Wagstaffe lifted his 'distance staff' and held it up. He was proud of it because it was so easy to make and to use. He had been told to keep one cable astern of the Calypso and in her wake. One cable was 200 yards precisely, not 150 or 250. It was a distance which anyone in the Calypso could check with a quadrant or sextant in a few moments because of the two simple facts: if you knew the height of an object (in this case a mainmast) and the angle it made from you, it was easy enough to work out how far away it was: the mast made the vertical side of a right-angled triangle and the angle was opposite, between the base and hypotenuse. And of course the base was the distance, in this case two hundred yards.

However, to avoid having to get a quadrant or sextant out of its box to measure the angle, it was easy enough to cut two notches in a short stick at appropriate distances apart so that when you held the stick vertically at arm's length, the lower notch was level with the Calypso's after waterline, and her mainmasthead touched the upper notch. If the mast appeared shorter than the distance between the notches, La Robuste wasmore than 200 yards astern: if taller, they were too close.

In fact it was not too difficult to keep station because both frigates were almost the same size and of course French-designed and built, with the sails cut by French sailmakers. Providing La Robuste set the same sails, and providing the men at the wheel, the quartermaster and the officers of the deck stayed alert in this sun (which was really getting some heat in it as the latitude decreased) it was easy.

What had Captain Ramage in mind? The series of rendezvous he had given to Wagstaffe, a latitude and longitude for each day, in case they lost each other during the night and were not in sight at dawn, ended up at five degrees North and fifty-two West, which was the South American coast at Cayenne... The French kit of charts on board La Robuste did not include French Guiana, except as a half-inch square on the chart of the south part of the North Atlantic. Cayenne, Devil's Island... Wagstaffe shivered. It was probably no healthier than it sounded. Devil's Island was said to be the place Bonaparte sent his enemies. Well, it must be a big island because the Frenchman had a lot of enemies. And friends, too, judging from England's lack of allies.

Sergeant Ferris, the second-in-command of the Marines on board the Calypso, undid his pipeclayed crossbelts and unbuttoned his tunic. Sitting on the breech of one of the guns was not exactly resting in an armchair but the breech was in the shade and the breeze blowing the length of the maindeck was cool, even if La Robuste's bilges stank so that the last foot that the pump would not suck out swirled back and forth with the frigate's pitch and roll and occasionally made the maindeck smell like a Paris sewer.

Jackson walked up and sat on the truck on the after side of the gun and leaned back against the breech. 'Coolest spot in the ship,' he said.

'Aye,' Ferris said, 'count yourself lucky you're not a Marine and wearing this damned uniform.'

'Trouble with the French prisoners?'

'No, not yet. A couple of them started quarrelling with each other and some of my lads had to stop them, so we've put them all in irons, each man one leg, so they're sitting in rows facing each other and staring at the sole of the other fellow's foot. Still, forty-six prisoners is not too bad since I've got half the Calypso's Marines, and we've got that 12-pounder trained on 'em.'

'Yes, but that's just a bluff,' Jackson said. 'If we have to fire it down the hatch the recoil will turn the gun upside-down!'

'The Frogs don't know that,' Ferris said philosophically, 'and if only half the canister catches them it won't leave many alive.'

'More likely put a hole in the hull,' Jackson said.

'Don't worry. Just go down in the hold and sit down with one ankle held by the irons, and I can tell you that inside ten minutes the muzzle of that 12-pounder will seem to measure two feet in diameter and be winking at you like death himself.'

Jackson's laugh was mirthless. He had fought the French for too long to have much sympathy for them. 'What about Gilbert?'

Ferris puffed out his lips and then opened his mouth as if blowing out a plum stone. 'Don't make a mistake about that fellow! He may be small and he may be a Frog - it's easy to forget that because he speaks such good English - but you should see him when he gets worked up!

'Before we took half the prisoners over to the Calypso he talked to all of them below decks (this was while you was ferrying across our seamen) and gave 'em a warning. All French to me, of course, but I understood everything he said just by watching the faces of the prisoners! I think a lot of it was religion - Diable, that means the Devil, doesn't it? Well he went on a lot about him, and they shuffled about a lot, as though they were scared of the Devil. There was another chap they were scared of, too, someone called More. What with him threatening 'em with the Devil and More, and us Marines, too, we had them French twittering like frightened starlings.'

'Until the two started fighting.'

'Yus, but I think they are so scared that they very easily get on each other's nerves. Anyway, a day or two in irons won't hurt 'em. Given half a chance, Gilbert and his chaps would have beaten the two of them. Yet they're French too - why do they hate the fellows in this ship so much, Jacko?'

'It's not just this ship: they hate all Frenchmen who support Bonaparte. I don't know much about it myself but of course Gilbert and Louis worked for the Count of Rennes, who Bonaparte is shipping to Cayenne in the frigate we're trying to catch.'

'Cayenne? That's a sort of pepper, isn't it?'

'Yes, it comes from French Guiana, which is near Brazil. It's a deadly sort of place - makes islands of the West Indies like Antigua seem as healthy as Bath. Die like flies there, according to the captain.'

Ferris nodded and flapped the front of his tunic back and forth like a fan. 'I can believe it. But what does the captain want with this frigate, La Robuste? Halves our strength in men, even if it doubles the number of ships. But doubling the number of guns and halving the number of men to fire them,' his voice assumed the monotonous drone of a drill sergeant, 'is militarily unsound, Jacko.'

'Tell the captain,' the American said. 'He may not have considered that. Or,' he added sarcastically, 'he might be considering it only from a naval point of view, not a military one.'

Sergeant Ferris patted his stomach. 'Yes, that could be so,' he agreed judicially, completely missing the tone of Jackson's voice. 'Yes, I agree, he might have some particular naval plan in mind.'

Wagstaffe looked at his makeshift journal. There was something very satisfying about the book, which had been made up by young Orsini stitching together the left-hand side of a dozen sheets of paper. How satisfying to write boldly across the top (normally it was only a matter of fitting names in the blank spaces of a printed form) 'Journal of the Proceedings of –', he paused a moment: this was an unusual situatio... He then continued, '- the former French national frigate La Robuste, presently prize to one of his Majesty's ships, Lieutenant Wagstaffe, commander.' He had added the date and then carefully ruled in nine columns, and today, as he glanced down them, the ship's progress was becoming more obvious.

The date occupied the first two columns, the third recorded the winds (which had stayed between southeast and northeast the whole time), then came the courses (which were unchanged) and the miles covered from noon to noon, which were usually around 175. The latitude and longitude occupied the next two columns and showed to a navigator's eye the progress they were making to the southwest.