Yet Ramage could see that the Admiral was certainly at a loss for words. He now inspected the nails of his left hand, tugged at his chin and finally gestured angrily at his burly flagcaptain. Edwards had obviously anticipated that this would happen, and he turned to Ramage. "The Jocasta, " he said. "You know how she fell into Spanish hands?"

 "I've heard only gossip, " Ramage said carefully, guessing this would be his only opportunity of finding out what really happened and realizing that the Admiral could hardly bear to talk about it.

 Captain Edwards caught the Admiral's eye, noted the approving nod, and said: "She left Cape Nicolas Mole - that's at the western end of Hispaniola, as you probably know - some two years ago. Captain Wallis commanded her and had orders from Sir Hyde Parker at Jamaica to patrol the Mona Passage for seven weeks with the Alert and Reliance in company.

 "After three weeks the Alert sprang a leak and Captain Wallis ordered her back to the Mole. A fortnight later, on a night when the Reliance had been sent off in chase of a suspected privateer, the Jocasta's ship's company mutinied. They murdered Wallis and all his officers and sailed the ship to La Guaira, on the Main. There they handed her over to the Spanish, who refitted her but, as far as we know, never sent her to sea. At present she's in Santa Cruz."

 "Did all the ship's company mutiny?"

 Edwards shook his head. "She had a complement of some 150 men. We think about a third of them were active mutineers."

 "And the rest?" Ramage asked, curious about their fate.

 Admiral Davis snorted and slapped his knee. "They're mutineers too! All right, Edwards, I know you don't agree with me, but they did nothing to stop the mutiny, nor did they try to recover the ship, so they're just as guilty."

 "Santa Cruz, " Ramage said hurriedly, noticing Edwards's face reddening with suppressed anger, "is it well defended?"

 "Well enough, " Edwards said grimly. "The harbour is a large lagoon. The entrance is more than half a mile long and too narrow for a ship to tack. It's a case of 'out boats and tow' if the wind is foul. Forts on each side of the entrance and a third one at the lagoon end of the channel. I have a rough chart ready for you, " he added quickly, as if dismissing the forts.

 "How many guns in the forts?" Ramage asked warily.

 Edwards shrugged his shoulders. "We can't be sure. Perhaps thirty or forty."

 "Altogether?"

 "No, " Edwards said uncomfortably, "in each fort."

 More than a hundred guns, plunging fire at point-blank range, and the target a frigate being towed past them by men rowing in boats . . . Ramage felt the heat going out of the sun. Most of those guns would be 24- or 36-pounders, against the Calypso's 12-pounders.

 "And the Jocasta's in commission, so there'd be her guns as well, " he said, then suddenly realized he was thinking aloud.

 "And more than three hundred men on board her, " the Admiral said, his voice carefully neutral. "We - the Admiralty, rather - have received word that she's to sail for Cuba in the middle of July. In four weeks' time."

 Ramage now found himself puzzled as well as worried. Captain Edwards's point about Santa Cruz's entrance being narrow and strongly defended had made him think that the Calypso was intended to make a direct attack, which would be another way of committing suicide. But now the Admiral was talking about the Jocasta sailing for Cuba. He almost sighed with relief: his imagination was making him overly nervous; Edwards was being offhand about the forts simply because there was no need to go into Santa Cruz! He looked at the Admiral, who avoided his eyes, finding something of interest at the harbour entrance. "You want me to take her as soon as she sails, sir?"

 Admiral Davis shook his head, still looking away. "The Admiralty have ordered her to be cut out of Santa Cruz, " he said tonelessly. "Want to teach the Dons a lesson, I suppose, and they won't risk her slipping through our fingers and reaching Cuba."

 Ramage felt the chilly ripple of fear tightening his skin: again he pictured the forts firing at the Calypso as she was towed in, and at both frigates as they sailed out. Was the fear showing in his face? He was thankful that neither the Admiral nor Edwards was looking at him. The perspiration on his brow and upper lip owed nothing to the sun; it was cold, and he wiped it away with what he hoped would seem a casual movement of his hand.

 Then he caught a glance exchanged between the two men, and although he could not interpret it he knew there was something strange and underhand about the whole business. It had begun several months ago, when he was on leave in London, a lieutenant enjoying a rest. Then suddenly he had been summoned to the Admiralty, unexpectedly made post and given command of the Juno frigate.

 All that had been very flattering; orders were addressed to "Captain Ramage" and it did not matter that his name was at the bottom of the post captains in the Navy List, the most junior of them all. Then he had been sent off to the West Indies in the Juno with urgent instructions for Admiral Davis and orders to put himself under the Admiral's command. He had known nothing about the Admiralty's instructions, except that they concerned some "special service". They had nothing to do with Captain Ramage; he was merely the Admiralty's messenger.

 He had since discovered that the "special service" was the recapture of the Jocasta, and that Admiral Davis had chosen his favourite for it, a Captain Eames, and dispatched him to Santa Cruz. The newly arrived Captain Ramage had been given orders appropriate for the most junior captain on the station - to blockade the French port of Fort Royal, Martinique.

 From then on, Ramage thought wryly, the Admiral's plans had gone awry. The junior captain had caused the capture of two French frigates, sunk three others, and seized seven merchantmen. The favourite captain, as far as Ramage could make out, had come back from Santa Cruz to report complete failure. Well, war was a massive game of chance; he was prepared to admit that good luck had brought the French convoy into the trap he had set off Fort Royal, and bad luck might have prevented Eames from cutting out the Jocasta. That being so, why was he now sitting on the Admiral's balcony at English Harbour being given orders which were - not to put too fine a point on it - the ones that Eames had already failed to carry out? Eames was a very senior captain; he was sufficiently high in the Navy List that within a year or two he could reasonably expect to be given command of a 74-gun ship.

 The reason, he decided coldly, was that Eames had failed. He had failed miserably and the Admiral was hurriedly whitewashing him. He wasn't sending Eames back to try again, nor was he risking any of his other captains; no, he was sending out the newcomer, Captain Nicholas Ramage. A man whose name was the lowest on the post list was supposed to succeed where someone halfway up the list had failed. And failed so badly, Ramage guessed, that everyone on the station was remaining tactfully silent about it.

 Suddenly he realized that Captain Ramage was not expected to succeed; he was expected to fail. He saw it as though he had just walked from darkness into a well-lit room. Admiral Davis was protecting one of his favourites and yet, in his own curious way, he was trying to be fair. He felt guilty about it; that explained why he had left Edwards to explain the situation.

 A dispatch would soon be on its way to the Admiralty in the next Post Office packet brig describing how Captain Ramage had attacked and seized the convoy off Martinique, and Their Lordships would be pleased that he had captured two frigates. The dispatch would be printed in the Gazette and Captain Ramage's stock would be high.