' 'Ow about 'im, sir?' asked the seaman with the bloodstained face. 'Is 'e on our side?'

'Well, he's signed an armistice with Bonaparte and shut his ports to British ships.'

 'Looks as though we ain't got many friends round these parts, do it,' one of the seamen commented to no one in particular.

'No,' laughed Ramage. 'None we can count on. And where we are going to land we might find Bonaparte's troops, or Neapolitans - we shan't know whose side they'll be on - or even the Pope's troops.'

'Are these people we're taking off Eyetalians, sir?'

 'Yes.'

 'Then why ain't they put their names down in Boney's muster book like the rest on 'em, sir, begging your pardon?'

 'These particular ones don't like him any more than we do: nor does he like them: in fact if he gets his hands on them, they'll end up being married to the Widow.'

The men murmured among themselves: they knew well enough the French slang for the guillotine. Ramage heard one of them say, 'They seem a rum lot, these Eyetalians. Some sign on with Boney, while the others bolt. 'Ow the hell do they know which to do?'

That, thought Ramage, sums it up fairly neatly. And now after eight years he was about to return to this beautiful, lazy, flamboyant country, which was so full of contradictions that only an insensitive fool could say with any certainty that he loved or hated it, or any stage in between.

 'Beggin' your pardon, sir: you speak the lingo, don't you?'

'Yes.'

Heavens, the men either trusted him so much they felt they could ask questions without getting a savage snub, or they were taking advantage of him, "being familiar”, as some officers called it. But their interest was genuine enough.

'How's that, sir?' asked the same nasal voice.

Why not tell them? They'd all stopped talking to hear his reply, and for the next couple of days he needed every ounce of trust they'd give him.

 'Well, when my father sailed in '77 to command the American Station - when your people showed signs of wanting to be independent,' he said jokingly to Jackson, 'my mother came out to Italy to stay with various friends: she loved travelling - she still does, for that matter. I was two years old. I had an Italian nurse and began to speak Italian almost as soon as I did English.

 'We went back to England in '82 when I was seven. Most of you know the reason ... In '83, after my father's trial, he decided to leave England for a few years, and we came back to Italy. So I was out here again from the time I was eight until just before I was thirteen, when we returned to England and I first went to sea.'

  'That was when the press caught you, was it, sir?' '

  The rest of them roared with laughter at the blood-stained man's joke. A good half of the men had been hauled in by press gangs and brought on board one or other of the King's ships, where they were given the chance to 'volunteer', which meant they received a bounty of a few shillings, and had 'vol' instead of 'prest' written against their names in the muster book.

 'Yes,' said Ramage, joining in the laughter, 'but I took the bounty.'

 The men had rested enough and he gave the orders for them to start rowing again. Ahead, lying low in the water like a sea monster, was the flat-topped islet of Giannutri. Although the chart did not give much detail, the nearest point to the mainland, Punta Secca, had a scattering of inlets just south of it. But the name, Dry Point, did not hold out much hope of finding drinking water.

 Ramage ran his fingers through his hair and winced as they caught in clotted blood at the back of his scalp. He had forgotten about the cut. At least it had dried up quickly. At Giannutri, he thought to himself, he would have to do something towards tidying himself: at the moment he must look more like a highwayman than a naval officer.

Jackson watched as the upper rim of the sun finally dropped below the low hills of Giannutri and spread a welcome cool shadow across the eastern side of the island. He glanced at the watch: another half an hour before his spell as lookout ended and he had to wake Mr Ramage.

They had been luck in finding this little inlet, which was cut out of the rock as neatly as if someone had sliced it with a knife. The boat was almost invisible to a man standing on the shore five yards away, whereas the sides of the inlet, only a few inches higher than the gunwale of the boat, meant they could keep a lookout all round them.

 For much of the morning Mr Ramage had been sitting on the side of the hill, glass to his eye, studying the mainland. As soon as he had located the Tower of Buranaccio, just at the back of the beach, its base hidden by the sand dunes and the curvature of the earth, he had ordered all the seamen to be brought up, two at a time, to look at it through the glass and study the coast on either side.

 In the meantime, Jackson had set one of the sailors to work scrubbing the Lieutenant's jacket to remove some of the blood­stains, carefully smoothing the cloth with his hand as he laid it out to dry. The silk stock looked far from ironed; but flatten­ing it out on a smooth rock while still wet had given it a new lease of life. At least, thought Jackson, Mr Ramage will look smart enough in the dark when he meets these dukes and people. Pity he had lost his hat.

 Looking down at the sleeping lieutenant, Jackson saw that occasionally the muscles of his face twitched. Curious, the habit he had of blinking, particularly when thinking hard, or if he was tired or excited. It seemed deliberate, as though squeezing the eyelids together helped him concentrate.

 The Bosun had said Mr Ramage looked just like his father, the Earl of Blazey - old 'Blaze-Away’, as the Navy called him. Jackson felt a twinge of embarrassment as he remembered when, a few months ago, he said he hoped old 'Blaze-Away's' son had more guts than his father, and the Bosun had brought him up all standing by getting into a fury. Seemed the trial was all political ... Well, the Bosun served in the old boy's flagship at the battle, so he ought to know. Anyway, whether or not the father had been a coward, the son seemed man enough.

The lad had a good face, Jackson thought to himself; there had never been an opportunity to study it before. On the thin side, though, with the nose straight and cheekbones high. But with Mr Ramage it was always his eyes that attracted you. Deep set and brown, they were slung under a pair of bushy eyebrows, and when he was really angry they seemed to bore right through you. What was it one of the men in Mr Ramage's division had said when hauled before the captain for some crime or other, and asked if he was guilty? Something to the effect it was no use pleading not guilty as Mr Ramage knew different; and when the Captain had said Mr Ramage had not been on deck at that particular moment, the sailor replied, 'That don't signify because Mr Ramage can see through oak planks.'

Yet, mused Jackson, he had never come across an officer quite like him: none of the sarcasm and hoity-toity of so many junior lieutenants. But everyone respected him - perhaps; because the hands knew he could beat any of them up to the maintop. He could knot and splice like a rigger, and handle a boat as though he'd been born under a thwart. And, more important, he was approachable. Somehow he seemed to know instinctively how the men felt: when it was necessary to encourage them with a quiet joke, and when to threaten them with a 'starting’ - not that Jackson ever remembered actually seeing him allow a bosun's mate to hit the men with a rope's end. Nor had he ever had to take a man before the captain.

It was curious how, when he was angry or excited, he had trouble pronouncing the letter ‘r’. You could see him tensing himself to say it correctly. But Jackson remembered a topman - that fellow there with a cut forehead - making a pun once 'When you see his bloody young Lordship blinking his eyes and wobbling his "r's”, it's time to go about on the other tack!’ Why was it he never used his title on board? After all, he was a real Lord. Something to do with his father, maybe.