Ramage shrugged his shoulders and smiled. 'You are free to think whatever you like.'

The Frenchman's shrug made Ramage's look like a feeble twitch. 'Of course, of course.' He introduced himself. 'Citizen Robilliard, commanding the French national frigate La Robuste, at your service. May I -'

As he turned to introduce his officers, Ramage interrupted him calmly. 'Citizen Robilliard, a moment please. You are now the former captain of the former French frigate La Robuste, which is now a prize to His Britannic Majesty's frigate Calypso...'

'But... mon Dieu, citizen,' Robilliard protested, 'the war is over. It is all finished. We are friends. Where have you been that you do not know?' He slapped his thigh and started to roar with laughter. 'Ah, it is the English humour! You make a joke because -' he saw Ramage's face and his voice tailed off. He took a deep breath. 'No, you don't make a joke, Captain Ramage. You come from Europe. We have just come from the Batavian Republic. You have news...'

Suddenly Ramage felt sorry for this amiable man, whose accent showed he had grown up not far from Honfleur.

'Yes, hostilities have begun again. Brest is blockaded - my ship is part of that fleet.'

'And you are bound ...'

'... for the West Indies,' Ramage said. 'Now, m'sieu, you and your ship's company must consider yourselves my prisoners.'

'But this is absurd,' Robilliard protested, and then looked in the direction of Ramage's pointing finger. The Calypso's guns were run out while the French guns were still secured, well lashed down and ready for bad weather.

Ramage said to Paolo in Italian: 'Collect papers, charts and signal books from his cabin. Take a couple of men with you.'

Robilliard scratched his head, still unwilling to accept what he had heard. 'I can't believe this. You have documents? A newspaper - Le Moniteur, perhaps? There must be a written declaration - you just come on board and tell me that you have taken my ship prize! Why no!' he exclaimed, as though suddenly losing his temper. 'You are just pirates!'

'You are familiar with Brest?'

Robilliard nodded his head cautiously. 'I was blockaded in there for three years.'

'When did you sail?'

'As soon as the peace was signed. In fact we carried the dispatches informing the governor of the Batavian Republic'

Ramage beckoned to Auguste and Albert. 'These two men can tell you the names of all the important ships in Brest three weeks ago, as well as the names of the Navy and Army commandants, and answer any questions you care to ask. They are French. I was in Brest until after the war began; I can give you a certain amount of information.'

Auguste said: 'It's all true, citizen. The English ambassador left Paris, war began and Bonaparte arrested all the English in France, whether officers on leave or women. Bonaparte now makes war on women.'

Robilliard flushed and then said angrily to Ramage: 'This is ridiculous. Why, I could seize you, and then your ship would never dare open fire for fear of killing you!'

A series of metallic clicks made him look round and he was startled to find that three seamen, Jackson, Stafford and Rossi, were standing close with broad grins on their faces and pistols aimed at Robilliard, and each man swung a cutlass as a parson might use his walking stick to knock the head off a dandelion.

'Captain,' Ramage said, 'we are wasting time, my ship would certainly open fire if necessary, my second-in-command has strict orders about that. But you would not be alive to hear the first broadside that might kill me. You have been tricked by the perfidious English, captain, just as I was tricked by the perfidious French less than a month ago. There is no dishonour: no need for you to fire a broadside "for the honour of the flag".'

Robilliard still shook his head disbelievingly. 'I have only seventy-six men because we were short when we left Brest and have had much sickness in Batavia and at sea, but how can you keep us all prisoner ... ?'

That is no problem,' Ramage said and signalled to Jackson. 'Give me your pistol,' he said in English, and then switched back to French to say to Robilliard: 'We are agreed, are we not, that you and your ship are my prize?'

Robilliard shrugged his shoulders and looked round at his three lieutenants. They were all young men, their faces frozen with the shock of finding an English frigate poised to rake their ship and her captain on board La Robuste.

'What do you say, mes braves?'

'We have no choice,' the oldest of them said without much conviction.

'You must remember you said that when a committee of public safety accuses me of treachery,' Robilliard said bitterly. 'We have no choice, certainly, but I don't want any of you claiming to be heroes if we are exchanged and get back to France.'

'Don't worry,' Ramage said and waving to Jackson to go aft. 'My dispatch will make it clear you had no knowledge of the war.'

'A lot of good your dispatch would do me in France!'

'I expect it will be published in the London Gazette, which is as good as Le Moniteur. Certainly, I'm sure that Bonaparte has it translated and read to him.'

Robilliard was watching Ramage closely. 'Yes, I believe you.' He spelled out his name. 'And make sure you put in the "Pierre", because there is my cousin, too, and although he does not command a ship he is a scoundrel - no, I didn't mean that -'

'I understand,' Ramage assured him.

'But so many prisoners,' Robilliard said as he watched the Tricolour flutter down as Jackson hauled on one end of the halyard. 'How will you ... ?'

'Leave that problem to me,' Ramage said. 'You are not short of provisions?'

'Water, but not provisions. With so many dead from sickness, I could have doubled the rations of the living.'

Ramage and Aitken sat at the desk, Ramage in his normal chair and the first lieutenant opposite, trying to make himself comfortable on a chair that normally served at the dining table in the coach. Aitken was hurriedly writing notes, quill squeaking, as Ramage translated from various pages of the small pile of documents in front of them.

'Ah, here we are,' Ramage said happily, 'some of the answers about Cayenne. This is' - he glanced at the title page - 'a sort of pilot book published three years ago, so it is reasonably up to date. Take notes as I read it aloud.'

He turned over a couple of pages. 'It begins with a word about the currents to expect off the coast of French Guiana. There are two - well, we knew that. The first starts close off the African coast, near to the Cape Verde Islands, and is caused by the Trade winds blowing across the Atlantic. Yes, well, we know all about that, too. It reaches to within ...' he paused, making the conversion, 'to within thirty-five miles of the coast, or a depth of eight fathoms, where a second current, produced by the tides, meets it. And there is the water pouring out of the Amazon and the Orinoco. Well, it's the heights not the rates that interest me.

'Hmm, numerous other rivers between the Amazon and the Orinoco carry down vast quantities of mud, tree trunks and branches ... these accumulating along the shores have built up a border of low ground.' The pilot was written in stilted French and translation was difficult. 'Mangroves generally cover it between high and low water. At low water this border seems impassable: at high water there are sometimes channels accessible to vessels ... Ah, here we are: "The only ports are at mouths of rivers ... there are usually bars at the entrances and shoals in the channels ... Larger ships can anchor to wait for high water without risk because no violent tempests ever occur in this region ..."

'That's comforting; I dislike "violent tempests". The mariner "can wait for a local pilot or send boats ahead to make soundings".'