With guests coming on board, and the Calypso's captain and officers paying social calls on other ships, Aitken's work would be seen and admired, and Ramage knew that an ounce of praise from the master of a John Company ship was worth the same from the captain of a 74-gun two-decker.

The lookout on the fo'c'sle shouted: 'Quarterdeck there - boat approaching, sir: a hundred yards on the starboard bow.'

Aitken acknowledged the hail and looked round for Renwick. A glance over the quarterdeck rail showed a Marine sergeant already marching a couple of Marines to take up their posts at the entryports on the starboard and larboard sides once the Calypso was at anchor. The sentry's task was to hail any approaching boat and, from the reply, find out who was in it.

The Marine sergeant, Ferris, had heard the fo'c'sle lookout's hail and marched the two Marines to the starboard side first: officers boarded on the starboard side, and the visitors were almost certainly officers. He halted the two men, detached one amid a volley of orders and a cloud of pipeclay, and then marched the second Marine over to the larboard side.

Aitken looked at the boat with the telescope in the few remaining moments before it was hidden by the frigate's bow. After his inspection he looked grim, shut the telescope and put it away in the binnacle box drawer. He walked over to Ramage. 'I'll meet our visitors, sir; I don't think you'll need to see them.'

Ramage nodded, because no one in the Navy had much time for privateers; in fact he assumed these privateersmen had been cruising well down in the South Atlantic and had only just learned of the new Treaty that put them out of business. Their licence, or letter of marque, to give it the proper name, gave them permission to wage war on the King's enemies (the Republic's enemies if French, of course) providing there was a war on. A hostile act against any ship in peacetime was piracy, and the penalty for piracy was hanging.

As he walked down the ladder from the quarterdeck towards the entryport, Aitken heard the sentry's challenge, and, from beyond the ship, a reply that sounded like a single word, the name of a ship. So the captain of the privateer - the former privateer, he corrected himself - was paying a visit. Probably, he realized, to get news of the Treaty: they would have heard only gossip and hearsay from the merchant ships, and were now seizing the opportunity of having it - officially, as far as they were concerned - from one of the King's ships. After all, hearing that a profitable way of life was now illegal - well, even privateersmen could not be blamed for wanting to have the news confirmed by a reliable source.

'Sir,' the sentry said, obviously puzzled, 'the boat's alongside and they've got a white flag flying - lashed to a boarding pike. They've only just lashed it this moment because I saw a fellow sitting there with a pole, and there weren't no flag...'

Aitken went to the port and looked down at the boat. The bowman had hooked on; a man at the stern was waiting for one of the Calypso's seamen to throw down a sternfast while the bowman waited for a painter.

In the meantime the four men sat in the sternsheets, one of them, a big Negro, holding between his knees the boarding pike with a square of grubby white cloth secured to it.

Aitken noticed that the four men had pistols in their belts,and there were cutlasses in the bottom of the boat, but that was reasonable enough: the Calypso herself had flown false colours in the late war to get herself into a position to attack the enemy - after hoisting her true colours. And privateersmen, he had to admit, would be among the most cautious and distrustful men afloat.

Nevertheless, Aitken wanted an explanation of the flag of truce before anyone stepped on board.

'Why are you waving that truce flag?' he demanded.

'Not waving it,' one of the men answered. 'Holdin' it still.'

'Answer my question.'

'S'bluddy obvious. We want to come on board under a flag of truce.'

'A truce for what? The war's over.'

'Oh - it's true what they tell us, then?'

'I don't know who's been telling you what,' Aitken said, his tone more friendly, 'but Bonaparte signed a treaty of peace with Britain on the first day of last October.'

'That's good news. Can we come on board, then?'

'Of course. What's your ship?'

'The Lynx of Bristol, letter of marque.'

'Former letter of marque,' Aitken said.

'Well, yes, give us time to get used to the idea of peace!'

Aitken laughed and watched as the speaker stood up and reached for the battens.

'I don't rate sideropes, eh?' the man looked up but started climbing.

'You could have been a bumboat selling bananas,' Aitken said sarcastically. 'But we'd have fired salutes and piped you on board, if you'd given us due notice.'

The man looked up as he climbed. 'You didn't give us any notice.'

Aitken stood back several paces, with the Marine sentry to his left, musket at the slope, and Orsini and Martin to his right. He knew that Kenton was on the quarterdeck ready to pass any messages down to the captain, and Southwick would be within earshot. It was quite surprising, he noted ironically, how many seamen now had tasks that kept them amidships where they could watch the Calypso's first visitors since she left the Medway.

The man coming on board was tall and thin; so thin that Aitken had the impression the skin had been shrunk on to his head. The face and head had sharp angles, like a five-sided lantern, and the man was completely bald. Not just bald, Aitken realized, but hairless: the result, presumably, of some illness like malaria. As if in compensation, he had a full sef of perfect teeth, which were only slightly stained from chewing tobacco.

'Jebediah Hart,' he announced, 'master and part owner of the Lynx, schooner."

'James Aitken, first lieutenant, His Majesty's ship Calypso, frigate.'

By now a second man had come on board: as fat as Hart was thin, shorter than Aitken, he had a large and black drooping moustache and thick, bushy eyebrows. His eyes seemed black and flickered round the Calypso's deck, as though expecting a trap.

Hart said: 'I must introduce the mate, Jean-Louis Belmont. Unfortunately he speaks no English.'

Aitken nodded and bowed. The first lieutenant noted that despite the fatness, the man had climbed up the side without getting out of breath. And he was French. Presumably a royalist and a refugee from Bonaparte's regime. He took a risk if ever the privateer had been captured while the war was on: the French would have hanged him at once as a traitor.

The next man on board was small, muscular, with blond hair beginning to turn grey. Unlike the others he wore breeches instead of trousers and had a severely-cut coat of dark green. Aitken was unsure whether meeting him on shore he would mistake the man for a farmer or a rural dean. Unexpectedly he stood to attention, bowed his head, and moved to one side. Hart was busy looking round the ship and did not introduce the man, who did not give his name. Aitken was sure, from his appearance and manner, that he was Scandinavian.

The fourth man to come through the entryport was the big Negro, still carrying the boarding pike, although he had spun it a few times to wind the white flag round it.

Hart turned and said: 'Tomás - he's Spanish; speaks no English.'

'You have a language problem in the Lynx!'Aitken said, but Hart shook his head.

'I've picked up a few words here and there.'

Aitken waited for him to continue, but the four privateersmen stood in a half circle, as if waiting for him to make the next move. The first lieutenant glanced over towards the Lynx as if intending to admire their ship but in fact to see if boats were coming from the merchantmen. No boats had moved; those with their boats made up astern with painters still had them sitting like ducklings behind the mother and the rest of the boats hoisted up in quarter davits or still amidships, stowed on the cargo hatches.