds as soon as possible without getting becalmed in the Doldrums. Which meant sailing where you could be reasonably sure of finding steady winds. Every captain and every master had his own invisible signpost in the Atlantic; a sign which said 'Turn southwest here; this is where the northeast Trade winds begin.'

For Ramage it was 25° North latitude, 25° West longitude. And - he took a pencil from the desk drawer and a crumpled sheet of paper which he smoothed out enough to make it usable.

According to the copied French chart, St Louis church in the centre of Brest, just north of the Château, was 48° 23' 22" North, 4° 29' 27" West. That, within a mile, was where L'Espoir had sailed from, and she was bound first to the magic spot, 25° North, 25° West. Which ... was ... about ... yes, roughly seventeen hundred miles to the south-southwest.

Then, from the magic point it was to Cayenne ... about ... another 2,000 miles, steering southwest by west. Say 4,000 miles altogether, and let no one think that steering southwest by west from the magic point would bring him or his ship to Cayenne: he would probably start running out of the Trades by the time he reached 12° North; from then on he would be trying to fight his way south against a foul current which ran northwest along the coast of Brazil. Caught in the right place, it helped; but if the wind played about, whiffling round the compass (which it could do in those latitudes) then the current would sweep the helpless ship up towards the islands - towards Barbados, for example, where the British commander-in-chief was probably lying at anchor in Carlisle Bay.

Ramage looked at his brief calculations again and then screwed them up.

Sarah asked: 'When do you think we shall be in Plymouth if this weather holds, dearest?'

'In about three months.'

'No, seriously. Our families will be worrying.'

'I expect the Rockleys will be worrying about you, but mine will make a wrong guess and give a sigh of relief that I am safely locked up in a French prison while they will expect you to be lodging with a respectable French family.'

'Is that how it would have been, normally?'

He shrugged his shoulders. 'I should think so. Anyway, my parents will not be worrying, and I'm sure as soon as they get the word they will be calling on your people.'

'But we'll be back in London before then, won't we?'

He was sure she suspected the idea that was popping in and out of his mind like an importunate beggar.

She said, in a flat voice: 'It would be madness to go after L'Espoir. You'll lose the Murex and everyone on board. A scout's job is to raise the alarm, dearest. Losing everything won't help Jean-Jacques, but getting help will...'

He nodded and was startled when she said: 'You took so long to make up your mind.'

She was making it easier for him, and he took the opportunity as gracefully as possible. 'I needed to give it a lot of thought.'

She sat up in the cot, swung her legs out on to the deck and holding one end firmly stood up. She walked over to him and, standing to one side, gently held his head against her naked body. 'You had two choices, dearest, Cayenne or Plymouth. Two choices. But you know as well as I do there was really only one that you could take.'

'Yes, but...'

'But in the same circumstances another captain would have had only one choice: he would have gone to Plymouth!'

He nuzzled against her, his unshaven face rasping slightly on her warm skin, his chin pressing gently against her breasts. 'I suppose most other captains wouldn't have to choose because they do not usually meet people like Jean-Jacques.'

Ramage had just gone on deck after Swan called that they could now sight Ushant, and the deck lookouts had been sent aloft when both men heard the hail.

'Deck here!'

'Foremost lookout, sir: sail ho! Two sail!'

'Where away?'

'Two points on the starboard bow, sir, frigates I reckon.'

'Very well, keep a sharp lookout.'

Swan turned to Ramage, saw that he was already looking over the bow, and heard him cursing. 'Those blasted mutineers - I wish they'd left us the bring-'em-near. Even a nightglass!'

'They must have spotted us ten minutes ago, probably more. They'll recognize the rig...'

'And guess we're the Murex - perhaps sailing under the French flag?'

Ramage shook his head. News did not travel that fast. 'I doubt if the Admiralty yet know anything about the mutiny. In a day or two they'll read about it in the Moniteur, half a page of French bombast about oppressed English seamen fighting for their liberté, fraternité and égalité. '

'Yes,' Swan said bitterly, 'at the price of treason and making sure that fifteen of their shipmates go into a French prison.'

'That's what is meant by fraternité,' Ramage said laconically.