Ramage stepped over the prone people to where Gilbert was kneeling. There, his ankle held by a leg iron, was Jean-Jacques, who looked up and grinned and said: 'I hardly expected to see you here. Is Sarah with you?

Ramage stepped out on to the jetty where the group of Frenchmen stood with a white flag on a staff, and the wind tugged at the similar white flag being held up in the cutter's bow. Gilbert and Paolo followed and as Jackson stood a French officer held up a hand and said in French: 'Only one man, the captain.'

Ramage stopped. 'Where is the island governor?'

'At the fortress, waiting for you.'

'My letter suggesting a truce said we meet and negotiate on this jetty.'

The French officer shrugged his shoulders. 'It is not my concern. My orders are to escort you to the fort.'

Ramage turned to his men. 'We go back to the ship.' He then said to the French officer: 'I shall return in half an hour. If the governor is not here, L'Espoir will then be blown up.'

'But her crew!'

Ramage raised his eyebrows in what he hoped was a cold and callous glare. 'What about them?'

'They will all be killed!'

'The survivors, yes. Many were killed last night. The rest... well, that depends on the governor. Half an hour then. If he is not here, we shall sail at once, and L'Espoir will vanish a few minutes later.' He looked across the anchorage and laughed. 'Perhaps not vanish: you will see plenty of smoke and an abundance of wreckage!'

'A moment,' the French officer said hurriedly, 'we can reach an accommodation.'

'I assure you that we cannot,' Ramage said stiffly. 'I talk only to the governor. No one on Île Royale, the Île du Diable or the Île St Joseph - or for that matter down in Cayenne - is performing a favour for me. I am offering him the lives of sixty-four French seamen from L'Espoir. They treated the déportés so shamefully they will never be exchanged from England. The wounded certainly will not survive the voyage...' he paused and composed himself for another cold-blooded laugh. It came out quite satisfactorily judging from the look on Jackson's face. '... And I have grave doubts about the unwounded. My men have no sympathy...' He gave an expressive shrug and waved a hand towards the broad Atlantic on the other side of the island, a gesture which he saw achieved its purpose in conjuring up a picture of shark fins cutting through the water.

The Frenchman pointed towards the seaward end of the jetty, 'm'sieu, you speak French like a Frenchman. Walk a few steps with me -'

'Tell your party to stay by the boat,' Ramage snapped as he saw a couple of lieutenants begin to follow.

The officer snapped out an order which froze the men. Lot's wife, Ramage thought, and looked curiously at the officer. He did not recognize the man's uniform, which was well cut in green cloth. It had black buttons with a design or initials on them. If his rank was a captain or major, one would have expected ... His thoughts were interrupted as the man tried to smile, indicating that they should walk the few paces which would take them to the end of the jetty and out of earshot of everyone else.

When they stopped, Ramage turned to the man and guessed the answer before he said: 'Well?'

'There is no need to go to the fort; we can negotiate here.'

'You command the garrison?'

'I command all three islands.'

'And you are?'

'General Beaupré.'

'Prove it.'

He was a solidly built man with a flowing black moustache and brown eyes that were friendly. Not at all what one expected of a jailer, Ramage decided.

'Lieutenant Miot!' Beaupré called.

'Oui, mon général?'

Ramage nodded. 'All right - you are a general. We negotiate. I have three French frigates, not two - the two farthest from us I captured recently, one last night and the other last week. The nearest I captured a couple of years ago and she is now commissioned into the Royal Navy.'

'You want to exchange something for the two frigates?' General Beaupré was incredulous.

'No, I was simply introducing you to the situation. L'Espoir, the frigate that arrived last night, was bringing you more than fifty déportés. '

'Yes, I guessed that. They would be kept on the other island.' He pointed. 'The Île du Diable is for déportés, who are of course political prisoners. The criminals are kept on Île St Joseph and here, on Île Royale.'

'I am not interested in the criminals,' Ramage said. 'I will exchange my prisoners, the men from L'Espoir and La Robuste, for all the déportés you have on the Île du Diable.'

The general's face fell. 'But I don't have any déportés!'

'Where are they?' Ramage demanded.

'With the treaty that ended the war, they were all sent back to France. Why should we detain them in peacetime? I have only criminals now. And what people they are. Every one of them, men and women, think nothing of murder! But déportés now, why that is absurd.'

'Because we are all at peace, eh?'

'Yes, of course,' the general said. 'When you mentioned déportés in L'Espoir - that was a slip of the tongue, was it not? You meant "convicts".'

Ramage shook his head slowly, angry with himself for not realizing. His note sent on shore earlier had merely said that the ships did not have la peste on board, that the shooting and shouting of the previous night had been caused by the capture of L'Espoir by men of the Royal Navy. Ramage had suggested a truce to discuss the disposal of French wounded and prisoners; he had forgotten the most important item of news.

'No, déportés. The war has started again.'

The general paled. 'War,' he muttered. 'I thought it was piracy. War ... I suppose L'Espoir also brought dispatches giving me the news.'

'I expect so,' Ramage said. 'We have not gone through all the papers yet. However, what about the exchange?'

The general faced Ramage squarely. 'I have no déportés. If you wish, we will visit the three islands and you can question any one you like. Convicts - yes, scores, and you are welcome to them. The déportés in L'Espoir would have been the first for a year, and the buildings for them on the Île du Diable are falling down - termites, white ants, the rain ... Nothing lasts, be it buildings or men. Termites or the black vomit,' he said hopelessly. 'We're all exiles here ... the convicts are locked up at night. But are their jailers free?'

He suddenly shook his head, apparently startled that he should have been confiding in not only a foreigner but now, apparently, an enemy.

He said: 'Shall we inspect this island first and then go to Diable and St Joseph? Once the sun gets up...'

Once the sun gets up these islands must be among the hottest, most unpleasant and unhealthy in the world, but that was not the reason Ramage shook his head. The general had obviously been speaking the truth about the déportés, and when the man rambled off on that brief soliloquy it was because he knew that a new war only prolonged his stay on the islands, where the sun, sea, the fevers and the swamps ensured that the jailer was as much a prisoner as the jailed.

'I accept your word,' Ramage said. 'Our boats will start landing the French wounded as soon as I return on board and give the order. Then we will land the French seamen we hold as prisoners, first from La Robuste and then from L'Espoir. All this under a flag of truce, eh?'

'A flag of truce,' the general echoed. 'You are being generous,' he admitted, 'since I have nothing to give you in return.'

Ramage was not about to tell him that prisoners were a confounded nuisance in a ship of war. 'Very well, then we are agreed.'

'Your name,' the general said. 'I read it on the letter. Of course you know it is a French word, too. But I know you by reputation. I can only hope you go back to La Manche: my countrymen would not welcome your arrival to Martinique or Guadeloupe...'