Up on the fo'c'sle the Italian seaman shivered and said to Jackson: "Is cold, this autumn. How long before we get into warmer weather?"

"That Italian blood o' yours has been thinned out with too much wine," Jackson said unsympathetically. "Cadiz isn't very far south: won't be much warmer than here."

"Al diavolo!"Rossi swore. "We'll be there all winter blockading these stronzi. They don't intend to come out and fight. Why should they - safely anchored in Cadiz, yards sent down, sails stowed below for the rats to eat, whores waiting in the streets ..."

"Rosey's getting bloodthirsty," Stafford commented.

"Your mother's cooking," Rossi said amiably.

"Yus, she fed our plump friend like he was a chicken bein' fattened for Christmas," Stafford said proudly, his Cockney accent sounding hard when compared with Rossi's deeper Genoese accent.

"I warned Rosey what would happen if he went home with you for his leave," Jackson said.

"We 'ad a good time, didn't we Rosey! Even had 'im admitting London ale was as good as wine. Mind you, by then 'e couldn't tell gin from 'oly water."

"I hope you've repented by now," Jackson said banteringly. "You're setting a bad example for the foreigners!"

"My oath!" Stafford exclaimed. "And where did you get to on your leave, my American friend? Bet you didn't set Louis, Auguste, Gilbert and Albert much of an example. Never could understand why four innocent Frenchmen should go on leave with you. Sin, that's what you was seeking."

"What about you and Rosey?"

"We weren't seeking it; it was seeking us," Stafford said quickly. "There's a difference."

"That's Beachy Head," Jackson said unexpectedly. "We'll be tacking soon, so's we can inspect the French coast."

"Where on the French coast?" asked Louis, his French accent revealed mostly by his trouble pronouncing "th", which usually emerged as "z".

Jackson glanced up at the clouds and then at the English coast. "The wind's nor'west and we'll point high with a nice clean bottom, so I reckon we'll have a sight of Barfleur Point a'fore we go about on to the larboard tack. After that I expect Mr Ramage'll want to get a good offing - coming up to the equinoctials now, and he won't chance getting caught in a gale with Ushant too close under his lee. Not much chance of a sight o' your bit o' coast, Louis."

The Frenchman shrugged and shook his head. "I don't think of it as mine any more."

"Nowhere to call home, Louis?" Stafford said sympathetically. "Well, you're fighting on our side, so think o' England as home. Cornwall's the nearest to Brittany, and the Capting comes from there, so why doncher adopt Cornwall?"

Louis, who with the other three monarchists had helped Ramage and Sarah escape from Brest when war started again and then joined the Royal Navy, understood Stafford's concern and nodded politely. "Yes, there are close links between the two. Half the names are similar and in peacetime the fishermen use one or the other depending on the wind. But not to be worrying, Staff; this ship is my home. Yours, too, if you think."

Stafford's brow creased with the effort and then he admitted: "You're right, Louis. I was glad to be back on board at the end of that leave. Land people - they don't seem to understand. And someone like Jacko -" he turned to the American, "- well, I suppose the Calypso really is the only home you've got."

"Home?" Jackson exclaimed, "why, I nearly own her, along with the rest of the lads. Don't forget, we all captured her and have been here ever since we first boarded her."

"The Admiralty's paid you your prize money," Stafford said shrewdly, "so you're a sort of tenant."

"As long as they don't charge me rent!"

"Senta,"Rossi said, "what about this Lord Nelson, eh? Is simpatico, eh?"

"He's all right," Jackson said firmly. "We first had truck with him in the Mediterranean, when he was a commodore and gave Mr Ramage his first command (which is where we first came alongside Mr Southwick: he was master of that ship, the Kathleen cutter). He's a fine admiral to serve under, but as far as the French and Spanish (and the Danes, too) are concerned, he's a killer."

"All admirals should be killers," Rossi pointed out.

"They're not, though, compared with His Lordship. The rest o' them reckon they've won the battle if they drive two or three of the enemy out of the line of battle, but Lord Nelson wants to destroy the lot! At the Nile he captured or destroyed eleven ships out of thirteen; at Copenhagen he captured or destroyed seventeen. Compare that with Lord Howe's six at the Glorious First of June or even Lord St Vincent at Cape St Vincent, when two of the four of those captured were taken by Lord Nelson (then only a commodore without any title) personally boarding them! He's not just a fighter," Jackson said sombrely, "he really hates the enemy!"

"That Victory," Stafford said, "she hasn't been docked, has she?"

"I don't think so," Jackson said. "His Lordship only arrived back in England two or three weeks ago - so I understood from Mr Southwick - and we're off to join the Victory at St Helens, so there hasn't been time. Why are you asking?"

Stafford winked and tapped the side of his nose, a gesture he had copied from Rossi. "We've got a clean bottom and she'll be foul: weeks in the Mediterranean, crossing the Atlantic twice . . . just think of the barnacles and weed and torn and worn sheathing . . . in anything but a gale o' wind we should be able to show her our heels!"

"Don't bet on it," Jackson warned. "His Lordship's flag captain would be commanding a transport by now unless he was good, and the master has been with him for years."

"This woman from Naples ..." Rossi said tentatively, but was immediately jumped on by Jackson.

"If you mean Lady Hamilton, she was the wife - now the widow - of the British ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, whose king and queen - as you well know - live in Naples -"

"Accidente!"Rossi exclaimed, "not criticalizing -"

"Criticizing," Jackson corrected.

"Is what I say, I don't criticalize Lord Nelson, I ask about the lady, is all I ask."

"All right, then," Jackson said. "She's His Lordship's friend, just as her husband was when he was alive. Good friends."

"Good friends!" Stafford exclaimed, "she's his mistress!"

"What's wrong with that?" Jackson demanded angrily. "Even when we were last in Antigua I heard stories about what a cold woman Lady Nelson was - the widow of a soldier, too," he added, the final condemnation. "After what he did at St Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen, I don't care if he has twenty mistresses; he deserves 'em!"

"And me not criticalizing His Lordship," Rossi said crossly, "I was only asking to make sure he has a mistress, I knowing about this wife ..."

"Criticize an Englishman's horse," Gilbert said dryly, "or even his wife, but be careful of his mistress: that much I learned while working in England as the Count of Rennes' servant. But," he added warningly, "if he is happily married it works differently: you can criticize his wife, but never criticize his horse."

"Just shows you mixed with different people," Stafford grumbled. "My lot have a wife or a horse or a mistress, and a wise man watches his tongue when talking about any o' them."

"Of course, the horse would be stolen, the wife regularly beaten, and the mistress paid with dud coins," Jackson commented to Gilbert. "Stafford's friends don't get taken up by the press because no receiving ship'd have 'em!"

"Sounds good comin' from the Jonathan," Stafford said, teasing Jackson with the name by which the Navy always referred to Americans. "Listen, Gilbert, whenever you stop a Jonathan ship and board to see if they're breakin' the blockade - 'specially in the West Indies - they're always carrying a cargo o' 'notions'. I arsk you, 'notions'!"