Bowen grunted and wrote on his slate. 'Another four women, and the same eight guards - I recognize their shirts.' He picked up the telescope again. 'The guards have cutlasses. I presume pistols, too, but I can't distinguish them.'

'Looks as though they put a limit of eight prisoners on deck at any one time,' Aitken commented. 'Probably means eight guards. These four women will have four husbands . . .'

'Why not exercise the four men with the women, then?' Bowen asked.

'I've no idea,' Aitken answered. 'Modest privateers, no doubt.'

Ramage said: 'Keeping the wives separate from the husbands creates uncertainty. The men worry about their women; the women are lost without their husbands.' And I should know, he thought; the Herveys will have long since arrived in Paris and Gianna will have gone on to Volterra - providing Bonaparte has not already arrested her or the Herveys persuaded her to abandon the journey. At that moment he realized for the first time that the Corsican was cunning enough to keep his secret police away from her: his spies might well have told him that there were desperate men in Volterra who, the minute the Marchesa returned to rule again, would do Bonaparte's work for him ...

'Have you any idea if she's homeward or outward bound?' Aitken asked Bowen.

'Homeward, I should think,' the surgeon said promptly. 'Every piece of standing and running rigging is grey; the sun has bleached the John Company colours -' he indicated the flag flapping in the breeze, the red bars now a faded pink. 'Before the first of January this year John Company ships flew that ensign, seven white and six red horizontal stripes, with an old Union in the upper canton of the fly. If she's come from India she won't yet know of the change in the Union.'

Aitken nodded and grinned. 'For a surgeon, you're well informed on flag etiquette.'

'I always remember Southwick saying it looked like alternate slices of lean and fat bacon, but the only change now is adding the red saltire of the Irish after the Act of Union.'

Ramage watched Martin turn his boat as it reached the first rock and stop while a seaman hove the lead for the first sounding. Not above four fathoms, from the look of it, and close to the Lynx. Would the privateer draw more than a couple of fathoms, twelve feet, on that length? Perhaps, to give a bite when she was driving to windward after a prize. If they had any sense, they 'd anchor closer in, where it was too shallow for the Calypso, to guard against a surprise attack. Still, it was proof enough of their confidence that they had not done so: they must be sure that Captain Ramage would never risk the hostages who at the sound of the first shot would have their throats cut...

He walked with Aitken to where Southwick, with the second telescope, was watching the second British ship and the Dutch one. 'Nothing very exciting, sir,' the master reported. 'The British ship, the Amethyst, seems to have ten passengers and four guards. They had three women on deck for half an hour, then seven men. Same four guards, and I haven't seen anyone else. The Dutchman's the Friesland. I reckon both ships are homeward bound: new rigging here and there, but simply replacing worn.'

'Amethyst ... do you remember the Topaz?' Ramage asked.

Why, surely she must be one of Mr Yorke's ships - weren't all of them named after precious stones, sir?'

'Yes, but I don't know how many he has. A dozen or so, I think.'

'Well,' Southwick said, as though announcing his verdict after judging a case, 'I've seldom seen a ship in such good shape: I was going to comment that her owners didn't stint the master when it came to paint and ropework. So she could be one of his fleet. He'll be grateful to us.'

'So far all we've done is look at her,' Ramage said sourly. 'Are you sure about the number of guards in the ships?'

'Yes, four in each. What's Bowen report on the Earl of Dodsworth?'

'Eight guards for sixteen passengers.'

'Ah, Army officers going on leave! The privateersmen are wary of those in John Company's military service. A few wild subalterns will not take kindly to being prisoners.'

'Good thinking,' Ramage said, irritated that he had not worked it out for himself. 'But why not keep them on shore with the seamen?'

Southwick sniffed, a slightly patronizing sniff that Ramage, who could have answered his own question a moment after he had spoken it, knew only too well: it said, without uttering a word, that 'old Southwick' knew most of the answers. He often did, too, which was why the sniff infuriated every officer in the Calypso.

Very well, the Company's military officers were being kept on board the Earl of Dodsworth because it was easier to guard prisoners locked in a cabin than kept in a tent among a few score seamen. The passenger cabins of a John Company ship were substantial, probably mahogany; the cabins of a man of war were canvas stretched over light wooden frames . . .

The bosun, lying comfortable along the barrel of the fourth gun on the starboard side, proffered his slate but Ramage, glimpsing the sprawling writing, said: 'Tell me in your own words.'

'Well, this Heliotrope –'he pronounced the name correctly, having listened to his orders from Aitken, but spoke it with the distaste of a bishop's wife referring at breakfast to an errant curate, '- has four privateersmen on board as guards, an' six passengers - two men and two women and two children, a boy an' a girl. Guards armed with cutlasses. No muskets. Perhaps pistols but I couldn't see any. Passengers kept aft - probably in their own cabins. They pump the ship once an hour for about ten minutes. All French ships leak, so it's nothing to worry about. Sails furled, sheets, tacks and braces rove... s'about all, sir.'

It was very good, considering the bosun had no telescope.

'Did they pump while the prisoners were on deck?'

'No, sir: they brought up the women and children first and exercised 'em: then pumped; then brought the men up. They're due to pump again any minute.'

The gunner, the only man in the ship Ramage disliked and regarded as incompetent, but did nothing about changing, had kept a sharp lookout on the remaining ship, the French Commerce. 'No prisoners brought up while I've been watching, sir. Four privateersmen just walking about and leaning on the taffrail, spitting. Not all at once; I've distinguished four different men. Seem to have no duties; one comes on deck and looks round, then I don't see anyone for half an hour.'

As they walked back to the quarterdeck, Aitken said to Ramage: 'The Earl of Dodsworth seems their prize of prizes, then the Amethyst, Heliotrope and Friesland rank equal.'

Roughly one guard to two hostages, Ramage noted. Tomás and Hart were not making idle threats about murdering them if necessary: each guard would have a pistol and a cutlass...

He left Aitken on the quarterdeck watching Martin's progress sounding towards the second rock. He saw the other two boats lying to grapnels off the beach, so the two surveying parties should be at work. Ramage sat down at his desk with a sigh and pulled his notes towards him. He wrote a second page, naming the five ships, and listing the number of passengers and guards. Then he added up the totals - forty passengers (seventeen women, twenty-one men and two children) and twenty-four guards.

Assuming the five ships had the usual number of officers and men, there would be sixty-five or seventy officers and men being guarded on shore, and given that there was no suitable building, this would be the biggest task for the privateersmen - unless . . . Ramage's stomach shrivelled at the idea: unless all those officers, petty officers and seamen had been warned that any attempt at escape would mean the massacre of the passengers. That would explain why the passengers were under guard in the ships and the crews on shore when the Calypso arrived. The passengers were already the hostages; it had taken no stroke of genius to tell the Calypso what they had already told the crews of their prizes.